CHAPTER I The Baineses

II John and Lucy

III Sibyl at Silchester

IV Lucy Hesitates

V Roger’s Dismissal

VI The Voyage Out

VII Unguja—and Up-country

VIII Letters To and Fro

IX Mission Life

X Roger Arrives

XI The Happy Valley

XII The Attack on the Station

XIII The Return to Unguja

XIV Lucy’s Second Marriage

XV In England

XVI Sibyl as Siren

XVII Back to the Happy Valley

XVIII Five Years Later

XIX Trouble with Stolzenberg

XX The Boer War

XXI The Morals of the Happy Valley

XXII Eight Years Have Passed By

XXIII The End of Sibyl

XXIV All Ends in the Happy Valley

*THE MAN WHO DID

THE RIGHT THING*

*CHAPTER I*

*THE BAINESES*

It was in the last week of June, 1886, and there really were warm and

early summers in the nineteenth century.

The little chapel had been so close and hot during the morning service

that in spite of the interest Lucy Josling felt in the occasion—it was

the first appearance of her betrothed, John Baines, as a preacher in his

native place, and the delivery of his farewell sermon before starting

for Africa—she could not repress a sigh of relief as she detached

herself from the perspiring throng of worshippers and stood for a few

moments in the bright sunlight, inhaling the perfume of distant

hayfields.

"You look a trifle pale, Lucy," said Mr. Baines, senior, a stumpy

red-faced man with light sandy hair and a long upper lip. "It’s

precious warm. I s’pose you’n John’ll want to walk back together?

Well, don’t keep dinner waiting, ’cos that always puts me out. Now

then, Sarah, come along: it’s too hot to stand gossiping about. Let’s

get home as quick as we can."

Mrs. Baines, a gaunt, thin woman with a long parchment-coloured face and

cold grey eyes, looked indignantly at her husband when he talked of

gossiping, but said nothing, took his arm and walked away.

Lucy put up her parasol and leant against the ugly iron railings which

interposed between the dusty chapel windows and the pavement. The

congregation had not all dispersed. Two or three awkward-looking young

men were standing in a group in the roadway, and, while pretending to

carry on a jesting conversation amongst themselves, were casting

sheepish looks at Lucy, who was deemed a beauty for ten miles round.

They evidently alluded to her in the witticisms they exchanged, so that

she had to restrict her angle of vision in case her eyes met theirs when

she wished to ignore their offensive existence. Mrs. Garrett, the

grocer’s wife, who had been inquiring from Miss Simons, the little lame

dressmaker—why were village dressmakers of that period, in life and in

fiction, nearly always lame?—how her married sister progressed after a

confinement, walked up to Lucy and said:

"Well, Miss Josling, and how d’you like the idea of parting with your

young man? Ain’t cher afraid of his goin’ off so far, and all among

savages and wild beasts too, same as ’e was tellin’ on? It’s all right

and proper as how he should carry the news of the Gospel to them pore

naked blacks, but as I says to Garrett, I says, ’’E don’t ought to go

and engage ’isself before’and to a girl as ’e mayn’t never come back to

marry, and as ’ll spend the best years of ’er life a-waitin’ an’

a-waitin’ and cryin’ ’er eyes put to no use.’ However, ’t ain’t any

business of mine, an’ I s’pose you’ve set your heart upon ’im now, and

won’t thank me for bein’ so outspoken....?

"I’m sure ’e’s come back from London _quite_ the gentleman; and lor’!

’Ow proud ’is mother _did_ look while ’e was a-preachin’. An’ ’e _can_

preach, too! ’Alf the words ’e used was Greek to me.... S’pose they

_was_ Greek, if it comes to that"—she laughed fatly—"Though why th’

Almighty should like Greek and Latin better’n plain English, or even

’Ebrew, is what I never could understand....

"And to think as I remember ’im, as it on’y seems the other day, comin’

in on the sly to buy a ’aporth of sugar-candy at our shop. ’Is mother

never liked ’is eatin’ between meals an’ ’e always ’ad to keep ’is bit

o’ candy ’idden away in ’is pocket till ’e was out of ’er sight.... I’m

sure for my part I wonder _’ow_ she can bring ’erself to part with ’im,

’e bein’ ’er on’y son, and she so fond of ’im too. But then she always

set ’er ’eart on ’is bein’ a gentleman, and give ’im a good

eddication.... ’Ow’s father and mother?..."

"Oh quite well, thank you," replied Lucy, wondering why John was

stopping so long and exposing her to this tiresome garrulity and the

hatefulness of having her private affairs discussed in a loud tone for

the benefit of the Sunday strollers of Tilehurst. "They would have come

over from Aldermaston to hear John preach, but father cannot bear to

take his eyes off the hay till it’s all carried, and mother’s alone now

because my sisters are away.... I just came by myself to the Baineses’

for the day....

"And, Mrs. Garrett," continued Lucy, a slight flush rising to her cheek,

"I don’t think you quite understand about my engagement to John Baines.

I—I—am not at all to be pitied. You rather ought to congratulate me.

First, because I am very—er—fond of him and proud of his dedicating his

life to such a work, and, secondly, because there is no question of my

waiting years and years before I get married. John goes out this month

and I shall follow six or seven months afterwards—just to give him time

to get our home ready. We shall be married out there, at a place called

Unguja, where there is a Consulate...."

Lucy stopped short. She was going on to give other good reasons for her

engagement when a slight feeling of pride forbade her further to excuse

herself to Mrs. Garrett—a grocer’s wife! And she herself a National

school-teacher! There could be no community between them. She

therefore fell silent and gazed away from Mrs. Garrett’s red face and

blue bonnet across the white sandy road blazing with midday sunshine to

the house fronts of the opposite side, with their small shops closed,

the blinds drawn down and everything denoting the respectable

lifelessness of the Sabbath.... At this awkward pause John Baines

issued from the vestry door of the chapel, Mrs. Garrett nodded

good-naturedly, and went her way.

John was about four-and-twenty—Lucy’s age. He was a little over the

average height but ungainly, with rather sloping shoulders, long arms,

large hands and feet; a face with not well-formed features; nose coarse,

fleshy, blunt-tipped; mouth wide, with his father’s long upper lip, on

which were the beginnings of a flaxen moustache, with tame ends curling

down to meet the upward growth of the young beard. He had an under lip

that was merely a band of pink skin round the mouth, without an inward

curve to break its union with the broad chin. His teeth were strong and

white but irregular in setting, the canines being thrust out of

position. His eyes were blue-grey, and not without a pleasant twinkle.

The hair was too long for tidiness, not long enough for eccentric

saintliness. It was a yellow brown and was continued down the cheeks in

a silken beard from ear to ear, the tangled, unclipped, uncared-for

beard of a young man who has never shaved. His fresh pink-and-white

complexion was marred here and there with the pimples and blotches of

adolescence. Lucy, however, thought him good to look at; he only wanted

a little smartening up, which she promised herself to impart to him when

they were married. He looked what he was: a good-hearted,

simple-minded, unintellectual Englishman, an Anglo-Saxon, with a hearty

appetite for plain food, a love of cricket, who would with little

difficulty remain in all things chaste and sober; slow to wrath, but, if

really pushed against the wall, able to show berserker rage.

Having taken up a religious career he had acquired a certain pomposity

of manner which sat ill on his boyishness; he had to remember in

intervals of games or country dances or flirtations that he had been set

apart for the Lord’s work. But he would make an excellent husband. His

class has furnished quite the best type of colonist abroad.

John gave his arm silently to Lucy, who took it with a gesture of

affection, and patted it once or twice with her kid-gloved hand, which

lover-like demonstrations John accepted rather solemnly. As they walked

up the sunny main street there was little conversation between them, but

when they turned down an old shady road running between red brick walls

overgrown with ivy and Oxford weed, behind which rose the spire of St.

Michael’s and the tall trees of its churchyard, their good behaviour

relaxed and John looking down, and seeing Lucy’s fresh, pretty face

looking up, and observing in a hasty glance around that nobody was in

sight, bent down and kissed her: after which he looked rather silly and

hurried on with great strides.

"Don’t walk so fast, John dear; you quite drag me along. We need not be

in such a hurry. Tell me, how did you spend your last days in London?"

"Why, Wednesday I went to the outfitters to superintend the packing of

my boxes; Thursday I bid good-bye to all my friends at the Bayswater

College. In the evening there was a valedictory service at the Edgware

Road Chapel, when Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and I were designated for the

East African Mission. The next day, Friday, I went in the morning to see

my boxes put safely on board the _Godavery_ lying in the Albert Docks;

and I also chose my berth—I share a cabin with Anderson. Then in the

afternoon there was a big public meeting at Plymouth Hall. Sir Powell

Buckley was chairman, and Brentham, the African explorer, spoke, as well

as a lot of others, and it ended with prayers and hymns. The Reverend

Paul Barker, a very old African missionary, who was the first to enter

Abeokuta, delivered the Blessing. Every one shook hands with us and

bade us Godspeed.

"After this the three brethren designated for the Mission, and myself,

of course, together with Brentham the explorer, Mr. Barker and a few

others from the platform, adjourned to Sir Powell Buckley’s, where we

had tea. Here we four new missionaries were introduced to old Mrs.

Doland, that lady who, under God, has so liberally contributed to the

support of the East African Mission.... And also to Captain Brentham,

who has just returned from the East coast....

"I confess I didn’t like _him_ ... altogether.... In fact, I can’t

_quite_ make out why he came and spoke at the meeting, for I could see

at once by the way he stared about him during the hymns he was not one

of us ... in heart. In his speech at Plymouth Hall he chiefly laid

stress on the advantages gained by civilization when a country was

opened up by missionaries, how we taught the people trades, and so on.

There was no allusion to the inestimable boon to the natives in making

known the Blessed Gospel and the promises in the Old Testament....

"In fact—am I walking too fast? But father will be angry if we are late

for dinner—in fact, I thought Brentham inclined to sneer at us. They

say he wants a Government appointment and is making up to Sir Powell

Buckley——

"Then Saturday—yesterday—I came down here and—er—well! here we are! Are

you listening?"

Lucy gave John’s arm an affectionate squeeze by way of assurance, but on

this rare June day there was something in the still, hot air, thick with

hay-scent, which lulled her sensibilities and caused her to forget to be

concerned at her betrothed’s departure. She had temporarily forgotten

many little things stored up to be said to him, and was vexed at her own

taciturnity. However, their walk had come to an end, and they stood in

front of John’s home.

Mr. John Parker Baines, the father of the missionary-designate, was a

manufacturer of aerated drinks and cider, whose premises lay on the

western side of Tilehurst and marred the beauty of the countryside and

the straggling village with a patch of uncompromising vulgarity and

garishness. The manufactory itself was in a simple style of

architecture: a rectangular building of red brick, with two tall

smoke-blackened chimneys and a number of smaller ones. "John Baines and

Co., Manufacturers of Aerated Drinks," was painted in large letters

across the brick front.

A Sabbath stillness prevailed, intensified by the smokeless chimneys and

the closed door. Only a cur lay in the sun, and some dirty ducks

squittered the water in a dirty ditch which carried off the drainage of

the factory to a neighbouring brook.

A short distance apart from the main building stood the dwelling of the

proprietor, Mr. Baines, who had inherited the business from his wife’s

father and transferred it to his own name. This home of the Baines

family, though designed by the same architect, had its aboriginal

ugliness modified by numerous superficial improvements. A rich mantle

of ivy overgrew a portion of its red brick walls and wreathed its ugly

stucco portico. The window-panes were brightly polished and gave a

vivacity to the house by their gleaming reflections of light and shade.

You could see through them the green Venetian blinds of the

sitting-rooms and the unpolished backs of looking-glasses and clean

white muslin curtains of the bedrooms. In the short strip of front

garden there were beds of scarlet geraniums which added a pleasant note

of bright colour.

At the grained front door a cat was waiting to be let in with an air

about her as if she too had returned a little late from church or

chapel. A strong, rich odour of roast beef filled the air and drowned

the scent of hayfields. This intensified the feeling of vulgar comfort

which permeated the house when the door was opened by Mr. Baines,

senior, and increased the pious satisfaction of the cat, who arched her

black body and rubbed herself coyly against her master’s Sunday

trousers.

"Of course, you’re late," snapped Mr. Baines. "I knew you would be.

Here’s mother, as cross as two sticks."

Mrs. Baines, who had stalked into the narrow hall from the dining-room,

gave them no greeting, but merely called to Eliza to serve the dinner,

as Mr. John and Miss Josling had arrived.

For Lucy this was not a pleasant meal. Mrs. Baines was one of those

unsympathetic persons that took away her appetite. She was a thoroughly

good woman in the estimation of her neighbours, austerely devout,

rigidly honest, an able housewife and a strict mother. But her future

daughter-in-law had long since classed her as thoroughly unlovable. The

one tender feeling she evinced was her passionate though undemonstrative

devotion to her only son. Even this, though it might beautify her dull

being in the eyes of an unconcerned observer, did not always announce

itself pleasantly to her home circle. To John it had often been the

reason for a cruel smacking when a child and guilty of some small

childish sin; to her husband it was the excuse for vexatious economies,

which while they did not materially increase the funds devoted to his

son’s education, had frequently interfered with his personal comfort.

Mrs. Baines’s love of John was further manifested to Lucy by a jealous

criticism of her speech and actions; for, like most mothers of an only

son, she was bound to resent the bestowal of his affections on a

sweetheart, and determined to be dissatisfied with whomever he might

select for that honourable position.

So, although Lucy was pretty, relatively well-educated, earning her

living already as a National school-mistress, the daughter of a

much-respected farmer, and known by the Baines family almost since she

was a baby, Mrs. Baines found fault with her just because she had found

favour with John. Lucy was "Church" and they were "Chapel." She was

vain and worldly and quite unsuited to be the wife of a missionary. The

fascination of worldliness was not denied. The Devil knew how to bait

his traps. Through worldly influence one was led to read novels on the

Sabbath, to dispute the Biblical account of the Creation.

Lucy, it is true, had neither scoffed at Genesis, nor spoken flippantly

of Noah’s Ark, nor been seen reading fiction on a Sunday; but that

didn’t matter. With her pretensions to an interest in botany, her talk

about astronomy and the distances of the fixed stars and such like

rubbish, she was quite capable of sliding into infidelity. And as to

her observance of the Sabbath, it was simply disgraceful. Of course,

her father was to blame in setting her a bad example and her mother,

too, poor soul, was much too easy-going with her daughters. But then,

when you came to consider that Lucy had been so much with John, to say

nothing of the example set by John’s parents, you would have thought she

might have learnt by this time how the Lord’s Day should be passed.

It was this last point which strained the relations between Mrs. Baines

and Lucy on this particular Sunday. Lucy had asked John to take her for

a walk in the afternoon. It would be their last opportunity for a quiet

talk all to themselves before his departure. Although John Baines had

inherited his mother’s Sabbatarian scruples he consented to Lucy’s

proposal, partly because he was in love with her, partly because his

residence in London had insensibly broadened his views. For once his

mother’s influence was powerless to alter his decision, and so she had

refrained from further argument. But this first check to her domination

over her son had considerably soured her feelings.

Moreover, Mrs. Baines honestly believed, according to her lights—for

like all the millions of her class and period she knew absolutely

nothing about astronomy, geology, ethnology and history—that the Creator

of the Universe preferred you should spend the Sunday afternoon in a

small, stuffy back parlour with the blinds half down, reading the Bible

or Baxter’s sermons (or, if the spiritual appetite were very weak, an

illustrated edition of _Pilgrim’s Progress_) and continue this

mortification of flesh and spirit until tea time (unless you taught in

the Sunday-school). You should then wind up the Day of Rest with

evening chapel, supper, more sermon-reading, and bed.

The only person disposed to be talkative during the meal was John Baines

the younger. His mother, at all times glum, was more than ever inclined

to silence. Lucy was oppressed by her frigid demeanour and vouchsafed

very few remarks, other than those called for by politeness. As to

Baines, senior, he was one of those short-necked, fleshy men who are

born guzzlers, and his attention was too much concentrated on his food

to permit of his joining in conversation during his Sunday dinner. As a

set-off against abstention from alcohol he was inordinately greedy, and

his large appetite was a constant source of suffering to him, for his

wife took a grim delight in mortifying it. Only on Sundays was he

allowed to eat his fill without her interference. Mrs. Baines always

did the carving and helped everything, even the vegetables, which were

placed in front of her, flanking the joint. The maid-of-all-work,

Eliza, waited at table and was evidently the slave of her mistress’s

eye. The family dinner on Sundays was almost invariable in its main

features, as far as circumstances permitted. A well-roasted round of

beef, with baked potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, was succeeded by an

apple or a treacle pudding, and a dessert of some fruit or nuts in

season. Of one thing there was no lack and abundant

variety—effervescing, non-alcoholic drinks: Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale,

Gingerade; Lemonade, Citronade, Orangeade; Phosphozone, Hedozone,

Pyrodone, Sparkling Cider and Perry Champagne: all the beverages

compounded of carbonic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid, sugar, water,

apple and pear juice, and flavouring essences.

The Apple champagne that John gallantly poured into Lucy’s glass did not

lighten her spirits or loosen her tongue. What could she find to say to

that guzzling father whose face and hands were always close to his

plate, except during the brief intervals between the courses when he

threw himself back in his chair, blew his nose, wiped his greasy lips,

and passed his fat forefinger round the corners of his gums to remove

the wedges of food which had escaped deglutition? Or to the gloomy

mother who ate her victuals with a sullen champing, and, beyond a few

directions to the submissive servant, made no attempts to sustain

conversation, only according to the garrulous descriptions of her son an

occasional snappish "Oh! indeed——," "Pretty doings, I can see——,"

"Little good can come of _that_——," and so on? At length, when John’s

experiences in London had come to an end and the two dishes of cherries

had replaced the treacle pudding, whilst the servant handed round in

tumblers our own superlative Sparkling Cider, Lucy cleared her throat

and said, "I suppose John will be leaving you very early to-morrow

morning?"

"Eh?" returned Mrs. Baines, fixing her cold grey eyes on Lucy. She had

heard perfectly well, but she thought it more consistent with dignity

not to lend too ready an ear to the girl’s remarks. Lucy repeated more

distinctly her question.

"You had better ask _him_ all about it," replied John’s mother. "I have

other things to think about on the Lord’s Day besides railway

time-tables."

"Why? Are you coming to see me off, Lucy?" asked John.

"Well, yes; that is, if Mrs. Baines doesn’t mind."

"_I_ mind?" exclaimed the angry woman in a strident voice. "What have

_I_ got to do with it; I suppose railway stations are free to every

one?"

"Yes," said Lucy, with an ache at the back of her throat and almost

inclined then and there to break off her engagement. "But I thought you

might like to have John all to yourself at the last. However, if you

have no objection, I should much like to see him off, poor old

fellow"—and Lucy gave his big-knuckled hand an affectionate pat—"I think

I can manage it. Father has to come into Theale. He will drop me at the

station and pick me up again, and school doesn’t begin till nine. What

time does your train go, John?"

"Twenty-five past seven. I shall get to London soon after nine. After

going to the head-quarters of the Mission and getting my final

instructions I shall drive straight down to the docks and go on board

the _Godavery_.... The first place we stop at is Algiers, then Malta,

then the Suez Canal and Aden. I expect this is just what _you’ll_ have

to do, Lucy, when you come out next spring."

Lucy smiled brightly. She had gradually grown into her engagement as

she grew from girlhood to womanhood, constrained by John’s bland

assumption that the damsel he selected was bound to be his wife. But

perhaps her main inducement was his fixed determination to become a

missionary and her intense longing to see "foreign parts," the wonderful

and the interesting world. She was just rallying her spirits to make

some animated reply about Algiers when Mrs. Baines intervened and said

there were limits to all things, and if they didn’t wish to pass the

whole of the Lord’s Day eating, drinking, and talking they had better

rise and let Eliza clear away. On hearing these words, Mr. Baines

turned the last cherries into his plate and hastily biting them off and

ejecting the stones, pushed his chair back with a sigh. Then, rising

heavily, he stumbled into the armchair near the fireplace and composed

himself for a nap. The maid began to clear away, longing to get back to

her Sunday dinner and concealed novelette. Lucy went to put on her hat;

John yawned and drummed his fingers on the window-pane; and Mrs. Baines

seated herself stiffly in the armchair opposite her satiated husband,

with a large brown Bible on her lap and two or three leaflets covered

with small-print references to Scripture.

When John heard Lucy tripping downstairs he went to meet her, feeling

instinctively that her re-appearance in the dining-room would draw some

bitter comment from his mother. He put on his felt wide-awake, took a

stout stick, and soon banged the front door on his sweetheart and

himself in a way which sent a shiver through the frame of Mrs. Baines,

who with an impatient sigh of disgust applied herself to a gloomy

portion of the Old Testament.

Probably had John remained to keep her company she would have made no

attempt to entertain him; but she would have applied herself with real

interest to Scriptural exegesis. Of her class and of her time what

little romance and intellectuality she had was put into Bible study.

She believed the British—degenerate though they might appear as to

Sabbath observance—were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, who had been

led by the prophet Jeremiah to Ireland in an unnecessary spurt of energy

and had then returned in coracles to the more favoured Britain,

Jeremiah—age being of no moment where the Divine purpose was

concerned—having taken in marriage a daughter of the Irish king——

But ... the ingratitude of her only son, who could not give up to his

mother’s society his last Sunday afternoon in England! She choked with

unshed tears and read verse after verse of the early part of Jeremiah

without understanding one word, although she was told in her leaflets

that the diatribes bore special reference to England in the latter part

of the nineteenth century.... No, the thought of John wandering about

the hayfields with Lucy—for, of course, that girl would lead him into

the hayfields, perhaps throw hay at him—constantly rose before her, and

once or twice a few hot tears dimmed her sight.... "The Lord said also

unto me in the days of Josiah the King: Hast thou seen that which

backsliding Israel hath done?..."

She had devoted all the money she could save, all the time she could

spare to the bringing-up of this boy. She had sent him to college and

made him a gentleman. She had done her duty by him as a mother, and this

was the return he made. He preferred to spend his last Sunday afternoon

frolicking about the country with a feather-headed girl to passing it

quietly by his mother’s side, as he formerly used to do.... They might

even have had a word of prayer together. Mrs. Baines was not usually a

woman who encouraged outbursts of vocal piety outside the chapel, but on

such an occasion as this.... She might not see him for another five

years..

"And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me.

But she returned not."—Now was it becoming for a grown man, a missionary

who had occupied the pulpit at Salem Chapel in the morning, to go

gallivanting about the meadows with a young woman in the afternoon?

What would any of the congregation say who saw him? A nice spectacle,

to be sure!— "And the Lord said unto me, The back-sliding Israel hath

justified herself more than treacherous Judah..." "Let me see,"

reflected Mrs. Baines, trying to give her attention to her reading,

"Judah represents the Church of England, and Israel is ... Israel is ...

Baines! For goodness _sake_ don’t snore like that. You ought to be

ashamed of yourself! _How_ you can reconcile it with your conscience to

guzzle like a pig every Sunday at dinner and then pass the rest of the

afternoon snoring and snoozing instead of reading your Bible, _I_ don’t

know."

Mr. Baines’s bloodshot, greenish eyes regarded his wife with dazed

wonderment for a few seconds. Then their red lids dropped and a gentle

breathing announced the resumption of his slumbers. For a few moments

Mrs. Baines really devoted her attention to the third chapter of

Jeremiah; but when once more the respirations of her spouse degenerated

into raucous snores, she lost all patience with him, and put away her

Bible and pamphlets. She could not stop in the house any longer. It

was allowable to visit the sick on the Sabbath day. She would go and

see old Mrs. Gannell in Stebling’s Cottages and read some tracts to her.

So she shook off imaginary crumbs from her skirts, went upstairs to put

on her Sunday bonnet, and left her husband—though he was unconscious of

the privilege—to snore and chuckle and drivel and snore unrebuked for a

couple of hours.

*CHAPTER II*

*JOHN AND LUCY*

John and Lucy strode rapidly through the outskirts of the village, past

the inspection of curious eyes from over the rim of window blinds, into

the quiet country, which lay sleeping in veiled sunshine; for the warmth

of the June sun had created a slight haze in the river valley and men

and beasts seemed drowsy with the concentrated, undispersed odour of the

newly-cut hay. They crossed a little stream by a wooden bridge, climbed

two stiles—Lucy gaily, John bashfully, as if fearing that his new-born

dignity of preacher might suffer thereby—walked about a quarter of a

mile down a densely shaded lane where the high hedgerows were flecked

with pale pink, yellow-stamened dogroses, and where the honeysuckle

trailed its simple light green foliage and hung out its lank fists of

yellow fingers: and then arrived at an open space and a broad high road.

This they followed until they came to a white gate, marked in black

letters "To Englefield. Private." Without hesitation, from

long-established custom, they raised the latch and entered the dense

shade of a well-timbered wood with a glimpse here and there, through the

tree trunks, of open water.

Lucy sighed with relief and pleasure when the white gate swung to behind

her and she was walking on a turf-covered track under the shade of great

beech trees. Though the scene was familiar to her she exclaimed at its

beauty. John mopped his face industriously, flapped away the flies,

blew his nose, and wiped the brim of his hat. "Yes, yes," he would

reply, looking to see if his boots were very dusty or whether there were

any grass seeds sticking to the skirts of his frock-coat. "Canterbury

bells, is that what you call them? Yes, there seem to be lots this year.

Here’s a nice, clean trunk of a tree. Let’s sit down and have our

talk...."

"Oh, not here, John. It’s too midgy. We will go farther on to The

View: there’s a seat there."

So they followed the broad, turfy track which commenced to ascend the

flank of a down. On the right hand the great trees rose higher and

higher into the sky; on the left the ground sloped away to the level of

the little lake with its swans and water-lilies; and the turf near at

hand was dark blue and purple-green with the bugle in flower. In the

ascending woodland there were tall ranks of red-mauve foxgloves. Here

the owner of the park had placed an ample wooden seat for the

delectation of all who loved landscape beauty.

John threw himself down with heavy abandonment on the grey planks. Had

he been alone he would certainly have taken off his boots to ease his

hot and compressed feet, but some instinct told him his betrothed might

not think the action seemly. Lucy stood for a few moments gazing at the

view over the Kennet valley and then sat down beside him.

"How dreadfully you perspire, my poor John," she said, looking at the

wet red hand which clasped the rail of the seat.

"Yes. The least amount of walking makes me hot."

"Well, but how will you be able to stand Africa?"

"Oh, it’s a different kind of heat there, I believe. Besides, you don’t

have to go about in a black coat, a waistcoat and a starched shirt;

except perhaps at service time on Sundays."

"What a pity black clothes seem to be necessary to holiness!"—(then

seeing a frown settling on his face) "I wonder whether we shall see

anything so beautiful as _this_ out there?"

"As beautiful as what? Oh! The view. Well, I s’pose so. I believe

there are some high mountains and plenty of forest near the place where

I am to live."

"What is its name?"

"Hangodi, I think—something like that. Bayley says it means ’the Place

of Firewood.’"

"Oh, _that_ doesn’t sound pretty at all; just as if there were nothing

but dead sticks lying about. I hoped there would be plenty of palms and

those things you see in the pictures of African travel books—with great

broad leaves—plantains? Is it a village?"

"Hangodi? I believe so. I think the chief reason it has been chosen is

its standing high up on a mountain and being near water."

"Oh, John," said Lucy after a minute’s silence, "I _do_ look forward to

joining you in Africa. I’ve always wanted to travel, ever since I won a

geography prize at school. Just think what wonderful things we shall

see. Elephants and lions and tigers. Will there be tigers? Of

_course_ not. I ought to have remembered they’re only found in India.

But at any rate there will be beautifully spotted leopards, and lions

roaring at night, and hippopotamuses in the rivers and antelopes on the

plains. And ostriches? Do you think there will be any ostriches,

John?"

"My dear, how do _I_ know? Besides, we are not going out to Africa to

look for ostriches and lions, Lucy," said John, rather solemnly. "We

have a great work before us, a _great_ work. There is a mighty harvest

to be gathered for the Lord."

"Of course, John, of course," Lucy hastened to reply, "I know what is

the real object of your mission, and I mean to help you all I can, don’t

I?" (pushing back a wisp of his lank brown hair that fell over his

brow—for he had taken off the hot wide-awake). "But that won’t prevent

me from liking to see wild beasts and other queer African things; and I

don’t see the harm in it, either...."

"N—no, of course it isn’t _wrong_. These things are among the wonderful

works of the Almighty, and it is right that we should admire them in

their proper place. At the same time they are apt to become a snare in

leading us from the contemplation of holy things into vain disputes

about science. I know more about these spiritual dangers than you do,

Lucy," continued John, from the superior standing of his three years’

education in London, "and I warn you against the idolatry of intellect"

(squeezing her little kid-gloved hand to temper his solemnity with a

lover’s gesture). "I knew a very nice fellow in London once. He had

studied medicine at the hospitals and he came to Bayswater College to

qualify for the East African Mission; for he intended going out as a

medical missionary. He was the son of a minister, too, and his father

was much respected. But he was always spending his spare time at this

new Natural History Museum, and he used to read Darwin and other infidel

writers. Well, the result was that he took to questioning the accuracy

of Genesis, and _of course_ he had to give up all idea of joining the

Mission. I don’t know what became of him, but I expect he afterwards

went to the bad. For my part, I am thankful to say I never was troubled

with doubts. The Bible account of Creation is good enough for me, and

so it ought to be for everybody else."

"John! _John_!" exclaimed Lucy, shaking his arm, "you are just as bad

as your mother, who accuses me of disbelieving the Bible because I like

to take a walk on a fine Sunday afternoon. How you _do_ run on! I only

said I wanted to see elephants and lions in Africa and you accuse me

straight out of ’worshipping my intellect’ or some such rubbish. Don’t

you know the chief reason I promised to marry you was because I thought

it was so noble of you to go to Africa to teach the poor natives? Very

well, if you think African wild beasts will be a snare for my soul I

won’t run the temptation, and you shall marry some black woman whose

ears will come down to her shoulders, and a ring through her nose as

well, and no doubts at all about anything."

"Lucy! I think you’re very flippant."

"John! I think you’re much too sanctimonious! You’re a great deal too

good for me, and you’d better find a more serious person than I am—Miss

Jamblin, for instance."

"Ann Jamblin? And a very nice girl too. Oh! you may sneer at her.

She’s not pretty, I daresay, but she comes to all the prayer meetings,

so mother says; and she’s got a nice gift for sacred poetry."

"Yes, _I_ know her verses—flimsy things! Just hymns-and-water, _I_ call

them. She’s got a number of stock rhymes and she rings the changes on

them. Any one could do that. Besides, I’ve caught her lots of times

borrowing whole lines from Hymns, Ancient and Modern, which I suppose

aren’t good enough for chapel people, so they must needs go and make up

hymns of their own. And as to the prayer meetings, it’s just the tea

and cake that attract _her_. Bless you! I was at school with Ann

Jamblin, and I know what a pig that girl is.... But if you think she’d

suit you better as a wife, don’t hesitate to change your mind. Your

mother would be _delighted_. And I’ve heard say that Ann’s uncle, who

keeps the ham-and-beef shop in Reading, means to leave her all his

money. You won’t find Ann Jamblin caring much for wild beasts, _I_ can

promise you! Why, I remember once when the school was out walking near

Reading and we met a dancing bear coming along with its keeper, she

burst out screaming and crying so loud that the youngest Miss Calthrop

had to take her _straight_ back."

"Now, _Lucy_! _Is_ it kind to quarrel with me just before I am going

away?" (Lucy’s unexpected spitfire prettiness and the hint she might be

willing to break off the engagement had roused John’s latent manliness

and he felt now he desired intensely to marry her.)

"My _dear_ John, I wasn’t _quarrelling_, I’ve nothing to quarrel about.

I only suggested to you before it was too late to change your mind that

Ann Jamblin would make you a more suitable wife than I should—there,

there!" (fighting off a kiss and an attempt at a hug) "remember where we

are and that any one might see us and carry the tale to your mother. Of

course, I am partly in fun. I know it is unkind to tease you, but

somehow I _can’t_ be as serious as you are.... Dear old John" (the

attempt at a hug and the look of desire in John’s eyes have somehow

mollified her) "I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.... Did I? ... I’m

very sorry.... Just as you’re going away, too.... There, never mind....

Look bright and happy.... Now _smile_!"

John’s lips parted reluctantly and showed his pale gums and projecting

eye-teeth.

"What do you think, John? ... Let’s get up and walk on to the garden

gates, ... what do you think my Uncle Pardew is going to give us as a

wedding present? A harmonium! Won’t that be nice? I shall take it out

with me, and then when you teach the people to sing hymns—only you

mustn’t teach them Ann Jamblin’s—I can play the accompaniments. And in

the evenings when you are tired I shall try to play something that will

soothe you. I have never tried the harmonium yet, but while you are

away I mean to practise. It’s just like playing the piano, only you

have to keep working the pedals with your feet, like a sewing-machine.

Uncle Pardew would just as soon give us a piano, but I told him what you

said about the climate being bad for them. So he settled that a

harmonium would do better. I wonder what other wedding presents we

shall get? I can tell to a certainty what your mother will give us."

"What?"

"Why, a very large Bible, bound in shiny brown leather like those in the

waiting-rooms at railway stations, with a blue ribbon marker; and a

dozen silver spoons. Six large and six small. I know she doesn’t

consider me worthy of the spoons, but she is bound by custom. When she

was married _her_ mother-in-law gave _her_ spoons.... And your father

will give us a dinner-service and a gross of Sparkling Cider..."

"I hope to goodness he doesn’t. The cost of transporting it up-country

would be quite beyond my means. I shall tell him..."

"And _my_ father," continued Lucy, "is going to give me a gold watch and

chain. And mother, my own sweet little mother—what do you think she’s

been working at, John?"

"Can’t say, I’m sure."

"Why, _all_ the house linen.... Sheets, pillow-cases, tablecloths,

napkins, and such like. She has been getting them ready ever since I

was first engaged.... John! You must be _very_ kind to me in Africa."

"_Kind_ to you? Why, of course! Do you suppose I should be anything

else?"

"You don’t know _how_ I feel the idea of parting with mother. I love

her better than any one in the world, better than you, John. She never

says anything, but I know she is dreadfully unhappy at the idea of my

going away so far and for so long. But then, I tell her, we can’t _all_

be old maids. Father isn’t rich enough to keep us all at home, and I

don’t want to go on working at a National school all my life.... Oh, by

the bye, talking of mother, I had something so pleasant to tell you.

What do you think Lord Silchester has done? You know mother was maid to

old Lady Silchester? Well, when father went the other day to see Mr.

Parkins about a gate he met his lordship walking out of the agent’s

office. They got into conversation and father told him I was going out

next year to marry you in Africa. And last Wednesday mother got a

letter written by Lord Silchester himself, saying he had not forgotten

her faithful care of his mother and would she give the enclosed to her

daughter, out of which she might buy a wedding present, something to

remember Lord Silchester by when she got out to Africa. And there were

four five-pound notes in the envelope. Mother was so pleased she

positively _cried_."

"Yes. That was very kind of his lordship. I must tell my mother when I

get back to-night. It may cheer her up."

"Oh, every one has been very nice about my engagement. The Miss

Calthrops, where I was at school in Reading, told me they were working

at some æsthetic mantel-borders for our house in Africa...."

"Mantel-borders! Why, we shan’t have any mantel-pieces!"

"No mantel-pieces? No fireplaces?"

"Only a fire for cooking, in the kitchen, and that will be outside."

"Oh well, then, we must put them to some other use; I couldn’t wound

their feelings by saying we didn’t want them."

"Lucy, you mustn’t imagine you are going to live in a mansion in Africa.

Our home will be only a cottage built of bamboo and mud and tree-stems

roughly trimmed, with a thatched or a corrugated-iron roof. I don’t

suppose it will contain more than four rooms—a bedroom, a bathroom, a

sitting-room, a store and an outside kitchen."

"Well, but even a log-hut might be made pretty inside, with some ’art’

draperies and cushions and a few Japanese fans. I mean to make our home

as pretty as possible. Shall we have a garden?"

"Oh, I daresay—a kitchen garden, certainly. For the Mission Committee

wants to encourage the planting of vegetables and even some degree of

farming, so that we may live as much as possible on local products. We

are taking out spades and hoes and rakes in plenty, a small plough, an

incubator, and any amount of useful seeds."

"I’m sure," said Lucy, still musing, "there ought to be lovely wild

flowers in Africa and beautiful ferns, too. I mean to have a little

wild garden of my own, and I shall press the flowers and send them to

mother in my letters."

"I daresay you will be able to do that, when you have finished your

household work and done your teaching in the school."

"Teaching in the school?"

"Why, of course you will help me in that. You’ll have to take the

girls’ class, whilst I take the boys’."

"Oh, shall I? That’s rather horrid. I didn’t think I was going out to

Africa to teach, just the same as at home. The National School children

at Aldermaston are quite tiresome enough. What will little black girls

be like, I wonder?"

"I’m told they’re very quick at learning.... I am sorry," continued

John, rather portentously, "that you don’t quite seem to realize the

nature of the duties you are about to undertake. I love you very

dearly, Lucy"—and a tremor in his voice showed sincerity—"but that isn’t

the only reason I have asked you to come out to me in Africa and be my

wife. I want a helpmeet, not a playmate; one who will aid me in

bringing these heathen to a knowledge of God’s goodness; not an idle

woman who only thinks of picking wild flowers and ornamenting her house.

Don’t pout, dear. I only want to save you disappointment. You are not

coming out to a life of luxury, but one of hard work. Besides, it would

be hardly fair to the Mission if you did not take certain duties on

yourself, because when I am married they will increase my pay to two

hundred and fifty pounds a year."

"What do you get when you are single?"

"One hundred and eighty. You see a married man gets extra pay because

it is always supposed his wife will add her work to his. A married

missionary, too, has more influence with the natives."

"All the same, John, we shall sometimes make time to steal away by

ourselves and have a nice little picnic without any of those horrid

black people near us...."

"Horrid black people, Lucy, have immortal souls...."

"I daresay, but that doesn’t prevent their having black bodies and

looking like monkeys. However, I daresay I shall get used to them. And

if I don’t at first ... By the bye, John, I forgot to ask, but I wanted

to, so as to relieve mother’s mind—are they cannibals?"

"What, the people of Hangodi? I don’t know, but I scarcely think so.

And if they were, we should have all the more credit in converting

them."

"Yes; but suppose they wouldn’t wait to be converted, but ate you

first?"

"The little I’ve read and heard shows me they would never do that.

African cannibals, it seems, are rather careful whom they eat.

Generally only their war captives or their old people. They wouldn’t

eat a peaceful stranger, a white man. However, on the east side of

Africa the negroes are _not_ cannibals, any more than we are."

"Isn’t it curious, John, to think what different ideas of right and

wrong prevail amongst the peoples of the world? Here, you say, there

are some tribes in Africa which eat their own relations. Well, I

daresay it is thought quite a right and proper thing to do—out

there—just as we in England think the old folk ought to be cherished and

taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible. Only fancy how funny

it would sound to us to be told that Mr. Jones showed very bad feeling

because he wouldn’t join his brother and sister in eating up old Aunt

Brown! And yet I daresay that is what cannibal scandal-mongers often

say to one another. Isn’t it wonderful how one lot of human beings can

think and act so differently to another lot; and yet each party

considers that nobody is right but those who believe as they do?

Supposing one day some black missionaries landed in England, dressed in

large earrings, bead necklaces, pocket handkerchiefs and nothing else,

and tried to persuade us to worship some hideous idol and leave off

wearing so many clothes. How astonished we would be ... and yet they

would think they were doing right, just as our missionaries do who go

out to teach savages the Gospel...."

"Well, I confess I don’t see the resemblance. What we preach is the

Truth, the Living Truth. What _they_ believe is a lie of the Devil."

"Yes, but they don’t _know_ it is. They must think it is the truth or

they wouldn’t go on believing in it year after year. When I was

teaching geography the other day, I was quite _astonished_ to find in

the Manual that about _four or five hundred millions_ of people were

Buddhists. Isn’t it _dreadful_ to think of their all being wrong, all

living in vain. Surely God won’t punish them for it hereafter?"

"It’s hard to say. If they had the means of grace offered to them and

rejected the Message I should think He would. But that is the chief

object of our Foreign Missions, to teach the heathen the true principles

of Christianity and bring the Light of the Gospel to them that sit in

darkness. When this has been done throughout the earth, no one will

then be able to say he sinned in ignorance, ’because he knew not the way

of Life.’"

"And yet, John, see here in England what different views of religion

even good people take. Father goes to Church; you go to Chapel; and

each thinks the other on the wrong road to Heaven."

"Oh no! Lucy, I wouldn’t go so far as that. Of course, I believe that

our Connection has been vouchsafed a special revelation of God’s Will

and Purpose among men. But all the same I feel sure that many a Church

person comes into the way of Truth though it may be after much

tribulation. Why, I wouldn’t deny that even _Roman Catholics_ may be

saved, if they have led a godly life and acted up to their lights. At

the same time, those who have the Truth among them and are wilfully

blind to its teaching are incurring a heavy responsibility."

"Then you think father stands less chance of being saved than you do?"

"Well ... yes ... I do; because in his Church he does not possess the

same means of grace as are given to our Connection."

"But he is so good, so kind to every one, so fair in his dealings..."

"Good works without faith are insufficient to save a man."

"Well, for my part, I can’t believe that _any_ one will be lost because

he may not follow the most correct kind of religion. I can’t believe

that God will punish any one who isn’t very, very wicked indeed. He is

so great; we are so little.... Just think, supposing we saw an ant

doing anything wrong should we feel obliged to hurt it or burn it?

Should we not be rather amused and pitiful? And mustn’t we seem the

very tiniest of ants to God?"

"Ah, Lucy! The belief in the fierce judgments of the Almighty is a

fundamental Truth of our religion, and if your faith in _that_ is

shaken, everything will begin to go.... But the subject is too solemn

to be lightly discussed, so let’s talk about something else. Have you

finished my slippers?"

"Yes, and they’re perfectly _lovely_. A dark blue, with J.B.

embroidered in white silk. I shall bring them with me to the station

to-morrow.... Why, here we are at the gates of the garden! _How_ we’ve

walked and _how_ we’ve talked! And look, John,"—drawing him back from

standing too near the iron gates, "there’s his lordship on the terrace,

and I do believe the young lady with him is the one he’s become engaged

to!"

John looked in the direction whither Lucy discreetly inclined her head,

beyond triumphs of carpet-bedding to the terrace which fronted the south

side of the great house. And there, foremost of several groups of

Sunday callers who were taking tea at small tables, they saw specially

prominent a party of three: a pretty girl rather showily dressed in the

height of 1886 fashion, an old lady, and an elderly man, tall, a little

inclined to stoop, dressed in dark, loose-fitting tweeds. He had a long

face with a massive jaw and rather a big nose. But though they were not

visible at a distance of fifty yards there were kindly wrinkles round

his dark grey eyes as he suddenly lifted them from the seated ladies and

glanced across the flower beds to see who was looking at him from the

outer world.

This was Lord Silchester; and John, not wishing to prolong his

indiscretion, raised his wide-awake and turned away with his betrothed.

He and Lucy then walked directly to Aldermaston, John leaving her at the

railway station, where he consummated his breach of the Sabbath by

taking an evening train back to Theale, and so returned to his home at

the Aerated Waters factory for the last night he was ever to pass there.

The next morning, punctually at seven o’clock, Lucy’s father drew up his

gig before the booking-office of Theale station, and, getting a porter

to hold the horse, helped Lucy down and accompanied her on to the

station platform, where they found the Baines family already assembled:

Mrs. Baines gloomily seated on a bench, Mr. Baines reading the old

newspaper placards of the closed bookstall, and John busy seeing his

numerous boxes labelled.

"Hullo, Baines!—and ma’am—hope you’re well ... a bit cast down, I

expect? But there, it’s a fine career he’s starting on.... Still, it’s

always a wrench. John"—extending his hand—"I’ve just called in to wish

you good luck _and_ a prosperous voyage _and_ a happy return, by and

bye. Mind you make a comfortable home out there for my little girl! I

shall be feeling about as bad as you feel, ma’am" (Mrs. Baines kept a

perfectly impassive face during these attempts at sympathy and did not

even look at the speaker), "next—when is it to be? March?—when I come

to part with Lucy. But life’s made up of partings and meetings, which

is why, some’ow, I don’t like railway stations. Now I can’t stop, and

if I could, I should only be in the way. Must be off to market. Leave

you Lucy. She’ll walk back to school. Good-bye, John...."

And Farmer Josling hurried out of the station and his horse’s hoofs

sounded in quick succession on the ascent to the main road. Lucy, left

behind actually found herself regretting that father had brought her in

such good time as to give her five-and-twenty minutes or more of

irresolute attendance on John. When she had presented him with the

slippers, had squeezed his hand two or three times, and adjured him to

write from the first stopping-place, besides sending a postcard from

London to say he was leaving "all right"; had made a few suggestions

about his luggage which, in spite of the urbanity of departure, were too

futile to be answered or adopted; and had insisted on pushing the band

of his blue tie under the shirt button at the back of his neck, so that

it might not rise up over the collar: there seemed to be nothing left to

say or do. The bookstall was not yet opened so there were no papers to

be bought.

She would have talked with Mrs. Baines, who had retired to the little

waiting-room and was pretending there to read a great roll of texts in

big print hung against one of the walls. But at her first remark she

noticed Mrs. Baines’s eyelids were quivering and her under lip twitching

in a way to indicate that she was a prey to almost uncontrollable

emotion. Although she mechanically turned the leaves of the texts, her

eyes were not focussing them, and something seemed to be moving up and

down her lank throat which she could not finally swallow. She only

answered Lucy’s remark by an inarticulate gurgle and waved her away.

There was something so pathetic in her dismal ugliness, in her awkwardly

restrained emotion, that Lucy was suddenly moved to pity as she returned

to the platform. Her embarrassment was cut short by the tumult

occasioned by the approaching train, heralded by the clanging of the

station bell. The train was full and John had hurriedly to pass all the

second class compartments in review to find a place not only for himself

but for the amorphous packages deemed too frail for the guard’s van.

When at last he had squeezed himself and his parcels past the

obstructing knees of the established passengers; he had just time to

twist round, stretch out over his surly neighbours’ laps, and squeeze

Lucy’s timorously extended hand. Then the train gave a lurch forward

and a slide backwards which made him nearly bite his tongue off in an

attempt to say good-bye to his parents, and finally rolled slowly out of

the station, while the forms of father, mother, and sweetheart left

standing on the platform grouped themselves for one moment in an

attitude of mute farewell before the advance of the train cut them off

from his sight.

The retreating chain of carriages shut itself up like a telescope, and

the station began to resume its sleepy calm. Mrs. Baines’s emotion now

could no longer be restrained from expression. She tottered towards the

waiting-room and sinking heavily on to a hard wooden seat she choked and

hiccupped and sobbed, and the tears rolled regularly, one after the

other, down her cavernous cheeks. Lucy took her trembling hands and

tried to soothe her; and then, Mrs. Baines, softened by this sympathy,

lost all that remained of her self-control and abandoned herself limply

on Lucy’s shoulder.

"Oh!" she gasped, "I’ve parted with him in anger—he’s gone! ... Perhaps

I shall never see him again.... My boy.... My only son. I never said a

kind word to him before he left. I thought there would be time.... I

thought John would come and make it up. I was cross because he went out

walking with you and came back late by train yesterday. You know I

always taught him to observe the Sabbath. But I’d forgive him

_anything_ if he’d only come back and give me _one_ kiss ... my boy...."

But John was well on his way to Reading, and the London express, and all

his mother’s tardy plaints were fruitless to recall him. Moreover, he

was not perceptive. To him, his mother’s demeanour had seemed much as

usual; and he was certainly not conscious that she had parted with him

in anger. He was fond of her in a way, but he had been used from

childhood to her being always in a huff about something or other.

Lucy restored her future mother-in-law to partial calmness, straightened

her bonnet, re-tied the bonnet strings, and walked a little of the way

back with her towards Tilehurst, while Mr. Baines followed submissively

behind. For the rest of that day he enjoyed unrebuked freedom to do as

he liked. He ate his fill and even smoked a pipe in the parlour. His

wife having regained her composure held aloof from him in silent, stony

grief.

Lucy fortunately encountered the innkeeper of Aldermaston driving

thither in a chaise and got a lift, nearly as far as her home, a

substantial farmstead on the Mortimer road, close to both church and

school. This enabled her to begin her duties punctually. She taught her

girls and boys from nine to twelve and two to four. She thought of John

with gentle melancholy during the day, and even shed a tear or two at

night when she concentrated her mind on the scenes of her betrothed’s

departure, especially his mother’s wild display of grief. But the next

morning as she walked from the farmstead to the school she actually

hummed a gay tune as she picked a spray of wild roses from the dewy

hedge and arranged them round her light straw hat. At the same time she

had a twinge of remorse at her forgetfulness—poor John was doubtless now

at sea watching England fade from the exile’s view; and she forced

herself to assume before her scholars an aspect of restrained grief.

Nevertheless, as day after day of summer weather went by in her

surroundings of perfect beauty, she confessed to herself she had seldom

felt so happy, in spite of her sweetheart’s absence.

*CHAPTER III*

*SIBYL AT SILCHESTER*

They had ridden over from opposite directions—he from Farleigh Wallop on

the downs south of Basingstoke, she from Aldermaston in the Kennet

Valley: to meet on the site of the Roman Calleva Atrebatum, the modern

Silchester. This was in the beginning of July, 1886. The Roman city of

early Christian Britain was then—and now—only marked by two-thirds of an

encircling wall of rough masonry, crowned with ivy and even trees.

There were grassy hummocks concealing a forum, a basilica and a few

houses. An occasional capital of a column or obvious blocks of ancient

hewn stone, scattered here and there among the herbage, made it clear,

apart from tradition, that the place of their rendezvous had a momentous

past. But its present was of purely agricultural interest—waving fields

of green wheat, sheep grazing on the enclosed mounds, an opulent

farmstead—unless you were a landscape painter of the Birket Foster

school: then you raved about the thatched cottages, the old church and

its churchyard.

On this July morning Captain Roger Brentham and Sibyl Grayburn had the

untilled portion of the site of Calleva Atrebatum quite to themselves.

This, no doubt, was the reason why they had decided to meet there for an

explanation which the man deemed to be due to him from the young woman.

He, of course, arrived first, but Sibyl was not long in making her

appearance from the direction of Silchester common. A groom who rode

behind her at the sight of Captain Brentham touched his hat and trotted

away.... Brentham tied up the two horses in the shade of the Roman wall.

Sibyl disposed herself gracefully on a mound which covered the site of a

Roman dwelling, arranged the long skirt of her riding habit so that the

riding trousers and other suggestions of her limbs might not be too

obvious to the male eye.

Roger was a captain in the Indian Army, about twenty-eight or

twenty-nine, strongly built, tanned in complexion, supple in figure,

good-looking, keen-eyed. Sibyl Grayburn was a decidedly pretty young

woman of twenty-five, the daughter of Colonel Grayburn who had recently

moved from Aldershot to Aldermaston and was trying to live the life of a

gentleman farmer on rather slender means. The Brenthams and Grayburns

of the younger generation were distant cousins.

_Roger_ (seating himself on the mound not too near to Sibyl, and

scanning her attentively): "Well, you’re just as pretty as you were five

years ago—a little filled out perhaps.... And _this_ is how we meet.

How _utterly_ different from what I had been looking forward to! I

remember when we said good-bye at Farleigh _how_ you cried, and how for

the first four years you scarcely missed a mail.... And you can’t say

_I_ didn’t write—when I got a chance.... Or that I didn’t work like a

nigger to get a position to afford to marry—and _now_ I hear from Maud

you’re going to marry Silchester. To tell you the truth it didn’t come

as a complete shock. I saw hints of it in some beastly Society paper

that some one posted to me at Aden—I suppose it was _you_! And this is

what women call _fidelity_!"

_Sibyl_ (at first keeps her eyes on the turf, but presently looks

Brentham defiantly in the face): "If women of my own age were to discuss

my case—not mere romantic school girls—they would say I had acted with

ordinary common sense, and _very_ unselfishly. I am, as you know,

twenty-five, and I’m sure you won’t have enough to marry on for several

years—I should never again get such a chance ... and I really _do_ like

Lord Silchester, you don’t know _how_ kind he can be—and you can’t

_really_ care so very much. You reached England a fortnight ago, and

never even _wrote_ to me...."

_Roger_: "I was too much taken aback by that paragraph in the _World_

... and Maud gave me a hint in the letter she sent to my club. Besides,

I had to stop in London to see the Foreign Office and the India Office

... and ... and to attend a missionary meeting" (Sibyl ejaculates with

scorn: "_Missionary_ meeting!") "and get some clothes.... I had nothing

fit to wear when I landed...."

_Sibyl_: "Well, I’m not blaming you. I only meant that if you were so

madly in love with me as you pretend you would have dashed down to get a

sight of me before you went hobnobbing with your missionary friends ...

or bothered about clothes. I did not want my engagement to come to you

as a shock, so I _did_ post that _World_ to you and got Gerry to address

it—and I told Maud, so that she might prepare you. But _do_ let’s be

calm and sensible and not waste time in needless reproaches. I _must_

get back to lunch. We’ve got Aunt Christabel coming—she helped to bring

it about, you know." (Roger interpolates "_Damn_ her!") "She’s got

twice mother’s determination.... Dear old Roger.... I _am_ sorry ... in

a way ... but you’ll find _heaps_ of girls, _much_ nicer than I am,

ready to jump at the prospect of marrying you." (Here Sibyl’s eyes

glanced with a little regret at his turned-away face, with the bronzed

cheek, the firm profile and the upward twist of the dark moustache.)

"And you know our ’engagement’ was only boy-and-girl fun. Besides, now

I know more about things—I was so young when you went away—I don’t

approve of cousins marrying.... Isn’t their—I mean aren’t their ...

children deaf and dumb or congenital idiots, or something

unpleasant?..." (And here Sibyl, appropriately to the period in which

she was living, blushed a deeper rose than the ride had given her at the

audacity in alluding to children as the result of marriage.)

_Roger_: "Nonsense. Heaps of cousins marry and everything turns out all

right if they come of healthy stock as we do. Besides, we’re only

second cousins. But of course this is nothing but an evasion. You

thought you could do better for yourself by marrying an elderly peer,

and so you threw me over...."

_Sibyl_: "Well! I _did_ think I might, and _not_ selfishly. There’s

papa—more or less in a financial tangle over his farm.... There’s

mother, wearing herself ill, trying to make both ends meet ... and Clara

and Juliet to be brought out, and the boys to be educated and got into

professions..." (crying a little or pretending to do so out of

self-pity) "...I know I’m sacrificing myself for my family, but what

would you have me do? I shall soon become an old maid, and you won’t be

able to marry for _ever_ so long...."

(Roger mutters: "I’ve five hundred a year and...")

_Sibyl_: "Yes, but what could we do on that? Poor papa could afford to

give me nothing more than my trousseau.... Even on seven hundred a

year, _if_ you get a Consulate, we couldn’t manage two households, and

I’m perfectly certain I couldn’t stand the African climate long, and I

should have to come home. I _don’t_ like roughing it, I should

_dislike_ hot countries; and I _hate_ black people.... No, Roger ...

dear ... be sensible... If you want to carve out a great career in

Africa or India you don’t want to be hampered with a wife for several

years to come; and then ... I’ll—I’ll find some really _nice_ girl to

marry you, somebody with a little money. And Silchester might help you

enormously. They’ll probably take him into the new Government—aren’t

you glad that _horrid_ old Gladstone’s _gone_?—He’ll be at the Colonial

Office or somewhere like that and I know he’d do anything I asked him,

once we were married. If you still want to go back to Africa he shall

get you made a Consul or a Governor or whatever it is you want...." But

Roger was not going to listen to anything so cold-blooded, even though

all the time an undercurrent of thought was glancing at the advantages

that might accrue from Sibyl’s _mariage de convenance_. He’d be

_hanged_ if he’d take anything from Lord Silchester.... He was entitled

to some such appointment, anyway, after all he had done. But there, he

had lost all interest in life and if he went to the bad, Sibyl would be

to blame. All his interest in an African career had been bound up with

Sibyl’s sharing it. With her at his side he felt equal to anything. He

would conquer all Equatorial Africa, strike at the Mahdi from the south,

find Emin Pasha, lay all Equatoria at the feet of Queen Victoria, and in

no time Sibyl would be Lady Brentham——

"Yes," interjected Sibyl, "and lose my complexion and be old before my

time, riding after you through the jungle, or living stupidly like a

grass widow at home...."

Yet as he jerked out his tirade rather theatrically she noted him with

an approving eye. His anger and extravagance brought out a certain

boyishness and, made him, with the freedom of the jungle about him,

still additionally attractive physically.... He certainly was

good-looking and in the prime of manhood ... she sighed ... the

remembrance of Lord Silchester’s pale, somewhat flabby face, his

slightly pedantic manner, his carefulness about his health.... He

rode—yes—they had already had decorous rides together, but she imagined

before the ride his cob had had some of the freshness taken out of him

by the groom....

Sibyl tried by broken phrases, and half-uttered hints, to convey the

idea that Lord Silchester being nearly sixty—at any rate close on

fifty-six—and not of robust health, might not live for ever; though

really she wouldn’t mind if _she_ died first, men were so perfectly

hateful, and so was your family—if you were a woman. You were expected

to do all you could for your family, and abused into the bargain by

others who held you bound by foolish promises made when you were a mere

girl without any knowledge of the world. Still, there was a

possibility—just a possibility—for weren’t we all mortal?—that she might

find herself a widow, a lonely widow some day. Roger by then would have

made a great career, become a sort of Sir Samuel Baker; he’d have

discovered and named lakes after royalty; then they might meet again;

and who could say? Certainly, if it came to _love_, she wouldn’t deny

she had never felt _quite_ the same towards any one as she had towards

Roger....

But Roger checked such philosophizings rudely, saying they were

positively indecent: at which she expressed herself as very angry. Then

leading out the horses in eye-flashing silence, Roger helped her to

mount and swung himself into the saddle. He escorted her silently to

Aldermaston main street, raised his hat, and rode off up the Mortimer

road with a set face and angry eyes on the way back to Basingstoke.

He paused however at Tadley to give his father’s cob—borrowed for the

day—a feed and a rest. His ride lay through one of the loveliest parts

of England in those days, before "Dora" had commandeered timber from the

woods—to find afterwards she did not want it—before farmers had changed

tiles or thatch on barns to corrugated iron, and chars-à-bancs, motor

cycles and side-cars with golden-haired flappers, school treats and bean

feasts had made the country-side noisy, dangerous and paper-strewn.

Insensibly his mood softened as he rode. It was more than four years

since he had been home. Though he had spent all of his youth in this

country, save for school and military college, his eyes seemed never

before to have taken in the charm of English landscapes. Here was

England at its best in the early part of July: poppies blazing in the

green corn and whitish green oats, hay still lingering—grey on green—in

the fields, ox-eyed daisies fully out, wild roses still in bloom in the

hedge-rows, blue crane’s bill, blue vetch, and purple-blue campanulas in

the copse borders. The plump and placid cows, with swinging udders, so

different from the gaunt African cattle with a scarcely visible

milk-supply, the splendid cart-horses, the sheep—neat and tidy after

shearing—the cock pheasants running across the sun-and-shadow-flecked

roads, the cawing rooks, and the cooing woodpigeons, the geese and

donkeys on the commons. Here and there, off the main road, park gates

of finely wrought iron with a trim geranium-decked lodge and a vista of

some charming avenue towards an invisible great house; side turnings,

half-overgrown with turf, leading to villages quaintly entitled. Some

of the details his eye and ear and nose took in—such as the braying of

barrel organs on the fringe of an unseen fair, on a rather burnt and

blackened gipsy-befouled common; or the smell of pig-sties in a hamlet,

or placards in big print pasted round an ancient stump or on an old oak

paling—it was irrational to call beautiful. But together they made up

England at its best, with old churches packed with the history of

England, the little towns so prosperous, the straggling villages,

beautiful if insanitary, the signposts with their agreeable Anglo-Saxon

and Norman names, so pleasing to the eye after years of untracked

wilderness; the postman trudging his round in red-and-black, the

gamekeeper in velveteen, the hearty labourers in corduroy, blue-shirted,

bare-armed and hairy chested. All this was England. "Was there a

jollier country in the world?" (There was not, in 1886.)

And as to Sibyl.... How differently he saw her now, after four years!

As pretty as paint, though rather overheated after a short ride; but

_how_ artificial! What a delusion to suppose such a woman would have

cared for a rough life in Africa. Why she even spoke slightingly of

India, a country of romance far exceeding Africa. Indeed, he had only

turned to Africa and African problems because all the great careers to

be made in India were seemingly over.... There was nothing to be done

in India without powerful backing....

Backing? It was perhaps silly to have flouted the suggestion of Lord

Silchester’s influence.... It was difficult unless you were related to

permanent officials or members of Parliament to get a Consular

commission in East Africa. Why not gradually—gradually of course—it

wouldn’t do to forgive her too quickly—become reconciled to Sibyl’s

marriage and pursue instead his second desire, a great African

career?...

So it was a comparatively happy Roger Brentham who cantered up the road

to the vicarage at Farleigh Wallop in the late afternoon of that day and

sat with his sister Maud in the arbour enjoying a sound English tea.

Maud, a pleasant-faced young woman of thirty, the only sister of three

stalwart brothers, one a soldier, another a sailor and the third

intending to be a barrister; housekeeper to her father, an absent-minded

archæologist; could not be called pretty, because she was too much like

a young man of twenty-five with almost a young man’s flat figure, but

she was in every way satisfactory as a sister. Her father was out on

some archæological ramble and she was glad of it because she thought

Roger might have come to her with a heart to mend. No doubt he felt

heart-broken over Sibyl’s defection. She looked at him inquiringly

while she poured out tea, but would not of course broach the subject.

"You’ve been out a long time with the cob. I hope you haven’t

over-ridden him? Where did you go?"

"To Silchester and back; but I baited him at Tadley and gave him an

hour’s rest in Basingstoke; and another hour at Silchester. I’ve jogged

along very quietly, looking up old haunts—and—and I’ve seen Sibyl

Grayburn. She told me all about her engagement."

"Sibyl? Then—you don’t mind so much? I hardly knew how to break it to

you...."

"_Mind_? Oh, well, there _was_ a boy-and-girl engagement, a flirtation

between us before I went away, as you knew. But Africa drove all that

out of my mind. Besides, how can I marry on five hundred a year? I dare

say Sibyl has done well for herself, and she’s getting on. Girls can’t

afford to wait and look about them like a man can. By the bye, old

girl, why doesn’t some one come along and marry _you_? I don’t know a

better sort of wife than _you’d_ make...."

_Maud_: "Thank you, Roger, I’m sure you mean it. But I don’t suppose I

shall ever marry. My line is to look after father for the rest of his

life, and then become everybody’s aunt. I’m really his curate, you

know. And his clerk and his congregation, very often. Oh, I’m quite

happy; don’t pity me; I couldn’t have nicer brothers ... or perhaps a

nicer life. I love Farleigh——"

_Roger_ (not noticing, man-like, the tiny, tiny sigh that accompanied

this renunciation of marriage): "Jove! How jolly all this is: you’re

right. If I wasn’t a man I should think like you. What could one have

better than this?" And he looked away from the arbour and the prettily

furnished tea-table to the well-kept lawn with long shadows from the

herbaceous border. Beyond that the wooded slopes of Farleigh Down and

the distant meadows of the lowland, and then the sun-gilt roofs of

Basingstoke’s northern suburb, and the distant trains, three, four, five

miles away with their trails of cotton-wool smoke indicating a busy

world beyond the quietude of the vicarage garden. He could see the

slight trace of a straight Roman road athwart the northern landscape,

Winchester to Silchester; the downs of Hannington and Sydmonton and the

far-off woods of Sherborne. When he was queer with sun-fever in

Somaliland he would sometimes be tantalized by this view, like a mirage,

instead of the brown-grey sun-scorched plains ringed by low ridges of

table-topped mountains and dotted with scrubby acacias, whitened by the

drought ... and would pull himself together, sit upright in the saddle

and wonder if he would ever see home again. And here he was.... Hang

Sibyl!...

So when Sibyl Grayburn married Lord Silchester at the end of that

July—because he was fifty-six and impatient to have some summer for his

honeymoon before returning to take up the burden—a well-padded one—of

office in the Conservative Government—Captain Roger Brentham was among

the guests, the relations of the bride. And his best leopard skin,

suitably mounted, was in Sibyl’s boudoir at Englefield awaiting Lady

Silchester’s return from the Tyrol.

* * * * *

And in the winter of 1886, Captain Brentham received from Lord Wiltshire

the offer of a Consulate on the Last Coast of Africa and accepted it.

It was provisionally styled the Consulate for the Mainland of Zangia

where the Germans were already beginning to take up the administration,

but Brentham was instructed to reside at first at Unguja, the island

immediately opposite the temporary German capital. The British

Consul-General for the whole of Zangia had been recalled because of

heated relations with Germany. Pending his return Captain Brentham was

to act as Consul-General without, however, taking too much on himself,

as Mr. Bennet Molyneux of the African Department rather acidly told him.

Molyneux, at the Foreign Office, was not at all pleased at Brentham’s

appointment: one of those things that Lord Wiltshire was wont to do

without consulting the permanent officials. Molyneux had not long been

in the new African Department (hitherto disparagingly connected with the

Slave Trade section); and as Africa had barely entered world-politics,

British Ministers of State showed themselves usually indifferent as to

how the necessary appointments were filled up, adopting generally names

suggested by Molyneux, so that he was accustomed to nominating his poor

relations—he had a reserve of wastrel nephews and cousins—or the friends

of his friends—such as Spencer Bazzard (q.v., as they say in

Encyclopædias). If they were "rotters," the climate generally killed

them off in a few months; if they made good, they established in time a

claim on the Foreign Office regard and got transferred to Consular posts

in South America, the Mediterranean, and Western Europe.

But Lord Wiltshire was not always asleep or uninformed, as he sometimes

appeared to be. So his Private Secretary countered Bennet Molyneux’s

querulous Memo on Captain Brentham’s lack of qualification for such a

responsible East African post by reminding him that the gentleman in

question was well versed in Arabic through having accompanied a

Political Mission to the Persian Gulf, that he had served in Aden and

Somaliland and had conducted an expedition to the Snow Mountains of East

Africa for the Intelligence Division, had contributed papers to the

Royal Geographical Society, was a silver medallist of the Zoological

Society, and was personally vouched for by a colleague of Lord

Wiltshire’s: all of which information for the African Department was

summed up by the Private Secretary to Molyneux in a few words: "See

here, Molly; take this and look pleasant. You can’t have all the

African appointments in your gift. You must leave a few to the Old Man.

He generally knows what he’s about." So Molyneux asked Brentham to dine

with him and apparently made the best of a bad job ... as he said with a

grin to his colleague, Sir Mulberry Hawk.

*CHAPTER IV*

*LUCY HESITATES*

When the school holidays supervened, Lucy spent her vacation quietly at

Aldermaston working at her African outfit—material and mental—in a

desultory way. She supposed she would have to leave in the following

April to join her betrothed. April seemed a long while ahead. She had

not even given notice to the school managers yet of her intention to

give up teaching. It would not be necessary to do so or to brace her

mind for the agony of separation from her home until John had announced

that all was in readiness and she had received the formal intimation of

his Missionary Society that they approved of her going out to join him

and would make the necessary arrangements for a steamer passage.

Meantime she gave herself up to the delight of reading such books about

African exploration or mission life in Africa as she could obtain from

the Reading libraries. They served to strengthen her determination to

keep faith with John; while other ties and loves were pulling the other

way. She had in her veins that imaginational longing to see strange

lands and travel which is such an English trait; yet this longing

alternated with fits of absolute horror at her foolishness in having

consented to such an engagement. Why could she not have recognized when

she was well off? Could any one in her station of life have a more

delightful home?

The farmstead stood on a slope about a hundred feet above the Kennet

Valley. The river was a mile away, though little subsidiary brooks and

channels permeated the meadows in between, and in spring, summer and

autumn produced miracles of loveliness in flower shows: purple

loosestrife, magenta-coloured willow herb, mauve-tinted valerian,

cream-coloured meadow-sweet, yellow flags, golden king-cups, yellow and

white water-lilies, water-crowsfoot and flowering rush. Lucy was an

unexpressed, undeveloped artist, with an exceptional appreciation (for a

country girl) of the beauty in colour and form of flowers and herbage of

the velvety, blue-green, black-green cedars which rose above the wall of

the Park and overshadowed the churchyard, of the superb elms, oaks,

horse-chestnuts, ashes and hawthorns studding the grassy slopes between

the house and the water meadows. She loved the rich crimson colour of

the high old brick walls of the Park and the same tint in the farm

buildings, varied with scarlet and orange and the lemon and grey of

lichen and weather-stain. The old farm-house in which she had been born

and had passed all her twenty-four years of placid life, save when she

was at boarding-school, seemed to her just perfect in its picturesque

ancientry and its stored smells of preserved good things to eat and

drink. Their garden was carelessly ordered, but from March to October

had a wealth of flowers, the spicy odours of box borders, the pungent

scent of briar and honeysuckle.

She did take much interest in the details of farming—a trifle of

self-conceit made her think herself superior in her bookishness and

feeble water-colour painting to her younger sisters, who were already

experts in poultry-tending, butter-making, and bread-baking. But she

accepted as a matter of course the delicious results (as we should think

them now) of living at a well-furnished, well-managed farm: the milk and

cream, the fresh butter and new-laid eggs, the home-cured bacon, the

occasional roast duck and chicken; the smell of the new-mown hay, the

sight of ripe wheat or wheat neatly grouped in its golden sheaves in

chessboard pattern; the September charms of the glinting stubble with

its whirring coveys of partridges, its revived flower shows—scarlet and

blue, bright yellow, dead white, lavender, russet, and mauve; the

walnuts in the autumn from their own trees; the Spanish chestnuts from

the Park; impromptu Christmas dances in the big barn; an occasional

visit to a theatre or a magic-lantern-illustrated lecture in Reading.

On one such occasion she saw for the first time Captain Roger Brentham,

the explorer, who whilst staying with Lord and Lady Silchester gave a

lecture on his recent travels and some wonderful snow mountain he had

visited in East Africa.... Why should she seek to leave such

surroundings? She could read and hear about all that was most

interesting in the world without leaving her parents and her home. Yet,

to disappoint poor John, who counted on her coming out to share his

work—and if she threw him over she might never get another offer of

marriage and grow stout and florid like Bessie Rayner, ten years older

than she was, up at the Grange farm....

But _was_ marriage after all, with its children and illnesses and house

drudgery, so _very_ attractive to a dreamer? Might she not be happier

if she passed all the rest of her life at Aldermaston, saving up her

salary as a school-mistress against old age and a possible leaving of

the farm if—ever so far ahead—dear father died? She had often thought,

with a little encouragement she might _write_ ... write stories! ... and

she thrilled at the idea. But then, what experience had she of the

world—the great world beyond southern Berkshire—which she could set down

on paper?

So far, no one had proposed to her—even John had hardly asked her

definitely to marry him. He had always taken it for granted, since he

was eighteen, that she would, and from that age herself she had tacitly

accepted the position of his fiancée. Why had she acquiesced? There

was a weakness of fibre about her and John’s stronger will had impressed

itself on her smiling compliance. Her mother had rather pursed her lips

at the alliance, having her doubts as to John being good enough, and

John’s mother being even bearable as a mother-in-law. This faint

opposition had made Lucy determined to persevere with the engagement.

She had a distaste for a farmer type of husband; it seemed too earthy.

And she wanted to travel. A missionary ought to make a refined spouse

and be able to show her the strange places of the earth.

There were sides of John’s character she did not like. She was not

naturally pious. The easy-going Church of England and its decorous

faith were good enough for her; she loved this world—the world of the

Kennet Valley with genial, worldly Reading on one side and

not-too-disreputable, racing Newbury on the other—too well to care

overmuch for the Heavenly Home in which John was staking out claims; if

she had known the word she would have called John priggish; instead, she

said "sanctimonious." Yet withal she was conscious of a certain

manliness, a determined purpose about him....

Perhaps, however, in the summer months and the rich contentment of

September the balance of her inclination might have been tilted against

him, she might have nerved herself to writing that cruel letter which

should say she shrank from joining him in Africa; were it not that he

wrote faithfully from each stopping place, each crisis on his journey.

His letters—closely written in a facile running hand on thin foreign

paper—were stuffed with conventionally pious phrases, they contained

diatribes on his ungodly fellow-passengers who broke the Sabbath (with

an added zest from his remonstrances), played cards for money, told

shocking stories in the smoking-room, and conducted themselves on shore

in a manner which he could not describe. But then he gave very good

descriptions of Algiers, of Port Said, Suez and Aden, and made her wish

to see these places with her own eyes, smell their strange smells, and

eat their strange viands. His letter from Unguja announcing his arrival

there in August finally decided Lucy to throw in her lot with John.

There was also the further incentive that African adventure—missionary

and political—was again becoming fashionable and attracting attention.

Stanley was starting to find Emin Pasha; others had embarked or

threatened to embark on the same quest. More and more missionaries were

going out. It was rumoured that Ann Jamblin had announced her intention

to take up a missionary career. Lucy wrote a little anxiously to

inquire. Ann admitted she had toyed with the idea as she believed

herself capable of teaching and even of preaching to the savage. But if

she did go it would probably be to West Africa where the climate was

even more deadly than in the South and East, and such a sacrifice might

be more acceptable before the Heavenly Throne than the comfortable and

assured position of a missionary’s wife, not expected to do more than

make a home for her husband.

John’s first Unguja letter said that Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and

himself had been very kindly received there by the Commercial Agent to

the East African Mission—commercial because from the first it had been

decided that a reasonable degree of trade should go hand in hand with

fervent propaganda and Brotherhood work. The Mission must strive to

make itself self-supporting in the long run as it had no rich church

behind it. So there were to be lay agents who traded in the products of

the country and whose stores would prove an additional attraction to the

native visitor and inquirer. The Agent at their Unguja depôt—Mr.

Callaway—had been a trader on the West Coast of Africa, agent there to a

great distilling firm; who had become so shocked at the effects of cheap

intoxicants on the native mind and morals that he had thrown up his

employ and enlisted under the banner of a Trading Mission, pledged not

to deal in alcohol or gunpowder. Mr. Callaway had "got religion" and

"found Christ" (in Liverpool), but in spite of that—the naïve John wrote

thus unthinkingly—was a very pleasant fellow who had soon picked up the

native language and got on good terms with the Arabs of Unguja. The

latter fully approved of his teetotalism—avoidance of alcohol being one

of the few good points in their religion. John described with unction

the prayer meetings and services they held in Mr. Callaway’s sheds and

go-downs on the shore of Unguja’s port; though he had to admit that his

fervour had been a little modified by the rancid smell of the copra[#]

stored in these quarters and the appalling stench that arose from the

filth on the beach. But there was plenty of good Christian fellowship

at Unguja. The representatives of the great Anglican Mission

established there—with a Cathedral and a Bishop and a thoroughly popish

style of service—had shown themselves unexpectedly good fellows. One of

them, Archdeacon Gravening, had presented the four young recruits for

the East African Mission to the Arab sultan, and they had seen him

review his Baluchi and Persian troops at the head of whom was an English

ex-naval officer. Even the Fathers of the French Roman Catholic

settlement had a certain elemental Christianity he had never thought to

find in the followers of the Scarlet Woman....

[#] Dried coco-nut pulp.

The great British Balozi or Consul-General who had been the

unacknowledged ruler of Unguja had just left for home ... rumour said

because he could not get on with the aggressive Germans, who were

obtaining a hold over the country. They had paid their respects instead

to British authority in the person of a very uppish and sneering

Vice-Consul—Mr. Spencer Bazzard ... who had great doubts of the value of

Christianity so far as the negro was concerned. Mr. Bazzard, however,

was dead against the Germans and wanted as many British subjects as

possible to enter the interior behind the German coast so as to "queer

their pitch," if they attempted to put their "rotten protectorate," in

force.

Unguja, John wrote, was a wonderfully interesting island, despite its

horrible smells, its heat and mosquitoes, which never left you alone,

day or night. Such a mixture of Arabs and Persians, Indian traders,

fierce, long-haired Baluchis, plausible Goanese half-castes, Madagascar

people, Japanese and Chinese, and negroes from all parts of Africa....

He had already had a touch of fever and Bayley had broken out in boils;

Anderson had suffered from diarrhoea; but all three were overjoyed at

the prospect of leaving, soon after this letter was posted, in an Arab

"dhow" which would convey them and the porters of their expedition to

Lingani on the mainland, whence they would start on a two weeks’ journey

up-country. They were taking with them Snider rifles and ammunition to

defend their caravan against wild beasts on the road and also to shoot

game for the caravan’s meat supply. At Mr. Callaway’s advice they had

been practising with these rifles at the shooting butts of the Sultan’s

army for the past week.... Thomas had been told off for Taita....

Then ensued a long silence and Lucy, now thoroughly interested, was

getting anxious. But in January came a letter of many pages headed

"Hangodi, Ulunga, November, 1886." John wrote that he and his

companions had encountered many difficulties. On the fortnight’s march

inland from Lingani their porters had several times run away in alarm,

hearing that a bloodthirsty tribe called "Wahumba" were on the march, or

that there was famine ahead. The German traders on the coast had not

been friendly, and the attitude of the Arab chiefs in the coast-belt was

surly. However, one of these Arabs, Ali bin Ferhani, was a kindlier man

than the others and had told off some of his slaves (John feared they

were, but what could you do?) to carry their loads to the Ulunga

country. They also had with them a Christian convert, a native of

Ulunga and a released slave (Josiah Briggs) who could speak English to

some extent and was very useful as an interpreter and head man....

Well, they had reached Hangodi at last and liked its surroundings. There

were mountains—quite high ones—all round. Hangodi, itself, was over

three thousand feet above sea level and quite cool at nights. Indeed

John now regretted he had spurned the idea of mantel-borders, for they

had fireplaces in the dwelling-houses, both those already built and

those they were planning. A fire at night, in fact, was often welcome

and cheerful. The Chief approved of the settlement, wanted them to teach

his people, and keep off the "Wa-dachi," as he called the Germans, whom

he did not seem to like. But the Chief’s people, the Wa-lunga, were

suspicious and quarrelsome, and as he could not speak their language and

had to explain the Gospel through an interpreter, they paid him little

attention. The elders of the tribe liked to come and talk with him in

his verandah, that is to say, _they_ did the talking—punctuated by a

good deal of snuff-taking and spitting; and he gleaned what he could of

its sense from the summaries given to him by Josiah Briggs. It seemed

to consist of many questions as to how the white men became so rich and

why he could not teach this method to their young people. If he tried

to expound Sacred things to them they asked in return for a cough

medicine or to be shown how to make gunpowder and caps, and how to cure

a sick cow. Yet he felt sure their minds would be pierced ere long by a

gleam of Gospel light....

There were also some Muhammadan traders from the Coast settled for a

time with the Chief, who, he strongly suspected, was selling them

slaves, war-captives. Though the Chief seemed willing to listen to their

story of the Redeemer, he nevertheless sent out his "young men," his

warriors, on raiding expeditions against the tribes to the south, and

they sometimes returned from such forays with cattle, with men cruelly

tied with bush-rope and their necks fastened to heavy forked sticks, and

with weeping young women whom they took as wives.... The Wangwana, as

these black "Arabs" were called, were very hostile to his mission—more

so sometimes than the real Arabs. Occasionally he had met a

white-skinned Arab who reminded him most strongly of the Bible

patriarchs, and who seemed very desirous of being on friendly terms with

the white man. But these black Arabs who spoke Swahili, the language of

Unguja, though they affected outward politeness, were working hard

against the good influence of the East African Mission and trying to

persuade the Chief to reconsider his first grant of land and expel the

white people who were spies in the service of the great Balozi and the

English men-of-war, watching to intercept slave dhows....

The children of the Wa-lunga were frightened of him and his two

companions and could not be induced, even by gifts of beads, to sit on

their knees. But their mothers, on the other hand, worried the white

men incessantly for beads and calico, soap and salt, which last they ate

as though it was a sweetmeat. Yet they ran away when he sent for the

interpreter and tried to tell them about God. One woman had shouted

back at him that it was very wicked to talk about God; it would only

draw down the lightning ... much better leave God alone and then He left

you alone—this at least was how Josiah had translated her speech.

He could not see any idols about the place. He fancied the people

worshipped the spirits of the departed, which they believed to dwell in

large hollow trees. They were also terribly afraid of witch-craft....

Hangodi was, however, rather a pretty district, and Lucy would be

pleased with the site the Mission had chosen. Bayley, who had some

knowledge of surveying, made out its altitude above sea-level to be

3,500 feet, more or less. There was a clear stream of water running

through a gorge below the Mission enclosure—for they had constructed a

rough hedge. A few wild date palms might be seen in the stream valley

and there were plenty of pretty ferns and wild flowers.

As to lions; they could be heard roaring every night in the open

country, but hitherto he had not actually seen one. Then with a few

devout phrases and others expressive of his longing for her to join him

the letter came to a conclusion.

During all this time Lucy saw little of the Baines family. But a few

days after she had read this letter from Hangodi, Mr. Baines called on

Lucy at the school—it was at the beginning of February—and put into her

hands a copy of _Light to Them that Sit in Darkness_. "There’s a letter

in here of John’s which they’ve printed," said Mr. Baines with

considerable exultation, "and mother thought you might like to read it.

Mind you return the magazine to her when you’ve done so. Good-bye.

S’pose you are starting in a couple of months?"

Lucy found a column scored at the side with pencil, where the following

matter appeared:

BLESSED NEWS FROM EAST AFRICA

We have received the following intelligence from Brother John Baines,

who has recently joined the East African Mission:

HANGODI, NGURU,

_November_ 20, 1886.

MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON,—

We arrived here about a month ago after a pleasant stay with the

brethren at Unguja. We reached Hangodi in about two weeks of travel

from the port of Lingani, accompanied by Broth’s Anderson and Bayley,

and were greeted most warmly on arrival by Brothers Boley and

Batworth—the "busy B.’s," as they are called—who feared from the rumours

afloat that we should be stopped by native disturbances on the road. We

brought with us from Unguja Josiah Briggs, a convert who was originally

a freed slave from this very district of Hangodi. He has lived for five

years at our depôt in Unguja or at the Presbyterian Mission station at

Dombasi. He will be able to assist me materially as interpreter among

the Wa-lunga as Kagulu is his native tongue.

The journey from Lingani to Hangodi was rather a fatiguing one as the

donkeys we took with us to ride either fell sick poisoned by some herb,

or strayed and were eaten by lions. So we ended by having to walk. Our

Unguja porters ran away before we had got far inland, scared by rumours

of Wahumba raids or stories of the famine raging in the interior; but a

kindly Arab, who is supposed to have known Dr. Livingstone, came to our

assistance and sent a large number of his people to convey us and our

loads to Ulunga, as this district is called (the root—_lunga_—means the

"good" or the "beautiful" country, as indeed it will be, when it has

received the Blessed Gospel).

Mr. Goulburn, who is pioneering and is "spying out the land" to the

north, travelled with us as far as Gonja and then quitted us, after we

had prayed together in my tent. We turned south and continued our

journey to the Ulunga mountains with the Arab’s porters and guided by

Josiah Briggs.

The country became very hilly, and as it was the beginning of the rainy

season we had occasional violent thunder-storms and the streams were

difficult to cross. Fortunately, however, the early arrival of the

rains kept us from attacks on the part of the terrible roving tribes of

Masai or "Wahumba," who only seem to exist to raid and ravage their

agricultural neighbours, but who don’t like doing so in wet weather.

Moreover, they appreciate the springing up of the new green grass after

the drought and prefer taking their cattle—whom they worship—out to

graze. This new grass attracts to the district incredible herds of

antelopes and zebras and gives the lions and leopards such abundance of

food and occupation that they never deemed it worth their while to

attack our caravan, though during the dry season—the Arabs told us—you

could hardly get through the plains without losing a proportion of your

carriers from lions, leopards or hyenas. This early breaking of the

rainy season therefore seemed to us an act of special intervention on

the part of Divine Providence to ensure our safe arrival at our

destination. When we reached Hangodi we were hospitably received by the

Chief Mbogo, to whom Brother Batworth introduced us. Mbogo rules over

the district of Ulunga. He rejoiced greatly that we had come to teach

the Gospel and asked me many questions about the Christian faith. An

earnest spirit of inquiry prevails amongst all his people, who are

flocking to see us and who listen with rapt attention to my simple

exhortations delivered through the medium of Josiah. The Arab traders

at this place are very annoyed that an English missionary should settle

here and expose their wicked traffic in slaves, but I hope to be able to

frustrate their intrigues and induce the Chief to expel them. For that

reason I am working hard at the language with Josiah and with the

vocabularies I have obtained from Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Boley.

Many of the women in this place are eager to hear the blessed tidings

and bring their little ones with them while they listen spell-bound to

our teaching. I trust soon to have beside me one whose sweet duty it

will be to lead these poor sinful creatures into the way of Truth and

Life....

The building of the houses, school and chapel was commenced, as you

know, two years ago by Brothers Boley and Batworth, whom we relieved,

and who are going to Taita to perform similar work for Mr. Goulburn. In

completing the station we shall be our own architects, but Mr. Callaway

has sent us up two Swahili masons and a Goanese carpenter from Unguja.

Anderson is already doing a brisk business at our improvised store.

And now, dear Mr. Thompson, I remain in all Christian love,

Yours sincerely,

JOHN BAINES.

*CHAPTER V*

*ROGER’S DISMISSAL*

"So it is really settled, Roger, that you are to go out to that African

place with the violent name—something about ’gouging’ I know," said Lady

Silchester, one evening in the winter-spring of 1887.

She believed she was _enceinte_ and treated herself—and was being

treated—with the utmost consideration. Lord Silchester was transfused

with delight at the possibility of having a direct heir and promised

himself the delicious revenge of taunting those officious friends and

advisers who had taxed him with folly in marrying a woman thirty years

younger than himself. So she was lying on a couch in the magnificent

drawing-room of 6a Carlton House Terrace, clad in some anticipation of

the tea-gown. It was nine o’clock in the evening, and Roger Brentham

had been summoned to dine alone with her and her husband and talk over

his personal affairs. Lord Silchester would presently leave for the

House of Lords; meantime he was half listening to their conversation,

half absorbed in a volume of Cascionovo’s _Neapolitan Society in the

Eighteenth Century_ in its French edition.

Roger, with one eye and one ear on Lord Silchester, replied "Yes. Lord

Wiltshire has definitely offered me the appointment—through Tarrington,

of course—his Private Secretary; and equally definitely I’ve accepted

it. But technically it’s not Unguja, nothing so big. Unguja is an

Agency and Consulate-General and is still held by Sir James Eccles, who

is only at home on leave of absence. My post is a Consulate for the

mainland, for the part the German company is taking over. It is styled

’for the mainland of Zangia with residence at the port of Medina.’ It

is supposed the Germans are going to style their new protectorate

’Zangia,’ the old classical name of the Persians for that part of East

Africa."

Sibyl Silchester yawned slightly and concealed the yawn with her fan of

Somali ostrich plumes which Roger had given her. Lord Silchester put

down his book and turned suddenly towards Roger.

"How do you get on at the F.O.?"

"Oh, pretty well, sir," replied Roger, who still kept up his military

manners with older men in higher positions than his own. "Pretty well.

I’ve been working in the African Department all the autumn and I think

I’ve got the hang of things; I mean, how to conduct a Consulate and the

sort of policy we are to observe in East Africa. I’ve been down in

Kent, also, staying with Sir James Eccles and being indoctrinated by him

with the aims and ambitions he has been pursuing ever since 1866. He’s

a grand man! I hope they send him back. I should be proud to serve

under him. Of course, I saw something of him at Unguja in ’85-’86..."

"H’m, well, I’ve no business to express an opinion, but I much doubt

whether Wiltshire _will_ send him back—Wiltshire sets much value on good

terms with Germany, and Eccles is hated by the Germans...."

_Roger_: "I know.... They’ve told me I must try to maintain friendly

relations with our Teutonic friends, especially as I am to be, when the

Consul-General returns, ’on my own,’ so to speak, in the German sphere

of influence. Meantime I am to live at Unguja and ’act’ for the

Consul-General till he or some one else comes out. Awfully good of you,

sir, to get this chance for me ... it’s rare good luck to be going out

to act straight away for a man like Eccles.... I’ll try my utmost to do

you credit."

_Silchester_: "I don’t doubt you will. But don’t rely too much on my

personal influence. I’m only Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ... a

minister without portfolio, so to speak. Cultivate the friendship of

the permanent officials. Once you’re in—I mean once a Secretary of

State has given you the appointment, _they_ are the people who count. I

remember when I was in diplomacy there was rather an uppish young fellow

from the 11th Hussars who’d been somebody’s A.D.C. in the Abyssinian

War. Dizzy, to oblige ’somebody,’ shoved him into the Slave Trade

Commission. He took himself and his duties seriously and really did go

for the American slave-traders. An Under Secretary hauled him over the

coals for _trop de zèle_. Lord Knowsley supported him. The Under

Secretary sent for him afterwards and said, ’Remember this, Bellamy;

Lord Knowsley is not _always here_. WE ARE.’ And sure enough after

Knowsley left they found out something against him and ’outed’ him from

the service. Moral: always keep in with the permanent officials and

you’ll never fall out with the Secretary of State. Do you get on all

right with ’Lamps’?"

_Roger_: "Sir Mulberry? I scarcely ever see him. He’s much too big a

pot to take an interest in me. Besides, he’s keenest about the Niger

just now. No, I have mostly to do with Bennet Molyneux, who is head of

the Department; and I’m afraid I don’t care overmuch for him. I like

awfully the clerks in the Department except that they don’t take Africa

very seriously, think it all a joke, a joke bordering rather on boredom.

Still, they’re some of the jolliest fellows I know. It’s Molyneux I

can’t hit it off with, and they say in the Department it’s because I’ve

come in between some poor relation, some cousin of his he wants to push

on out there. He got him appointed a Vice-Consul a year or two back and

thought he was going to be asked to act for Eccles whilst he was on

leave. And now that Lord Wiltshire has said _I_ am to—I don’t doubt at

your suggestion, sir—Molyneux has turned quite acid. Especially when he

had to draft my instructions! I think also he didn’t like my setting him

right when I first came to work in the office. He wrote some minutes

about the Slave Trade and about the Germans which were the uttermost

rubbish you ever read, and he never forgave me for not backing him up at

a departmental committee they held—Sir Mulberry presided. And the mere

fact that Thrumball and Landsdell have been awfully kind to me and had

me to dine with them seems to have soured him. And when one day Lord

Wiltshire sent for me to answer some questions—Well, I thought

afterwards Molyneux would have burst with spleen. He threw official

reserve to the winds and walked up and down in his big room

raving—’_I’ve_ been in this office since 1869,’ he said, ’and I don’t

believe Lord Wiltshire knows me by sight. Yet he’s ready to send for

the veriest outsider if he thinks he can get any information out of him.

The Office is going to the dogs—and so on....’"

_Lord Silchester_: "Molyneux, Bennet Molyneux. I know him. Not a bad

fellow in some respects, but a bad enemy to make. He is a kind of

cousin of Feenix’s—Colonial Office, you know. Well, your fate is in

your own hands ... you must walk warily..." (at this a servant enters

and informs his lordship that the carriage is waiting) "I must be off.

Sibyl! you _won’t_ stay up late? Roger, don’t talk to her for more than

an hour. Good-bye. Of course, you’ll come and see us before you

actually sail?..." (goes out).

A pause.

_Sibyl_: "You may smoke now; but only a cigarette, not a cigar." (Roger

lights a cigarette.)

_Sibyl_: "What dear old Francis said was very good advice. Mind you

follow it. Get on the right side of these old permanencies. Whenever

Francis begins his instances and illustrations I feel what a perfect

book of reminiscences he will some day write. But, of course, it

wouldn’t do till he’s reached an age when he can no longer serve in the

Government.... I want him some day to be at the Foreign Office or at

least the India Office. I do so love the pomp of those positions, the

great parties in the season, the entertaining of delightful creatures

from the East with jewelled turbans...."

_Roger_ (a little abruptly): "Are you happy....?"

_Sibyl_ (turning her head and looking at him intently): "_Happy_? Why,

_of course_. _Perfectly_ happy. Everything has gone splendidly. And

now that I’m going to have a child.... I do hope it’ll be a boy.

Francis would be so happy. You quite realize if he has no heir the

peerage and all the entailed estates go away to some perfectly horrid

second cousin out in Australia...."

_Roger_: "In view of that possibility I wonder he did not marry years

ago, when he was a young man...."

_Sibyl_: "My dear! How _could_ he? He was a younger son and in the

diplomatic service with barely enough to live on, respectably. And then

he got tangled up with another man’s wife. He thinks I know nothing

about that side of him, but as a matter of fact I know everything. His

elder brother, the fifth Lord Silchester, was an awfully bad lot—treated

his wife very badly—they were separated and their only son was brought

up by his mother to be dreadfully goody-goody. Francis’s elder brother

died in Paris—I daresay you have heard or read where and how. It was

one of the closing scandals of the Second Empire. But then the

goody-goody son married after he succeeded—married a sister of Lord

Towcester. She was killed in the hunting field and her rather limp

husband died of grief afterwards, or of consumption, and Francis came

into the title rather unexpectedly five years ago. Then he was

embarrassed by his Darby and Joan attachment to Mrs. Bolsover.—However,

then _she_ died—and so—at last he felt free to marry....

"I met him first at a croquet party at Aldermaston Park. I saw _at

once_ he was struck with me.... However, we won’t go over the old

argument again which we talked out that day at Silchester.... D’you

remember? My ankles were so bitten by harvest-bugs after sitting on

those mounds, _I_ shan’t forget!..." (meditates).... "I’m much happier

than if I had married you.... My dear, that would _never_ have done....

But that need not prevent our being the _best_ of friends, the most

attached of cousins.... It’s a bore having a confinement in the Jubilee

year.... I’d meant to rival Suzanne Feenix in my entertainments.... But

if I give Silchester a boy, he will refuse me _nothing_.... And I mean,

as soon as I’m up and about again, to push him on. He’s rich—those

Staffordshire mines and potteries. He’s got _lots_ of ability, but he’s

too fond of leisure and isn’t quite ambitious enough. Complains of

being tired.... He’s only 57 ... but he much prefers spending the

evening at home and reading history and memoirs. Still, if Lord

Wiltshire gets overworked at the Foreign Office, Francis simply _must_

succeed him. He knows everything about foreign policy from A to Z,

after serving so many years in Vienna and Rome.... Well, dear old boy,

this is _really_ good-bye. Make good out there, and don’t make a fool

of yourself with some grass widow going out, or some fair

missionaryess.... I suppose some of them _are_ fit to look at? ... Play

up to the permanencies, and try to write some dispatch that’ll interest

Lord Wiltshire. Then Silchester may get a chance of putting his oar in

and have you shifted to a better post and a more healthy one. After

that _I’ll_ take a hand and marry you to some nice girl with a little

money.... I wonder whether you’ll feel lonely out there? But men never

are, so long as they can move about and get some shooting ... which

reminds me I want a _lot_ more leopard skins. Don’t mount them: I like

to choose my own colours——"

(Enter Lady Silchester’s maid.)

_Maid_: "My lady, before his lordship went out he said I was to remind

your ladyship about going to bed early, so I ventured..."

"Quite right, Sophie.... I’ll come up in one minute." (Exit maid.)

"By the bye, Roger, I ought to ask after the other cousins. How’s

Maud?" (Roger intimates that good old Maud’s all right.) "Maud is an

excellent creature; I’ve always said so, though in a sort of

tight-lipped way she’s never approved of me. Because she’s lost her own

complexion in field sports and parish work Maud suspects all other young

women of powdering and painting. And Geoffrey?"

"Geoffrey’s ship is coming back in May and then he ought to get some

leave; and to save your time, I might mention that Maurice will probably

be called to the bar in the autumn if he satisfies the Benchers; and as

to father, he’s more gone over to Rome than ever...."

"You mean Silchester?"

"Yes. The vicar there is as frantic a ’Romanist’ as he is, and together

they’ve had a rare old quarrel with the farmer who grows corn where you

got the harvest-bug bites, and objects to excavations. I think father

forgets at times he’s a nineteenth century Christian.... He is awfully

annoyed at the general opinion that Silchester only dates from Christian

times in Britain and that the Temple to Venus is really a Christian

church. That’s what comes from a Classical education.... Now I shall

get into a row with your spouse for keeping you up. Besides. You don’t

_really_ care for the others...."

_Sibyl_: "To be frank, I don’t. You were the only one that interested

me.... I ... well, then, Roger, this is the last good-bye but one..."

(extends her hand on which he imprints a kiss). "That’s quite enough

show of affection; Sophie might come back at any moment and forget we

are cousins. By the bye, it might be wise if you got some one—I dare

say Francis would—to introduce you to the Feenixes before you go. They

might serve to mitigate the hostility of Bennet Molyneux. Only don’t

fall in love with Suzanne and desert _me_! She’s got the Colonies, it’s

true, but I’m going to have the Foreign Office before you’re back....

You mark my words! Ta-ta! Coming, Sophie."

*CHAPTER VI*

*THE VOYAGE OUT*

Lucy said to herself she had never felt so miserable in her life as she

did during the first night on board the _Jeddah_, the British India

Co.’s steamer that was taking her to East Africa. She occupied one of

the upper berths in the cabins off the Ladies’ Saloon, in which there

were, as far as she could reckon, five or six other occupants, including

the stewardess, who passed her time alternately snoring on a mattress in

a coign off the main entrance and waiting on such of the ladies as were

sea-sick.

The _Jeddah_ was rolling about in a choppy sea oft the Downs. Lucy felt

a horrible sensation of nausea creep over her at times, and she clenched

her teeth to repress her inclination to vomit; for she was too shy to

call upon the much-occupied stewardess for assistance. The back of her

head throbbed with pain, her eyes were burning hot with unshed tears,

and her poor throat ached with suppressed sobs. Far worse than the

physical discomfort of sea-sickness was the intensity of her mental

agony, the bitterness of her unavailing regrets. She lay motionless in

her narrow bunk, gazing up at the ceiling which seemed almost to rest on

her face, and turned over in her memory ceaselessly and with minute

detail the events of the last three days: her farewell to home and

"darling" Aldermaston; her parting with mother on the platform at

Reading ... and father ... the flying journey to London, when she had

almost forgotten her grief in the excitement of seeing the metropolis;

her two days stay with Aunt Pardew, who with her husband kept Pardew’s

Family Hotel in Great Ormond Street. Then: the sight-seeing, the

shopping, the visit to the offices of the East African Mission. Here

she had received her saloon passage ticket in the _Jeddah_, and twenty

pounds in bright sovereigns for her out-of-pocket expenses by the way.

The Secretary had spoken to her so kindly and earnestly that she had

felt ashamed of her indifference to the real work of converting black

people.

The Secretary, however, had said one thing that somehow perturbed her.

He had mentioned that a sweet-natured young woman from her

neighbourhood—Sister Jamblin—might also be going to their Mission in

East Africa—by the next boat. He thought this would cheer Lucy up;

instead of which it annoyed her greatly.... Then came the early rising

on what seemed like her execution morning; the hasty breakfast,

interrupted with trickling tears and nose-blowing on Aunt Pardew’s—Aunt

Ellen’s—part, as well as hers.... Aunt Ellen was so like darling

mother—and yet—it wasn’t mother—...

And the long rattle through dirty and dirtier streets in a four-wheel

cab with the rest of her luggage on top. The arrival on board the

steamer in the docks, where everything was noisy, hurried, and confused

with preparations for departure.... Only this morning! Only some twelve

hours since she had taken leave with despairing hugs of Aunt Ellen!

Why, it seemed at least a month ago. And only three days since she had

seen her mother!...

When she mentally uttered the word "mother," she lost control over

herself and gave vent to a convulsive choking sob..

"Would you oblige me," exclaimed a peevish voice from the berth below,

"by calling for the stewardess to bring you a basin if you have any

inclination to be sick? It would be much better than trying to keep it

back and making those disagreeable clicking noises in your throat.

Excuse me for remarking it, but it is really most distressing, and it

fidgets me so I can hardly get to sleep. You really suffer _much_ more

by endeavouring to repress sea-sickness than by giving way _at once_ and

having it over...." This the speaker added because she had just given

way herself—eruptively—and was now resting from her labours. Lucy was

so startled and overawed by this unexpected interruption to her thoughts

that she made no answer; but lay quite silent with flushing cheeks and

beating heart. "It must be the tall, thin lady," she thought to

herself, "I didn’t remember she was so close."

Then her thoughts turned to her fellow-passengers. As far as she had

ascertained, there were only nine besides herself: five ladies, two

Roman Catholic priests or missionaries, and two men, one of whom was a

Captain Brentham going out to Unguja, where he was to be Consul.

So, at least, she had heard the pink-cheeked lady say, rather tossing

her head when she said it. Her aunt had timidly accosted two of the

ladies before leaving the steamer. She had asked them with a redundancy

of polite phrases to take Lucy under their protection as far as they

might be travelling together. One of them was tall and thin, with a

large bony face and cold grey eyes—a little suggestive of Mrs. Baines

(Lucy thought); the other was pretty, though the expression of her face,

even when she smiled and showed all her white teeth, was somehow rather

insincere. But she had the most lovely complexion Lucy had ever seen.

It was perfect: very pink in the middle of the cheeks and the palest

blush tint over the rest of the face and neck. Her eyes were a dark

blueish grey, with very black rims; and her hair a rich golden brown.

Lucy was so much fascinated by her appearance and stared at her with

such unconscious persistence while her aunt was talking, that at last

the pink-cheeked lady encountered her steady gaze with a look of haughty

surprise which caused Lucy to lower her eyes.

Neither lady responded very cordially to Mrs. Pardew’s deferential

request. The tall thin one had said she was only going as far as

Algiers, but asked if Lucy was "a Church person" because the East

African Mission, she had heard, was run by Methodists. The pretty lady,

whose attire Lucy was again scanning with attention, because it was in

the latest fashion, had looked at her with rather more interest and

said: "Going out to marry a missionary? Well, I can’t say I envy your

experiences. It must be a wretched life up-country, from all I hear.

We shall travel together as far as Unguja, but I can’t offer to act as

your chaperon. It is very likely my husband may marry you when you get

there. I mean—" (seeing Lucy’s look of dismay)—"he is the ’marriage’

officer there at present, unless Captain Brentham is to deprive him of

_that_ privilege, also"—(here she had given a bitter laugh).... "If you

feel lonely at any time on the voyage you may come and chat with me ...

occasionally; though I can’t tell you very much about Africa as I have

never been there before."

Slowly the night wore away. Lucy as she lay awake stifled her regrets

by vowing that when the steamer called at Plymouth she would instantly

leave it and return home to her parents, and write to John telling him

she was not fitted to be a missionary’s wife. He would soon get over

his disappointment as Ann Jamblin was going out by the next steamer.

_She_ would marry him like a shot....

In the small hours of the morning the sea calmed down and the ship

rolled less. The passenger who had suffered most from sea-sickness—a

poor tired-looking woman, mother of too many children—ceased to retch

and groan and sank into exhausted repose. Even Lucy at last wove her

troubled thoughts into dreams, but just as she had dreamt that _this_

was only a dream and that in reality she was embracing her mother in a

transport of happiness, she awoke with tears wet on her face and saw the

cabin lit up with garish daylight streaming through the now open

skylight. A fresh, exhilarating breeze was sweeping through the stuffy

saloon and chasing the nasty odour of sea-sickness. She sat up in her

bunk and gazed blankly round, trying to realize the difference between

dreamland and reality.

"Would ye like a bath, Miss?" said the stewardess, a coarse-looking but

kind-hearted Irishwoman, never quite free from a suspicion of spirit

drinking: "Would ye like a bath? Becase if so, ye’d betther follow Mrs.

Bazzard."

"I—I—don’t know ... well, yes, I think I will," replied Lucy, wondering

who Mrs. Bazzard was ... didn’t the name come into John’s letters? Just

then the door leading out of the saloon towards the bathroom opened and

presumably Mrs. Bazzard entered the Ladies’ quarters, carrying towels

and robed in a white lace-trimmed _peignoir_, and with her hair roughly

piled on the top of her head and a lank fringe parted to either side.

"Why, it must be the lady with the beautiful complexion," Lucy was

saying to herself, when she saw on nearer approach that the rosy cheeks

and blush tints had disappeared, and that the incomer, though otherwise

resembling her acquaintance of yesterday, yet had a pale face,

colourless and sad. "Poor thing!" thought Lucy, "_how_ she must have

suffered last night." And so great was her compassion that it overcame

her shyness, and she was about to condole with the lady, when Mrs.

Bazzard swept by her abruptly without recognition.

When her toilet was finished, she felt ill-at-ease among the uncongenial

inmates of the Ladies’ Saloon, and they directed towards her at times a

look of hatred as at one who was prying into the mysteries of their

clothing and bedizenment; so acting on the advice of the stewardess "to

get up a bit of appetite," she staggered along the corridor and climbed

the slippery brass-bound stairway till she reached the upper-deck. Here

she sank on to the nearest seat and derived her first pleasurable

sensation on board the steamer from inhaling the sea-scented breeze in

the sunshine of April. It was indeed a fine morning, one of the first

emphatic days of spring. The sky was a pale azure in the zenith and

along the northern horizon a thin film of pinkish mist veiled the

distant line of coast. A man cleaning the brasswork told Lucy they were

passing the Isle of Wight; yonder was Bournemouth and presently she

would see Portland Bill looming up.

A tall man, smoking a cheroot, was gazing in the direction of Portland

Bill. Presently he turned round in Lucy’s direction, looked at her

rather hard then began pacing the deck. "That," she reflected, "must be

Captain Brentham, who lectured at Reading on that snow mountain....

_How_ extraordinary! And he must be the man Mrs. ... Mrs. ... Bazzard

said was to marry me to John when I arrived." She raised her eyes and

they met his. On his next turn in walking the deck he paused

irresolute, then raising his cap said: "Are you the young lady from my

part of the country who is going out to Unguja to be married? The

Captain told me about you—unless I have made some mistake and ought to

be addressing another lady."

"I think it must be me," said Lucy. "I ... I’ve heard you lecture once

at Reading. You’re a friend of Lord Silchester’s, aren’t you? My

father is one of his tenants. We live at Aldermaston." Her voice

trembled a little in pronouncing the name of the place she now loved—too

late—beyond any other.

"Aldermaston—_of course_ I know it, known it from boyhood. I rode over

there several times last year to see my cousins, the Grayburns. One of

them married Lord Silchester last July, and that’s why I stayed at

Englefield and gave the Reading lecture.... So you came and heard it?"

"I did; because, as I was going out to marry a missionary, I thought I

ought to learn something about East Africa. Your ... your lecture made

me want to go—awfully.... That wonderful mountain, those clumps of

palms, the river and the hippopotami—or was it a lake?"

"Well, you’ll see lots of such things if you are going up-country. Whom

are you going to marry and where is he stationed?"

"Mr. John Baines, the East African Mission, Ulunga...."

"Oh" (rather depreciatively), "Nonconformist, Plymouth Brethren, or

something of the kind. Now I think of it I went to a big meeting of

theirs last year soon as I came back. Yes, _I_ remember. They’re a

trading and industrial mission some distance inland, in the British as

well as the German sphere ... good sort of folk, though their mouths are

full of texts ... but they took me in once when I was half dead with

fever and nursed me back to health. And I liked the way they set to

work to make the best of the country and the people.... But it will be

awfully rough for you; you don’t look cut out for what they have to go

through. I should have thought the Anglican Mission more your style,

if, indeed, you went out as a Missionary at all."

He wished to add, "You’re much too pretty," but restrained himself.

Just then the breakfast gong sounded and they went down to the Dining

Saloon. Brentham rather masterfully strode to near the top of the long

table as though knowing he was the most important person on board, and

placed himself next but one to the Captain’s seat and Lucy on his right,

with a wink at the same time to the Chief Steward as though to say "Fix

this arrangement."

A moment after another lady with gold hair and a dazzling complexion

glided up and nimbly took the seat on Brentham’s left hand. The Captain

was absent and intimated that they needn’t expect him till the _Jeddah_

was away from Plymouth and out of the Channel. The other lady

passengers were breakfasting in the Ladies’ Saloon. As soon as they

were seated and porridge was being offered, the lady on Brentham’s left

introduced herself as the wife of a colleague: "My husband is Spencer

Bazzard, the Vice-Consul at Unguja—I dare say you’ve heard about him at

the F.O.? He’s a friend of that dear Bennet Molyneux’s, to whom we’re

both _devoted_.... _Such_ a grasp of African affairs, don’t you think

so? My husband already knows Unguja through and through. I’m sure

he’ll be glad to put you up to the ropes. I’ve never been there before.

Spencer thought he ought to go out first and make a home for me, so I’ve

been a forlorn grass widow for over a year. However, we shall soon be

reunited. And I understand we’re to look on you as our chief till the

Consul-General returns. Spencer’s been Sir James’s right-hand man.

Thank you. Toast, please. No, I won’t take butter: it looks so odd.

Like honey! Ugh!"

After breakfast, Brentham escorted Lucy to the upper-deck, got her a

folding chair and secured it in a sheltered corner, made her

comfortable, lent her a novel and a rug, and then resumed his pacing of

the deck or occasional study of a language book—he was trying, he told

Lucy, to master Swahili by doing Steere’s exercises in that harmonious

tongue. Mrs. Bazzard commandeered a steward and a deck-chair and

established herself close to Lucy with a piece of showy embroidery,

bought at Liberty’s with half the embroidery done. In a condescending

manner she set herself to pump Lucy about Brentham.... Did she know him

well? Didn’t she think him good-looking? Mrs. Bazzard thought of the

two her husband was the finer-looking man. He had longer moustaches and

they were a golden brown, like Mrs. Bazzard’s hair; he wasn’t perhaps

_quite_ so tall; but _how_ she was looking forward to reunion with him.

He was a paragon of husbands, one of the Norfolk Bazzards. His elder

brother, a person of great legal acumen, had from time to time tendered

advice of signal value to Mr. Bennet Molyneux.... It was thus they had

got "in" with the Foreign Office, and if Mrs. Bazzard were not pledged

to inviolable secrecy (because of Spencer’s career) there were things

she knew and things she could tell about Lord Wiltshire’s intentions

regarding Africa—and Spencer.... However.... Did Miss—she begged

pardon—she had not caught Lucy’s name.... Josselin? any connexion of

Sir Martin Josselin? Oh, _Josling_.... Did Miss Josling come from

Captain Brentham’s part of the country? Not a relation? No, of course

not.... Well, did she think him clever? Some—in the Foreign

Office—regarded him as _superficial_. It was his good looks that had

got him on, and the friendship of a great lady ... but then _what_

scandal-mongers _men_ were! And _how_ jealous of one another! Mrs.

Bazzard’s husband had got _his_ commission through sheer, outstanding

ability, yet at the time people said the most _horrid_ things, both of

him and her.... But Lord Wiltshire had remained unshaken, knowing

Spencer’s value; and undoubtedly held him in view for a very important

post in Africa as soon as he should have inducted Captain Brentham into

his duties.

Lunch came in due course and was eaten in better appetite by most of the

passengers. It was served with coarse plenty, on a lower-middle-class

standard of selection and cuisine.

It was a sunny afternoon when the _Jeddah_ anchored in Plymouth harbour.

The passengers were informed they might spend four hours on shore, so

Captain Brentham proposed to Lucy and to Mrs. Bazzard that he should

take them under his escort and give them their last chance of eating a

decent dinner at an English hotel. Mrs. Bazzard accepted with a gush of

thanks and a determination to commence a discreet flirtation with the

acting Consul-General, who was undoubtedly a handsome man. Lucy

assented simply to the proposition. She was still a little dazed in the

dawn of her new life. But as she went off with the others in the tug

she put aside as an unreasonable absurdity any idea of flight to the

railway station and a return home. It was a great stay to her

home-sickness that there should be on board some one she knew who almost

shared her home country, who had actually met people she had met, and

who would carry this home knowledge out with him to the same region in

Africa as that she was going to. This removed the sting of her regret

and remedied her sense of utter friendlessness in the wilds. Was he not

actually to be _her_ Consul?

These reflections caused her to sit down in the Hotel Writing Room,

whilst dinner was being got ready, and Mrs. Bazzard was titivating, and

dash off a hasty letter to "dearest mother" informing her of the

brighter outlook. Her mother, overjoyed at this silver lining to the

cloud of bereavement, spread the news; and so it reached Englefield,

where Lord Silchester was spending the Easter recess. He retailed it to

Sibyl ... who stamped her foot on the library carpet and said: "_There_!

_Didn’t_ I predict it? I _said_ he’d fall in love with a

missionaryess!"

"And why not, my love?" replied Lord Silchester. "What if he does?"

A little tossing on the Bay of Biscay sent Mrs. Bazzard to her cabin,

and made more scanty the public attendance at meals. But Lucy proved as

good a sailor as Brentham, and a great solace to him. For he had his

unacknowledged home-sickness too. You could not spend nine months in

the best of English country life and the most interesting aspects of

London without a revulsion of feeling when you found yourself cut off

from all communication with those scenes of beauty, splendour and

absolute comfort, and before high ambition had been once more aroused,

and the unexplored wilderness had again beckoned her future ravisher.

Lucy might be merely a farmer’s daughter, a little better educated than

such usually were at that period, still an unsophisticated country chit

(as Mrs. Bazzard had already summed her up to the tall thin lady); yet

she could talk with some slight knowledge about the Silchesters—her

mother had been maid to Lord Silchester’s mother, and her father was

Lord Silchester’s tenant. Colonel Grayburn was—or tried to be—a

gentleman farmer within a mile of Lucy’s home; she had seen Sibyl

occasionally during the three years in which the Grayburns had lived in

Aldermaston parish. Lucy had never been so far afield as Farleigh

Wallop, but she knew Reading, Mortimer, Silchester, Tadley, and even

Basingstoke. Merely to mention names like these consoled them both as

the steamer ploughed her twelve knots an hour through the "roaring

forties."

And when the _Jeddah_ turned into the Mediterranean, with a passing view

of the Rock of Gibraltar, and entered upon calm seas, blue and dazzling,

their _camaraderie_ increased under Mrs. Bazzard’s baleful gaze and

interchange of eyebrow-raisings with the thin bony-nosed lady of Lucy’s

cabin.

The _Jeddah_ anchored off Algiers. The thin lady, who here passes out

of the story—-I think she was the wife of a British Chaplain—had invited

Mrs. Bazzard to lunch with her on shore. Mrs. Bazzard had hastened to

accept the invitation, the more willingly since Captain Brentham seemed

to have forgotten her existence; except at meal times, when he was

obliged to pass the mustard and the sugar. Brentham and Lucy went off

together into the picturesque white city, rising high into the

half-circle of the hills. They lunched at the Café des Anglais and

dined at an hotel near the quay. They climbed the ladder-like streets

of the Arab quarter, bought useless trifles, and had a drive out into

the country which was gay with genista in full bloom, with red-purple

irises and roses, and dignified by its hoary olives, sombre cypresses

and rigid palms.

If Lucy had never been so miserable as she was nine days previously, she

had probably never felt so happy as now. Certainly she had never looked

so pretty. Her violet eyes had a depth of colour new to them; her brown

hair a lustre and a tendency to curl in the little strands and wisps

that escaped control about her forehead. Her cheeks, ordinarily pale,

and her milk-white complexion generally were suffused with a wild rose

flush and a warmth of tint caused by the quickened circulation. The sea

air and the sunshine chased away the languor that had accompanied a

sedentary life. She had not been unobservant, and had taken several

hints in costume from Mrs. Bazzard’s dress. She had tightened this,

expanded that, cut short skirts that might have flopped, diminished a

bustle, inserted a frill, and adapted herself to the warmth of the

tropics without losing grace of outline or donning headgear of repellent

aspect.

At Port Said he already called her "Lucy," and she saw nothing in it

that she mightn’t accept, a permissible brotherliness due to country

associations and the position of guardian, protector that he had

assumed. He showed her those sights of Port Said that need not shock a

modest girl. They sat side by side to enjoy the thrill with which the

unsophisticated then passed through the Suez Canal. One woman passenger

had left the ship at Port Said; another at Suez. There only remained

the third one—the mother of many babies—changing at Aden into a Bombay

boat—besides Mrs. Bazzard and herself in the Ladies’ Saloon. The two

missionary priests told their breviaries, gave at times a pleasant smile

to her pretty face, and concerned themselves no more with her affairs

than if she had been an uncriticizable member of the crew. They were

Belgians going out for a life’s work to Tanganyika, and to them the

Protestant English and their ways were unaccountable by ordinary human

standards. The captain of the ship had known Captain Brentham in the

Persian Gulf and had the utmost confidence in his uprightness. What

more reasonable to suppose than that this girl had been placed under his

charge, inasmuch as it was he who would be the official to register her

marriage when she met her missionary betrothed at Unguja?

Nor had Brentham any but the most honourable intentions. He felt

tenderly and pitifully towards Lucy, carrying her country prettiness and

innocency into savage Africa, embarking on a life of unexpected

frightfulness, unspeakable weariness, of monotony, varied by shocks of

terror, by sights of bloodshed and obscenity that might thrill or

titillate a strong man, but must inevitably take the bloom off a woman’s

mind. He even thought, once or twice, of dissuading her from completing

the contract, yet shrank from the upset this would entail. Perhaps she

really liked this missionary chap? From the description she gave he

didn’t seem so bad—he was tall and strong and seemingly a man of his

hands, with a turn for carpentry, and was the Agent of a very practical

Mission. If she recoiled from this marriage, what was she going to do?

It was impossible to think of her remaining at Unguja "on her own," and

if he sent her back to England at his own expense her parents might

resent very strongly his interference. There was his own career to be

thought of ... and Sibyl.... To a woman like Lucy a marriage with most

men of her class, or below it, or immediately above it, would come with

rather a shock. She was so marriageable, so marked out as a man’s prey

that she was bound to go through it some day. Then, when she was

married, she would live more or less in his Consular district, and he

could keep an eye on her without being unduly attentive. Perhaps Mrs.

Ewart Stott was still settled in the Zigula country of the German sphere

... _she_ might help her. Very likely she would be able to stick her

three years of residence which the Mission generally stipulated for and

then return to England.—What a lark if they both went home together and

compared experiences?

He might have revolutionized East African affairs in that space of

time...

He was quite unconscious that in the two-to-three weeks of their close

association on board he had won Lucy’s love to such an extent that she

was growing slowly to look upon the end of the voyage and the meeting

with John as a point of blackness, the entrance to a dark tunnel....

Meantime, without assuming a forwardness of demeanour which her

upbringing discountenanced and the watchfulness of Mrs. Bazzard forbade,

she accepted all he gave her voluntarily of his society. The Red Sea

was kind to them at the end of April: clear cobalt skies, purple waves,

a cool breeze against them, no steamy mist in the atmosphere, and

occasional views of gaunt mountains or bird-whitened rocks and islands.

They sat in their chairs and talked: talked of everything that came into

Lucy’s mind. She put to his superior wisdom a hundred enigmas to

answer, which her mind was now able to formulate with an aroused

imagination.

"You say you approve of missionaries, yet you seem to dislike religion;

you tried to get out of attending the Sunday service in the Saloon, and

you looked very angry when the Captain asked you to read the Lessons.

Don’t you believe in _anything_ then?"

"You’ll find, Lucy"—Brentham would reply—"that the word ’believe’ is

very much abused. You may ’think’ of such and such a thing as probable,

as possible, as desirable—often, indeed, the wish is father to the

thought. But to imagine it, is not to believe in it; in the same way in

which we are compelled by irresistible conviction to believe in some

fact or consequence or event, whether we like it or not. We can only

’believe’ what can be tested by the evidence of our senses, by some

incontestable piling up of evidence or record of historical facts....

Beyond that there are probabilities and possibilities and suppositions.

I can believe the fire would burn my finger if I put it in the flame; or

that the earth goes round the sun and that the moon is more or less

240,000 miles away from the earth: because my senses or my reason

convince me of the truth of these facts. I can believe that you’re a

very dear little girl seated next me in a deck-chair on a steamer going

out to East Africa: because I can put such a belief to some conclusive

test of the senses. But I can’t in the same way ’believe’ in most of

what are called ’religious truths,’ because they are only suppositions,

guesses, tentative explanations which have lost their value ... indeed,

have lost their interest. I can’t therefore waste my time on such——"

"But," Lucy stammered, "the Bible?"

"Just so: the Bible. How many of you stop to think what the Bible is?

A collection of comparatively ancient writings in Hebrew and in Greek,

very beautifully translated into Shakespeare’s English, with lots of

gaps filled up by suggested words and even—as we now think—lots of words

and phrases wrongly translated. The Hebrew books may have first been

written down at any time between six hundred and one hundred years B.C.;

and the New Testament between fifty and a hundred-and-fifty years after

Christ—at any rate in the form in which we know them. The original texts

were uttered or written by men who only knew a small part of the

Mediterranean world, who thought the earth was flat and the rest of the

Universe only an arched dome over the earth. Job may have had grander

conceptions, but the early Christian writers were ignorance embodied.

They were ready to believe anything and everything to be a miracle, and

to invent the most preposterous fairy stories to account for commonplace

facts. At the same time they often overlooked the beauty and simplicity

and practical value of Christ’s teaching and also the fact that a good

many of his..."

"_What_ an abstruse conversation," said Mrs. Bazzard, breaking in out of

the star-lit darkness on Roger’s disquisitions. She hung about them in

the Red Sea, especially after dark, and had a tiresome way of suddenly

making her presence known. Perhaps, however, it was just as well, and,

indeed, though Roger was annoyed at the moment at having his eloquent

thinking aloud interrupted—because in such monologues we are generally

trying to convince ourselves as well as our auditory—he also felt some

relief at the excuse for dropping the argument. _Why on earth_ should

he undermine Lucy’s stereotyped beliefs? What could he give her—in the

life she was going to lead, too—in place of them?

But the discussion was revived ever and again by Lucy’s persistent

questions. She elicited from him in general that although he approved

of the material results of missionary work and the ethics generally of

Christianity, he mocked at creeds, thought prayer futile—especially the

fossilized prayers of Judaism, Protestant and Catholic Christianity,

because they were inapposite to our present age, bore little relation to

our complicated sorrows and needs, our new crimes, difficulties,

agonies, and temptations. He found the Psalms, all but two or three,

utterly wearisome in their tedious woes and waitings, aches and pains

probably due to too carnivorous a dietary; untempting in their

ideals—"more bullocks for the altar ... and the fat of rams...." Then

our hymns—all but three or four—were gross or childish in their imagery,

abject in their attitude to a Cæsar or a Sultan of a God, who all the

time watched inflexibly the Martyrdom of Man and the ruthless processes

of Nature without lifting a finger to stay the cyclone or the epidemic

... and so on.... His views were very much modelled on those of Winwood

Reade and on Burton’s gibes at "Provvy" (Lucy shuddered at the

irreverence and expected a meteor to cleave the ship in two), and he had

brought out with him from England Cotter Morrison’s "_Service of Man_."

Lucy sometimes felt so shocked at his negations that she resolved to

speak with him no more, but to apply herself to the study of the Swahili

Grammar he had lent her. Then at the sight of him and at his morning

greeting and the kindly companionship at meals, she could not remain

aloof. At any rate, he had said that you ought to act as a Christian

even if you could not swallow Christian theology. That was a great

admission. And he seemed to have numerous friends among the

missionaries at Unguja and in the interior, which would hardly be the

case if he were a bad man.... Besides, his father was a clergyman.

Aden came as a welcome surcease to these discussions. It was concrete

and indisputable, and of remarkable interest when interpreted by a

Brentham.... Steamer Point with its crowds of Indian and British

soldiers, Jews with ringlets and tall caps selling ostrich plumes,

Somalis like Greek gods in ebony offering strange skins, skulls, and

horns for sale, and ostrich eggs; the drive—in a jingling carriage over

sandy roads, past red-black crags on one side, with an intensely

ultramarine sea on the other—to the Arab town; the vast cisterns, the

rich vegetation at the cisterns; and then, after an interval of

absolutely sterile rock-gorges (vaguely suggestive of the approach to

Aladdin’s cave in the _Arabian Nights_), a sea-side ravine with an

unexpected flora of aloes, euphorbias, mesembryanths, and acacias....

Even Mrs. Bazzard, with her Bayswater mind, was momentarily impressed by

Brentham’s pleasantly imparted knowledge of all these things. You never

noticed how extraordinary they were until he pointed it out. She was

for the time being conciliated by his having invited her to accompany

Lucy on the day’s excursion and by the generous way in which he stood

treat and presented her, as well as Lucy, with ostrich feather fans and

amusing gewgaws made from sea-shells.

After Aden the sky clouded; metaphorically, with the coming end of this

wonderful episode in Lucy’s life, materially with some tiresome

manifestations of the monsoon. I forget whether it blew behind and left

the _Jeddah_ wallowing in the trough of great indigo waves and rolling

drearily; or blew against her progress, causing her to progress like a

rocking-horse. But it imparted a storminess, a sense of exasperated

emotion to this pair of lovers—as they were, unadmittedly. Fortunately,

it also made the footing of Mrs. Bazzard’s high-heeled Bayswater shoes

uncertain on the unstable deck, so she relaxed her watchful spying on

their conversations. Lucy was alternately silent and wistful and almost

noisily vivacious, with hands that shook as they passed a tea-cup. She

had begun to realize that in five or six more days the voyage would end

in her meeting John as an ardent bridegroom; that she would never belong

to Roger, she would pass out of his life as swiftly as she had entered

it, be at most a pleasant and amusing memory of a half-ignorant little

person with whom he had spent good-naturedly much of his time on a long

sea voyage.

Roger on his part, in smoking-room reflections would feel he had gone

much too far—compromised her, perhaps played a rather foolish part

himself, for a man with high ambitions. There was that bitch of a

woman, that quintessence of a Bayswater boarding-house, Mrs. Bazzard,

wife of a—rotter, probably—whose nose he had put out of joint. She was

capable—and and to conciliate her and win her over would be degrading—of

putting any construction on his flirtation. How, at such times, before

turning in, or even while playing whist in the Captain’s cabin and

thinking of anything but the game, he would _curse_ these long steamer

voyages and these episodes of love! There was that voyage out in

1880—he had narrowly missed a breach of promise action then, and he

would be hanged if he’d set out to be more than sociable. And the last

time he had returned to England ... Mrs. Traquhair, the wife of the

chief electrician at Unguja.... Only the fact that in the Mediterranean

she had developed one of those Rose Boils which were a legacy of

Unguja’s mosquitoes, and which confined her to her cabin till the Bay of

Biscay (when they were all sea-sick), had prevented the irrevocable.

And all the time he believed himself engaged to Sibyl! And afterwards,

when he had met Mrs. Traquhair and her sister—_and_ the sister! Oh my

God,—in London and had dined them at the "Cri." and taken them to see

Arthur Roberts from a box, and had scanned Mrs. T.’s profile as he had

never done before and watched her laugh at the comedian, showing all the

gold in her teeth ... he asked himself _how on earth_ he could have

kissed her so passionately as they were passing through the Suez Canal.

Yet she couldn’t have been a bad sort because she had never attempted to

bother him or follow it up.... But he couldn’t class Lucy with Mrs.

Traquhair or the siren of the 1880 voyage. She was utterly good and

innocent of schemes to entrap him. A sweet little thing...

As they passed into the Indian Ocean between Guardafui and Sokotra,

there was a temporary lull in the wind. It was a moonlight night; they

were sitting side by side under the open sky, for the deck-awning had

been removed on account of the monsoon. A sudden fierce longing—there

was no one on deck that he could see—seized him to take her in his arms

and kiss her. And there came a telepathic message that she was aching

to be so taken and kissed. But he resisted the impetus, with clenched

hands on the arms of his chair. Silence had set in between them. A

catch of Lucy’s breath was faintly audible, and—dare I say it? A

snivel, a tiny snivel.

"_Lucy_? _Crying_? My _dear_ child! Why ... cheer up. We shall soon

be there.. You’re not cold?"

"You don’t understand.... I ... I ... don’t _want_ to get there.... I

don’t want to marry him; I _hate_ the very idea...."

"Oh, but this will never do.... This is foolishness, believe me. Lucy!

Pull yourself together."

Lucy now sobbed frantically.

Mrs. Bazzard was heard saying from quite close by, "Which is Gyuardifwee

and which is what-you-may-call-’em—Ras Hafoon? I mean, the cape where

some of the steamers run ashore in the mist, and then you have to walk

through Somaliland and get sunstroke?"

Brentham exclaimed under his breath: "_Damn_ that woman!" and audibly,

even a little insolently replied: "I’m _blessed_ if I know. You’d

better ask the Captain. He’s on the bridge and dying for a gossip, and

he’ll probably give you a cup of cocoa."

Mrs. Bazzard walked away—or pretended to do so.

"Lucy dear. I want to speak to you while that cat has gone out of

ear-shot. Calm yourself and listen, because I must speak in a low tone.

If you feel you would sooner die than go through with this marriage, you

shan’t be forced into it. I will speak to Archdeacon Gravening ... or

the Bishop ... and they will know of some nice women of the Anglican

Mission who would take you in for a few weeks ... till there is a return

steamer.... Then on the plea of ’health’ you can go back to England. I

could easily advance the money for the steamer passage ... some day your

parents could repay me. But even if they didn’t, it doesn’t matter. I

do so want you to be _happy_.... I blame myself awfully for the silly

things I’ve said to you ... about religion ... it may have made you

dislike mission work...."

But Lucy sobbed out "It hadn’t ... that she was a little fool and he

mustn’t take any notice ... she’d never, _never_ behave like this again

... after his extraordinary kindness too, which she would always be

grateful for. He mustn’t think any more about it or ever refer to it

again...."

And before he could say anything more, or that cat, Mrs. Bazzard,

return, she slipped down to her cabin, where fortunately she was alone

and could cry her fill without attracting attention. But as she lay on

the bunk, she set her teeth and resolved, come what may, she would _not_

put thousands of miles between her and ... "Roger" ... she mentally

uttered the name. Better to live within a few hundred miles of where he

was and sometimes see and hear him. Why ... _Why_ ... did he not ask

her to marry him? Yes, and ruin his career. What would they all say at

Unguja ... and _John_? ... Poor John! what a shock it would be to him.

There was the note he had sent to greet her at Aden, to the address of

the steamer agent. She had opened it, but not read it through, so

infatuated was she with Brentham just then.... The next morning Lucy

breakfasted in the Ladies’ Saloon, pleading sea-sickness. Later on, she

went to the upper-deck, but armed herself with the Swahili Grammar, a

defence against a Brentham who purposely stayed away, talking with the

Captain, and none against Mrs. Bazzard, who pestered her with inquiries

as to her "headache," expressing the quotation marks in her tone.

Relations however became more normal all round the day after that. In

two more days they had anchored off Lamu. Lucy saw two low islands,

with hazy forest country on the distant mainland. Lamu island had low

sandhills projecting into the sea, and on one of them was an obelisk or

pillar which Captain Brentham said was an important historical monument

erected by the Portuguese nearly four hundred years before. The two

women were eager to land and see East Africa for the first time. They

went ashore with him in the Vice-Consul’s boat; for there was a

Vice-Consul here who had been expecting Brentham’s visit and was

delighted to find two English ladies invading his solitude. They saw,

when they landed, masses of vague masonry, the remains of Portuguese or

Arab forts, and a litter of human skulls and bones on the beach at which

they both shrieked in simulated horror. These might have been the

results of the last Somali raid, or of slaves who had died on the shore

unshipped, owing to the vigilance of British cruisers, or even have

dated back to the expulsion of the Portuguese by the Arabs two hundred

years before. The town of Lamu was a two miles’ walk along the sandy

shore from the point, where they had landed, but the sight of the

extraordinary coloured, blue, red, and green crabs that scuttled and yet

threatened with uplifted claws, and of the natives who accompanied them

in a laughing rabble, some clothed to the heels, others practically

naked, relieved the tedium of the journey. The smells from the

precincts and the heart of Lamu town were so awful as to be interesting.

The strongest—from rancid shark’s liver oil—was said to be quite

wholesome, but that from the sewage and the refuse on the shore-mud

caused them to hold handkerchiefs to noses. However, the town was very

picturesque with its Arab and Persian houses of white stone, its

Saracenic doorways, in the angles of which Persian pottery was embedded,

and its heavy doors of carved wood. The Consulate stood a little beyond

the town, in a walled garden of palms, fig trees, and trees of gorgeous

scarlet blossoms. Here they had a cup of tea, and the Consular boat,

which had been following them along the shore, took them back to the

_Jeddah_, thankful in the blazing sunshine for their pith helmets and

white umbrellas.

This excursion somehow, with its introduction to the realities and

romance of tropical Africa, braced up Lucy for the next day but one,

when in the very early morning the _Jeddah_ anchored in the roadstead of

Unguja. She was dressed by eight o’clock and sat awaiting in the stuffy

Ladies’ Saloon the arrival of John, or whoever was coming to meet her.

Sat with trembling, perspiring hands in open-work cotton gloves, wishing

the suspense over. There were sounds of loud voices on deck.... Mrs.

Bazzard, exploding in connubial raptures over her husband; Bazzard, in

between her embraces, striving to assume a partly respectful, partly

comrade-like attitude with Captain Brentham, to combine a recognition

that he was greeting his official superior for the moment with the

assured standing of one who had had longer experience of official cares.

She heard him saying: "Your boat is waiting for you, Sir. I will

arrange to send a lighter for your baggage as soon as it is up out of

the hold...."

Then blundering steps down some stairway and along the passage, and John

stood before her, sun-helmet in hand, eyes blazing with hungry love,

saying, stammering rather—"My _Lucy_! C—Come at last! _Oh_, how I’ve

looked forward.... How..." But he crushed her to him in a rough

embrace, unmindful of her delicate cotton dress and of the fact that his

red face was covered with perspiration.... But there was something so

appealing and yet so masterful in his love, and also something so

reminiscent of the park seat at Englefield and that Sunday walk, that

Lucy in yielding to his embrace said within herself, "How _could_ I have

thought of throwing him over?"

Together they went on shore. Brentham had not even stayed to say

good-bye. Somebody saw after her luggage. She had so lost interest in

it that she did not care if anything was missing.... Then John said: "I

hope you’ve brought out the Harmonium that your uncle gave us," and she

replied a little listlessly: "Oh yes! it was _such_ a bother getting it

across London, but I think it’s on board."

"I am taking you," said John, inconsequently, in the boat, devouring her

with his eyes all the time, "to stay with Mrs. Ewart Stott until we’re

married."

*CHAPTER VII*

*UNGUJA—AND UP-COUNTRY*

Every two or three years in those days you met either Mr. _or_ Mrs.

Ewart Stott at Unguja, usually at the ramshackle residence and place of

business of Mr. Callaway, the Commercial Agent of the East African

Mission. And when Mrs. Ewart Stott was there she took command, so that

you instinctively greeted her as hostess. Mr. Callaway was quite

willing it should be so, because she accomplished wonders in setting his

untidy house in order; she gingered up his servants and routed the

cockroaches, chased away some of the smells, and generally cured a

feverish attack by quinine, chicken broth, and motherly care.

The Ewart Stotts as missionaries were independent because Mrs. Ewart

Stott had begun as Church of England and Mr. E. S. as a Presbyterian,

yet they could not quite agree with the discipline or the ideals of the

different churches or sects and preferred evangelizing East Africa on a

plan of their own. They had private means—at any rate at first; until

they had run through them in founding mission stations, whereafter they

were supported by anonymous benefactors. And as their tenets and _modus

operandi_ were nearest to those of the Methodists’ East African Mission,

they worked alongside them and made use of their Agent and depôt at

Unguja.

Both were of Ulster parentage, with some admixture of a more genial

stock; yet both were born in Australia. She as a Miss Ewart and he

originally a Mr. Stott. At the same moment, so to speak, they had "found

Christ," and it really seemed a logical sequel that Providence should

bring them together at some Australian religious merry-making. They

instantly fell in love, quickly married and fused their surnames. She

was twenty, he twenty-two. She was distinctly personable and he quite

good-looking. They had probably been born, both of them, perfectly

good, unconsciously sinless, so that the getting of religion did not

make them better or more likeable but only afflicted them with a mania

for quoting hymns, psalms, and Bible texts _à tout propos_ and seeing

the Lord’s hand, His Divine interference in every incident, every

accident, any change for better or worse which affected themselves.

They were constantly in receipt of Divine intimations generally after

communing in prayer. And these they obeyed as promptly as possible.

For instance, only six months after they were married, and when their

eldest child was already on its way, they were inspired to evangelize

East Africa. Forthwith they sold up their home in South Australia, took

ship with an immense outfit to Aden, and thence transferred themselves

to Unguja and the Zangian mainland.

They wished to preach nothing but "Christ crucified" and the new life

which black men and white men should lead after "accepting of" this

sacrifice, this atonement for the presumed sinfulness of poor, martyred

humanity. But despite this broad, if illogical, basis of their

propaganda, they were afflicted with a bitter dislike of Science, which

they concentrated on the theory of Evolution, or on any Biblical

criticism which would weaken their faith in a very manlike God who

apparently turned his back on his own universe to concern himself solely

and very fussily, very ineffectively with one of its grains of dust, a

tiny planet circling round a fifth-rate star among a billion other

stars. For the rest, they had infinite courage, infinite love and

charity, immense powers of work, but no sense of humour.

Consul after Consul warned them as to the risks they ran in

plunging—Father, Mother and Babies—into unexplored Africa of the worst

reputation. They smilingly ignored warnings and protests, ... wild

beasts, wild peoples, wild climates, wild scenery—all seemed against

them. Mr. Stott was once tossed by a rhinoceros into a river; but the

water broke his fall and he emerged before the crocodiles woke up, and

staggered back to camp, only slightly wounded. Shortly afterwards,

hundreds of Masai warriors charged their camp, and their coast porters

fled into the bush. The naked, fat-and-ochre-anointed warriors with

their six-foot spears found Mrs. Stott sipping tea at her camp-table and

sewing clothes for her baby, while Mr. Stott with bound-up wounds was

lying on a camp-bed. Mrs. Stott, convinced that the Almighty was

somewhere in the offing, smiled on the warriors and shared her plum cake

among the foremost. They returned the smile, enlarging it into a roar

of laughter. After executing a war dance they withdrew, and later on

sent her a large gourd of fresh milk.

After some floundering, owing to the uncertain indications of the Divine

will and purpose, they had settled on the old explorer and missionary

route to the Victoria Nyanza, due west of Unguja in what was called the

Ugogo country, partly because the Wa-gogo were thought to be quite

recalcitrant to Christianity.

Lucy Josling, who had had much of this summary poured into her

half-attentive hearing by her betrothed, as they walked through the

narrow lanes between the tall stone houses of Unguja—she much more

interested by the handsomely dressed Arabs, the veiled women, the

wandering bulls and their owners, salaaming Indians—entered at last the

Arab house rented by Mr. Callaway for his Agency.

Passing through a dark entry and corridor they emerged into a courtyard

with an immense fig-tree in the middle. Round this square space there

was a broad and shady verandah. Mrs. Stott rose from her sewing-machine

and greeted Lucy with that simple cordiality which made her so many

friends among the converted and the unconvertible.

"You must feel quite dazed being on shore after so many weeks at sea.

You’d like to go to your room, I know, and perhaps be quiet there till

our midday meal. We’ve done the best we could for you—at short

notice—for your young man and I have only been at Unguja since Saturday.

We travelled down together, he to get married, of course, and I to see

to a large consignment of goods that has arrived for us here. I also

expected a recruit for our Mission, but he does not seem to have caught

this steamer."

Mrs. Stott then led the way to Lucy’s room, and John departed to the

Customs House to clear her baggage and get it stored: a matter which

would occupy him for the rest of the daylight.

Although the upstairs bedroom that Lucy was to occupy smelt, like all

the rest of the premises, of copra, aniseed, cockroaches, dried fish,

shark’s liver oil, curry-powder, rats’ and bats’ manure, in one badly

mingled essence, with this and that ingredient sometimes prevailing, it

seemed clean and airy, and there was some grace and refinement in the

clean bed linen, white mosquito curtain, and bunch of Frangipani flowers

in a Persian pottery vase. Instinctively she turned to Mrs. Stott with

tears in her eyes. "This is _your_ doing, I am sure! Somehow you

remind me of mother."

"Well," said Mrs. Stott, "that’s just what I should like to do; though I

suppose I’m not older than an elder sister; only this African life ages

one very quickly."

The heat during the rest of the day seemed to Lucy in this low-ceilinged

room, in a low-lying part of the town, almost unbearable. She spent

much of the afternoon lying on her bed in _déshabille_, a constant prey

to home-sickness. She tried at one time playing with the little Stott

child on the landing, but it was much more interested in the large

red-black cockroaches which it caught with surprising swiftness of aim

and without any of Lucy’s shuddering horror. It would hold these insects

with their little flat heads, twirling antennae, scratchy legs and fat

yellow bellies quite firmly (yet not unkindly) in its plump fingers for

grave consideration; then let them go to run over the planks. Mrs.

Stott was away to the Customs House; a pale, perspiring, half-clothed

Indian clerk was passing in and out of the house on Mr. Callaway’s

business, too fever-stricken and listless to care one grain of damaged

rice about this young woman fresh from England. The fleas on the

ground-floor verandah and business premises were too numerous for any

novice to endure. Lucy’s only resource was to return to her room, rid

herself of these persecutors by undressing and await with patience the

after-sunset cooler air. A visit from Mrs. Stott at half-past six

notified that the evening meal would be served at seven and that John

Baines had seen to all Lucy’s luggage. Such as she wanted for the next

few days was ready to be brought up for her use; the rest would be put

in the go-down to await the departure in the "dau"[#] that would convey

them to the mainland. Lucy therefore had to rise and dress, come down

and force herself to show some affection for her betrothed and some

interest in her mass of luggage—all the while preoccupied by the

mosquitoes which bit her ankles, the fleas that attacked her with

renewed voracity, the cockroaches which scurried about her feet, and the

smells which made her sick. She enjoyed the chicken broth flavoured

with hot red chillies and the coco-nut milk served round for drinks at

the evening meal; and picked a bit of fish, fresh and flaky. Also she

appreciated the dessert of pineapples, mangoes and oranges. Instead of

coffee afterwards they had tea, with goat’s milk. This was

thirst-quenching and helped to diminish the racking headache which had

been steadily reaching a climax during the evening.

[#] Decked Arab sailing-ship.

At nine o’clock all vestiges of a meal were cleared away and John, Mr.

Callaway and even Mrs. Stott assumed an air of portentousness as about

twenty-four able-bodied Negroes filed in and the two or three Negro

servants of the Stotts set out a number of hymn-books and a large Bible.

John then read prayers and a portion of scripture in Swahili while the

Christianized negroes dutifully knelt, sat, and stood to sing hymns in

unison with their white employers. The hymns being likewise in the

Swahili language, the whole ceremony—occupying about half an hour—was

without meaning to Lucy, who was driven nearly frantic by the fleas and

mosquitoes. At last, bed-time came; John unwillingly took his leave,

promising to call round for Lucy at eight in the morning to take her on

a round of visits. Lucy, in very low spirits, retired to her bedroom,

but Mrs. Stott followed. Without being asked for any explanation she

was allowed to cry for five minutes on Mrs. Stott’s neck. Then the

latter undressed her, rubbed the bites with some cooling lotion,

administered five grains of quinine and put her to bed.

What with the squeaking and chattering of the fruit-bats eating the figs

outside, the rats running over the floor of her room, and a tornado of

thunder, lightning and drumming rain, the night was not a pleasant one.

But when Mrs. Stott woke her with a cup of tea and she ventured outside

her mosquito-curtain, things took a brighter aspect. She had from her

window a glimpse of the sparkling blue bay in the level rays of the

just-risen sun, a fringe of coco-nut palms, their fronds still wet with

the rain, a tangle of brown shipping—Arab "daus" and Indian

"baghalas"—hauled up for repairs; and the atmosphere was cleared and

fresh after the tornado. She was almost cheerful by the time she had

dressed and come downstairs. Mrs. Stott had advised her to put on high

boots to save her ankles from mosquito bites, and to dust herself freely

with Insecticide powder to discourage the fleas. As a special

indulgence to a tired visitor she was let off morning prayers and only

heard the nasal singing whilst completing her toilet in her room after a

pleasant little breakfast in bed, over a book. John duly came with a

carriage borrowed from the Sultan’s stables, and Lucy—almost gay once

more—set out with him to be introduced to Archdeacon Gravening—who in

the absence of the Bishop (on tour) was to perform the religious

marriage ceremony at the Cathedral.

Gravening was an austere-looking man but of kindly disposition. He made

her feel at home, and as he knew the Reading district in old Oxford days

of walking tours and reading-parties he could talk about that

home-country which, as it receded in time from her contemplation, seemed

a Paradise she had recklessly quitted.

The ladies of the Anglican Mission—a celibate Mission when at work in

Africa, its members being supposed to leave its ranks when they

married—received Lucy with some detachment of manner. They were good

creatures, indeed, but they came from a social stratum one or even two

degrees higher than hers, and inwardly they were less tolerant of

Nonconformists, than were their men fellow-workers. Lucy, they had

ascertained, was a "Church person," but she was about to marry into a

Methodist Mission. However, her rather plaintive prettiness and the

home-sick melancholy in her eyes enlisted their womanly sympathy. Two of

them offered themselves in a bride’s maid capacity, and the Sisterhood

in general proposed that the honeymoon should be spent at their little

country retreat of Mbweni. But John explained as to this, that he could

not prolong his absence from the up-country station more than was just

necessary for the prescribed residence at Unguja; and that their

honeymoon must be spent on the return journey. He dilated, for Lucy’s

encouragement, on the picnic charms of the "Safari."[#]

[#] The accepted meaning of "Safari" is a journey with tents, and

porters to carry the baggage.

* * * * *

During the ten days of her pre-nuptial stay at Unguja Lucy had no talk

with Brentham. Presumably he was too busy over political and Consular

matters. Once indeed when walking with John through the winding streets

of the African-Oriental city she had seen him out riding with Bazzard,

the Vice-Consul. John had accomplished all the preliminary formalities,

and on her marriage morning—early on account of the heat—Lucy went in

one of the Sultan’s carriages, attended by Mrs. Stott and the two ladies

of the Anglican Mission, to the British Agency. John met them at the

entrance; they walked slowly up the stone steps to the office for the

transaction of Consular business. Bazzard, with Mrs. Bazzard—the latter

assuming the airs of a Vice-reine—met them there and ranged the wedding

party in order. Brentham then entered, bowed to them both, but avoided

meeting Lucy’s eyes. He put to them in a level business-like voice the

necessary interrogatory and declared them duly married. The party then

passed into one of the Agency’s drawing-rooms. Champagne—and lemonade

for the teetotalers—was served, together with mixed biscuits and

sweetmeats. The Acting Consul-General proposed the health of the Bride,

and for the first time looked Lucy full in the face. He next withdrew

on to a verandah and talked for some time with the bridegroom about his

mission station and the journey thither and spoke earnestly on the

subject of Lucy and her welfare, instancing his interest in her

home-country as well as his position as "their" Consul to explain his

anxiety as to her future. Then returning to the general company he

handed Lucy a small case which he said contained a trifling wedding

present and wished her all possible happiness, promising "some day or

other" to visit her in her new home. He grasped her hand with a brief

pressure and—pleading urgent business as an excuse for not following the

party to the Cathedral—withdrew to his office. Mrs. Bazzard introduced

her husband and bestowed a condescending patronage on Lucy and on the

Mission ladies, who, never having met her before, found themselves

almost audibly wondering who on earth she was, and where—with that

slightly cockney accent—she had come from.

The religious ceremony at the Cathedral was one of considerable

ecclesiastical pomp, secretly enjoyed by John Baines; who, however,

thought on what mother would say when he told her he had nearly been

married by a Bishop and quite so by an Archdeacon, and still more how

she would have appreciated the black acolytes in their scarlet cassocks

and white dalmatics, the incense-smell in the building, and the

vestments of the clergy.

After they left the Cathedral they repaired to the Arab house of stone

and rich Persian and Kurdish carpets in which Archdeacon Gravening

lived. Here an unpretentious luncheon was given as a wedding breakfast.

Gravening hardly ever spoke about religion, which was why Mrs. Stott

despaired of his being saved, though she admitted he was compact of

quiet kindness. His one enthusiasm was language study. He was deeply

versed in the Bantu languages and translated for the Anglican Mission

most of the works they required to use in their schools and churches.

He had corresponded with John Baines, and the latter had written down

for him samples of vocabularies of the different languages heard in his

district.

Some insight into the conflict going on in the dazed mind of Lucy—who

throughout these ceremonies looked as though she were a wound-up

automaton—inspired Mrs. Stott to suggest to John that as they were due

to start in the Arab dau early the next morning in order to reach the

mainland port of Lingani before nightfall, Lucy should spend the rest of

her marriage-day and night with Mrs. Stott, and their honeymoon should

not commence till they reached the Mission house at Lingani. This they

would have to themselves for three or four days whilst their caravan for

up-country was being got ready. Accordingly poor John, when the wedding

luncheon was over and the guests had dispersed, surrendered Lucy to Mrs.

Stott and spent the rest of the day rather disconsolately making his

preparations for departure. Lucy got through much of that hot afternoon

in her nightdress—for coolness—inside the mosquito curtains of her bed,

weeping at times hysterically; tortured with homesickness one minute and

at another seized with a mad longing to call on Brentham at the Agency

and see him once more. Sometimes she felt an actual dislike for John;

at others a great pity for him, yet a shuddering at the idea of his

embraces, of any physical contact with him.

Mrs. Stott prayed for her, apart in her own bedroom but the Divine

direction of her thoughts seemed to take the line that the least said

was the soonest mended, and that the young couple had better be left to

their own society at Lingani to come to an understanding.

The next morning, however, it was a composed though rather silent Lucy

who was punctually ready to go away with John when he came to fetch her

to embark in the dau. Mrs. Stott had risen early to make coffee for

them and give them a send-off of embraces, and provisions for a nice

cold lunch on board. "My dear," she said to Lucy, "you’ll have a

_delightful_ water picnic. There’s going to be just wind enough to blow

you across. I wish I were coming with you, but I shan’t get away for

another fortnight. However, we shall meet in the interior, I dare say,

before very long."

John had made for his bride a little nest among cushions and clean

brightly-coloured grass mats in the deck cabin of the dau (a mere

palm-thatch shelter), and for an hour or so a smile came back to Lucy’s

sad face as she appreciated the pleasant freshness of the morning

breeze, the picturesqueness of the boat and the vivid blue or emerald

green of the water according as it was deep or shallow. She had quite

an appetite for the early lunch which Mrs. Stott had thoughtfully

provided. But presently an anxious look came into her face and a

restlessness of manner. "John! Can I be coming out in a rash? I feel

an intolerable itching round my neck and wrists—Oh! Horror! What is

this?" And she pointed to some flat, dark brown disks which were

scurrying out of sight up her arms and into the folds of her linen

bodice....

"_Bugs!_" said John, shocked and apologetic, "they are sometimes found

in these Arab vessels.... I am so sorry.... Yet there was no other way

of crossing to Lingani...."

Lucy went white with disgust. From the palm mid-ribs which arched over

the cabin roof of thatch there came dropping hundreds of bugs on to the

unhappy young woman, ignoring or avoiding him who would have willingly

offered himself as sacrifice and substitute. Lucy in her dismay,

knowing she could not undress before the boatmen and porters and yet not

knowing how she could endure hours of this maddening irritation from

half-venomous bites, broke out into weeping. "What _was_ to be done?"

questioned the poor distraught bridegroom. The gentle breeze had died

away ... an intense heat prevailed; the dau scarcely moved across a

glassy sea ... the Nakhodha or bwahih captain of the dau was standing up

over the rudder and signalling with his sinewy hand, crying out in a

melodious cadence: "Njôô! Kusi-Kusi, Njôô, Kusi-Kusi!"[#] afraid his

vessel might be becalmed and prevented from reaching port in daylight.

The boat-men and porters were looking at one another with round eyes as

they heard the Bibi[#] crying convulsively in the deck cabin. John in

his desperation had a bright idea. He knew that the ordinary, vaunted

insecticides had no terror for, no deterrent effect on, either bugs or

their unrelated mimics, the poisonous ticks of Central Africa; but that

both alike fled before the smell of petroleum. There were tins of that

mineral oil on board provision for his lamps up-country. Opening one of

these cautiously, for petroleum was very precious, he filled an

enamelled iron cup and then stoppered the tin. From his medicine chest

he obtained cotton-wool. Then with wads of this, and with his

handkerchief, he dabbed the swollen wrists and the weals on Lucy’s neck

and advised her to thrust the saturated wads and linen inside her

clothing.

[#] "Come south wind, come!"

[#] Lady.

The strong odour of the oil in a few minutes caused the blood-sucking

insects to withdraw and return to their lairs in the thatch and boards.

The south wind came at last in puffs, which lessened the heat, but there

set in a swell which caused the dau to roll. This movement disturbed

the bilge water below the decks, and from this was disengaged a

sulphuretted-hydrogen stench almost bad enough to drive the bugs from

Lucy’s mind. But the wind grew steadier and at last blew the rotten dau

to the landing-place at the mouth of a river where they were to

disembark.

Lingani was a smaller edition of Unguja Town: flat-roofed Arab houses of

white-washed coral rock, thatched wattle-and-daub huts, groves of

coco-nut palms, a few Casuarina trees and Frangipani shrubs, pariah

dogs, wandering zebu cattle, and dwarf goats. The Mission Rest-house was

a substantial stone building in the Arab style of East Africa. It was

maintained jointly by four missionary societies for use by their members

in transit. There was a Swahili couple in charge of it, husband and

wife. The bed linen, table-cloths, napkins and cutlery were kept in

cupboards fastened with cunning padlocks, which only opened when you set

the letters of the lock to correspond with the word "open." This to

thwart inquisitive natives, with a smattering of education, was written

up for reminder in Greek letters. With this ruse John was fully

acquainted, so that he lost no time in opening the cupboards and

releasing the wherewithal for making up two beds and laying the table

for an evening meal. The black housekeepers, proffering greetings and

assurance of welcome while they worked, busied themselves in heating

water for baths, in making the beds, laying the table, and killing

chickens for soup and roast. John’s activities were multifold. He had

to see the dau unloaded and its precious cargo safely stowed away in the

store below the Rest-house.

Lucy at first sat limply in the divan or main reception-room, sore all

over, eyes blistered by the glare of sun on water, and with a headache

which for crippling agony exceeded anything she had known. But she

conquered her sullenness and made feeble attempts to help. John,

however, seeing that bath and bath water were ready and that sheets,

pillows and blankets had been placed on her Arab bedstead (a wooden

frame with a lattice-work across it of ox-hide strips), advised her to

undress, soothe her bites with spongings and ointment, and rest between

the sheets. Her back ached unbearably; her head seemed half-severed at

the neck, and she was seized with violent shiverings. The mosquitoes

had given her a sharp attack of malarial fever.

Once in bed, she felt less acutely ill, but of all the nice meal that

John and the Swahili man-cook had prepared she could only swallow a cup

of tea. Her temperature was found to be up to 102°, so the first and

the six succeeding nights of the honeymoon were spent in dire illness

and dreary convalescence. But at the end of that time she seemed well

enough to start on their up-country journey. John had obtained two

Masai donkeys and had bought at Unguja a second-hand side-saddle. Lucy

cheered up at the prospect of donkey-riding and above all at leaving

this terribly hot coast town for the cooler nights of the interior.

Though still deeply depressed and disheartened, she was sufficiently

reasonable and well-disposed to be deeply touched by her husband’s care

of her, his forethought for her comfort and distress at the

inconveniences of semi-savage Africa. Some measure of health came back

to her, and even cheerfulness, during the first easy days of camp life,

before they left the semi-civilized coast-belt, with its shady

mango-trees for the midday halt, its unfailing water supply for the

thirsty porters and the white man’s meals; its comparative safety at

night from wild beasts and wild natives.

But between the mountain ranges of the interior—whither they were

bound—and this settled country of cultivation and villages more or less

governed by the Sultan of Unguja, there lay a desert tract almost devoid

of water and ravaged in recent times by a clan of the raiding Masai

known to the Bantu natives as "Wahumba." They had recently carried out

a ruthless foray across the plains. The native wells had fallen in or

their location had been forgotten since the destruction of the villages.

Lucy then knew for the first time what it was to suffer from thirst, and

to have no water for washing in the morning or evening; and when a

little water was obtained from nearly dried up rock-pools or the bed of

a run-dry stream, to be hardly able to endure the sight of it, much less

taste it when it looked like strong tea, or coffee-and-milk, when it

smelt of stable manure or was alive with grubs or wriggling worms. It

could only be drunk in the form of tea after it had been strained,

boiled, and skimmed.

John had prepared for some such contingency in crossing this desert

strip by bringing several dozen coco-nuts and a case of his father’s

cider—at the mention of which Lucy’s mouth watered. But his porters in

their own mad thirst had disposed of the coco-nuts and their milk, and

the carrier who bore the case of champagne cider on his head had, of

course, slipped on a slimy boulder, crossing a dry stream down had come

his precious load, and at least half the bottles had cracked and poured

forth their sparkling contents over the sand or into the porter’s

protruded mouth. Still, the other six bottles were retrieved by an

indignant John who, in his rage, doffed the gentle long-suffering

missionary—which, strange to say, he had become in these few

months—witness his unselfish and patient care of his rather peevish

wife—and kicked the careless, sticky, half-drunk porter with all the

vehemence of an unregenerate Englishman. The porter took his

chastisement philosophically. He had tasted nectar. John and Lucy drank

the remainder of the cider during the second half of that day, without

care for the morrow’s drought, for fear lest they be robbed of it by

some other accident....

At last they reached a running stream at the base of the foothills which

marked the beginning of a slow ascent of three thousand feet. The

verdure, and the shade this created, seemed by contrast a Paradise. They

pitched their camp under fine umbrageous trees, near the site of a

ruined village which a few months previously had been a populous centre.

Around the mounds of clay and sticks and burnt thatch were luxuriant

banana plantations with occasional bunches of ripening bananas—though

the monkeys of the adjacent thicket had not left many fit for eating.

When Lucy had quenched her thirst exuberantly from the rivulet, drinking

from cups of folded banana fronds made for her by the repentant porter

of the broken cider bottles, her sense of relief and contentment at

their surroundings was a little marred by the consciousness of an

unpleasant odour which came to them fitfully in puffs of the afternoon

breeze. She started out to explore on her own account—she wore high

boots and had a tucked-in, constricted skirt. Presently she came to an

extensive clearing where banana trunks, brown and rotten, had been

felled and lay prone in all directions, half covered with the clay

tunnels and galleries of white ants. Amongst these crumbling cylinders

lay twenty or thirty skeletons, some of them still retaining strips of

leathery flesh and patches of Negro wool on the whitened skulls. The

ground at the rustle of her approach began to swarm with a myriad of

black, biting ants, disturbed in their daily meal off this immense

supply of carrion. Lucy paid little heed to them for the moment as she

stood horror-struck at the sight of hissing snakes, gliding into the

rank weeds, probably more concerned over the swarming of the ants than

at the approach of a solitary human being. She also noted a group of

large, grey-brown vultures with lean whitish necks, which hopped heavily

before her until they obtained enough impetus to rise above the ground

and settle on the branches of a baobab-tree. Lucy, horrified by this

unsavoury Golgotha and the slithering snakes, was uttering several

squeaks of dismay, when as the terrible "siafu" ants began to nip the

skin of her limbs and body, her cries changed to shrieks of terror.

Half-blindly she floundered over disgusting obstacles back towards the

camp.

John, looking very tired and very dirty, came rushing to meet her and

upbraid her for imprudence in wandering off alone where there was danger

at every turn; but, realizing she was being mercilessly bitten by the

"siafu," he hurried her into the tent, let down the flaps of the

entrance and assisted her to undress. She had to be reduced to absolute

nudity before the ants could be removed. They had fixed their mandibles

so firmly in the skin that in pulling them off the head and jaws

remained behind, and for weeks afterwards this unhappy young woman went

about with a sore and inflamed body.

But this seeming outrage on her modesty greatly eased their intercourse.

They had been for several days husband and wife, but there was still a

certain stiffness and reserve in their relations. This disappeared

after Lucy was obliged in broad daylight to submit her tortured body to

his ministrations. In this new camaraderie she was soon laughing over

her misadventure; whilst John acted clumsily as lady’s maid.

Two days afterwards they were further drawn together by a thrill of

terror. The region having been temporarily depopulated by Masai raids,

wild beasts—lions, leopards, hyenas—had been emboldened in their

attacks. John’s camping places were encircled each evening by a hedge

of thorns, and the porters kept up—or were supposed to keep up—blazing

fires. But one night in the small hours the tired sentries fell asleep,

the fire in front of the tent died down, a lion sprang the hedge,

crunched the sentry’s skull, and tore at their tent doorway with his

claws—attracted by the smell of the donkeys tethered behind. His

horrible snarls and growls and the outcry of the awakened men roused

John and Lucy. In their movements they knocked over camp washstand and

table and could not find the matches or the lantern. John was uncertain

where to fire even when he had found his loaded rifle. He dared not

shoot into the midst of the growls, lest the bullet should kill the

plunging donkeys or strike one of his men. They in their

desperation—and, to do them justice, in their desire to save the white

man and his wife—were tackling the lion with firebrands, yet feared to

shoot his huge body—tangled up with tent ropes and tent flaps—lest they

should shoot master or mistress. Lucy swooned across the bed with

terror when she felt the lion’s body pressed against the thin canvas of

the tent wall.... The tent, even, seemed in danger of collapsing under

the lion’s pressure, as he backed on to it to face the men. At last,

fear of the fire dislodged him. He stood or rather crouched against a

pile of boxes for a few minutes; then realizing that the way to the exit

was clear, he bounded towards it over the dead body of the slain porter.

But before he quitted the premises he seized adroitly one of Lucy’s two

milch goats and, breaking its neck, trailed it over his shoulders and

plunged down a ravine. The men followed him with a fusillade of shots

from their Snider rifles, but probably in the darkness all went wide.

The lion remained in the ravine alternately crunching and growling—but

_such_ growling!—the English verb is feeble to express the

blood-curdling sound.

Day broke at last. John roused himself, detached gently the

hysterically-clutching hands of his wife, who alternately implored him

not to expose himself to any more danger and not to leave her to die by

herself in the wilderness, but to turn back with her that very day and

seek for some safer Mission post at the Coast or in Unguja itself. He

put his clothes into better order, knelt and prayed for a few minutes:

then tidied the tent space a little and overhauled his rifle. Next,

rummaging for ammunition and putting it handy in his side pockets, he

issued from the tent, carefully fastening the door flaps after him. He

questioned the men in broken Swahili as to the lion’s whereabouts.

"Chini, Bwana, hapa karibu, ndani ya bondee ... Below, master, near

here, within the ravine," they answered; and the lion, hearing the

raised voices, gave a confirmatory growl which reached to the ears of

the shaking Lucy in the tent. She arose, her teeth chattering with

terror, and looked out through a slit in the tent door. She saw and

heard John call for the headman and guessed that he was marshalling

eight of his most courageous porters, the "gunmen" of the expedition, to

sally out with him and attack the lion. This beast, having nearly

finished the goat, had no intention of leaving the neighbourhood of the

camp. He intended to have next, one by one, the two donkeys; and after

he had eaten them, the humans. The ravine seemed a convenient place in

which to repose till he was hungry again....

The porters read the lion’s mind correctly: "He will wait there, master,

till we are breaking camp and then attack the donkeys, and perhaps the

one with Bibi on his back. We shall never get him in such a favourable

position again. See! He is down there below, looking up at us. He can

scarcely rush up this side of the ravine...." John Baines grasped the

situation; he quickly placed himself in the middle of the eight braves,

who knelt on one knee in between the tree stems on the edge of the steep

descent. All at the word "Fire!" sent a converging volley (which

deafened Lucy in the tent) at the great head with its wide-open yellow

eyes ... and as the smoke cleared away the head was a shapeless mass of

blood and brains and the lion was utterly dead.

A shout of triumph arose from the elated men, and the whole force of the

caravan—thirty-two men without the poor wretch who had been killed in

the night—went tumbling down the ravine to disembowel the lion and cut

off its skin for "Bwana" who had shown himself such a man of spirit.

John betook himself to Lucy’s tent, exultant. He had killed a lion! He

almost forgot to kneel down and send up a thanksgiving for the Divine

protection accorded to them. Lucy dried her eyes and at last made an

effort to dress and swallow a little breakfast. As her nerves were

shattered by the "close call" they had had in the night, and as a burial

service must be held over the dead porter and the loads be readjusted,

John announced there would be no march that day.

But the next morning Lucy could hardly sit her donkey. And by ill-luck

the caravan had only just started and was passing through more ruined

banana plantations—another charnel house of the last Masai raid—when it

was abruptly halted by a shout of "Nyoka!" Owing to the obstacles of

the felled banana stems it was difficult to diverge from the narrow

track; and, barring the men’s way, in the middle of that track an

unusually large "spitting" cobra had erected itself on the stiffened

tail-third of its length and was balancing its flattened, expanded body

to and fro, threatening the advance of the caravan. It should have been

a comparatively easy matter to fell it with a well-flung banana stem,

but meanwhile the file of porters halted, and John, impatient to find

out the cause of the halt, urged on his donkey to flounder through the

vegetation along the track and reach the head of the caravan. Lucy’s

donkey was so devoted to her sister ass that she could never bear to be

separated from her; so, unchecked by Lucy’s limp clutch on the reins,

she hurried forward. But when she saw the swaying cobra she bolted off

to the left into the banana tangle, and the abrupt action flung her

rider off amongst skulls and bones and rotting vegetation.

The headman, with a tent-pole, hurled adroitly at the aggressive snake,

broke its back, the exasperated porters rushed forward and whacked it to

pulp and then threw the remains far from the path, took up their loads

and marched forward, hastening to leave so ill-omened a place. The cook

and the personal attendant hurried to raise the unconscious, slightly

stunned Lucy from her horrible surroundings and caught the donkey. The

caravan, however, had to be halted afresh. Lucy was far too ill to

ride. Yet a further stay could hardly be made in these surroundings.

After a conference with the headman it was decided to rig up a "machila"

or travelling hammock out of blankets, and a long pole, and to march on

a mile or so to a better site for a camping place, and there await the

lady’s recovery....

Poor John! It required, indeed, patience and resignation to the fitful

ways of Providence to keep up heart against this succession of

disasters. The loads were readjusted so as to release four men to carry

the invalid; and the caravan moved on silently, in low spirits and

without the accustomed song, till they reached a spot which satisfied

their requirements of defensibility against lions, access to good water;

shade; and no likelihood of biting ants or snakes. Such a place was

found in an hour or two, and the overburdened porters gladly heard the

decision to remain till the Bibi was well enough to travel.

Lucy when put to bed was alternately hysterical and delirious. She was

suffering more from nervous shocks than from bodily injuries, though

several of the ant-bites were inclined to fester, and her left cheek,

arm, and side were badly bruised from the fall amongst the bones. John,

as he sat and watched her on the camp bed, thought what cursed luck had

followed him since his marriage. He had twice made this journey between

Hangodi and the coast, and although neither traversing of the

hundred-and-fifty miles had been precisely an agreeable picnic, there

had not occurred any really tragical incidents that he remembered.

Going first to Hangodi, nine months ago, the Masai raids had not taken

place; and on his coastward journey a month previously his guide must

have taken him along a different path. Thus they had avoided these

ruined villages with their rotting remains of massacres. He had often

heard lions roar and seen snakes gliding from the path, and had crossed

with a hop and a jump swarms of the dreaded "siafu." It was common

knowledge that some Arab daus were infested with bugs. But none of

these terrors had been obvious on his previous journeys, nor had there

been such a scarcity of drinking water. It really seemed as though

Divine Providence for some mysterious ends was to crowd all the dangers

and disagreeables of an African _safari_ into Lucy’s wedding tour.

A talk with the headman helped to clear things up and settle plans.

They were, at this new camp—by contrast with the others a very pleasant

and salubrious place—about sixty miles from Hangodi and about fifty from

the Evangelical Missionary Society’s station or Mpwapwa. Here there

lived a famous medical missionary. If a message were sent to him by

fast runners he might reach them in four or five days with advice and

medicines.

Two of the swiftest porters of the _safari_ were chosen to run through

the tolerably safe Usagara country with a letter, with calico bound

round them for food purchase and a bag of rice tied to each man’s

girdle. John’s revolver was lent to the more experienced of the two as

some protection against wild beasts or lawless men. They were promised

a present if they did the journey in two days.

* * * * *

There was nothing for it then but to keep Lucy well-nourished with broth

made from tinned foods and beef-extract. The porter who had let drop

the case of cider and had conceived an attachment for his mistress out

of pity and remorse, set a snare one day and caught a guinea-fowl. This

made an excellent nourishing soup. Another porter found a clutch of

guinea-fowl’s eggs. There was one remaining milch goat which yielded

about a pint of milk daily.

With such resources as these John strove to prepare an invalid diet

which could be administered by spoonfuls to a patient with no appetite

and poor vitality. He had a small medicine-case of drugs, but knew not

what to prescribe for nervous exhaustion. He scarcely left the vicinity

of the tent during the day-time, and slept fully-dressed at night in a

deck-chair close to Lucy’s camp bedstead.

At the end of the fifth day the medical missionary arrived on a riding

donkey with John’s messengers, and six porters of his own carrying a

comfortable travelling hammock. He diagnosed the case and took a

cheerful view of it, but advised their setting out next day with him and

attempting by forced marches to reach his station—fifty miles away—in

two days. At Mpwapwa Lucy would be nursed back to health by his wife,

and when she was fit for more African travel she should be sent on to

Hangodi.

* * * * *

Six weeks afterwards she reached her husband’s station in Ulunga,

completely restored to health. The cool dry season had set in; the

country she traversed was elevated, much wooded, picturesque

hill-and-dale threaded with numerous small streams, and her travelling

escort, the medical missionary, was an interesting man with a

well-stored mind who could explain much that she wanted to know.

On her arrival at Hangodi she found Ann Jamblin installed as a potent

force in several departments of the station economy, the real mistress

of the community. She had come up from the coast in the _safari_ of

Mrs. Ewart Stott. The marches had been well regulated the camping

places well chosen, the wild beasts had not annoyed them, and they had

avoided the waterless tract. Ann was prompt to infer that Lucy had made

far too much fuss over the petty discomforts of African travel, and Lucy

began to take refuge in a proud silence—which one’s persecutors call

"sulks"—under Ann’s gibes and obliquely slighting remarks.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*LETTERS TO AND FRO*

_From Lady Silchester to Captain Brentham._

Englefield House,

_July_ 12, 1887.

DEAR ROGER,—

The great event took place three weeks ago and I am just allowed to

leave my bed and lie on a couch for a few hours every day—in my boudoir.

Here I can wile away the time by writing letters.

It is a boy, so Francis ought to be in the seventh heaven of happiness

as he now has a direct heir for the succession. Ought to be, but

somehow isn’t. Since I began to get better and take notice he does not

seem as exuberant as I expected. He isn’t _well_. I have a sort of

idea he had a fainting fit in the House of Lords just when my crisis was

coming on and that they kept it back from me. But I saw an allusion to

it in an old _Times_ which had somehow found its way into my

sitting-room.

The infant is to be named James Francis Addington for ancestral reasons.

I do not feel energetic enough to contest. I should have preferred

_one_ Christian name _only_—a multitude of names is so démodé and must

be so confusing to the recording angels who don’t recognize surnames. I

wanted something a little baffling and out of the common such as

Clitheroe or Passavant. Clitheroe is not the name of any relation, but

I liked its sound—like the wind in the reeds, don’t you think?—and it

would have been a new departure.

Little Clithy looks rather wizen as he lies asleep in his bassinette,

but at his age most infants seem incredibly old and cynical, as though

they were just finishing some life cycle and were peevish at beginning

another.

Of course, Clitheroe’s coming has _quite_ ruled me out of the Jubilee

festivities. Suzanne Feenix has been doing all the running, and quietly

pushing her husband whilst I have been unable to secure any advancement

for mine, who now seems quite lacking in ambition. Suzanne, by the bye,

_l’on dit très toquée_ of another good-looking African explorer, a rival

of yours from West Africa. A pity you did not make her acquaintance—as

I advised you to do—before you left. She has any amount of influence

with Lord W.

How is the missionaryess? I am glad she was safely married to her

missionary and withdrew herself into the interior. I feared otherwise

there was going to be _another_ entanglement: for I don’t believe _in

the least_ you were a Galahad and faithful only to my memory in the days

when we played at being engaged. I don’t see why I should be specially

interested in this young woman because she came from Aldermaston and her

father is one of our tenants.... However, when I can once more ride I’ll

go over and look her people up and report on them. But I only hope you

won’t turn her head by taking all this interest in her affairs. So like

you! And to think you once reproached me for inconstancy!

All the same, dear Roger, I do miss you—_dreadfully_. Francis _will_

keep up the grand manner and won’t tell me any cabinet secrets. My

brothers and sisters don’t interest me, mother is too anxious about

father’s affairs to leave him for long, and when she is here I am

nervous about discussing them for fear they may want to borrow money

from Francis.

I have sent Maud an invitation because she reminds me faintly of you....

SIBYL.

_From Mrs. Josling to Mrs. John Baines._

Church Farm

Aldermaston

July 30 (1887)

My darling girl

Father and me were so releaved at getting your letter ten days ago

saying you had reached Unguja safe and sound and had just been married

to John Baines by the Consul and at the Cathedral. It sounded quite

grand being married twice, and I only hope youll be happy.

I went over to see Mrs. Baines at Tilehurst taking your letter with me

but was receaved [underscored: none too graciously]. It seems John had

not written to his parents to say he was married [strikeout: or even

that he] but I suppose he hadent time before being so busy over his

preperations for starting up country.

Well my darling we both wishes you every happiness. Your letter dident

tell us much but I suppose you were too busy having to start away on a

ship the next morning. We both send our humble thanks to Captain

Brentham for looking after you on the voyage. Lady Silchester has had

her baby—in the middle of last June. Father and me drove over last week

to pay our respecs and make inquiries. His lordship himself came out to

see and was nice as he always is. He’s very like his poor mother and she

was always the lady and spoke as nice to her servants as to her titled

friends. Well Lord Silchester rang for the nurse and baby so as we

might see it. It looked to me a poor little antique thing but of course

I dident say so. It’s been christened James after his Lordship’s father

but they say as her Ladyship wanted some other name more romantic like.

She came in from the garden as we were leaving and gave herself such

airs I thought but Father says she’s a rare piece for good looks and we

all ought to be grateful to her for giving an heir to the estate to keep

out the Australian cousin who might have [strikeout: revvle]

revolutionary ideas about farming. She ast after you a bit sarcastic

like I thought. She says I hear your daughter flirted dredfully with my

cousin Captain Brentham on the way out. I couldent help saying I dident

believe it. My daughter I said would never be a flirt it wasnt in your

nature. I felt so put out but his Lordship tried to make it come right

by saying Her Ladyship musnt judge others by herself and that he quite

believed me. Weve had a good hay crop and the wheat and root crops

promises well. So Father’s in rare good humour and says after harvest

he’s going to take us all to the sea-side Bournemouth or Southsea.

Clara and Mary’s both well. They never ail as you kno. Young Marden of

Overeaston is paying Clara some attention. Leastways he drops in to

Sunday supper pretty often.

We all send our love and I hope with all my hart you will be happy and

continu well. I shall go on being anxious about you till you come back.

Praps the Primitives will give John a call after he’s done his bit of

missionary work and youll be able to live in England close to us. I

shant be happy till this comes to pass.

Your loving mother

Clara Josling

_From Mrs. Baines to her son John._

Tilehurst,

_October_ 14, 1887.

MY DEAR SON,—

I suppose a mother must expect to come off _second_ best when her son

marries and I ought to think myself lucky to hear from you once a year.

But I confess I was put out in the summer only to get news of you

through Lucy’s mother. However, your letter written August 3, after

Lucy had joined you at Hangodi, came to hand a few days ago. You must

have had a terrible time getting her up-country. She seems so feckless

and born to trouble. As though wild beasts and accidents sought her

out.

I’ve just had a line from Ann Jamblin. _She’s_ got her head screwed on

the right way. She left a month after Lucy and yet reached your station

nearly as soon as you did. She didn’t need to hang about that place—I

can’t spell its name—where you got married, and, she travelled

up-country, she says, in record time with a missionary lady, a Mrs.

Stott. She didn’t fall off her donkey or have a lion in her tent or get

ant all over her or turn sick every few weeks. Nor yet have herself

looked after by free-thinking captains on the voyage out. But there.

You’ve made your bed as the saying is and you must lie on it. It’s far

from my wish to come between husband and wife, and I’m glad Ann’s gone

to your station. She’ll have a steadying influence on Lucy and be a

great comfort to you and your companions. I suppose by now she’s

married to your friend Anderson. If so he’ll have got a good wife and

her bit of money will be a help.

Father’s as well as he’s ever likely to be. He suffers from brash, a

sure sign of overeating.

Sister Simpson is going to marry Brother Wilkins the sidesman of our

Reading Chapel. At present she’s suffering from boils, but hopes to be

well enough for the marriage next month. The Bellinghams at Cross

Corner, Reading, Bakers and Fancy Confectioners, are in a bad way—going

bankrupt they say. There’s been a sad scandal about Pastor Brown at

Bewdly wanting to marry his deceased wife’s sister. It’s forbidden I

know in Holy Writ, though at time of writing I can’t remember where, but

see Leviticus xviii. and xx. Emily Langhorn has gone to London to learn

dressmaking. Time she did and good behaviour likewise. I never listen

to scandal, otherwise I should say it was all on account of her goings

on with young Gilchrist. She took it very hard when he suddenly married

Priscilla Lamb of Lamb’s Boot Emporium, Abbey Road, Reading. I’m very

glad I wouldn’t have her here to the Dorcas meetings. She’d got her eye

on you, I’m pretty sure. Sam Gildersleeves and Polly Scatcherd’s got

married, just in time it seems, to save her good name. People was

beginning to cut her. Clara Josling, your wife’s sister, is engaged to

young Harden, a good-for-nothing cricketer. Plays with his brother and

friends on Sunday afternoons. But I suppose you won’t think the worse

of him for that, now you’ve come under Lucy’s influence. But oh what

wickedness is coming on the world. Well, it can’t last much longer.

The vials of the Almighty’s wrath are about to be opened and the Last

Day is at hand—I feel and hope. I’ve advised your father to spend no

more money on repairs at the Manufactory—It will last our time.

Meanwhile may God have you in his holy keeping. Father sends love. He’s

taken up with this new drink Zoedone and expects to make a lot of money

out of it. Money, money, money and eat, eat, eat is all he thinks about.

Still, that’s better than breaking the Sabbath and running after strange

women, which is what most of his neighbours is doing. And as to the

women, it’s dress, dress, dress and play acting. Mrs. Garrett’s bustle

was right down shocking last Sunday. I couldn’t keep my eyes off it

during Chapel. They’ve been making so much money lately out of sanding

the sugar and selling dried tea-leaves for Best Family Blend Afternoon

tea that they don’t know how to spend it, so Mrs. G. has begun to dress

fashionable—at _her_ age too—and Mr. G. goes to St. Michael’s instead of

coming to Salem chapel where his parents worshipped before him. And as

to this play acting, its one of the signs of the times. They’ve opened

a theatre at Reading and have afternoon performances.—Several of our

Tilehurst folk have been seen there and Pastor Mullins spoke about it in

last Sunday’s sermon.

Your loving mother,

SARAH BAINES.

_From Mrs. Spencer Bazzard to Mr. Bennet Molyneux,

Foreign Office._

H.B.M. Vice-Consulate,

Unguja,

_Novr._ 1, 1887.

DEAR MR. MOLYNEUX,—

When am I to address you as "Sir Bennet"?—as it ought to be, if I dare

express my thoughts. We look in each Honours’ list expecting it.

Spencer is quite bitter on the subject, but I tell him "comparisons are

odious." At any rate I won’t repeat his indiscretions.

We are all wondering here when Sir James Eccles is returning. I have

not yet had the privilege of seeing him and can only take Spencer’s

opinions for guide. In Spencer’s mind he is well-nigh irreplaceable.

Spencer feels it would be little less than disastrous to place the

control of Ungujan affairs in the hands of any younger or less

experienced man. With Sir James Eccles the Germans will try no

nonsense. They might even renounce their protectorate in despair if he

were to return and had the influence of his Government behind him.

Whereas with a weaker man, or even with one of no authority, merely an

"acting" Consul-General, they may go to _any_ lengths. I am foolish

enough about my Husband to think—if there _must_ be a stop-gap—that he

would be better than—well, than the present Acting Consul-General.

Spencer thoroughly distrusts the Germans and refuses even to learn their

ugly language; whereas C-p-n B. is much too friendly with them and has

gone to the length of saying we must not play the dog in the manger over

Africa. It seems there have been great German African explorers as well

as English, and Spencer’s colleague thinks it rather hard they should

not have colonies as well as we. Not knowing your own views I hesitate

to express mine. And I should not be so presumptuous as to ask for any

guidance or any answer even to this letter. I dare say if you think

Spencer is to have more responsibility and initiative in the future you

will privately instruct him as to the policy of your department.

That will not help _me_ much, for Spencer, where official correspondence

is concerned, is as close as—I can’t think of a parallel! I mean, he

won’t tell me _anything_. Not that I am inquisitive. But I _do_ want

to be a help to him, and I also believe in the education of women. I

should like to know _all_ about Africa! But I also know your

views—though they shock me. If I may judge from our conversations on

that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday till Monday—last Easter—when Mrs.

Molyneux was good enough to ask me down to Spilsbury—— You think Woman

should confine herself to superintending the household and her husband’s

comfort, to dressing well, and should not concern herself with politics.

You may be right. And yet there are moments in which I rebel against

these prescriptions. It may have been my bringing-up. My dear father,

an officer in the Navy, died when I was very young, and darling mother

brought me up with perhaps too much modern liberality. She entertained

considerably—in a modest way, of course—at our house in North

Kensington, and I was accustomed therefore from girlhood to meet with

many different types of men and women—some of them widely travelled—and

to hear a great variety of opinions.

Here, however, when I have attended to the affairs of our household—a

small one, since we no longer live in the big Consulate—and have paid an

occasional visit to some other Consul’s wife or the nicer among the

missionary women, I give myself up to the study of Swahili, the local

language. Spencer, who is strong in fifty things where I am weak or

totally wanting, is not absolutely of the first quality as a linguist,

while I seem to have rather a gift that way. I am much complimented on

my French, and although I dislike German I force myself to speak it. I

can now make myself understood in what Spence calls the "dam" lingo of

the natives. And if I told you I was also grappling with Hindustani I

am afraid you would class me unfavourably with your pet aversion, a

"blue stocking"!

But I will defy your bad opinion. I am _determined_ to fit myself for

Spencer’s promotion which must surely come in time, especially as we can

both stand the climate fairly well. I have only been down once with

fever since I came out, and Spence sets malaria at defiance with

cocktails and an occasional stiff whisky peg. Between us before long we

ought to know all that is worth knowing at Unguja. And Spence is _so_

popular with the natives. They instinctively look up to a strong man.

As to the missionaries they simply swarm on the island and the mainland.

Some of the Church of England ones are quite nice and are really

gentlemen and ladies. And there are one or two adorable old priests in

the French Mission who pay me pretty compliments on my French and

declare I must have learnt it in Paris. But there are also some awful

cranks. There is a Mrs. Stott who puts in an appearance once in a way

from some very wild part of the interior and asks me with great

cheerfulness if I am saved, or if I love the Lord. It is wonderful how

she keeps her appearance, as she goes about without a sunshade and has

been tossed several times by rhinoceroses. Her voracity for hymn

singing is _extraordinary_. Perhaps it acts on her constitution like

these new Swedish gymnastics.

Quite another type of recruit for the Nonconformist Missions came out

with me from England last spring. A National School mistress, I

believe, originally. She was the daughter of a farmer in Lord

Silchester’s country. Some thought her pretty, but it was that

prettiness which soon evaporates under a tropical sun. She seemed to me

thoroughly insipid and had not even that faith in mission work which at

least excuses the strange proceedings of her companions. As soon as the

ship started she put herself under the wing of our Acting Consul-General

who was not slow to reciprocate. They carried on a flirtation during

the voyage which—but I am afraid I am not very modern—was _not_ the best

preparation for marrying a Methodist missionary—a dreadful

_gauche_-looking creature who came to claim her at Unguja. However a

woman should always stand by women, so I did the best I could for her

when they were married by the Acting Consul-General.

That important personage—Is he a friend of yours? If so, I will promise

to see nothing but good in him—prefers to live all alone in Sir James

Eccles’ house, where Spencer had transferred himself after Sir James’s

departure. We had proposed joining households with him, and I was

_quite_ ready to have made a home for him during his brief tenure of the

post. But apparently he preferred my room to my company, so of course I

did not press my offer. He entertains very little on the plea that he

is too much occupied with work and study.

Well! If I write much more you will dismiss me as a bore. So I must

sign myself,

Yours gratefully,

EMILIA BAZZARD.

P.S. I expect no answer. But if you do not order me to the contrary I

shall post you from time to time a budget of gossip from Unguja in the

hope that it may prove amusing.

There is no news at all of Stanley. Emin, they say, is still holding

out. Each steamer brings more and more Germans, to Spencer’s great

disgust. E.B.

_From Captain Brentham to his sister Maud._

H.B.M. Agency,

Unguja,

_Decr._ 1, 1887.

DEAR OLD MAUD,—

You _are_ a good sort, and I am awfully grateful to you. Your letters

never fail me each month as the mail comes in, and you send me just the

papers and books I like to see in my isolation.

I have been here over six months and am getting rather weary of the

office work. I don’t suppose there is much chance of my being promoted

to the principal post if Sir James Eccles does not come back. It would

be too rapid a promotion and excite frightful jealousy—though I really

think I should do as well as any one else, and better than some. My

Arabic and Persian are both useful to me here, and I have worked up

Hindustani and mastered Swahili and get along very well with the Arabs

and the big colony of British Indians. But I don’t feel confident about

F.O. approval. All these affairs pass through Bennet Molyneux’s hands,

and he does not like me for some reason, probably because he’s an

obstinate ass and hates being set right. I hoped Lord Silchester would

have pushed me more, but according to Sibyl’s letters he seems really

ailing and to care about little besides his own health. Your account of

your visit to Englefield last summer amused me very much. Sibyl has a

good deal of the cat about her, but I quite understand from the very

oppositeness of your dispositions you might get on very well—your

straightforwardness and her guile. At any rate though I am a little sore

still about her throwing me over for Silchester, I am ready to forgive

her if she is nice to my one dear sister.

As to _you_, I never properly appreciated you till I came to live out

here. If I could only get a settled position I think I should ask you

to come and keep house for me. I daresay I shall never marry—the women

I have felt drawn to have always married somebody else. It would do

father good if he had to engage a housekeeper and a curate. He throws

away far too much of the money he ought to leave some day to you on

excavations at Silchester.

Well, as I say, I am getting rather tired of the office work I have to

plough through day after day. There is endless litigation between the

Hindu merchants and the Arabs. There are Slave cases every week and

frequent squabbles with the French Consulate over slaving ships flying

the French flag. And although I have a "legal" vice-consul to help me,

his decisions are sometimes awfully rotten and have to be revised.

I wasn’t cut out for office work. If I were really Agent and

Consul-General it would be different; I might take more interest in the

storms of this Unguja tea-cup. And I should of course be properly in

control of the mainland Vice-Consuls who at present seem to me to waste

all their time big game shooting or ill in bed with fever due to too

much whisky. But as I am only a warming pan for Eccles or some new man

it is a very boring life. I have not been away from this little island

once since I came out in May. I am therefore impatient to go over to my

proper consular district on the mainland, and thoroughly explore it. It

reaches to the three great lakes of the interior!

This Vice-Consul at Unguja is a queer sort of person. He was called to

the bar a few years ago—unless he is personating another man! But his

knowledge of Indian law is nil and he seems to have no intuition or

perception of where the truth lies between scores of perjured witnesses.

He is unable to learn languages, so he is quite at the mercy of the

court interpreters. He drinks too much whisky, has an unpleasant

mottled complexion, a shaking hand, and an uneasy manner with me,

varying from deferential to what the French call "rogue." His wife who

travelled out with me is _by no means_ stupid. She is somewhat the

golden-haired adventuress—her hair, at least, is an impossible gold

except near the roots—her complexion is obviously, though very

skilfully, made up, and generally she has a sort of false good looks

just as she exhibits a false good nature. Every now and then one

catches a glimpse of the tigress fighting for her own hand (which means

in her case, her husband). She has probably been a governess at one

time, and rumour makes her the daughter of a navy paymaster’s widow who

kept a boarding house in Bayswater, which at one time sheltered Spencer

Bazzard when he was down on his luck. He married her—I should guess—to

pay his bill for board and lodging. She then took up his affairs with

vigour and actually got him appointed Legal Vice-Consul here. She writes

letters to Bennet Molyneux—sealed with lavender wax and a dove and

serpent seal—I see them in the Mail bag—flatters him up I expect, and I

dare say deals me every now and then a stab in the back. Her first idea

when we came out was to fascinate me and take up the position of lady of

the house at the Agency. I dare say she would have run it far better

than I do and have made a very competent hostess. But the inevitable

corollary of having her detestable, blotchy-faced husband as my

commensal and letting her boss the show generally was too much for me,

and I had to ask them to live in the Vice-Consulate hard by and let me

dwell in solitude and peace in the many-roomed Agency. My

maitre-d’hotel is Sir James’s admirable Swahili butler, my cook is a

Goanese—and first rate—and I have one or two excellent Arab servants.

Of course I make a point of having the Bazzards frequently to dine or

lunch, and I ask her to receive the ladies of the European colony at any

party or entertainment. Nevertheless I have made an enemy. Yet she

would be intolerable as a friend....

The poor little missionary lady you ask about has, I guess, been having

a pretty rough time of it up country. She has not written to say so: I

only gather the impression from the "on dits" which circulate here. I do

not like to show too much interest in her concerns because such interest

in this land of feverish scandal might be so easily and malevolently

misconstrued. Before she departed from Unguja for the interior I

gathered that her chief anxiety was lest her mother should think her

unhappy, and mistaken in her career as a missionary. Farleigh is not so

very far from Aldermaston (the address is "Mrs. Josling, Church Farm").

Perhaps one day you might find your way there and have a friendly talk

with Lucy Baines’s mother and father, and intimate that I am—as a

Consul—keeping an eye on the welfare and safety of their daughter and

son-in-law. He—Baines—seems a good-hearted fellow, but quite incapable

of appreciating her real charm, even if he does not think it wrong for a

missionary’s wife to _have_ charm. She is really a half-educated

country girl, with a fragile prettiness which will soon disappear under

the heat and malarial fever, with the mind of an unconscious poetess,

the pathetic naïveté of a wild flower which wilts under

transplantation....

I mostly like the missionaries I meet out here; so you need not mind an

occasional collection of Farleigh coppers and sixpennies being taken up

on their account to the tune of From Greenland’s Icy Mountains, etc. Our

religious beliefs do not tally; but I do admire their self-sacrifice,

their energy, and devotion. They are generally specialists in some one

direction—native languages, folk-lore, botany, entomology, photography,

or even, as in Mrs. Stott’s case, the making of plum cakes. A very

admirable solace to the soul, or—where the natives are concerned—means

of conversion!

* * * * *

Your loving brother,

ROGER.

*CHAPTER IX*

*MISSION LIFE*

Lucy had reached her husband’s station in the Ulunga country in July,

1887, at the height of the winter season, south of the Equator. The

climate then of the Ulunga Hills was delightful; dry, sparkling,

sunshiny and crisply cold at nights. Her health mended fast, nor did

she begin to flag again till the hot weather returned in October and the

height of the wet season, of the southern summer, made itself felt in

December and January by torrential rains, frightful thunderstorms,

blazing sunshine and the atmosphere of a Turkish bath. For several

months after her arrival she made renewed and spasmodic efforts to play

the part of a missionary’s wife, to share her husband’s enthusiasm, and

to earn her living—so to speak—by her contribution of effort. If she

had _only_ never met Brentham and if _only_ Ann Jamblin had stopped at

home! She could not but admit the change in John was remarkable. He

was less and less like either of his parents, less and less inclined to

dogmatize; he had become as unselfish as such a self-absorbed,

unobservant man could be. Intensely fond of work, especially manual

work—carpentering, building, gardening, cutting timber, and contriving

ingenious devices to secure comfort and orderliness—this backwoods life

suited him to perfection. He was the head of the station, the principal

teacher of the boys and men, the leader of the services in the chapel.

He was responsible for the finances and general policy of the Mission.

Each of the stations of this Society in East Africa was a little

self-governing republic. Once a year delegates from each East African

station met at Mvita or Lingani, or some other convenient place, and

conferred, agreed perhaps on some common policy, some general line of

conduct. But there was much individual freedom of action. John, for

example, was taking up a strong line against the Slave Trade. Since the

dissolution of the Sultan’s vague rule which followed the German

invasion, the Arab slave traders had revived their slave and ivory

caravans between Tanganyika and the Zangian coast owing to the great

demand for labour in Madagascar and in the Persian Gulf. John had

obtained such influence over the head chief of Ulunga that he had

forbidden the Arabs transit through his lands, and instead of selling

his superfluous young people or his criminals to the slave traders he

sent them to the Mission to be trained in rough carpentry, reading and

writing, husbandry and so forth. The very flourishing trade that

Anderson carried on at the store made the Mission prosperous enough

occasionally to subsidize the chiefs and reward them for sending their

boys and girls to school and to be ostensibly converted to Christianity.

Some black Muslims who had started teaching boys the Koran and elements

of Muhammadanism in two of the villages were expelled, and a resolute

war was made by John on the witch doctors of the tribe, who for a time

were routed before the competition of Cockles’ Pills and the other

invaluable patent medicines which were just beginning to appear in

tabloid form.

Brother Bayley’s department was more especially the study of the native

language. He translated simple prayers and hymns and passages of

Scripture into the Kagulu dialect of Ulunga and rendered more

educational literature into the wider-spread Swahili. He had a small

printing-press with which he was labouring to put his translations into

permanent form; and besides this took a prominent part in the boys’

education.

His personal hobby was butterfly and beetle catching. He devoted his

small amount of leisure to collecting these insects and transmitting

them to an agent in London to sell on his behalf. In this way he made a

fluctuating fifty pounds a year, which was a pleasant addition to his

meagre salary. It provided him with a few small luxuries and enabled

him to send a present every now and then to his mother.

Then there was Ann Jamblin, of Tilehurst, a school-fellow of Lucy, a

sturdy, plump young woman of about twenty-seven, with a dead-white

complexion, a thick skin, black hair, black eyebrows and hard eyes of

pebble brown. She had actually arrived at Hangodi before Lucy herself,

though she started out from home a month later, being of that

exasperating type to whom nothing happens in the same _ratio_ as to

other people. She could never be run over, never be drowned at sea—Lucy

thought—never slip on a piece of orange peel, never be assaulted in a

railway carriage. Ann had been sent out by the Mission Board to be a

bride for Brother Anderson (on a discreet suggestion of John’s, who

thought Anderson a little inclined to look amorously on comely

negresses). But she had declined to fulfil the bargain when she

arrived, denied indeed all knowledge of such an engagement, said she

didn’t want to marry any one: only to do the Lord’s work and help all

round. Her refusal had been taken philosophically by the person most

concerned, on account of her unattractive appearance; and was further

softened by her practical usefulness as an independent member of the

Mission. She house-kept for the little community, attended to the

poultry, goats and sheep, did much of the cooking, made the bread, the

cakes, the puddings; darned the socks, mended the linen, and taught the

native girls the simple arts of British domestic life. She dressed with

little regard to embellishment of the person, but with much attention to

neatness and mosquito bites. Her humour was rough and her tongue lashed

every one in turn. She had that unassailable independence of manner

which is imparted by the possession of a private income of one hundred

pounds a year and the knowledge that her martyrdom was voluntary and

self-sought. Hardly ever ill herself, she nursed every one that was

with almost professional ability.

Lucy secretly detested her, for she was always gibing at John’s wife for

being moony and unpractical, for her "æsthetic tastes," such as liking

flowers on the table at meals; for succumbing quickly to headaches and

megrims generally, and especially for the ease with which she was

humbugged by the big girls of her school classes. Ann would also gird

at her for lack of religious zeal. Ann herself took an aggressively

hearty part in prayers and hymn-singing, and mastered the harmonium

which had proved unplayable by Lucy. Ann even tried making her own

translations of her favourite canticles into the native language and was

not deterred or discouraged because in her first attempts and through

the malice of her girl interpreters she had been misled into rendering

the most sacred phrases and symbolism by gross obscenities. The delight

of shouting out these improprieties in chapel before the blandly

unconscious missionaries, when Brother Bayley was laid aside by fever,

attracted large congregations.

If John Baines were seriously ill with a malarial attack, Ann would

brush Lucy aside as unceremoniously as she ejected her from the

harmonium stool. She would take complete charge of the sick man, reduce

the fever, and make the broths and potions which were to sustain

convalescence. When Lucy herself was ill, Ann would either diagnose the

attack as "fancy" or "hysteria," or a touch of biliousness, and cure it

so drastically that Lucy made haste to get well in order to withdraw

from her treatment.

This was an average day in Lucy’s life at Hangodi in the first year of

her stay there——

6 a.m. Lucy is already awake; John still sleeping heavily. Lucy had

been dreaming she was back at Aldermaston or else voyaging down the Red

Sea with Brentham, and is still under the shock of disappointment as she

lies gazing up at the dingy cone of mosquito net suspended over their

bed from the rat-haunted roof. The bedstead is a broad structure—the

Arab "angareb"—an oblong wooden frame with interlaced strips of ox-hide.

On this foundation has been laid a lumpy cork mattress with well-marked

undulations. On that again a couple of musty blankets and a sheet. For

covering there is another sheet and a coverlet.

Lucy, hearing the awakening bell being tolled, nudges John, who is still

snoring.

_Lucy_: "_John_! The first bell has gone!"

_John_: "Wha’?" (Gurgle, gurgle, snore cut short, lips smacked, heavy

sighs.)——"Wha’? Time to ger-up? Or-right."

He tumbles out of bed in his disarranged night-gown—pajamas were not

introduced into the East Africa Mission till 1890. In doing so he tears

the mosquito curtain with his toe-nails.

A native servant is heard filling two tin baths in the adjoining

roomlet. They then proceed to take their baths in what—to Lucy—is

disgusting promiscuity. The rest of the toilet is summarily proceeded

with. (As John is fully hirsute there is no shaving to be done.) Then

to avoid remonstrance from her husband Lucy kneels with him in prayers

on a dusty mat, in fear all the time some scorpion may sting her ankles.

One did, once.

At half-past six another bell goes—how the converts love

bell-ringing!—and they hurry out to the Chapel where the other members

of the Mission staff and a posse of native boys and girls meet them.

More prayers, a psalm, and a hymn sung lustily but disharmoniously.

Then the whites adjourn to the house or large hut where the meals of the

community are served. The dining-table is of rough-hewn planks of

native timber, and on either side of it there are similarly rough forms

to sit on, with a native stool at either end of the table. The breakfast

consists of porridge and milk, the porridge being made of native cereals

and often a little bitter. There is coarse brown bread with a sour

taste as it is made with fermented palm wine. There are butter from a

tin—rather rancid—potted salmon, and bantams’ eggs from the native

poultry, so under-boiled that they run out over the plate when opened.

John asks a blessing on the meal. They then proceed to eat it, while

the males drink with some noisiness the tea that Ann pours out. "You

don’t seem to have much appetite this morning, Lucy," says Ann of malice

prepense: "Porridge burnt again? What is it?"

"Thank you. There is nothing wrong with the porridge, so far as I know.

I am simply not hungry."

"Ah! Been at those bananas again. They’re very sustaining. But you’ll

never be well if you eat between meals."

"_I_ eat _at_ meals and _between_ ’em," says Brother Anderson, "and I’m

glad to say loss of appetite don’t never trouble _me_. This is a rare

climate to make and keep you hungry."

Anderson is voracious and somewhat lacking in table manners, defects

atoned for by his being an unremitting worker and well contented with

his lot—Eupeptic, as we learnt to say at a later date. But he keeps his

spoon in his cup and holds it steady with a black-rimmed thumb when he

drinks. He also helps himself to butter with his own knife, talks with

his mouth full, and never masticates behind closed lips but displays the

process without self-consciousness. Lucy, who is squeamish about such

things, glances at him occasionally with scarcely concealed disgust.

Brother Bayley eats more sparingly and divides his attention between his

food and a printed vocabulary of Kisagara. He has a strong predilection

for reading at meals, which ever and again comes under the lash of Ann’s

tongue. She does not consider it good manners.

John himself makes a hearty breakfast, but glances occasionally at

Lucy’s silent abstemiousness. At last Ann, the housekeeper, rises after

Brothers Bayley and Anderson have left the table for their work, and

says to Lucy: "Don’t sit too long over your food because I want

Priscilla and Florence to clear away, wash up and then come to me...."

She goes out.

"Not well, Lucy, this morning?" says John, who is beginning to despair

about her fitting in to mission life. The conviction which he often

repels takes him now with an ache. He loves the work himself, not only

the converting these savages to a better mode of life, but the

unrealized colonization about the whole business, the planting of fruit

trees, the increase of flocks and herds, the freedom from civilization’s

shackles and class distinctions....

"Oh yes! I’m quite well ... I suppose. Simply not hungry. I daresay I

shall make up for it at dinner ... provided Ann leaves me alone and

doesn’t nag about eating. I think it’s _such_ bad manners, observing

what people do at meal times. I don’t comment on her big appetite or on

Anderson’s disgusting way of eating...."

"She means very well," replies John, wishing to be fair....

"I daresay she does. She’d have made you a much better wife than I. If

I die in my next attack of fever, you ought to marry her ... _I_

shouldn’t mind...."

"Now, Lucy, don’t say such dreadful things. You can’t think _how_ they

hurt me...."

At this moment Priscilla and Florence—pronouncing their imposed

baptismal names as "Pilisilla," and "Filórency" in a loud stage

conversation they are holding together to conceal the fact that they

have rapidly escheated a half-basin-full of sugar—come in to clear away,

and John leads Lucy with an arm round her waist back to their own

quarters.

"Cheer up, old girl! You haven’t had fever now for three months and

you’re getting your good looks back. And making splendid progress with

your teaching.... You’re beginning to master the language...."

It is eleven o’clock in the morning and the Girls School at Hangodi,

with its mud walls of wattle and daub and its thatch of grass and palm

mid-ribs, is hot to the extent of eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Despite

the open door (for the small glass-paned windows are not made to open)

the atmosphere is close and redolent of perspiring Negroes. Lucy raises

her eyes from her desk and looks about her as though realizing the scene

from a new point of view, without illusion or kindly allowance. At the

end of the School-house, opposite to the teacher’s platform and desk, is

the entrance-door of heavy planks adzed from native timber. Through the

wide-open doorway can be seen a square of sun-baked red clay which

refracts a dazzling flame-white effulgence.

When the eye got used to this brilliancy of sunlight on a surface

polished by the pattering of naked feet, it could distinguish rows of

Eucalyptus saplings, and here and there the rich green of a native

shade-tree, together with part of a red brick chapel roofed with

corrugated iron and several thatched houses of white-washed clay.

On the walls of the School were hung a map of the World on Mercator’s

projection and a map of Africa; a large scroll with elementary

illustrations of Natural History—typical beasts, birds, reptiles, fish

and insects, of sizes as disproportionate as the inhabitants of a Noah’s

Ark. There were also placards with arithmetical figures, letters of the

alphabet and single syllable combinations: _M a, ma; b a, ba; l e, le_,

etc. Over the wall, behind the teacher’s desk and above the black-board,

was a long strip of white paper, printed in big black capitals: MWAACHE

WATOTO WANIKARIBU ("Suffer little children to come unto Me"). The words

were in the widely understood Swahili language, the medium through which

Lucy endeavoured with many difficulties and misunderstandings to impart

her knowledge to her semi-savage pupils.

A lull after her two hours’ teaching had begun. A Negro woman of some

intelligence, a freed slave from Unguja and the wife of "Josaia

Birigizi" (Josiah Briggs) the interpreter, was talking in a low

sing-song voice with the little girls, practising them in the alphabet

and the syllables formed by consonant and vowel. The class, ranged upon

rows of rough forms in front of the teacher’s desk, consisted of black

girls of all sizes, from little children to young, nubile women; but

they were separated by an aisle down the middle of the room and were

assorted according to height into two categories, "A-_big_-geru" and

"A-_lig_-geru," these phrases being Bantu corruptions of "Big girls,"

and "Little girls."

Although nearly if not quite naked when at home, here on the Mission

premises they were dressed in short-sleeved smocks of white calico,

loose from the neck downwards, most of them soiled and in need of

washing. The girls consequently had a frowsy look, somewhat belied by

their glossy faces and arms, their brilliant eyes, and dazzling white

teeth. The smaller children were pretty little things that any teacher

might have petted, but most of the bigger girls had an impudent look and

an ill-concealed expression of over-fed idleness tending towards

imaginings of sensuality. A critic of missionary policy in those days

would have felt inclined to put these bigger girls to good, hard, manual

labour in the mornings which should by the afternoon have taken the

sauciness out of them; and have reserved their mental education for the

afternoon, when they had returned from brick-making or field hoeing.

No sooner did Lucy relapse into silence and show signs of reverie than

they set to work to whisper of their love affairs, to push and pull one

another about with giggles and peevish complaints; or else to let slates

fall with a clatter whilst they watched with interest the flitting of

rats about the rafters.

Lucy raised her eyes likewise to the roof. Its framework was

constructed of the smooth, shiny mid-ribs of palm-fronds, descending

from a central ridge-pole below the mud walls and supporting outside a

shade over the verandah. Across the palm rafters were laid transverse

rows of more or less straight branches or sticks, and to these were

attached the round bunches of coarse grass which formed the thatch. From

rafters and beams there fell every now and again little wafts of

yellowish powder, due to the industrious drilling of the wood by

burrowing beetles. But the thatch was alive with larger things than

insects, especially where it came in contact with the top of the clay

walls. Here an occasional lizard darted in and out the rafters like a

whip, and rats poked out their long faces with quizzical, beady eyes,

watching the proceedings below with rat-like impudence.

Teaching had begun at nine, and would go on till lunch-time—twelve. But

already by eleven the teacher was weary and could not concentrate her

thoughts on the drudgery of getting elementary ideas about reading,

spelling and counting into these Palæolithic brains. She fell silent.

Her eyes first ranged over the School-house, taking in all its details

in a mood of scornful hostility. She had never so completely realized

the hatefulness of her present existence and its bitter contrast with

her home life in England. She was sick of John’s simple piety, of

Brother Anderson’s sanctimoniousness and disagreeably affectionate

manner to herself ... and his way of eating, his behaviour at table, his

unctuous prayers. Mr. Bayley, whose quiet manners and politeness

appealed to her, was, nevertheless, fanatical about the letter of

Scripture—a bigot, Captain Brentham would have called him. It would not

be loyal to her husband—John, at least, was sincere and worked very

hard; otherwise what _satirical_ letters she could write about it

all!...

But the one she most disliked among her associates was Ann Jamblin. Ann

came between her and John, just as they might have hit it off, have come

to some agreement about religion or her own share in Mission work. If

Ann had never come out, things might have been more bearable.... Ann

had come here on a false pretence. She was in love with John, _that_

was certain, though John was too much of a goose to see it.

Certainly she had made herself useful, _odiously_ useful.... The men

liked her because she made them so comfortable.... That talent, of

course, was inherited from the ham and beef shop at home! She shared

Lucy’s teaching work and taught the women and girls in the

afternoon—taught them sensible things—cooking, plain sewing, washing,

ironing, leaving to Lucy—as she pretended—the "fine lady" part of the

work, the instruction of their minds.

Lucy’s eyes flashed in her day-dream when she realized how she had grown

to loathe the morning and evening prayers.... Brother Anderson’s

contribution to the uplifting of the spirit, especially. _How_ weary

was the Sunday with its two "native" services, both conducted by John in

English, broken Swahili, and Kagulu, with the long-drawn-out

interpretation of Josiah Briggs.

She had had good health since she reached Hangodi, after that ghastly

nightmare journey from the coast. That was fortunate, because the

nearest medical help was fifty miles away. But _oh!_ the monotony of

the life! How much longer could she stand it? It was not so bad for

the men. Every Saturday they took a whole holiday and went down to the

lower country and shot game and guinea-fowl for the food of the station.

Sometimes they "itinerated" and she and Ann were left alone. John

always asserted it was not safe for white women to travel, except to and

from the coast. With much camp life he believed they became

unwomanly....

There had only been three mails since she had arrived last July.

Captain Brentham sent her books and newspapers, but Ann tossed her head

over these attentions and John once or twice confiscated the books as

being of dangerous tendencies; subversive of a simple faith. The

station itself was provided with little else to read except the Bible, a

few goody-goody books and magazines, grammars and dictionaries of native

languages.

In England she had imagined she was going to sketch and botanize,

collect butterflies, and keep all sorts of wonderful pets, besides

beholding superb scenery and meeting every now and then celebrated

explorers. That dream had soon passed away. She had no time for

sketching in the week, and it was considered wrong to do it on a Sunday.

And even if she outraged the sentiment of the community and sat down

with her sketch-block and water colours before a flowering tree or a

striking view, ants came up and bit her, midges attacked her face till

it was puffed out, or the sun was too hot or the wind too boisterous.

As to botanizing, there was certainly splendid forest—with tree-ferns

and orchids—higher up the Ulunga mountains, but it was pronounced unsafe

to botanize there except in a party. There were snakes, or leopards, or

lurking warriors of unfriendly tribes....

Her thoughts then turned to the homeland.... Presently she was back in

the scenes she had left nearly a year ago.... She saw herself walking

slowly from Aldermaston village up the road to Mortimer, her father’s

farmhouse just left behind. She stopped to greet old Miss Fanning, who

inhabited the rather monastic-looking school-teacher’s house by a

special concession, as Lucy—her successor—lived with her parents hard

by. The children of the village were playing games with the pupil

teacher in the large grassy yard. She could see quite distinctly the

rustic shed which surrounded two sides of the playground—like the

verandah of an African house. In her day-dream the children, blue-eyed,

flaxen-haired, seemed to greet her. They were so fond of her—How _could_

she have left them? ... Then in imagination she was farther along the

Mortimer road, past the high brick wall of Aldermaston Park. Lordly

blue-green cedars topped the wall of mellow brick. Then when the wall

turned off to the right it was succeeded by a high bank and hedge as the

road mounted and rose above the river valley. She could see, oh! with

such detail, the soft green fern-fronds of the bank. Above the male

ferns grew a row of hart’s-tongue. Above that, here and there a

foxglove, tufts of bell heather and where the hedge lowered and you

could see into spaces of the oak wood, there were brakes of French

willow herb in pink blossom....

What a series of pictures now passed before her mental vision as

instinctively she closed her eyes to Africa, to her silent, observant

class, who thought that she was dozing! White ducks on a wayside pond,

set in a crescent of duckweed; clipped and shaven yews in front of an

old brick-and-timber cottage with a steep thatched roof; an upland

hayfield, sturdy, wholesome men with frank blue eyes and brawny arms of

beefy red; long-horned cattle with a make-believe fierceness which had

never imposed on her, standing in the shade of elms and whisking flies

from off their red flanks and cream bellies; her mother’s garden, gay

with phlox, sweet peas and pansies, and scented with dark red roses....

Oh, _why_ had she ever left her mother, left her pleasant tranquil work

at the National school to join John out in East Africa? It was vanity,

partly; wishing to get married; wishing to travel.... For the

evangelizing of Africa she had ceased to care since her talks with

Captain Brentham—"Roger," she called him to herself—and still more since

she had come to know Africa.... But "Roger"—Well, if she hadn’t come

out to Africa she would certainly never have had the opportunity to know

_him_ ... on that steamer voyage!

Lucy’s thoughts were abruptly brought back to Eastern Africa and

discipline in her school class; for a too venturesome rat, darting up a

rafter, had lost his footing and fallen plop amongst the girls—the

"Big-geru," and they, upsetting forms and throwing away slates, had

flung themselves in a struggling heap on the spot where the rat had

landed. From out of the mêlée one triumphant young woman rose up, with

her smock torn from top to bottom, but holding up a damaged, dying rat

by its broken tail. A loud clamour of voices disputing the fairness of

the capture and the answering shrieks of the capturer, secure in the

possession of her prize (which she would shortly eat broiled over the

ashes as a relish to her sorghum porridge), roused Lucy to a show of

anger which stilled the tumult and turned the girls’ attention to their

teacher. She, standing up and trying to stammer out in Swahili words of

adequate reproof, realized still more vividly the dreariness of her

present lot, and bursting into an agony of tears, buried her head in her

arms over the desk.

The little children gazed at her grief, awe-struck. Could rich, god-like

white people have any sorrow, when they might wear cloth to any extent

and had white salt in bottles and delicious foods in tins? Propelled by

Josiah’s wife they stole away wondering; and the "Big-geru" left the

school gracelessly, with loud laughs and free comments in Kagulu on the

white woman’s show of emotion. The schoolroom clock ticked on, the

rats, emboldened, rushed about the thatch and dropped without mishap on

the floor, whence they scuttled out on to the verandah, then up the

posts and so into the roof again. The flame-white sunlight grew fiercer

in the square, the shadows of the trees shorter and more purple. At

last a loud bell clanged, and presently Ann Jamblin looked in and said

with a shade of insolence as she passed on: "The luncheon bell, Lucy."

Lucy affected not to hear her, but hurriedly dabbed her tear-stained

face with a handkerchief, shook her white dress tidy, smoothed her hair

with a hand-touch here and there, and took down a book from a shelf as

if to study....

Her husband stood at the doorway.

"Luncheon’s ready, dear.... Have the girls been unruly this morning?"

"Thank you, I’m not hungry. Don’t wait lunch for me. I dare say I

shan’t want anything till tea-time.... The girls? Oh! Not worse than

usual. I have no influence with them.... It’s my fault, of course. I

was never cut out for this work. Please, _please_ don’t wait.... I

suppose it isn’t part of one’s Christian duty to eat when you aren’t

hungry?..."

John Baines looked downcast ... and went out to the lunch of roast kid

or roast guinea-fowl, sweet potatoes, boiled plantains, and banana

fritters in syrup of sugar-cane, with less appetite than usual.

Lucy meantime tries to pretend she is interested in a book. It is far

too hot to walk out and botanize. And then, what is the use of pressing

these plants? The colour of the gorgeous petals soon fades to brown,

fungi and minute insects attack them and they crumble into dust; and the

Mission objects to all the blotting-paper being used up in this way....

Presently John returns; with a native servant carrying a tray on which

are tea things, slices of guinea-fowl breast, some boiled sweet

potatoes, and banana fritters. To obtain this rather tempting little

meal he has had to face the scornful opposition of Ann Jamblin, but for

once he has turned on her (to the silent dismay of Bros. Bayley and

Anderson). "Ann," he has said, "you must learn to keep your tongue and

temper under control. It is you who drive Lucy away from our meals by

your constant fault-finding. We are not all made alike; some of us are

more sensitive than others." Ann, strange to say, is silenced by his

sharp tone and makes no retort.

"Come, Lucy," he said, after the little meal has been placed on the

table by her desk; "you will only make yourself ill by this refusal to

eat. I am sorry Ann has been so teasing. I have spoken to her. Now

try to eat this little lunch whilst we are quiet in here."

Lucy looks at it and at him. In the middle of the tray is an enamelled

iron tumbler containing a small bunch of mallow flowers with large

lemon-tinted petals and a vivid mauve centre. This, from John, means so

much, as a concession to her tastes. She bursts into tears—at this

period she was very soppy!

"Oh, John! You _are_ good to me. I really _don’t_ deserve such

kindness. I have been a _dreadful_ disappointment to you."

"Well; eat up the lunch and you’ll make me happy," says poor John. "Why

shouldn’t we _all_ be happy here, Lucy?" he goes on. "The Lord has

singularly blessed our work; the climate—for Africa—is not at all bad;

you can’t say the scenery is ugly, there are beautiful flowers all

around—and—and ferns. We’re getting on well with the people, much better

than I ever expected. Why, your schoolroom is already too small for the

numbers and Bayley has to teach his classes out of doors in the

’baraza.’ Look at our plantations—how the lemon trees and oranges are

growing—and the coffee. It’s true we get our mails rather seldom.

There seems to be something queer going on at the coast. The carriers

can’t get through.... The Germans, I suspect. But we’re safe and snug

enough here. As for me, I don’t want to hear from home. Mother’s

letters are not precisely cheering. I only ask to go on with the Lord’s

work without interruption. _Do_ try to be cheerful, darling ... do you

think you—Do you think there is—er—any hope of—your——?"

"I _will_ try once more, John. But couldn’t we live more by ourselves?

Ann gets on my nerves, do what I will. Couldn’t we do our own

housekeeping?" continues Lucy, clasping her hands and looking at him

pleadingly.

"Well," said John, a little ruefully, "you know you _did_ try for a

month after you first came, but it was such a failure that you gave it

up. You couldn’t stand the heat of the cookhouse, or manage the cook,

or do the accounts in calico for the things you bought. And—you don’t

know much about cooking. Why should you? You’re a first-class teacher.

And then, you know, you were so set at first on studying—studying

botany—and painting pictures. I thought, even, you might write for the

Mission Magazine, like Mrs. Lennox and Mrs. Baxter...."

_Lucy_: "But they always want you to write goody goody and bring in the

Lord at every turn and make out the black people to be quite different

from what they are—Somehow I couldn’t fall in with their style, it’s so

humbugging——"

_John_: "Well, then, write for other magazines, worldly ones if you

like. I’m sure you could write well—you used to make up beautiful

poetry before we were married, and you’ve had thrilling enough

experiences on the way up. It isn’t every missionary’s wife who’s had a

lion trying to get into her tent——"

_Lucy_: "The thought of _that_ journey _still_ makes me sick. And yet I

used to think I should adore African travel—" (An ungrateful thought

flashed through her mind: "so I should, with—with—some people").

"Besides, if I told the true story—bugs, ants, snakes, rotting corpses,

and all—it might stop other missionary women from coming out. No. I

can’t write anything. I _do_ make collections of flowers, but you won’t

let me go far from the Station to botanize and you’re always too busy to

come with me. As to painting, it’s either too wet, or too hot, or too

something. And then you hinted once I shouldn’t take a half-holiday

every day but help some one else in their work, so I give up some of my

time to Mr. Bayley.... No, I won’t call him ’Brother Bayley,’ it’s so

silly, all this brother and sister business"—(a short pause and a sudden

impulse). "John! Couldn’t you take me home next dry season—and get

them to give you work at home—? Or" (noting his look of dismay) "send

me home to Mother and join me there later on, when your leave is

due?..."

_John_: "It would just _break my heart_ either to part with you or to

throw up my missionary career...."

_Lucy_: "Well, then, could I go on an itinerary—as you call it—with you?

Not be cooped up here with that intolerable Ann when you three men go

off on a round of preaching. I’d promise not to mind anything—snakes,

ants, lions, or even the Masai. Perhaps I might get to enjoy Africa that

way without all this intolerable religion...."

_John_: "_Lucy!_..."

_Lucy_: "I didn’t mean to shock you again, but I couldn’t help it. I

don’t know what’s come over me, but I’ve grown to _hate_ religion, and

still more pretending to be religious. I’m sick of the Bible ... at

least I mean of the Old Testament. It always makes me think of some

wearisome old grandmother who says the same thing over and over

again.... Who wrote it? That’s what _I_ want to know. How do we know

the old Jews didn’t make it up and pretend it was inspired?" (John

ejaculates a "_Lucy!_" of protest at intervals, but she is so carried

away by a desire to express her revolt that she pays no heed.) "You

know I’ve been trying to help Mr. Bayley in his translations by reading

slowly bits of the Bible—just now we’re in Exodus. He _would_ begin at

Genesis, even though I said all the people wanted was the Gospels—I

don’t think I ever studied the Bible much at home and it all comes fresh

to me as though I had never thought about it before.... Well,

Exodus.... Have you ever read those chapters where Moses fasted—or said

he fasted—for forty days and nights _without food or even water_ whilst

he was writing down God’s sayings? ... How silly some of them sound....

How particular the Almighty seemed about the colours of the tabernacle

curtains—blue, purple, and scarlet—and about the snuffers and the

snuff-dishes being made of pure gold. And about the ’knops.’ ... What

is a ’knop’? Poor Mr. Bayley can’t find the word in any dictionary.

What can be the good of translating all this into Kagulu? It only

puzzles the natives, Josiah told me. Mr. Bayley’s always losing his

temper with Josiah because he can’t find the right Gulu or even Swahili

word for some of these things in Exodus. Surely all you want to teach

them is simple Christianity and how to live less like pigs and more like

decent human beings...."

_John_ (interposing at last, after he has cast his counter argument into

words): "How can you teach them about Christ without first explaining

what led up to Christ, the Fall and the Redemption? We want to give

them the whole Bible, even if we don’t understand every passage

ourselves. Every word of the Bible is inspired." (Lucy makes a mute

protest.) "But oh! my Lucy ... what I feared and foretold has come to

pass. This coquetting with Science has cost you your faith. Kneel

down." (She knelt with him unwillingly on the little platform.)

"Oh Lord," prayed John, most earnestly, "visit Thine handmaid in her

sore need for Thy help! Dispel her doubts with the sunshine of—of—thy

grace. Convince her of Thine Almighty Power and Wisdom and consecrate

her to Thy service in this Heathen Land."

They rose to their feet constrainedly. John covertly flicked the dust

from his trousers, blew his nose, and wiped eyes suffused with emotion.

Lucy impatiently shook her white skirt. How she hated these impromptu

genuflections which always shortened the wearing life of the skirt and

sent it prematurely to the wash. And much washing made it shrink so.

Still, her passion was spent and she felt very, very sorry for her

husband, and a little guilty in her discontent. If she had come out

straight to him from England under no other influence, would she not

have been a fairer critic, have taken more kindly to mission work? And

was not John really cut out for a missionary, with every reason to be

proud of his station’s success?

These silent musings, while John awkwardly hummed a hymn tune, were

broken in upon by the strident voice and bustling presence of Ann

Jamblin. "Well, then, young people" (being three years older than they

were she sometimes assumed a maternal air), "if you’ve finished

honeymooning, I’ll take the tray away and get the school ready for my

sewing class." (To one without: "Pilisilla! Ring the bell three

times.")

They left the School-house without answering her, hand in hand. Lucy

felt so sorry for John that she resolved once more to try to be a

missionary’s wife and helpmeet. The intense heat of the forenoon was

breeding a thunderstorm, and already the sky was overcast, and a few

puffs of cool air were blowing up from the plains. Presently these grew

into an alarming dust-storm, a hurricane which blew Bayley’s proofs and

manuscript to right and left; and when Lucy rushed in to pick them up

she was blinded for a minute by the glare of lightning. Then the wind

dropped before a deluge—a grey, sweeping deluge of rain. In trying to

save this and that, Lucy and Ann were drenched to the skin and had to

change their soaking garments. The change to dry clothes, the rub down

somehow cheered them, and made them more friendly. Lucy then returned to

Bayley’s study and once more helped him in the returning daylight with

his translations. But he was now well into Leviticus, and some passages

proved so embarrassing to both Lucy and Josiah that the former broke off

with the exclamation, "It’s teatime."

And sure enough there sounded the one pleasant summons in the

twenty-four hours: the tea bell.

The rain had ceased, the darkness had lifted for a while and left the

western sky a sweet lemon yellow, out of which a tempered sunlight

twinkled. The air had become fresh and uplifting in a dying breeze.

The little party met round the tea-table in a mood to jest and to be

friendly. Ann, more good-humoured than usual, described her sousing.

She also told Lucy she had had two of Lucy’s skirts mended at her sewing

lesson, to save her the trouble. Oh, it was all right; they had served

as a pattern.

A couple of armed porters arrived during teatime, their calico clothing

still adhering to their brown bodies from the rain storm through which

they had stolidly walked. They had not brought the regular "Europe"

mail from Unguja, but some parcels from Mr. Callaway and local letters.

These read aloud over the tea table spoke of the restlessness of the

coast population caused by the administration of the German Company, of

Arab gossip at Unguja, of the sombre news from Nyasaland where a

Scottish trading Company was at open war with the Arabs, in trying to

defend the population from Arab slave raids. Tiputipu was away on the

Congo looking for Stanley and had withdrawn his restraining influence

from the Tanganyika Arabs. Was a concerted Arab attack on the

interfering white man about to begin? The missionaries looked from one

to the other a little anxiously. A growing feeling of _camaraderie_

linked them. They felt themselves to be an outpost of Christianity in a

world threatened by the Moslem. They congratulated John in that he had

so completely won over the Ulunga chief, Mbogo, that the latter had

expelled the Arab traders from his hill country and made common cause

with the White man....

At dinner—or as they better styled it, supper—they were quite cheerful.

There was even a special zest in the evening service, point and _vim_ in

the shortened prayers. Ann was congratulated by Lucy on her ground-nut

soup and "pepperpot"; and the treacle pudding which followed was

declared a masterpiece.

John that night kissed his wife tenderly in mute recognition of her more

sympathetic attitude.... She did not shrink as usual from his caresses.

*CHAPTER X*

*ROGER ARRIVES*

Sir James Eccles, it was decided, was not to return to Unguja to guide

once more the destinies of East Africa. Prince Bismarck would not hear

of it. After considerable hesitation Sir Godfrey Dewburn, K.C.I.E., was

appointed to succeed him in the spring of 1888 and arrived at Unguja to

take up his position as Agent and Consul-General when Roger Brentham had

about completed a year’s tenure of the post in an "acting" capacity.

Sir Godfrey Dewburn was a fortunate Irish soldier, who—because he had a

capacity for getting on well with everybody—had held a high

administrative position in India, though outside the ranks of the Indian

Civil Service. He did well over the Prince of Wales’s visit in

organizing successful durbars, nautch dances and perfect shooting

picnics, in which record tigers were bagged. He did better still in an

aftermath of the Imperial visit, when the Duke of Ulster and the

Hereditary Prince of Baden came out to shoot in Dewburn’s new province.

He had also married, with very wise prevision, a daughter of the

Choselwhit who was legal adviser to the Circumlocution Office. When it

was felt that Sir James Eccles must be thrown over to avoid a breach

with Germany, which threatened a Franco-Germano-Russian alliance against

us, somebody—perhaps the Duke of Ulster, who still remembered Dewburn’s

champagne cup, cooled with the snows of the Himalaya and tendered just

at the psychological moment when the most splendid of the tigers had

fallen to the Royal rifle—suggested Dewburn for the post. And as he was

backed up by the India Office, who wanted to weed their Civil Service of

outsiders, and by Molyneux who thought Dewburn’s dinners at the "Rag"

quite the best in London, Lord Wiltshire, tired and preoccupied over the

Parnell letters, gave way and appointed Dewburn. Lord Silchester’s

suggestion of Brentham was deemed "indelicate," emphasized as it was by

Sibyl, to whom Lord Wiltshire had taken a whimsical dislike.

Dewburn, when he came out, posed as a jolly good fellow who praised

every one all round and enchanted Mrs. Bazzard by his manners and easy

cordiality. But after a bit, Brentham’s efficiency got on his nerves.

It was irritating to hear his subordinate—so much better fitted than he

for the post, some might have said—prattling and swearing in Swahili and

Unguja Arabic, and rather markedly doing without an interpreter.

Dewburn spoke French well and a little bad Hindustani, but there his

linguistics ended; and his brain sutures being closed would admit no

knowledge of an African tongue.

Then there was Spencer Bazzard always at hand, serviceable unto

servility, ready to jot inspirations and judgments down on a writing-pad

with some prehistoric form of the fountain-pen or indelible pencil, and

reproduce these utterances afterwards, conveniently elaborated.

Brentham, on the other hand, preferred putting in a draft of his own,

which took quite an independent line and might have led H.M. Government

to do something, make up their minds to some definite course....

Then again, Brentham’s real destination was the German mainland.... The

situation there was strained.

Mrs. Bazzard somehow amused and intrigued Sir Godfrey (Lady Dewburn had

not yet arrived). He guessed her as somewhat of a demi-rep, but to him,

as to me, such a person is more interesting to study than the simple

village maiden, or the clergyman’s daughter with her smooth hair parted

in the middle....

Who precisely were the Bazzards? May I, with a novelist’s omniscience,

clear up the mystery?

There was a celebrated firm of solicitors in Staple Inn known as

Grewgious and Bazzard. It had originated in a Mr. Hiram Grewgious, who

had a valuable Norfolk connexion and had figured with some distinction

and celebrity in a famous Kentish murder trial in the early ’sixties.

The junior partner, Mr. Bazzard, took over the business from Mr.

Grewgious, and when the latter died in 1878 still preserved the honoured

style of the firm. This Mr. Bazzard led a double life, in that he was

not only a particularly astute solicitor, but also a playwright of

ability who produced at least two stirring melodramas under a _nom de

plume_.

As solicitor he had lifted Mr. Bennet Molyneux once out of a

considerable difficulty and delicate dilemma ... he had ascertained that

the lady was travelling under an assumed name and ... in short, he had

settled the affair without any fuss, and Molyneux was thoroughly

grateful and asked him to dine at the Travellers, giving, of course, due

notice, so that the guest-room, in those distant days with its settees

thick with dust, might be got ready, and a fire be lit to take off the

chill.

Over walnuts and port, Mr. Bazzard had mentioned the existence of a

much-younger brother—fifteen years younger, in point of fact—rather at a

loose end since he was called to the Bar—clever chap withal, steady,

married now to a deuced pretty woman, but in his youth the very devil

with the sex. ("Just so," would nod Mr. Molyneux comprehendingly, who,

except for the most pardonable slip with Mrs. —— at Lucerne, was a

blameless husband and father.) Well, then, there he was—had tried

ranching in the States and buying horses in the Argentine, got done in

the eye by that scoundrel, Bax Strangeways—knew a lot about the

tropics—stand any climate—take on any job. In short, did Mr. Molyneux

know of an opening anywhere in Africa, C.O. or F.O., for a sporting chap

with a knowledge of Law?

And Bennet had put down his name for a vacancy in the East African

Consular service. And having thus taken him under his wing, was

prepared to stand by him through thick and thin ... even deluded himself

into thinking he was a damned good sort, and his golden-haired wife—"bit

of the devil in her, no doubt"—a fit person for Mrs. Molyneux to know—in

the country, at any rate.

Perhaps she was. Why should one sneer at a woman for trying to improve

her position and looks and wriggle into a less sordid sphere than that

in which she was brought up? Emilia Standish—christened Emily, of

course, but wrote her name "Emilia" from the time she was seventeen—was,

as Captain Brentham ill-naturedly guessed, the daughter of a Bayswater

widow who kept a Bayswater boarding-house (few districts of London have

such a power for moulding human beings to its guise). Emilia

Standish—or was it Stapleton?—I really forget—had tried life as a

governess with ill success. She confided to her mother, and her mother

only, that she might have succeeded here or there had not her pupil’s

father made improper advances from which she had to flee. She had

studied for the stage, but like her predestined fate, Spencer Bazzard,

she, at thirty-two, was somewhat at a loose end and living at home when

Spencer came to lodge at her mother’s boarding-house. He was down on

his luck, almost in hiding, nearly cast off by his highly respectable,

much older brother. He fell ill. Emilia took pity on him, nursed him,

and defied her mother over the financial question. Out of gratitude he

proposed. She accepted him and took stock of the situation, called on

the elder brother in Staple Inn, secured his advocacy for a "colonial"

appointment—and—you know the rest.

Spencer can’t have been wholly bad, because though they had many a

private tiff and unheard wrangle, this woman stuck by him and made a

career for him. Brentham, in writing to his sister, gave too unfair a

description of Spencer. He omitted to notice that though his knowledge

of law was so imperfect as to throw doubt on the efficacy of the

examinations which then admitted to the Bar, he had at any rate acquired

some knowledge of shorthand, and certain of the qualities necessary to

playing private secretary to an important personage. So that Sir

Godfrey preferred greatly the retention of Bazzard as his lieutenant at

Unguja, rather than the slightly gloomy and excessively well-informed

Brentham.

There came at this time rumour after rumour that the Arabs of the

Zangian coast were preparing to rise in force not only against the

Germans but against all white men. They were concerting measures in

common with the Arabs of Mombasa, of Tanganyika, Nyasa and the Upper

Congo to expel all white men from East Africa and found a great

Slave-holding empire which might link up with the victoriously

anti-European Mahdi of the Sudan. Sir Godfrey Dewburn did not clothe

his Memorandum of instructions to Brentham in exactly these

comprehensive and grandiloquent terms, derived from a contemporaneous

essay of my own, but he said:

"Look here, dear old chap. You know you are a bit of the fifth wheel to

the coach here, on this potty little island. You’ve put me up to all

the ropes, I’m well in the saddle. Now suppose you cut along to your

own show? The mainland, hey? Go and round up those blasted Germans,

don’t you know? Of course, steer clear of quarrels—that’d never do. Be

coldly polite, but see what they’re up to and report to me—fully.

Strikes me it’s blowing up for a storm...."

So Brentham shipped himself and his indispensable retinue of Goanese

cook, Swahili butler, and a nucleus of fifteen always dependable

gunmen-porters of the stalwart Unyamwezi breed over to

Medinat-al-barkah—the "Town of Blessings," on the Zangian coast:

formerly the chief shipping port of slaves and now the head-quarters of

the German Chartered Company which had succeeded to the authority of the

Sultan of Unguja.

A few months afterwards, when he had organized a Consulate and an Indian

clerical staff in an adapted, cleansed, and tidied Arab house, he

received an urgent and confidential communication from Sir Godfrey:

"The F.O. is much perturbed by the reports of Arab risings against the

German Company. Mvita seems to be quiet under Mackenzie. The various

missionary societies are clamouring for information and some indication

that H.M.G. realizes the seriousness of the situation. I have been

instructed semi-officially by H. and M. that you should at once proceed

inland with a sufficiently strong caravan and visit the missionary

stations within a radius of—say—three hundred miles of Medina, assisting

the white people to repair to safe positions on the coast, especial care

being taken to bring away their women and children. You know far better

what to do than I, who am a new comer to East Africa. So, _carte

blanche_. Do your best. Good luck and chin-chin.

"Lady Dewburn, who has just come out, is dying to put her feet on a

maned lion skin when she gets out of bed. So if you’ve any luck

shooting, ’Then you’ll remember me!’

"Yours,

"GODFREY DEWBURN."

In consequence of these instructions you can picture such events as

these occurring at the end of September, 1888.

Lucy Baines, attended by Josiah Briggs’s wife Halima, was taking the air

on the outskirts of Hangodi. She had had a baby in the previous July,

and was still weak and anaemic. The confinement had been a difficult

one, as it was a little premature, owing to Lucy having been frightened

by a hyena. A medical missionary had been in hurried attendance, and

kind Mrs. Stott had come fifty miles to act as an amateur midwife. But

the child died soon after its birth, and Lucy, for the first fortnight,

had been delirious. If her child had lived her whole outlook might have

changed and brightened. As it was——

John had rigged up a kind of machila—I can’t explain a second time what

a machila is—a compromise between a palanquin and a hammock—and this

could be taken out on short journeys by two strong porters. With this

and her pupil-teacher, Halima, in attendance, Lucy was wont to make

little afternoon pilgrimages along the red paths on the outskirts of the

Hangodi plateau.

At this and that shady spot she would leave her machila languidly, sit

on a camp stool and pick flowers and examine them: or she would practise

her Swahili and Kagulu with Halima and question this woman—greatly

devoted to her—on native manners and customs, or native legends. The

two porters would squat at a respectful distance, or if told they would

not be wanted for half an hour, would stroll off to the nearest native

village.

On this particular day in September they came running back in great

excitement to say a white man’s _safari_ was approaching. It could be

seen in the plain below ... quite a small army of black men headed by

one white man, coming in single file over the burnt grass.

Rumour had flown ahead of it ... as it did in Africa, in pre-telegraph

days. The white man was a great English consul coming to make a treaty

with Ulunga, or coming to fight the Arabs, or to turn the Wa-dachi out

of the country and to place Nguru under the Woman chief of the English.

Mbogo the chief had already run up his English flag....

Lucy’s heart stood still and she sat on her camp stool too much overcome

to remain standing. Could it ... be ... Roger?

Halima fumbled in her basket and produced a restorative. Presently Lucy

rose to her feet and said in a decisive tone:

"Take me to meet the white man...."

They met about three miles from the Mission Station. Seeing the machila

approaching, heralded by the boastful singing of its carriers, anxious

to do their mistress honour, Brentham had got off his riding donkey and

handed it to a follower carrying his sporting rifle.. He walked to meet

the unknown person swaying in the jaunty advance of the delighted

porters. The machila stopped. Lucy emerged from it, then overcome with

dizziness sank down by the wayside. Quickly he had raised her,

unthinkingly and instinctively their arms were round each other.... "My

dearest girl! You are safe then? Your station has not been attacked?"

"My darling _Roger_! you have come for me ... take, oh, _take_ me away!"

Thus they spoke instinctively in continuation of thoughts long

sanctioned by their inner consciousness, but never outwardly expressed.

There were no listeners who could understand what the avowals meant.

Nevertheless they hastened to resume a correct parlance as between old

acquaintances and nothing more.

"I think," said Lucy, "you had better send one or two spare men on ahead

with a brief note to my husband saying you will be arriving at our

station in about an hour, that you met me on the road and will bring me

on with you. This will give our people time to—to—plan where to put you

all. There won’t be room for everybody inside the stockade. Then when

you’ve sent off the note we can rest for half an hour or so in that

piece of shade, where there are the euphorbias and the fig trees, and I

shan’t feel quite so shaky. I’ve been rather ill—I’ll tell you all

about it when you’ve sent off the note."

Roger scribbled the message on a leaf out of his road-book.

"There is our station," said Lucy, "about two miles off, on that great

spur that comes out from the mountain. You can see the white houses and

the red brick chapel and the glint of the corrugated iron. And away to

the—well, I s’pose it’s the south—is the chief Mbogo’s principal

village—all those little brown huts...."

The two impatient messengers scarcely waited for this information but

bounded off to deliver their message and find some resting-place for the

caravan, extenuated as it was with the long, hot march.

Lucy took Roger’s arm—how it thrilled her, how like an impossible dream

come true!—and followed by Halima and the machila reached the patch of

blue shade made by a group of candelabra euphorbias and fig trees with

thick glossy leaves and pendent branches. The ground underneath was

absolutely clear of any cover for snakes and was whitish with the ashes

of many a cooking fire, lit here by caravans arriving at evening and

preferring to postpone their interviews with Chief Mbogo—sometimes a

rapacious gentleman over his dues—till the morning light.

Whilst Brentham’s cook was preparing a cup of tea, Lucy poured forth

tumultuously her story of the chief happenings of the past six months.

Brentham said in reply that she must have gone through a beastly time;

but she might now take heart. He had come with definite instructions to

take her away to the coast and her husband too, if the men-folk agreed.

"Any other English woman at the station?" he inquired.

Lucy told him there was Ann Jamblin, but did not think the present

moment the right one in which to expatiate on the irritating side of

Ann’s disposition. Moreover now that she was going back to England, why

run down Ann? If Ann stayed behind, as she was convinced she would do,

she might be a great comfort to John. "Don’t think it odd of me,"

finished Lucy, "if when we reach the station I go straight to my house

and to bed. I feel really too much shaken to take part in any

discussion. I would much sooner you settled everything with John. I’m

sure he won’t oppose my going."

When Brentham reached Hangodi he was introduced to Ann, who listened to

his polite phrases rather impatiently and seemed a little incredulous

about any danger from Arab attacks. What exercised her mind, she said

frankly, was how to keep the hundred men of his caravan from too close

contact with her twenty or thirty maidens who lived in—what it was hoped

was—"maiden meditation, fancy free," within the stockaded boundaries of

the Mission Station. The local young manhood of the near-by Ulunga

villages was supposed to stand too much in awe of Ann and to obey too

strictly their chief’s prohibition of interference with the young women

of the Mission to annoy them with any amorous advances; but already Ann

thought she had seen bold glances cast at her pupils—whom she was

training to be Christian wives of Christian husbands—by the

love-famished stalwarts of the caravan; and a coy recognition of this

admiration on the part of the plump "Big-geru." To ease her

apprehensions the men were soon all drafted off to billets in the native

villages a mile away. To Brentham and his personal servants were

alotted the Boys’ School and the Chapel for their accommodation, the

Consul being told that under all the circumstances of his visit there

could be no thought of sacrilege in his using the House of God as a

dwelling-place.

Brentham had told them as soon as he arrived that he was charged with

instructions to escort all the white _personnel_ of Hangodi to some safe

place on the coast whilst this war between Arabs and Germans was going

on. He had started from Medinat-al-barkah and had with great difficulty

and by making the utmost use of the British flag and of the presence of

British war vessels off the coast, pushed his way past the insurgent

Arabs and Waswahili that were attacking the German strongholds.

By forced marches he had reached the mission stations of Uluguru and

Usagara, and had advised the retreat of the older men and all the white

women towards the Kilwa coast, not at present in revolt. He left them

still undecided whether or not to take his advice, but he had furnished

them with a reinforcement of porters and arms.

There was no time to lose, so he was now hurrying on to Ulunga and Ugogo

to put the same proposition before the members of the East African

Mission, except that the safest route to the coast must now be a great

detour towards Kilimanjaro.

Whatever the men decided to do, the women should at any rate come away

with him. He would proceed westward and try to pick up the Stotts; then

with his stout-hearted Wanyamwezi soldier-porters they would all find a

way round the routes and villages dominated by the Arabs and Wangwana[#]

and reach the coast at Mvita, where there was a British Consulate and

where British gunboats were lying off the Arab town. But time was

precious. Already he had heard that bands of plundering Wangwana and

Ruga-ruga[#] were approaching Ugogo from the west.

[#] Wangwana was the general term in the East African interior by which

the "Black Arabs," the Muhammadan Arabized negroes, were known.

[#] Ruga-ruga was the name given to war-like negroes—not necessarily

Muhammadans, armed by the Arabs with flint-lock guns and sent to raid

and ravish those tribes which rebelled against the slave-traders.

"How long can you give us?" said the anguished John, torn between his

sense of duty regarding his wife and his extreme reluctance to abandon

his Mission Station to certain destruction.

"Well, not more than forty-eight hours."

"Brethren," said John, "we must meet in conference and decide this.

Sister Lucy has retired to bed—I advised her to do so. She has left it

to me to settle what she had better do. But for the rest of us, let us

meet after supper in the mess house and talk it over. You, sir," he

said, to the worn and weary-looking Brentham—who, whatever he might

appear in Lucy’s eyes as paladin and parfit gentill knight, was streaked

with black and brown after having ridden and walked through the charred

herbage of the burnt plains still smoking with their dry-season bush

fires—"You, sir, would like a rest and a wash and a meal. Shall I show

you your quarters?..."

When the little party met in conclave, how unreal the threat of war and

violence seemed! The open square of the station was bathed in silver

moonlight from a moon three-quarters full; there was the distant

twanging of a native guitar played by some musical porter; a village dog

sent up a complacent howl or two; a goat-sucker churred; a laugh came

from the Big-geru’s quarters.

John, not without a hope the Consul might be exaggerating their danger,

said: "Brethren and Sister Jamblin, each of you shall speak in turn, but

as I am regarded as your leader I will give my opinion first. I have

decided that my wife shall leave with the Consul for the coast, perhaps

even for England, unless she recovers her health and things quiet down.

Cruelly hard as it is for me to part with her, I feel it is the right

thing to do. As for me, it is also the right thing that I should stop

here till all danger is over and my place can be taken by some one else.

Sister Jamblin must go with Lucy." (Ann murmured she would do nothing of

the kind.) "Yes, Ann; I must insist. Lucy could not possibly travel

alone—it is not to be thought of...."

_Ann_: "Why, she can take Halima——"

"I say," continued John, wiping the perspiration from his heated face,

"it is not to be thought of. As an unmarried woman, Ann, you could not

remain here with us men——" (Ann: "Pooh, nonsense!") "Supposing we were

really attacked by the Arabs and we men were killed, I dare not think

what might be your fate! Brother Bayley, what do you say?"

_Bayley_: "Why, that I’ll stay with you."

_Anderson_: "And I say the same. You’ve both spoken like jolly good

Englishmen. And—er—let’s trust in the Lord, brethren. _He’ll_ see us

through, He won’t leave His servants in the lurch. To think of all the

work we’ve put into this place and all the money what’s been spent on

it! What are we going to do with our trade goods if we cut and run?

The Consul can’t load himself up with them—and our ivory and gum

copal..."

_Brentham_: "I might mention here I can only spare about twenty-five

porters for the whole five of you. We must travel as lightly as

possible, especially if the Stotts want help. They have young children,

I believe."

_Anderson_: "Then I vote we stop. Let the women go. It wouldn’t be

right to expose them to the risk.... Ann, what do you say?"

_Ann_: "I say this. Let Sister Baines go to the coast. She’s always

ailing and would only be a drag on us if we were hard-pressed. But for

my part I stay with the men, at any rate till things have calmed down.

_I’m_ not afraid. I’ll soon learn to handle a rifle, and I’m pretty

good at dressing wounds. And there’s my class of girls. It’d pretty

nigh break my heart if I went away and they came to grief after all that

training I’ve given them—to make them good wives some day."

_John_ (shortly and decidedly): "You can’t remain. I’ve already told you

why. In this matter you must bow to my authority. Lucy in any case is

too ill to stay here—under these circumstances—and it is common humanity

that you should not let her travel alone to the coast. When our anxiety

is over, you and she can come back...." (Ann: "Thank you for nothing!")

"Well, sir, you shall know our definite decision in the morning.

Meantime you must be tired, very tired indeed. We thank you heartily

for coming to our assistance. I’m sure you’d like now to retire."

(Brentham withdraws.) "Brethren, before we separate let us put our case

before God, that He may guide us aright...."

The next morning the decisive answer tendered to the Consul was that the

men would remain and defend their station. Sisters Baines and Jamblin

should return to the coast with Consul Brentham.

Lucy forgot all about her anæmia and weak back and tendency to dizziness

in an excited packing up of necessaries for the journey. She would not

have to take with her more than her clothes and a few invalid’s

provisions and appliances. She felt terribly elated, wildly happy at

times. No thought of danger entered her head—how could it, with Roger

as escort? At the same time, the sight of poor John’s silent grief—too

deep for words—smote her with reproachfulness; and Ann’s scornful

observation of her moments of sparkling gaiety seemed sinister.

The situation was eased by Brentham taking John away for three hours to

confer with Chief Mbogo and his counsellors. Mbogo was sure he could

drive off any number of Arabs or Wangwana if they came to attack his

villages or the Mission Station. He would send out word to the Masai.

The Masai were now his friends through the peace-making of the

missionaries: they hated the Arabs and the "coast people," and said they

would side with the Whites. At the same time he accepted gratefully

Brentham’s present of ten Snider rifles and two loads of ammunition.

Another ten rifles and a thousand rounds of ammunition were added to the

armoury of the Mission Station, as well as two revolvers, one of which

Ann took over, for her own defence on the road or that of her

"Big-geru."

Brentham also tendered some expert advice to the Chief on the subject of

entrenchments round his stronghold. The Mission Station already

possessed a pretty strong stockade and a moat outside it. A few years

previously attacks from any quarter might be expected—Muhammadan

slave-traders, impulsive Masai, thievish Wagogo. If the first rush

could be checked the attack was seldom persisted in.

The Consul’s _safari_ as it passed down the western slopes of the Ulunga

Hills[#] must have looked quite imposing to the natives who watched its

departure behind their dracæna and euphorbia hedges. First marched

Brentham himself with a stout staff and with his gun-carrier at his

heels. Then came the caravan headman and guide, the Mwinyi-mpara or

Kiongozi, as he was styled. He carried a small British ensign and was

followed by twenty-five armed porters with Brentham’s personal loads,

each, however, with a Snider rifle and a neat uniform of cotton vest and

breeches. Next followed Ann Jamblin, riding astride the Consul’s Maskat

donkey, every now and then glancing back on her fifteen Amazon porters,

the pick of her Big-geru class who carried their mistress’s effects in

bundles on their woolly heads. Behind them was Lucy in her machila, its

long pole borne on the shoulders of two strapping Walunga, with a relief

crew behind of four other men of fine musculature. After that followed

about fifty porters poising on their heads the heavier baggage—bundles

of tents, bedding, water-tight tin boxes, bags of rice, bales of cloth,

boxes of beads, cases of ammunition, cooking implements. Trotting by the

side of this long file of men were two milch goats, bleating and baaing,

but thoroughly enjoying the journey; they were intended to provide milk

for the ladies’ tea. One of the two was a special pet of Lucy’s. To

look after the goats was a little naked Mgogo boy—a released slave—who

ran and frolicked with them, and kept the porters amused by his impudent

mimicry of the white people. Lastly in the rear of the caravan was a

guard of ten gunmen without loads to embarrass their quick movements.

[#] Ulunga was the southern portion of a country called "Ngulu" or

"Nguru."

Brentham and his charges were bound for the Stotts’ station of Burungi,

three or four days’ journey—say, fifty miles—to the west. Lucy felt

already many degrees better in health, though she thought it only decent

to conceal her returning vigour and new-found animation. The picnic

meals by the road side stimulated her appetite; her eye took pleasure in

the changes of scenery, the new panoramas of plain and wilderness that

unfolded themselves as she was swayingly borne along. Ann seemed sombre

and preoccupied, as though noting land-marks for after recognition.

Occasionally she pointed to this and that feature in the landscape and

asked her Big-geru for its native name.

The very hot weather which closes the dry season made itself felt, so

that the start from Hangodi had been begun in the early morning

twilight, and each succeeding morning they took to the road at 5.30.

They jogged along, with an occasional five minutes’, rest, till

half-past ten or until about that time they had found a stream valley or

a water hole which contained water not too bad for cooking purposes.

Then the caravan halted for the day in such shade as might be found, and

the march was not resumed till 5 p.m.

Owing to the brilliancy of the moonlight it might be continued well into

the night. During the long mid-day halt, the Goanese cook, aided by

Halima and several porters and Brentham’s Swahili butler, would prepare

really very creditable little meals, and after eating the travellers

would lie on unfolded deck chairs in some piece of shade where the hard

ground had been swept clear of snakes, insects or scorpions. Brentham,

if the heat were not too scorching, might wander with a shot-gun near by

to try for the chance of a guinea-fowl or francolin or tiny antelope.

At four o’clock they had tea with goat’s milk; and at five resumed their

journey. The tents were pitched by moonlight and the beds made by the

light of a candle lantern. Toilet processes were very summary; there

was all too little water to wash in and the travellers must just sleep

in their clothes and put any ideas of effective ablutions out of their

heads till they reached the water supply at the Stotts’ station. The

night camp was hastily surrounded by a thorn hedge cut from the acacia

trees, and big fires were lighted to keep off lions and hyenas. Blacks

and whites had to sleep in close proximity and the treasured goats and

donkey in the middle of the circle of loads.

The country they marched over—a northward extension of the "Mkunda

mkali" or "Bitter waste"—was at first steppe-like, then rocky and rising

in a series of escarpments. Almost its only trees seemed to be

flat-topped acacias, without leafage at this season, glistening in the

blazing sun and studded with long white thorns. The thin grass was

mostly burnt; nevertheless it was frequented by much game, and the land

was apparently devoid of human inhabitants. Brentham, always obsessed

by the fear of food scarcity, but hardly liking to absent himself from

the line of march and his following caravan, started each morning a few

minutes ahead of the rest and walked in advance as a pioneer, with his

gun-carrier at his elbow. In this way he sometimes brought down, close

to the path, an inquisitive Grant’s gazelle or hartebeest; or a zebra

out of the many herds which closed up to espy the distant concourse of

men and then dissolved into a cloud of dust at the report of the gun.

Even at this lean season of the year the male zebras were in good

condition. Their yellow fat and juicy, sickly-sweet flesh delighted the

hungry porters.

On the early morning of the fourth day, the expedition passed a few

parched native plantations and one or two burnt huts and, as the sun

rose, marched into the irregular circle of the Stott station, across a

half-dry water-course, and found no human being to greet it. Silence

and partially burnt buildings of clay and thatch, torn paper, vultures

on the scorched trees, broken crockery, scraps of cloth, one or two

pools of dried blood, empty cartridge-cases, and the torn sacking and

splintered boards of packing-cases.

"This is pretty ghastly, Miss Jamblin," said Brentham, returning to the

hastily-cleaned camp amid the ruins of the Mission Station.

Lucy, feeling she could do nothing to help and had better not look at

the caked patches of dried blood which the porters were removing, had

withdrawn herself to a folding chair placed by Halima under the thin

shade of a fire-scorched tree. Ann was examining the vestiges of the

Stott property which the looters had left behind: school books and

primers in the Swahili language, empty ink-pots, broken slates,

enamelled iron plates and some substantial tables of native timber, too

heavy for either the fugitives or their enemies to carry away. Ann’s

white solar "topi" and white dress were already smudged and sooted from

the burnt wood and thatch.

"Ghastly, isn’t it!" he went on. "I’ve just returned from a

reconnaissance in which we rounded up three Masai youths—not warriors

but the hulking boys that attend on the spearmen. Two men in my

_safari_ understand Masai and they are now trying to make out the story

these boys tell. They evidently deny emphatically that the Stotts were

killed. They keep pointing to the north-west as the direction in which

they have gone, and say every now and then ’Irangi.’ My interpreters

infer that this place was attacked about a week ago by a party of

Ruga-ruga coming from the Nyaturu country and travelling towards the

coast. They besieged the station, and killed some of the Mission boys,

but the Stotts apparently were not hurt. They defended themselves for

some time, till a party of Masai came to their relief, and then the

Ruga-ruga and ’black’ Arabs were beaten off. Nevertheless the Stotts

left the station afterwards and went away to the north-west with the

Masai escorting them.... I want to see if I get on their tracks or if I

can find any real natives who saw the attack.... You seem to have a head

on your shoulders ... and an influence over the natives. I’ll leave all

but five of the men here under your orders. Already they’re at work

reconstructing the ’boma.’ I propose skirmishing around and finding out

also if the Arabs and Ruga-ruga are still in the neighbourhood. I’ll be

back before dark...."

_Ann_: "You’d much better give up such a wild-goose chase as looking for

the Stotts. Make for Kilimanjaro and the Mvita coast with Lucy. We’ve

got mission stations in Taita and at Jomvu, near Mvita, where you could

place her in comparative safety. I’d much rather return to Hangodi

instead of floundering about in the wilderness, mad with thirst and

unable to wash. I’m only a drag on you with my women porters whom your

men can’t leave alone—I daren’t take my eyes off them. Lucy’ll soon be

well enough to ride your donkey—which I’m at present using. If the

Arabs haven’t plundered the Wagogo or if there are Masai bands in the

neighbourhood you could easily buy a few donkeys—Masai breed, you know.

They’re quickly broken in to riding, especially with your Maskat donkey

to show ’em how. And then you could travel much quicker. I don’t think

you’ll have trouble with the Arabs farther north. It’s a Masai country,

and the Masai and the Muhammadans are at daggers drawn...."

_Brentham_ (hesitating): "No. I don’t think I ought to let you go ... I

..." (His thoughts were saying: "_Let_ her go. She’s a tiresome

termagant, she, with her fifteen women porters who’ll cause the

deuce-and-all of a lot of trouble before we’ve gone far. It would be

lovely to have a long journey back to the coast with Lucy. _Of course_

I’d respect her. I should simply treat her as a sister" ... and his

pulses quickened)....

_Ann_: "_Let_ me go? I’m my own mistress and not going to be ordered

about by anybody. If I choose to go back, I’ll go, even if I have to

walk all the way. But there! I don’t want to be tiresome. You go off

on your prospecting and leave Lucy in my charge. I’ll promise not to do

a bolt till you return—and whenever I promise, I keep my promise."

(Lucy came up at this juncture and was told rather impatiently by Ann

the dilemma in which the three of them were placed.) Captain Brentham

turned away, called up his headman, gave him instructions, and finally

went off with five gunmen and the three Masai youths. These were put in

a good humour by being crammed with broiled meat and rice, the latter a

food they had never tasted before, but accepted without demur at the

hands of the godlike white man.

Ann, thus placed in authority, set to work to carry out her plans. She

had the interior of the station circle cleaned as much as possible of

half-burnt house material, and gathered together what remained in the

ruins of books, clothes, trade goods. The looting had evidently been

very hurried, and no doubt the Stotts had conveyed some things with them

on their retreat. Lucy, sharply ordered by Ann not to over-exert

herself, sat in the shade in a deck chair, very apprehensive as to the

future and worried that Roger should have gone away.

The news that white people were back at Burungi—as this station was

called—penetrated quickly through this seemingly deserted region. So

often in Africa there occurs this wireless telegraphy, really due

perhaps to the lurking here and there in the brush and herbage of

invisible natives, observing what goes on and bounding away noiselessly

to carry the news to other prowlers. In the afternoon when Ann within

the thorn enclosure had made things a little more tidy and presentable

there appeared in the middle distance numbers of Wagogo warriors gazing

at the new arrivals with kindly neutrality, occasionally calling out

friendly, deprecatory greetings. Encouraged by Ann’s answering shouts

in Kagulu they approached the "boma," and even ventured within the camp

enclosure, squatting then on their heels to exchange information. Their

confidence was sealed by little gifts of tobacco. The attack on the

Mission Station was described. The white people had been taken by

surprise, but had held their own till the Wagogo and Masai came to their

assistance. The Ruga-ruga shot fire-arrows in among the thatched roofs

and set fire to some of the houses. They even broke in through one part

of the "boma," but three of them were killed by the white man’s people.

The fight had lasted half-a-day and one day. Then the Wangwana had

drawn off—to the south. Two days more and the white people had

gone—there were the white man—"Sitoto," they called him—and the white

woman chief—she was a great "doctor"—and three white children ... they

had all gone off with a party of the Masai—to the north somewhere. The

Masai had sold them donkeys to ride. Some Wagogo had gone with them.

It was perhaps four days since they went away. No! the Wagogo had _not_

plundered the white man’s place. They were frightened to come there

because of the white man’s "medicine." ...

"Then how did you get that?" said Ann, pointing to a soiled white

petticoat which an elderly man wore over one shoulder and across his

chest.

"That? That had been given him by the white woman herself for running

to summon the Masai." ...

"See here," said Ann, in fragmentary Kagulu. "You’ve got donkeys—Masai

donkeys—among you. The Ruga-ruga have not raided _you_. You bring me

here _three good strong donkeys_ and I will buy them for a good price:

white cloth, brass rings, iron wire, red cloth and gunpowder."

They conferred among themselves and thought they might produce three

donkeys—for a price.

"Well, then fetch them—_at once_. Otherwise the big white man, the

great chief of all the white men on the coast, the Balozi, will believe

you helped to plunder this station and make you give up the property

you’ve stolen." ...

Roger returned late that evening in brilliant moonlight to find that Ann

had purchased with his trade goods three good stout grey asses with

broad shoulder stripes. One she reserved for herself, the other two she

transferred to Brentham. They would serve for him to ride and also

provide his Goanese cook with a mount. [This Portuguese-Indian was a

very poor marcher and much inclined to fever; yet in some ways the

second most important person of the caravan, decent cooking being such

an enormous help to good health in Africa.] Lucy, who had grown much

stronger for this change and excitement, could ride the Maskat donkey

and her hammock men could return to Hangodi with some of Ann’s loads.

Ann would further borrow five of Brentham’s gun-men to escort her and

her fifteen women-porters—her Big-geru—back to Hangodi. She had also

engaged at extravagant pay a dozen of the Wagogo, fleet of foot and

brave hunters. These, armed with their long-bladed spears, would guide

and precede her little party, scaring away the wild beasts by their

cries. Lions and rhinoceroses were distinctly a danger to be reckoned

with.... By forced marching, especially at night, Ann would be back at

Hangodi in two days. It was therefore unwise to miss a single moonlight

night as the moon would soon be on the wane. The Ruga-ruga and Wangwana

never attacked at night, and if they were anywhere in the

neighbourhood—which the Wagogo scouts would soon find out—the party

would hide in the daylight hours.

Meantime Brentham and Lucy could remain encamped at Burungi awaiting the

return of Ann’s escort. If the message was "All’s well," they could

start off for the coast by the roundabout northern route....

"You seem to be a very capable woman," said Brentham, "as well as being

an obstinate one. I agree to your plan, though I have a presentiment I

may regret it. If you change your mind and come back I shan’t reproach

you for being fickle. And besides, you may bring us later news. I must

in any case stay here for a few days to prepare for the big march. I

must shoot game and have a lot of ’biltong’[#] made for the men...."

[#] Strips of lean meat dried in the sun and thus preserved for a

considerable time in dry weather.

"I’m glad you agree," said Ann. "I know I shall be in the right place

at Hangodi—for many reasons. As it is, I’ve already had an idea. The

Stotts seem to have been saved by the Masai. The Masai that our Walunga

people call ’Wahumba’ are on good terms with us. We brought about peace

between them and Mbogo. They come to our station to trade and we have

cured several of their wounded men from bad lion bites. We will send

messengers to the Humba Masai asking for a large war party of spearmen

to await down below in the plains any attack by the Arabs. I think the

mere knowledge the Masai are there will keep the Arabs from coming near

Ulunga."

So the next morning Ann rode off at five o’clock astride her Masai

donkey, on which some makeshift arrangement of padded cloths had been

tied by way of saddle. Her buxom Big-geru hoisted their light loads and

struck up a Moody and Sankey hymn translated by Ann into Kagulu. The

grinning Wanyamwezi gunmen brought up the rear, and the wild, unclothed

Wagogo with fantastic ostrich feather or zebra-mane head-dresses dashed

on ahead, whooping and leaping and shouting their determination to scare

away the beasts of the field from the white woman-chief who talked like

a man.

*CHAPTER XI*

*THE HAPPY VALLEY*

Roger, left alone with Lucy, resolved he would "do the right thing,"

clenched his teeth so to speak on the vow. He was the more fiercely

determined to act honourably because he felt himself to be fighting

against her own weakness of fibre, against her overpowering inclination

as well as his own. Her attractiveness for him had greatly increased

since the renewal of their comradeship. In the early days of the

acquaintance, though her prettiness and virginal charm were appealing,

she had the naïveté and insipidity of an inexperienced girl which soon

weary a man of the world who tires of the relation between master and

pupil. Now she was a married woman; tempered, rendered more subtle by

suffering and experience of mankind, who was readier to express her

feelings through her eyes and her reticence than by direct speech. She

talked less unreflectingly, and the things she said were more due to her

own observation and reasoning than second-hand opinions picked up from

other people.

Ann, in the week in which he had seen the two women together, had been

just the right foil to throw up Lucy’s charming femininity, her

refinement in dress and appearance and in the tones of her voice. Ann

by contrast was an impudent self-assertive virago with the worth at best

of a good drudge. After a year and a half’s absence from Europe he made

this rediscovery of Lucy, set against a background of Savage

Africa—coarse landscapes, jagged rocks, unwieldy trees, bush

conflagrations, naked men, wild beasts just kept at bay. (On moonlight

nights they could actually descry the grey-white forms of lions and

hyenas padding noiselessly round the precincts of their boma.) These

violent incongruities made her seem to him a being of exquisite

refinement and yet of physical charm. Returning health, intense

happiness, the dawning hope of a bright future were dispelling the

anæmia and giving back to her face and neck the tinted white of a

healthy skin, warmed in tone by a good circulation. There was a sparkle

of animation in her violet eyes and a new lustre in her brown gold hair.

It would be a good thing for both, he felt, if he found the Stotts as

soon as possible and induced them to join company in a march to the

coast. His career—Yes, he must remember that. His career above all

things. He must not be turned aside from his great ambitions by any

woman. Yet he had missed fire over the Unguja appointment and wanted

consolation elsewhere. It was rather weary _always_ to be at work, in

an office, or in the field: never to settle down to a honeymoon and the

joys of domesticity. Perhaps he should have taken another line—the

Colonial Office and administrative work, not the Foreign Office and

adventurous diplomacy in Savage Africa.... He wanted to explore,

create, and then administer a great African Empire, tasks infinitely

above the mean capacity of a Godfrey Dewburn or a Spencer Bazzard. Why

could he not now—straight away—plunge into the vast unknown which lay

before him to the north, to the north-west? Where had Stanley

disappeared to? What had become of Emin? What was happening in Uganda

since the death of Mutesa? What unsolved mysteries lay west of the

Victoria Nyanza, north of Tanganyika, south of the Bahr-al-ghazal?

Should he take Lucy to his heart, throw conventions and commissions to

the winds, and start away with her on a wonderful journey of discovery,

leaving the world and the Rev. John Baines to say what they liked, and

covering his private treachery by his amazing discoveries?

Nonsense! Why, Queen Victoria would never overlook this act of

adultery. He might discover twenty lakes and name them all after

princes of her family or annex gold mines and pipes of diamonds and she

would refuse the accolade, and Society at her bidding would close its

ranks against the dishonoured missionary’s wife. Besides, he had barely

enough trade goods with which to pay his way back to the coast,

especially by a round-about route. The African soon looks coldly on the

god-like white man if he has no more beads, cloth, copper wire, knives,

and gun-caps with which to pay road dues, "customs" or good-will

presents.

And his armed porters? They were only engaged for a six-months’

_safari_. They must be fed and paid or they would desert.... He must

put all this nonsense out of his head—take a few pills, a little

bromide—tire himself out every day big game shooting or scouting till

the men sent with Ann Jamblin returned with their news.

If he took all this exercise, he would not lie awake at night in his hot

tent, under his mosquito curtain longing, aching to go to Lucy’s

quarters and say, "I love you: let us fight against it no longer. We

may all be dead a month hence."

To guard against such impulses he had insisted on Halima’s sleeping on

an Unguja mat in her mistress’s tent, and had surrounded the tent with a

square of reed fence which gave her a greater degree of privacy than the

wretched tent afforded. Within this there was space for a bathroom and

a "sitting-room," a shaded retreat to which she could retire for a

siesta or a confabulation with Halima who was still giving instruction

in Swahili. Outside this "harim"—as his men who constructed it

certainly took it to be—there was a "baraza" common to them both: a

thatched shelter open all round. Here the camp table was placed for

meals.

Roger determined to shut Lucy out of his thoughts as much as possible,

to think only for the day, for the dangers by which they were

surrounded, the hundred risks which attended their ever getting back to

civilization.... As soon as they could reach the coast he would send

Lucy to England and return to his Consulate at Medinat-al-barkah.... Of

course, should John Baines die of fever—missionaries often did—or—if—he

were killed? ... Suppose his station really was attacked...? But then,

again, such thoughts as these were of the order of David’s when he

hankered after Bathsheba....

And then Lucy, again, Lucy might die of fever—she scarcely seemed cut

out for an African life, which is why he had begun pitying her.....

"I’ve had perfectly splendid sport to-day," said Roger, standing before

Lucy’s "baraza" where the camp table was laid for tea. "I’ve shot a

rhino—they’re cutting it up now—two hartebeests, and two impala.

That’ll give us all the ’biltong’ we can carry. I’m filthily dirty, as

you can see—ash and charcoal from the burnt bush, and sweat—God! It

_has_ been sweltering!—and the run after that—and _from_ that—rhino!

No. I’m not wounded—there’s no need for emotion—but the rhino as he

charged—and _I_ doubled—squirted blood over me from his nostrils—I must

look like a fighting chimney sweep—I’ll go and have a bath and then you

shall give me tea."

"Don’t be long," said Lucy. "There’s _such_ lots to talk about. Your

men have come back from Hangodi with a note to me from John! He says so

far ’all’s well.’ And two Masai, Halima says, are waiting to see you.

They keep saying ’Sitoto,’ which means, I suppose, some news about the

Stotts’ whereabouts. _How_ exciting it’s all getting. I _am_ enjoying

it!"

"Halima" (to her maid): "Waambia watu wa mpishi tunataka chai, _marra_

moja!"

Four days afterwards, everything being ready for the fresh venture into

the unknown, loads lightened and tightened, and the biltong sufficiently

dry to be tied on top of the loads (imparting a disagreeable smell of a

butcher’s shop to the caravan as it passed in single file), they set out

with Masai guides to find the Stotts. They travelled over the

water-parting from the rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean to those that

ended in vague marshes and bitter lakes. They climbed great escarpments

and descended into broad valleys between high cliffs and found

themselves amongst strange peoples, chiefly pastoral, keepers of great

herds of sleek, humped cattle, of dwarf African goats and fat-tailed

sheep.

The first of these, the Warangi, were fortunately allied in speech to

the Wagogo—so could be communicated with. They were a truculent lot,

inclined to make trouble with strangers. They seemed on this occasion,

however, too much excited over affairs of their own to be much

interested in the arrival of white folk, whom they had probably never

seen before except in the form of pale-faced Arabs. They replied

briefly that a white man and woman and their children had preceded

Brentham’s party by a few days—when the moon was still at the full.

They were accompanied by a band of Masai with whom the Warangi were

friends....

"Are there any Arabs here?" asked Brentham through his interpreter.

"Waalabu?" No! They came sometimes to buy ivory, but on their last

visit they had tried to carry off some Rangi people as slaves, and if

they showed their faces again in Burangi, they would be driven away.

"Then what are you all so excited about?"

They replied it was an affair of their clan, of the people who lived in

these villages. Their young married men had gone out this dry season to

kill elephants as was their custom, but had returned after three months

with no luck at all: hardly a tusk worth looking at, very little meat,

and two men killed by the elephants. There could be but one explanation

for this. Their wives had been unfaithful to them as soon as their

backs were turned. It was well known that if a wife and husband were

separated and the wife was unfaithful, a misfortune at once fell on the

husband. Consequently the custom of their tribe in such cases was to

burn the guilty women on large pyres of brushwood. These pyres were now

finished—the white man could see them there along the bank of the

river.... Presently the adulterous ladies whose husbands had returned

from the luckless elephant-shoot would be led out, tied to the brushwood

bundles, and set on fire. He might stay and witness the imposing

spectacle if he chose. They learnt that he too was accompanied by a

wife—a white woman. It might be a moral lesson to her—if white women

were ever unfaithful....

Roger begged the Warangi to spare the women this time. By and bye he

would come back to them and explain the whole mystery of luck in sport

and the ensuring of an accurate aim, perhaps give them a "medicine," to

produce the result they wanted. But meantime he assured them that if

they burnt so much as one woman’s little finger a terrible curse would

fall on the land.

Lucy asked what all this talk was about, and he replied: "Oh, nothing

very important—big game shooting." She was preoccupied with pleasanter

subjects, the greater coolness of the air now that they had ascended to

a higher level, the new green grass of the coming spring, and her own

greatly improved health....

"If all goes well," said Roger, "we ought to reach the place where the

Stotts are in two long days’ march."

"Shall we? I’m rather sorry, as though something was going to break our

delicious dream. I should like to go on and on like this for a

year...."

"And what about my official duties? I, too, am enjoying this to the

full, but I am worried about whether I have done the right thing....

With a desire to please every one all round I sometimes fancy I have

embarked on a perilous adventure.... However we must hope for the best.

Of course all this is absolutely new ground. I ought to be earning a

Geographical medal; instead of which I shall only get an official

rebuke.... Did you notice that we seem to have entered a new

watershed?"

_Lucy_: "Although I taught Geography at school, I never really

understood what a ’watershed’ was. What is it?"

_Roger_: "I suppose it means the area in which all the waters flow to

the same receptacle—a sea, a lake, a marsh. We’ve just left a river

which was flowing steadily to the south, to some unknown end. We rode

up a small rise, and now, see, the gathering streams are all flowing

northwards. The Masai say these brooks unite farther on to form a river

which ends in a lake. Think of _that_, Lucy! We shall discover a new

lake! It ought to be called ’Lake Lucy.’..."

_Lucy_ (blushing): "Oh no, indeed, I should feel quite uncomfortable if

I were made so prominent.... But the country seems to get lovelier and

lovelier...."

The new streams to which Roger referred irrigated a broad and even

expanse of fertile plain sloping gently to the north, and seeming to

terminate at the base of gigantic cliffs or lofty mountains which

surrounded this valley on three sides. They could only make out dimly

the forms of the highest mountains because of the dry-season haze, but

they seemed like the craters of volcanoes. Riding to the top of an

isolated hillock Roger obtained confirmation of the guides’ story. The

valley ended in a lake of respectable size.

The grassy flats between the converging rivulets swarmed with big game

which showed comparatively little fear of man and might be seen grazing

with herds of the natives’ cattle. A succession of exclamations, half

wonderment, half fear, came from Lucy.

"Oh! ... I ... _say_! ... I thought those were great tree trunks till

they moved, but ... they’re..."

"They’re _giraffes_, by Jove! I wonder whether I ought to bring one

down? Better not ... might delay us ... and I don’t know how the

natives ’ud take it...."

A herd of six or seven stately giraffes suspended their browsing on the

upper branches of an acacia tree, and gazed at them with their liquid

eyes, flicking their satiny bodies with tails that terminated in large

black tassels.

"O-oh!’" came from Lucy, as she reined in her donkey. "_Look_ at those

things over there! Like houses or great rocks, but they’re moving too!"

She pointed with her riding whip to some grey bulks in the middle

distance which, as they swished through the herbage, showed here and

there a gleam of polished tusks.

"Shoot! Master, shoot!" exclaimed the Wanyamwezi.... "Elephants,

Master!" But Roger called for silence and held his hand. Supposing the

elephants charged down on Lucy? And then he did not know how the sounds

of guns would be received in this new country, what the unknown natives

might think, and lastly, perhaps there was beginning to dawn on him an

appreciation of what this spectacle meant: a piece of absolutely

unspoiled Africa, not yet ravaged by the white man or the native hunter,

armed with the white man’s weapons. His caravan had plenty of dried

meat. They should not break the charm of the Happy Valley—the phrase

came suddenly into his mind, some dim remembrance of Dr. Samuel

Johnson’s ponderous romance.

As they advanced northwards the scenes grew more idyllic. Herds of

gnus, hartebeests, elands, and zebras, intermingled with reed buck and

impala, alternately stared in immobility, then dashed off in clouds of

yellow dust, and once more stood at gaze. Gazelles with glossy black,

annulated horns and bodies brilliant in colour—golden-red, black-banded,

and snowy-white below—cropped the turf a few yards from the faintly

marked track which the caravan was following; and though the bucks

lifted their heads to observe this advancing file of human beings they

scarcely moved away more than a few yards.

The Valley was not entirely given up to wild life, though it seemed

likely that it was only used by man as a pasture ground, and that he

preferred the higher country, the hillocks on either side of the plain,

for his habitations, out of the way of floods and swamps. But large

herds of cattle browsed among antelopes and zebra and were watched over

by herdsmen who displayed singularly little curiosity over this first

invasion of the Happy Valley by the white man. The Stotts who had

preceded Roger and Lucy seemed to have satisfied their curiosity, once

and for all. These cattle-tenders were different in physical type to

the ordinary Bantu Negro. They were tall; gracefully, slenderly built;

and reminded Brentham of Somalis, though their head-hair was

close-cropped. Such women as were met showed no sign of fear. They

were clad in ample garments of dressed leather. But the men had all the

gallant nakedness of the Masai—a skin cape over the shoulders, otherwise

only ivory arm-rings and metal-chain necklaces.

The Masai guides occasionally plucked handfuls of grass and exhibited

them to the groups of herdsmen as a testimony to the peaceful intentions

of the white man’s caravan. This voucher was further confirmed by the

returning band of Masai who had escorted the Stotts to this Arcadia and

were now returning to northern Nguru. They exchanged musical

salutations with Roger’s guides and told them the "Sitoto" were camped

in a village one day’s further journey to the north, near the shores of

the lake.

"That’s all right," said Roger, his mind greatly relieved. "Then let’s

give our _safari_ a half-holiday and take things easy. We’ll pitch our

camp on that knoll. How delightful is this short green turf after the

miles and miles of burnt grass we’ve passed through. The spring has

begun here a month earlier than in the lower-lying country. I expect

the high mountains to the north have attracted the rains, though it’s

only October. Have you noticed, also, since we entered this valley

we’ve had no mosquitoes? I wonder why? Something p’raps they don’t

like in the water, or not enough long grass?..."

As soon as the camp was finished, the pastoral people brought them rich,

sweet milk for sale, in tightly-woven grass receptacles, in calabashes,

or clay pots. Sometimes this milk had a smoky taste from the rough

methods by which the milk pots were cleansed. But it was as sweet as a

nut and seemed to Lucy, who had long been deprived of milk, except doled

out in small quantities for tea, incomparably delicious as a

thirst-quencher. And these Egyptian-like people—so often showing a

Pharaonic profile and speaking a language which Roger afterwards

declared not very far removed from Gala—also traded in honey, honey

flavoured with the scent of the acacia blossoms, appearing now as golden

fluff on the awakening trees.

The next day, the seventh since they left Burungi, Brentham’s caravan

came into full view of the lake, its shores lined with dense ranks of

pinkish-white flamingoes. To the south-east was a native village of

long, continuous "tembe" houses, arranged more or less in

parallelograms, or hollow squares, enclosing for each family or group a

turfy space where the cattle passed the night and family life was

carried on in the open air and in security.

One of these enclosures had evidently been given over to the Stotts for

a temporary home. And from out of it Mr. and Mrs. Stott might be

descried, hurrying to meet the caravan. Before they could arrive, Roger

halted his men and surveyed the whole scene before him from a grassy

mound where he thought to pitch his camp. Projecting mountain

buttresses shut in the valley and the lake, west, north and east. West

and north these mountains almost overhung the flat lake shores in an

abrupt escarpment, blue, without details, in the afternoon shadow. To

the east of the lake, though there were great heights and in the

north-east a hint of giant summits capped with snow, the rise was not so

abrupt, more broken, and the rocks more arid, but vivid and variegated

in colour—-red, yellow, greenish grey, purple black and creamy white.

The mountains on the west were diversified with combes and glens, were

carved, moulded, seamed with watercourses; embroidered and mantled with

dark green forests. Where the lake was deep its waters were a pure

cobalt, but its shallows were whitish-green with salt or soda, and the

level shores from which the waters had retreated were greyish white,

probably with the guano of the countless flamingoes, who had their

nesting-stools some distance back from the water’s edge. Herds of cattle

browsed peacefully on the green water-meadows of the river-delta; nearer

at hand flocks of black and white sheep mingled with half-shy gazelles

of golden brown. Great Secretary birds—grey, black, and white—stalked

through the herbage looking for snakes and lizards, knowing no fear of

man in their honourable calling. Blue whorls of smoke arose from the

fishermen’s fires on the lake shore, where fish was being smoked on

wooden frames. All this was irradiated by the yellow light of the

westering sun. Before, the Stotts could reach them and break their

silence of contentment, Roger turned to Lucy and said: "This _is_ the

Happy Valley!"

The Stotts were of course full of questions and wonderment. Mr. Stott

was a middle-aged man of strong build, honest hazel eyes, clipped beard,

tanned face and generally pleasing appearance. He had never before met

either Lucy or Brentham, so Mrs. Stott had to make the introductions.

After these surprised and joyous greetings, an adjournment took place to

the Stotts’ quarters. Although they had only been about a week

established here, in a portion of the village of Mwada lent them by the

native chief, the practical and never defeated Stotts—-the born

colonists, the realized Swiss Family Robinson—had already made

themselves a new home in the wilderness. They had swept out and cleaned

the "tembes," the continuous huts of wattle and daub, divided into many

compartments, which enclosed the turfy square; and in the centre of

their "compound" had erected a circular building of stout palm poles and

grass that covered a swept space of ground. In the middle of this they

had fashioned a table of reed-bundles fastened to upright posts and had

manufactured rough forms and stools of hyphaene palm trunks. This was

their "baraza" or reception-room, their eating-house, and shaded

playground for their hardy children. Within the enclosed ground they

kept their milch goats, sheep, and riding donkeys. Of these they had

quite a troop, purchased from the Masai. These asses had proved most

useful as beasts of burden for the transport of their loads, so that

they almost managed without human porterage. Mr. Stott had constructed

very practical pack saddles.

"Come along to our baraza," said genial Mrs. Stott. "Let us try and make

you up some kind of a meal before we begin talking."

Roger gave a few directions about his own camping, a quarter of a mile

distant, and then joined Lucy and the Stotts, who were walking to "our

new mission station," as Mrs. Stott called it.

"You know we are _never_ down-hearted; we _know_ God orders everything

for the best! I am sure He thought we were settling down too

comfortably among the Wagogo, and so gave us a hint to press farther

into the interior. _Of course_, when things quiet down: for either the

Germans or the English _must_ conquer East Africa: it would be sickening

to leave the Arabs and Ruga-ruga in control—we shall build up again our

Burungi station and put capable people in charge of it, people who’ll

get on well with the Wagogo.... They want a bit of managing. You see

how well it would suit as a halt on the way to this wonderful

country—What do you call it? ’The Happy Valley’? Yes, _that_ shall be

its name. _How_ the Lord’s ways are _past_ finding out! I felt _so_

sick at heart when we were leaving Burungi.... I’ll tell you how it all

happened. Our Masai friends had beaten off the Ruga-ruga, but the Wagogo

thought they intended to return, probably with real Arabs in command.

My husband is obliged to shoot game; otherwise we couldn’t live, much

less feed our people. They raided us chiefly for arms and

ammunition.... We beat them off, but the Wagogo thought they would be

sure to return—much stronger next time. So after thinking it over and

putting our case before God in prayer we decided that night after the

attack ceased, to spend the hours of darkness packing. The next morning

we bought ten more donkeys from the Masai, besides the ten we had

already, loaded them up and then said to our Masai friends—my husband

speaks Masai pretty well: ’Now, can you guide us to some country where

we can be safe from the Lajomba—their name for the Arabs—for a time?’

And they led us here ... let us say, rather, they were God’s agents in

leading us here. Isn’t this a _wonderful_ country? We have never seen

the like. Somehow we feel so _safe_ here. You can’t think of any enemy

coming over those high mountains—one of them has snow on the summit—or

over the cliffs. They can only come up the river valley. And to do that

they must fight their way through the Rangi and Fiome peoples. The

Rangi people speak a language like Chi-gogo, and so—oddly enough—do the

fisher folk round this extraordinary lake. But the others don’t look

like ordinary Negroes. They are more like Somalis. And I can’t make

anything out of their language. But although they’re different to the

Masai they seem to have some kind of alliance with them, and they

received us here as friends, because the Masai brought us. _What_ a

field for the Lord’s work! And to think I almost _doubted_ God when He

let the Ruga-ruga attack Burungi!...

"But here we are, at our temporary home, and I must go to the cook-house

and see about your meal. You won’t mind native stuff, will you? You see

we’ve lost most of our tinned provisions, and indeed we had been living

on the country long before the Ruga-ruga attacked us. Like all the

other missionaries of late we’ve had very few caravans from the coast."

Mr. Stott led the way to the "baraza" with its rough table of

reed-bundles on a framework of sticks and its palm trunks to sit on.

The Stott children were playing on the dusty turf of the cleared ground

in front of the baraza.

"I’m afraid you’ll think our little ’uns rather uncared for," said Mr.

Stott apologetically; "but my poor wife’s had too much to do in our

hurried flight and after we got here to spend much time on their

clothing or even getting them clean!" The eldest of the three was a

pretty boy with light flaxen hair and blue eyes, very tanned of skin,

very grubby of face and hands. He wore a tattered smock and short

breeches, vestiges of a "sailor suit." On his feet were cleverly made

native sandals, as on those of his younger brother and little sister,

whose legs and feet were otherwise naked, and the two smaller children

had little on but a yard or two of calico wound round the waist. Lucy

recognized in the youngest the solemn baby she had seen at Unguja

playing with the large cockroaches; and said so.

"Yes," replied Mr. Stott. "Afraid of nothing, poor little mite. When

the Ruga-ruga came I hurriedly built up a sort of zariba of boxes and

stones, and put a tarpaulin over it and told the little ’uns to keep

quiet; and there they were, all through the fighting. Mother and I

would go and give ’em food every now and again, and Edgar here"—pointing

to the boy—"’ud say, ’How’s the fight going, Daddy?’ And Edgar’s bin a

rare good boy since we came here, helping to tie these bundles of reeds

and making himself useful. Our eldest’s at home in Ireland with her

grandmother—for her education. The next one we buried years ago in the

Nguru country, and the very youngest—bless her—died of infantile

diarrhoea last March at Burungi. That accounts for the six of ’em; and

I’ll lay there aren’t many British children have had such an adventurous

bringing-up, ’cept the young Livingstones and Moffats."

Mrs. Stott was now spreading a wrinkled, grey-white cloth over the reed

table-top. And the children were up on their feet helping her and a

native servant bring the meal from the cook-house to the baraza.

"We’re giving you just the native _ugali_—porridge, you know," said Mrs.

Stott, "but there’s a lovely pot of fresh milk from the natives’ cattle.

Here’s some honey in a calabash. Here are the rest of the scones we had

for breakfast. I’ve made you some tea—rather weak, but it is so

precious. And whilst you’re tackling _that_ I’m going to fry some fish

we got from the lake this morning—bony, but very sweet."

During their meal Roger and Lucy tried to give in instalments a

description of the extraordinary circumstances which had brought them

here in company. Mrs. Stott, who had fetched her sewing so that she

might not be wasting time (Mr. Stott had excused himself, having urgent

work to do till the evening), looked a little puzzled and not quite

acquiescent over Brentham’s explanations.

"Here, children! You go now and help Brahimu and Kagavezi. Don’t get

into mischief. Keep out of the sun, don’t pick up scorpions, and don’t

go outside the boma.... I’m an outspoken woman, you know, Lucy. I

can’t help saying I think you ought to have stuck by your husband."

"But I was so _ill_, Mrs. Stott, and John _insisted_ on my going.

Didn’t he ... Captain Brentham?"

"He did really, Mrs. Stott. I had instructions to advise all the

missionaries to leave their stations and return to the coast—indeed, I

come here to you with that message, but I suppose you won’t obey it?"

"Indeed I won’t, Captain Brentham, though I thank you for your efforts

to find us and help us. I do indeed. But wherever my husband is, there

will I be too, unless he absolutely ordered me to go away.... And I saw

it was the will of God that I should go."

"Well: that was what John did to me—absolutely _ordered_ me to go," said

Lucy, beginning to cry. "He ordered Ann to go with me. It isn’t my

fault—our fault—that Ann has gone back, in spite of John’s _positive

commands_. Ann never obeys any one. Oh dear, oh dear! _what_ should I

do ... I feel if I go back to that place I shall simply die ... and yet

I shall lose your good opinion ... if I go to the coast with Captain

Brentham...."

"Oh, I don’t say that. I’m not one for passing judgments on my fellow

creatures. It’s between them and God. But look here, Captain Brentham:

I don’t want to keep you idle. I’ll be bound there’s a hundred things

you want to see to in your camp. I’ll keep Lucy with me. She and I are

old friends, as you know. If you’d send over her loads and her native

woman—let’s see, what was her name? I remember how she nursed you when

your poor baby came—and went—Halima? Yes. Well, send over everything

that belongs to Lucy and her tent shall be pitched inside our boma

whilst she stays here. She and I will talk things over a bit and then,

maybe, we’ll call you into consultation. I’m sure you want to do what’s

best for us all. What a _strange_ place to meet in! The last time we

spoke together was in your grand Arab house at Unguja and I was more

than a bit afraid of you."

Mrs. Stott rose up from her sewing, walked with Brentham to the exit

from the compound, and gazed across the outer greensward to the very

blue lake, with its whitish rim of scum or salt. In the distance the

blush-tint flamingoes flew with wings of black and scarlet in V

formations, against an azure background of colossal mountains rising

tier above tier; or, their glistening plumage showed up more effectively

against the violet shadows of the western cliffs and wooded gorges

bordering the lake, and still more strikingly when contrasted with the

cobalt surface of the lake itself. Other flamingoes waded into the

lake, filtering through their laminated beaks the minute organisms

evidently abundant in its water. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of

these birds stood in serried ranks along the curving, diverging shores.

The rear ranks were composed of immature birds of dirty-white plumage

streaked with brown; but these were masked by the front rows of adults,

affectedly conscious of their beauty of plumage and outline. They

exhibited a hundred mannerisms in their poses: lowered their kinky necks

to dabble in the ooze, or raised them perpendicularly and "honked" to

let the humans know they were on their guard (though never a man in

these parts thought of harming them). Or they cleaned their backs with

rosy coils of neck, stood on one vermilion leg and bent the other limb

beneath the belly feathers. Or they fenced at each other with decurved

bills of purple and red in make-believe petulance, and because

life-conditions were so perfect that they had nothing whatever to

grumble at.... Some Wambugwe canoes were approaching the lake shore

with fish to sell to the white men. A considerable section of the

flamingoes rose into the sky with a display of roseate tints against the

blue ... then landed and folded their wings in assurance of safety.

"Yes," continued Mrs. Stott, "I little thought we should meet under

circumstances like these. Aren’t those flamingoes _wonderful_? Like a

revelation of God—almost. I shall stay here if only to look after them.

_They_ shall be the roses in my garden. I shan’t want any others. You

see they’re not afraid of man and they don’t get in man’s way. They

aren’t good to eat—much too fishy. And, as far as I can see, they don’t

eat fish; only mud, seemingly—shrimps, p’raps...."

"Well, Consul: come again at supper-time; and if I’m too stingy over my

precious tea, at any rate I’ll give you hot milk and pancakes and

honey."

Left with Lucy, Mrs. Stott first took her to the washing hut and

provided the means for a good bath and next lent her some garment of the

dressing-gown order with which to clothe herself till her luggage and

her attendant arrived.

"I’ll tell you what I am going to advise Captain Brentham to do, Lucy,"

said Mrs. Stott. "Come what may, you’ll be none the worse for a good

rest here. This place is evidently far healthier than the lower country.

The Consul shall bargain with your Masai guides to go as fast as they

can back to Ulunga and find out what has happened at Hangodi. If things

are still quiet there, the probability is they are going to remain

quiet. In that case—if your husband does not absolutely forbid it,

Captain Brentham ought to take you back to Hangodi and leave you there.

He can then find his own way _somehow_ to the place he lives at—Medina.

If the messengers come back with _bad_ news about the Arabs, or if John

Baines positively vetoes your returning, _then_ all you can do is to put

yourself under the Consul’s care and travel with him to Mvita ... unless

you like to stop with me and live on country produce. I think we

can—whilst you’re waiting here—get in touch with the Masai beyond the

mountains and by giving them a present induce them to guide you to the

Kilimanjaro country, to one of the mission stations there—Evangelical or

Methodist, don’t matter which. After that all would be plain sailing,

for I don’t believe the Arabs of the British sphere are going to rise."

When in the evening of that day, by the light of a camp fire—they had

practically no artificial light—Mrs. Stott put this plan before Roger,

he promptly agreed. It would show he had done the right thing. It would

go far to save Lucy’s good name, especially among Mission folk. And it

would give him nearly a month to stay and explore the Happy Valley. He

had spent much of the day with James Stott helping him in his work on

the embryo station, and Stott had told him of wonderful things he had

seen or had gleaned from native information. There was the new lake to

survey roughly; there was a paradise of big game to shoot in. Here Mrs.

Stott intervened: "I hope you and my husband will go slow as regards

shooting. I know we must have the meat and we’re so nearly bankrupt at

the coast that a few tusks of ivory would come in handy. But somehow I

should like to think of this Happy Valley as a sort of preserved

zoological gardens where all these innocent creatures of God’s

handiwork——"

"I shouldn’t call a rhinoceros innocent, Mrs. Stott," said Roger,

smoking his pipe with such contentment as he had not known for months—"I

have rather a tender conscience about antelopes and zebras, but rhinos

attack you absolutely unprovoked...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "Only because men began humbugging them first of all, long

ago, I expect. However, if ever I lived to see our mission stations

self-supporting and growing all the food they needed, I’d never let

James fire another shot at the game."

The next morning the two Masai guides, well rewarded, started off with a

package. It contained letters home from the Stotts, telling of their

wonderful deliverance; a brief despatch from Captain Brentnam to H.M.

Agent at Unguja, and letters to John Baines and Ann Jamblin. John was

asked how things were going, and whether on second thoughts he would

prefer Lucy to return to Hangodi, and if he could take the next

opportunity of having the accompanying letters sent to the coast; and

Ann was given—curtly—information as to Lucy’s reaching the temporary

station of the Stotts. However expansive the Stotts might be, within

the compass of one sheet of paper, they said very little about the

situation of the Happy Valley; and Brentham was still more reticent.

Both no doubt for the same reason, that the Happy Valley was too good a

proposition to be given away lightly to a greedy world. Mrs. Stott

still hoped, despite concluded boundary conventions, it might be brought

within the British sphere; Brentham did not want any other fellow to

have a go at its big game or an examination of its alluring secrets till

he had had a chance to return.

Whilst these letters were being carried to their destination by two

lithe, naked men of red-brown skin, with hair done up in periwigs of

twine soaped with mutton fat and the same red-ochre as coloured their

sleek bodies, men who carried knobkerries in their waistcords and

long-bladed spears in the right hand, great oval shields on the left

arm, and who ran on sandalled feet a steady six miles an hour when they

were on the road: Lucy and Roger disposed themselves to await patiently

the news which—they felt—was to determine their fate.

Twenty days went by in the Happy Valley in blissful sameness. Lucy had

her very limited wardrobe washed in the lake waters which had some oddly

cleansing, blanching effect—something chemical which both Roger and Mr.

Stott would discuss in muttered phrases. Lucy and Mrs. Stott together,

with many a laugh at blunder or foiled hopes of success, at length

succeeded in ironing the skirts and bodices and petticoats and linen

with a parody of a flat-iron, made for them by a naked Elkonono

blacksmith in a native forge.

Brentham and his Wanyamwezi porters helped Mr. Stott complete his new

station. Or they organized great shooting parties which enriched Mr.

Stott with ivory that he might some day sell, as against trade goods and

tea; or they accumulated biltong for Roger’s expedition, besides finding

meat for the day-by-day food of these hungry Wanyamwezi. To meet Mrs.

Stott’s scruples and objections they had themselves paddled in Wambugwe

canoes farther up the lake and shot elephants, zebras, buffaloes,

antelopes, on the flats twenty miles to the north of the Stotts’

station. Or they rode donkeys and travelled twenty miles southwards,

back along the road they had come (and got faint, far-off rumours of men

fighting, leagues and leagues away, which made them anxious).

Or they laid out plantations in the rich alluvial soil behind the

station and fenced them in. There Mr. Stott could plant his poor

remnant of English vegetable seeds, or with greater hope the maize,

pumpkins, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts, beans, and manioc of the

agricultural and fishing Bantu population.

Then, on the twenty-first day of this busy three weeks, the Masai

messengers once more squatted before the Stotts’ baraza. Silently one

of them tendered to Mrs. Stott a little package of dried banana leaves,

tied with some native fibre. Inside a fold of old newspaper and a

makeshift envelope made out of a copy-book cover, on one half-sheet of

dirty copy-book paper, Ann sent Lucy this message:

Mbogo’s Village,

NOVEMBER SOMETHING OR OTHER, 1888.

DEAR LUCY,—

Your messengers arrived yesterday, but I had to keep them waiting for an

answer and now they are impatient to go. The station has been

attacked—I think it began at the end of October, but I am muddled about

dates. John and Mr. Bayley were killed on the second day. Anderson and

I are only wounded; we are recovering, though my headaches are awful.

Josiah is dead, tell Halima. Help has come at last. But don’t come back

this way. The Ruga-ruga are all over Ugogo and there is fierce fighting

in Nguru. The Masai fought splendidly on our side. Go on to the coast

quick as you can, northern route. Can’t write more now, but will send

through more news to Unguja if I get the chance. Good-bye. John talked

of nothing but you when he was dying. It’s about broken my heart.

ANN JAMBLIN.

Lucy and Mrs. Stott looked at one another in horror and consternation as

this note—written by a pencil that had been frequently

moistened—fluttered to the ground from Lucy’s nerveless fingers. She

felt it was the only tribute to her husband’s memory, to her real horror

and remorse to assume a faintness she did not feel while Mrs. Stott led

her dry-eyed to her tent and couch.

*CHAPTER XII*

*THE ATTACK ON THE STATION*

_From Mrs. Anderson, E.A.M., to Mr. Callaway,

Agent of East African Mission, Unguja._

Mbogo’s Village,

Ulunga, Nguru,

_Novr._ 30, 1888.

DEAR MR. CALLAWAY,—

You may have heard some rumour of what has happened to us here. You

will find much of it described in the letter I have written to Mr. John

Baines’s mother. You can read this letter. Read it and then take

notes. You have several clerks and none of them with a broken head like

mine, I’ll be bound, and plenty of good pens, ink and stationery. All

I’ve got to write on is some old ruled exercise books and no envelopes.

Well, make up some sort of a letter out of what I’ve written to Mrs.

Baines senior, and then send it to the headquarters of the Mission in

London; and post the letter to her, Mrs. Baines, Tilehurst, Reading.

Tell them I’m recovering and I’m going to stay here till I am relieved

and even perhaps afterwards, supposing I and my husband get quite well.

You may be surprised at my change of surname, having known me as Miss

Jamblin. Just before the attack on our station (Hangodi) occurred I

went through a religious form of marriage with Mr. Ebenezer Anderson.

Mrs. John Baines had gone away—her husband sent her off to the coast in

the charge of Consul Brentham—and I did not think it right to stay at

the Mission with three men and me unmarried; so I accepted Mr.

Anderson’s proposal. Mr. Baines married us, but as I supposed it

wouldn’t be legal without we were married again before the Consul at

Unguja, we haven’t lived together as man and wife, and won’t till

everything can be made right and proper. I only mention this in case

either of us died.

You can also tell the big man at Unguja—Sir Godfrey Something—what has

happened in case he cares to know. I don’t suppose he does care. Those

big pots always sneer at Nonconformist Missionaries. But I want him to

know this. We should have all been killed and perhaps tortured and our

station might have been utterly destroyed and our people carried off

into slavery if it hadn’t been first for the Masai, and most of all for

an old Arab, Ali bin Ferhan—I think he spells his name. He’s written it

in Arabic on the piece of paper I enclose. He lives at Momoro, near the

Lingani River. Well, for reasons too long to give he no sooner heard we

were going to be attacked by the Ruga-ruga and the black Arabs (they

were led by that limb of the Devil, Ayub bin Majidi, whom they nickname

Mnazi-moja) than he came to our assistance. Mbogo and his people deserve

a gold medal—not that any one will give it—they’re only "Wa-shenzi" and

we’re only Nonconformists; they fought splendidly; but they were just

giving way when this old Arab—just like a picture of Abraham he is—came

up with a lot of his people armed with guns and carrying flags. And he

called off the fighting. After that the Ruga-ruga and their leaders

simply disappeared with all the plunder they could carry and we have

been at peace ever since, with Ali bin Ferhani camped here and keeping

guard over Ulunga. Ali doesn’t like the Germans. He always wanted his

beloved "Ekkels"—I suppose he means Sir James Eccles—to take the country

for the English Queen. But he thinks bad will come if any white people

are killed. He is so afraid the Germans will think he joined with the

other Arabs that I now tell you all this, though every day I have a

splitting headache. I really began this letter a week ago. I write a

little every day, and now I think Ali will be able to get it sent

through to the coast, to Mvita, perhaps.

The other letter—an exercise book tied up—is for Mrs. John Baines. I

don’t think any one ought to see it but herself. So please put it into

an envelope and address it to her "To await arrival at Unguja." She

started off for the Mvita coast with Captain Brentham a month ago.

What’s happened to her I don’t know. I sent messengers to tell her her

husband was dead.

I saw Mrs. Stott here last July when Mrs. John Baines had her premature

confinement. Since then I only know that their station at Burungi was

destroyed, but they got away safely somewhere else, where the Consul and

Mrs. Baines afterwards found them.

Yours in the love of Jesus,

ANN ANDERSON.

P.S. I ought perhaps to be more business-like, in spite of feeling so

ill, in case there is any trouble about wills and say that their names

were _Thomas Aldrich Bayley_ and _John Baines_ and that they died as

near as I can reckon on October 29th, 1888. I haven’t found any wills,

but I am trying to get their effects together, though of course there is

great confusion after the looting. I’ve also written a note for old

Mrs. Bayley.

_From Mrs. Anderson, E.A.M., to Mrs. John Baines,

c/o Mr. Callaway, Agent, East African Mission,

Unguja._

Mbogo’s Village,

Ulunga,

_November_, 1888.

DEAR LUCY,—

I am beginning to write this as near as I can guess November 15, but

I’ve got out in my dates and no wonder. I’ve also got a broken head—I

expect a touch of concussion besides a scalp wound—and it is simple

agony to write for long. My eyes hurt so. I must however try to tell

you—and John’s mother—what has happened, so I shall write a little every

day if I am fit to and send these letters to the coast by the first

chance. Ali bin Ferhani thinks he can manage a messenger later on who

would cross into the British "sphere." I expect you got my first

message sent by the Masai? In case you didn’t or in case something

happens to me and I can’t finish a long letter, I’ll tell you the plain

facts first: _John’s dead, Bayley’s dead, Josiah’s dead_. Anderson and

I are wounded. I’m nearly well. The station is only partially

destroyed. Now you know the worst.

When I returned here from Burungi it was about the tenth of October, so

far as we could keep count. John was very angry with me at first, for

leaving you and for coming to live with three men and I a single woman.

I well-nigh lost patience with him. But I said, Well if _that’s_ all

I’ll marry one of you, I’ll marry Ebenezer if he’ll have me. Ebenezer

Anderson didn’t look overjoyed, but John said: That’s all right; you

came out to marry him, so the Mission expected, and you’re only now

fulfilling the contract. All right, I said, you’re a minister of the

Gospel, you could marry us at home, so you can do it here, only it won’t

be legal till we’re re-married at the Consulate. But it’ll be a

marriage in God’s eyes, which is the great thing. I felt reckless about

it somehow. Of course I’m not going to live with Eb until all this

trouble’s over and everything is legal. Well, after that was done with,

the country round seemed to be getting jumpy and Mbogo sent to say the

Ruga-ruga under that Devil, Ayub, were coming to attack us, coming with

lots of men and guns. So we sent out word to the Masai, and they turned

up well. About three hundred spears. But after a bit they got tired of

waiting, so went off somewhere else to do some raiding on their own

account.

Towards the end of October—perhaps it was the 28th—no sooner was our

first bell rung for dressing—half-past five—than we heard the most

unearthly yelling and a tremendous firing of guns. I just got my

clothes and boots on anyhow and the men turned out in shirts and

trousers and with their boots unlaced. The bullets were flying like

hail above the stockade, first of all too high. We dared not go to peep

through for fear of being shot. Well, John didn’t lose his head one

bit. He gave out the Sniders to all our Walunga who could use them, and

he and Bayley and Anderson took up the posts they had settled

beforehand.

Then the Ruga-ruga made a rush almost up to the ditch which they seemed

not to expect, and John and the men let them have it. Five or six were

killed. After that Mbogo’s Walunga came up and took them on the flank

with guns and spears, and they didn’t like it at all and withdrew for a

spell. But I can’t tell you everything—Perhaps some day I will if you

ever care to hear it—I’ve got to write to John’s mother as well as you.

The fighting in the afternoon was chiefly between the Ruga-ruga and

Mbogo’s villages. I suppose they thought they’d better finish _them_

off before they came again to us. They drove Mbogo’s people out of all

their villages except the big one near us, where Mbogo lives. This was

higher up, and Mbogo and John had worked at its fortification on Captain

Brentham’s plan—it turned out to be much more easily defended than our

place. Fortunately also the Ruga-ruga and the Arabs don’t like fighting

at night—Oh my headache, I must leave off for a bit....

Well, during that night we worked like Trojans—Who were the Trojans and

why did they work hard? You ought to know with your superior education.

We dug out a square pit in the middle of the station and lined it with

dry grass. In it we arranged chairs and mattresses so that we could

rest and sleep here out of reach of the bullets. We also turned the

Chapel into a living-house and store, because its brick walls and iron

roof made it secure against fire and fairly safe from bullets.

On the second day the Ruga-ruga, led on by Ayub, attacked us on the west

side, where our stockade was weakest and where we were overlooked a

little by that mound we used to call the Snakes’s Hill. Brother Bayley

was standing talking to me about some dressings he wanted for Josiah

Briggs who had been shot in the foot, when suddenly he uttered a shriek,

whirled round and fell at my feet. He died a few minutes afterwards.

John was so infuriated at his death that in spite of my shouts to be

careful, he climbed up to a look-out post and fired his double-barrelled

sporting rifle at a group of Ruga-ruga on Snakes’s Hill. Whilst he was

stooping to reload a poisoned arrow struck him on the chest and

penetrated his lung. A good many of the Ruga-ruga were Manyema savages,

slaves of the Arabs, and they fought with bows and poisoned arrows.

John scrambled down somehow on to the ground. Ebenezer Anderson helped

me to carry him into the pit shelter and there we undressed him. He was

streaming with blood and coughing up blood and fast losing

consciousness. Somehow or other—oh, what a time it was!—we got the

arrow-head out of the wound. I don’t know even now how, for we were

both of us bunglers and it had got partly wedged in the ribs. And we

had to cut the poor dear about. Fortunately we had Bayley’s instruments

down with us in this pit. But I can’t go into all these details. Shall

I ever get this letter finished?

Whilst we were attending to John we heard a tremendous shouting. It was

the Humba war song—the Masai, you know. They had come at last to our

assistance and taken the Ruga-ruga rather by surprise. But just before

they made their rush up the hill, the Ruga-ruga had contrived to shoot

arrows with flaming cotton soaked in oil on to our thatched roofs. Fire

was spreading from building to building except the Chapel and the store.

My Big-geru had lost their heads. Up to that time they had been so

good. Our Walunga were trying to open the doors of the stockade and

dash out into the open country. Then the Ruga-ruga would have broken in

and all would have been up with us. Fortunately the charge of the Masai

came at that very moment, when I was beginning to doubt if God had not

forgotten us. They killed lots of the Ruga-ruga and would hack off

their heads and throw them back into our stockade.

Then the Ruga-ruga seemed to get reinforcements from the Ugogo

direction—quite a large body of men, they say, led by two Arabs—the two

Arabs whom John had got expelled a year ago by Mbogo for trading in

slaves. They had got a small cannon and its noise and the landing of a

stone cannon ball in the middle of a party of Masai gave them a fright,

so that all of the Masai drew off from near our station and ran round to

the high ground behind Mbogo’s town. Once more it seemed as though

nothing could save us. The Ruga-ruga fired stone balls at our stockade

and seemed making up their minds to a rush.

Ebenezer was just splendid at this time. I’m not sorry now I agreed to

marry him, though the poor dear is still pretty bad and hardly right in

his mind yet. But just at this critical moment he and Josiah and five of

our men who knew how to handle guns kept up such a fire with the rifles

that they shot down several of the big men among the enemy. Then poor

Josiah was shot in the stomach and died an hour or two afterwards.

Ebenezer got a splinter of wood in his eye—through a cannon ball

striking a post near him, and he was put out of action for a bit.

Meantime nothing more happened. There was a lull. The Ruga-ruga drew

off out of sight.

I could think of nothing but John all this time, though I had a feeling

of being stunned and hurt myself. He recovered consciousness and talked

of no one but you. I think he thought you were with him all the time,

and I confess _that_ hurt me. It was Lucy my darling, my own true

wife—and I wondered whether you _were_—and Lucy you’ve come back and now

we’ll go home together.... He didn’t mention my name _once_, and I

can’t remember that he said a word about God. Perhaps he didn’t know he

was dying. Towards the last his body swelled dreadfully and he sank

into a stupor. He must have died just about sunset. When he was going

I seemed to be going too. I suppose I fainted, for when one of my

Big-geru came down into the pit with some broth she’d made she set up a

howling and a yelling saying we were both dead, that Bwana Fulata, as

they called John, had taken me with him.

My girls undressed me and found then that I had been wounded all the

time. A slug or a rusty nail fired out of one of the guns had ripped

across my shoulders and the back of my head and I’d never noticed it.

It must have been when Eb and I were helping John down into the pit—I

thought some one then had given me a push. And while I sat beside John

the blood had soaked all the back of my bodice and caked quite hard.

It’s left a kind of blood-poisoning, but I’m getting over it. Only it

causes these awful headaches. And poor Eb before the fighting finished

got hit in the arm, and then from our clumsy attempts to extract the

iron filings which had struck him he got blood-poisoning too, much worse

than me. I can’t say what his temperature went up to because I can’t

find any of our clinical thermometers, but to judge from his ravings it

must have been pretty high.

In the night following that second day, Mbogo came with a lot of his

headmen and took us three away and all our Big-geru to inside his own

village and put us in his women’s quarters. _He’s_ a white man if you

like, under his skin. He was afraid we might all be burnt to death by

the fire spreading inside our station. So we should have done. I lost

my senses that night from weakness or shock or something. When I came

to again I could hardly move my head for pain. But my girls bathed me

and gave me wonderful potions of their own making and I was able to sit

up. Mbogo came in, but spoke behind the door for modesty. What do you

think of that in a black savage? A "Mshenzi"! Because he thought I

might be undressed. But he said in Swahili: "Fear no more. Your friends

are coming."

The next morning I heard that Ali bin Ferhani, who’d been a friend of

John’s—you remember?—had come with a big party of his followers, and

hearing he was on his way the Ruga-ruga had bolted because they all

respect him as a "Sheikh." He says he is going to stop here with his

men till peace comes, or at any rate till white people take command

here.

Your Masai messengers came two days after Ali bin Ferhani had arrived,

and I wrote with great difficulty the message I sent you and got the

Big-geru to do it up for me. Some of them write quite nicely themselves

now, but only in Kagulu.

There’s lots and lots more I could tell you if we ever meet again or I

ever have time and plenty of paper. After the Ruga-ruga were gone and

the fires were beaten out my Big-geru searched in the Chapel and the

ruins of the school houses and found three copy-books and a stone bottle

of ink and some pens. I’ve used nearly a copy-book each for you and

John’s mother and a bit of a one writing to Mr. Callaway and a short

note to Mr. Bayley’s mother. I haven’t made a proper search yet, but I

can’t find any will left by John. I don’t suppose he had much to leave

you.

You’d better go now and marry your Captain. It’s the least he can do

after compromising you, whether it was his fault or not. You never

loved John as he deserved to be loved and you did wrong to become

engaged to him, as his mother always said. If you hadn’t been there

he’d have married me. And we should have been happy as happy because

I’d have slaved for him. I loved him from the time we first met,

because he was kind and polite to me even though I was not well

favoured. He never laughed at my hymns as you used to do. They may

have been rubbish, but I meant well. In those days I was that religious

it had to come out somehow. I said I loved the Lord and I did—I

thought. I ain’t so sure about it now. His ways are truly _past

finding out_ and I’ve given up trying, though I shall stick to Mission

work for John’s sake. John would have said the coming of Ali bin

Ferhani was providential, but why couldn’t Providence have acted a bit

sooner and saved John and Brother Bayley? I suppose we shall know some

day....

Well, good-bye, Lucy. Let me have a line to say you got this packet.

I’ve no envelope to put it in.

I was going to finish up with Yours in the love of Jesus, but I really

don’t know....

ANN ANDERSON.

P.S. If you ever get to England and back Reading way, give my love to

the Miss Calthorps and go in and see my Uncle at the shop and say I’m

trying to do my duty out here and he isn’t to bother. I think perhaps

you’d better not go near Mrs. Baines—John’s mother. You never know how

she’ll take things. She was that _set_ on John.

_December_ 1.

Ali bin Ferhani’s pretty sure to-day he can get these letters through,

so off this goes. I forgot to say that we’re going to bury John and Mr.

Bayley side by side in the pit we dug in the middle of the station. Eb

is not in a fit state to be consulted, though his temperature seems

going down. But I’ve decided for him. As soon as I can get about

without too much aches and pains I shall see it done. If you get home

you might communicate with the East African Mission and arrange for a

Stone to be sent out to be put up over the grave. Somehow it seems to

me John wants to be buried there. It may bring good luck to Hangodi.

ANN.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE RETURN TO UNGUJA*

Up the scarcely-discernible path they climbed, leaving the Happy Valley

behind them; over the foothills and under cliff at the base of the

northern escarpment, where the gaily flowering bushes in their early

spring display gave way to tall forest trees, hung with lianas. The

black Colobus monkeys with their white-plumed tails chattered and showed

their teeth and flopped from branch to branch in the leafy canopy, not

used to this tumultuous invasion of their solitudes. Then suddenly the

escarpment rose like the wall of a Babel towering into Heaven. How

could any way for human beings walking on two legs be found up these

precipices? But despite its savagery there is scarcely one of Africa’s

fastnesses that has not been trodden by man, and although the practised

route into the Happy Valley was from the south, and though its

encompassing walls of cliff on either side and at the northern end of

its lake seemed impassable, there were ways up and over them known to

the Masai and Hamitic and Nilotic peoples of this sequestered rift

valley.

Up some such _Via mala_ the Masai guides were now leading Brentham’s

caravan, with little concern for the trepidation it caused. The white

man and woman and the silently suffering Goanese cook had been obliged

to descend from their donkeys and trudge with the porters. The donkeys,

in fact, were sent to the rear of the procession, and Brentham walked in

front with the guides and a few disencumbered porters to help Lucy over

an ascent which would have been thought rough climbing in the Alps, and

here had to be made without any paraphernalia of ropes and irons.

Lucy sometimes had to shut her eyes and hold her body rigidly pressed

against the wall of rock that she might recover from vertigo and

continue with shaking legs her ascent of a twisting path, sometimes only

fifteen inches broad where it overhung an abyss. Roger was beside

himself with anxiety. He cast about in his mind for safeguards—Ropes?

But they had none. Lengths of cotton cloth? But how get at them and

apply them, when any extra movement might turn Lucy giddy and

precipitate her into the tree-tops far below? Their taciturn Masai

guides, pledged only to show them the way to Kilimanjaro, had given them

no warning of what the path was like from the lake shore, between three

and four thousand feet above sea level, to the top of the escarpment at

seven thousand feet.

Once committed to the ascent the caravan had to continue, as there was

no room in which to turn the donkeys round and descend again to the

valley. All Roger could do was to insist on great deliberation in the

climb and frequent halts, though this policy was not endorsed by the

impatient asses behind. When the white people in front paused to

negotiate some more than usually dangerous section of the path, the rest

of the caravan had to pause too, the porters with their loads poised on

their heads and their sinewy legs trembling with the strain, while the

donkeys pranced with impatience to pass them, and nearly pushed some of

them and their loads over into the gulf below.

"It’s no good," Roger would say to his companion, "you can’t get round

this, walking upright; you must go on hands and knees and _crawl_ over

it. Never mind your dress or your knees. If your skirt is torn I’ll

make you one out of buck-skin; if your knees are cut it’s better than

breaking your neck."

He had never lived through such a nightmare as this climb, and ran down

in sweat for sheer apprehension of an irretrievable disaster. However

it came to an end at last, and towards that end its difficulties were

tempered by the path’s entry into gorges where there were merciful bays

of level ground, places to rest in and stretch oneself, to put down the

loads and regain one’s breath and ease one’s palsied legs. From the

jagged rocks grew out horizontally fleshy-leaved aloes with zebra

markings of green and white, and long stalks of blood-red or

orange-yellow, tubular flowers, haunted by large yellow-velvet bees with

probing tongues. Huge blue-black ravens with arched bills and white

collars perched on pinnacles of rock above the path, or set out to sail

in circles over the gorge below, hoping no doubt some beast or human

would fall and die and provide sightless eyeballs and protruding

entrails for the ravens’ feast.

Lucy thought of this in these silent halts—all were too exhausted to

speak—and shuddered. Yet for a white woman of that period, unsuitably

costumed as she was, she gave no more trouble to her male companion than

she could help, uttered no futile complaints or queries. They had

exchanged but little conversation during the two days which had elapsed

since they received Ann Jamblin’s message. John Baines’s ghost, like a

Banquo, came between them. Lucy was—and looked as though she was—in

perfect health. Deep down within her heart she was quietly content,

convinced now that somehow, some day, she would marry Roger. Equally

certain was she that none of the ordinary dangers of African travel

would prevent her from reaching the coast under his escort; so that he

had in her a more cheerful and far less sulky or doleful companion than

had accompanied the unfortunate John on his wedding tour.

After the ascent of the escarpment they camped two nights in succession

in a strange region suggestive of the Moon’s surface as revealed by a

powerful telescope. There were the crumbling sides of craters, the cones

of extinct volcanoes—extinct, perhaps; but sometimes a strange and

ominous-looking white smoke or gassy vapour issued from cracks in the

ground and through veins in the obsidian rocks. Vegetation was very

scanty—a few yellow stalks of bamboo in the hollows; and water was

scarce enough to cause anxiety and limit washing to a minimum. Yet if

they could cross this dry belt of naked rock and barren mountain and the

possibly waterless plain that lay in front of them, to the east there

was a promise of better things. Far away, a blue pyramid seen against

the morning sun, was Mount Meru, one of the great, unmistakable

landmarks of East Africa. It towered fifteen thousand feet into the sky

and when the sun turned to the zenith and the west they could see the

peak of the pyramid was white with snow. And behind Meru in the early

morning or in the early evening there came into view something at first

unbelievable, a floating island in the sky, a Laputa: the great snowy

dome of Kibô....

A few days of rough, silent travel—seeing no natives and very few birds

and beasts—and they were in the Kisongo plains. Here it was less arid,

and beneath the burnt stems of the old grass the fresh green grass was

springing. The occasional scrubby trees and bushes were putting forth

fresh leaves, sometimes quite red in colour, or even purplish black.

Big game swarmed round them unafraid of man, inclined even to be

insolent. Rhinoceroses charged the caravan and both Lucy and Roger had

narrow escapes of being tossed on their horns, while Lucy was twice

flung from her donkey when it bolted with terror at a tangent from the

unexpected rush of the squealing monster. A Nyamwezi porter was gored

and trampled, his load smashed and the caravan disorganized. Roger laid

low one rhinoceros; and then, water being near, they spent all the rest

of that day and the next cutting up its flesh, smoking it, drying it in

the sun, and making of it a food provision greatly wanted by the

porters.

This much-needed rest however brought another danger on them. The sound

of rifle firing, the assemblage of vultures, the noise of the porters’

excited voices attracted the attention of a large war party of Masai,

trailing southward to see what was up in this rumoured war between the

Arabs—or, as they called them, the "coast" people—and the White men ...

troubled waters in which they might fish to advantage. Lucy was sitting

in camp in as much placid enjoyment as she could feel, with the

remembrance of John’s death in the background. She forgot, at any rate

for the moment, her remorse and her anxieties "as to what people would

say." It was very pleasant to rest here and to know that she would not

have to rise at five the next morning and ride nearly all day, and

perhaps have another close shave from a charging rhinoceros....

Gradually there stole on her ear a sound like distant thunder. The sky

was clear ... surely it couldn’t be a whole _herd_ of rhinos, or a

distant earthquake—earthquakes not being unknown in this region?

Presently the Wanyamwezi looked up anxiously from their camp employments

or their parcelling out of the rhinoceros meat. Roger was away,

shooting more game.... There went up the fear-inspiring word: "Masai!"

Then appeared on the north a cloud of red dust and out of this emerged a

small army of red-coloured men trailing their shields by lanyards, with

a rumbling noise, waving long-bladed white-flashing spears, and uttering

a growling chant, a war-song of bloodthirsty purport, though its words

were not understood by the people in the undefended camp.

The Swahili Kiongozi fortunately was on the spot, and then and at other

times never lost his head. He stood quietly beside Lucy, who was seated

in her deckchair with her white umbrella to shade her from the sun.

"Starehe, Bibi," he said; "usiogope; Muungu anatulinda. Hawa ndio

Masai, kweli; walakini tutawashinda na akili."[#]

[#] "Be tranquil, Lady. Do not fear. God is guarding us. These indeed

are Masai truly, but we shall overcome them with intelligence."

The porters just stayed where they were. To have started to run

would—they knew—have been fatal. They just stood about, silent, while

the advancing army—perhaps three hundred in number—suddenly halted and

lay down behind their large, gaily-painted shields. The two men of the

expedition who knew the Masai language drew up to the

Kiongozi—unfortunately the Masai guides were away, out hunting with

Roger. A hundred yards distant there stood out one superb Masai

warrior, the leader of the party; a naked figure of perfect manhood, red

in colour, with a naturally brown skin, raddled with ochre and powdered

with the dust of the red ground. The vertical sun seemed to make a red

halo round the outline of his beautiful body. He held a tuft of grass in

his hand and shouted in an authoritative voice: "Tôtŏna!" (Sit down!)

At once the men of Brentham’s caravan obeyed him. All sat down and

plucked tufts of fresh green grass. Then the Masai spokesman advanced

slowly ... wonderingly ... peeringly towards the white woman, reclining

on the deck-chair. "What is _this_?" he asked the headman and the two

interpreters. "This," they replied, glad to get a chance of making an

impression, "_this_ is a WHITE WOMAN of the great race of the

Wa-ingrezi. Her husband is the great chief, the Balozi of the

Wa-ingrezi on the coast. We come now from the Manyara country, guided

by your own people, the Masai. There is war to the south, in Nguru and

Ugogo, war between the Lajomba and the White men. Our Balozi is taking

his wife to the coast to put her with his own people; then he will

return and finish the Lajomba."

"Good," said the Masai war-captain. "We heard of this war and we are

going there to see if we can join in. We hate the Lajomba."

At this moment there was a stir among the three hundred warriors sitting

apart. It was caused by the approach of Brentham, filled with

apprehension and anxiety as to Lucy. Unfortunately his own Masai guides

belonged to a southern clan of the Masai, not on very good terms with

this more northern, purer breed. So there was a ruffle of angry words as

each realized the other as whilom foes. But the leader who had been

sitting close to Lucy rose to his feet and spoke with a carrying

voice—rather than shouted—a command and once more his warriors sat down.

He then took Lucy’s hand, but quite gently. His own hand had

well-trimmed nails and was clean except for the red dust. He turned

back her sleeve a little (she trembled, but tried to smile). Having

satisfied himself that the arm was even whiter than the hand, he threw

back his head and laughed a full-throated laugh, while his eyes sparkled

with the wonderment of it all. Seeing her smile he looked at her with

such a friendly glance that she felt completely reassured. Then he sat

down again, took snuff, and was framing other questions when Roger

strode up. "It is all well, master," said the headman hurriedly in

Swahili.

"Why, you’re holding quite a court, Lucy," said Roger, inwardly

immensely relieved.

"Ye-es. But I shall be _rather_ glad when they all go."

The Masai leader rose to his feet and held out his hand to Brentham.

The latter took it and White man and Red man looked for a moment into

each other’s eyes. Roger, knowing something of Masai customs—was he not

indeed but three or four marches from scenes of earlier exploration?—did

not shrink away when the Masai captain spat on his clothing and on

Lucy’s dress. He knew it was intended for the friendliest of greetings,

a seal on their good relations.

After that, all was boisterous good-fellowship, though the Wanyamwezi

porters were careful to keep together and half carelessly to reclaim

their rifles. The three hundred Masai agreed to overlook the fact that

Roger’s guides had belonged to a once hostile clan. And when they

learnt from these men what a hunter he was and what an unerring shot,

they pressed their friendship and their red presence on him. They

visited his tent—they were throughout strictly honest—they sat on his

bed, and he had afterwards to do without sheet and pillow case, for

besides leaving red dust wherever they sat they distributed a flavour of

tallow from their favourite unguent, mutton fat. They insisted on

blood-brotherhood and declared they would escort the white chieftain and

his lady to the coast.

As a matter of prosaic fact, they took him no farther than the base of

Meru. There the rainy season began to break with vehemence. So there

they left him and went off to the drier steppe country and the War in

the south with its possibilities of loot.

Roger longed at this time to ascend Meru and explore its hidden wonders;

and Lucy gazed with awe at the now fully displayed majesty of

Kilimanjaro, rising above the watery plain of Kahe, with its dome of

snow and ice, and its lesser peak of Kimawenzi.

But being short of stores they made straight for a newly-founded

Evangelical Mission station, at an altitude of four thousand feet, where

it was hoped Lucy might find shelter for a few days from the torrential

rains, and he himself gather news about the happenings on the coast, and

dispatch carriers to Mvita with messages which might be telegraphed to

Unguja.

After all their adventures this seemed rather a prosaic phase in the

journey, and Lucy found herself actually depressed at being once more

with fellow-countrymen. There were three missionaries—a married couple

and an assistant bachelor propagandist—at the station of the Evangelical

Mission, but they did not seem over surprised at this arrival of a white

man and woman from the unknown interior. They received Lucy’s halting

explanations civilly but coldly, and though they gave her a room to

herself and nicely cooked meals, they seemed—to her fancy—to have

purposely adopted an almost penitentiary surfeit of services and

prayers.

Captain Brentham preferred to camp out at the Chief’s village, two miles

away. He had known this genial, old, one-eyed ruffian three years

before, when he was exploring the approaches to the great Snow Mountain,

and making tentative treaties to forestall the Germans. He rather

ground his teeth over the changing scene. Since his first journey,

missionaries, big-game sportsmen, concession hunters, had thronged into

this wonderful country, and had not the slightest respect for its

earliest pioneers. Already there was a large and flourishing mission

station on the site of his first camp; and when on installing Lucy there

he had drawn the missionaries’ attention to this fact, and to his having

made the site ready for them, purchased it in fact, the present

occupants merely said with pursed lips, "Indeed?"; and Mrs. Missionary

added primly: "Yes: we _heard_ from the Chief you had stayed here, three

years ago; but we prefer _never_ to listen to _gossip_ about white

people. It is so _often ill-natured_."

And so onwards to the Taita Hills and the coast. A sense of flatness, a

leaking-out of all romance in their adventure. They were no longer

alone. Lucy went to see Mr. Thomas at the East African Mission station

in Taita. He startled her by asking cheery questions about John, his

old college-mate, and supposing John was with her on this _safari_. He

had heard nothing about the disaster and made rather stupid and

inquisitive inquiries as to the motives of her journey. Farther on, they

had the misery of crossing the red Maungu desert, with its stretch of

forty miles between water and water; but there was no "adventure" about

this; and midway they met the caravan of a very rich Englishman with two

companions, wearing single eye-glasses, who offered them champagne and

soda-water at midday to relieve their thirst, and told Lucy he wasn’t

surprised at her travelling about with a stray Consul, as he always

contended that missionaries out in Africa had a jolly good time and did

themselves uncommonly well, and for his part he didn’t blame her.

"Gather ye roses, don’t you know—while you can—or was it while you’re

young? And now I suppose you’re on your way back to Hubby?"

The old Arab port of Mvita was not much altered since Roger had seen it

last; though there was the beginning of a stir, for a British Chartered

Company was preparing to make this their head-quarters. Meantime, the

centre of rank and fashion, so to speak, was the British Consulate.

Roger made his way here, with Lucy and Halima, while he left the bulk of

his caravan encamped across the water.

His colleague, the Vice-Consul, was an ex-Naval Officer, who had given

up the Navy for a while to serve in the East African Consulates, in the

idea that they entailed little office work, good pay, and any amount of

shooting, varied with agreeable _safaris_ at the expense of the

Government. This particular example of his kind had been rather sharply

called back to more humdrum duties and the preparation of statistics by

Roger himself, when he was acting Consul-General. So now was the time to

get his own back:—

"_Hullo_, old chap! _Who’d_ have thought it. Where have you sprung

from? We’d all given you up for lost—thought you’d gone ’Fanti,’ eloped

with a missionaryess for the far interior and were founding an empire on

your own...."

"I’ve brought here," interrupted Roger, with a set face, "_Mrs. John

Baines_" (Lucy had retreated out of ear-shot with Halima to the verandah

of the Consulate)—"_Mrs. John Baines_, whose husband has been killed, I

fear, in the Ulunga country. I should be much obliged if you could put

her up here till we can get a dau to take us over to Unguja.... As for

me..."

"_Aw*fully sorry old chap. *Of course_, I can make room for _you_ ...

give you _some_ sort of a shakedown.... You’re a fellow _man_ and

you’ll understand.... But the fact is I’m—I’m not—quite prepared—er—to

entertain a white lady here. Bachelor establishment you know.... _You_

twig? ... Dare say you’re fixed up just the same at—where is it? at

Medina, What?"

Roger turned away angrily.

"Lucy! ... Mrs. Baines!"

"Yes, Captain Brentham."

"I’ll get a boat and we’ll go over to the Mission station across the

Bay. I expect they’ll have room—indeed they must _make_ room—for you

there till our dau is ready to sail...."

Then turning to the Vice-Consul: "Be good enough to send a cablegram

to-day to the Agency at Unguja stating that H.M. Consul for Zangia

arrived here this morning from the interior with Mrs. John Baines from

Ulunga, and add that I shall arrive at Unguja to report as soon as I can

charter a dau; unless a gun-boat comes in first. My Camp is at

Kisolutini. You can send on any letters that come for me there...."

"Well, but I say..."

Roger having been joined by the wondering and disappointed Lucy, who had

taken a great fancy to the picturesque Consulate, strode out with an

angry face, flushed under the tan.

No return message came for him from the Agency at Unguja. And a few

days afterwards he embarked with Lucy and Halima (who had already agreed

to marry the Goanese cook), his Wanyamwezi porters, and a selected

collection of trophies and mineralogical specimens, in an Arab dau, for

the island port of Unguja. This time—December 27, 1888—Lucy was too

anxious about her future to notice or to care whether it had bugs or not

in its rotting timbers or its frowsy thatch.

Meantime, unfriendly forces were at work to Roger’s detriment. Here is

a letter which Mrs. Spencer Bazzard probably wrote to Mr. Bennet

Molyneux, of the Foreign Office. (Like most of the letters appearing in

this book, it is based on my deductions as to the kind of letter that

would have been written under the circumstances, rather than on textual

evidence):—

H.B.M. Consulate for Zangia,

Medinat-al-Barkah,

_December_ 23, 1888.

DEAR MR. MOLYNEUX,—

I hope you don’t resent my letters. You don’t answer them, but then I

told you not to. I shouldn’t like to be a bore to you, or for you to

feel—amid your piles of work—that you had an extra letter to write to an

importunate little person in far-off East Africa. I said once I should

go on writing every now and again, unless you ordered me to stop. As

you haven’t—Well! Here is another budget of East African news.

We have had alarums and excursions, as Shakespeare says. You will see

by this address that I am on the mainland with my husband. When Captain

B. disappeared last September into the _ewigkeit_ the Agency at Unguja

began receiving disquieting stories as to what was taking place in his

absence. He had only left an Indian clerk in charge, and complaints

arose from Indian merchants and English missionaries that no one could

attend to their business. So Sir G. D. thought it best to send Spence

over here to take charge, and, of course, I came with him to help him to

interpret.

We found everything (a month ago) in a terrible muddle. The consulate

is filthily dirty, the archives are just anyhow, and Spence fears a

considerable sum is missing from the Consular receipts, or else that the

clerk is muddled in his accounts. But all this you will hear

officially.

Meantime, we are all uneasy about Captain B.’s disappearance. He left

here last August with some idea of letting the missionaries know there

was danger of ah Arab attack on all white people independent of their

nationality, German or English. He seems to have translated Sir G.’s

brief instructions into a permission to make a vast tour of the

interior—a delightful thing to do, no doubt, but not when you have a

Consulate to look after. He greatly alarmed all the missionaries, and,

as it appears, somewhat needlessly. Those who have their stations in

Usagara and farther south are very angry with him. He arrived at their

stations early in September and ordered them to retire on the coast—or

at any rate send their wives and children there, as the Arabs might

attack at once. And after they had obeyed him the attacks never came

off! One of the missionary ladies was in a certain condition, it

appears, and the hurried journey so upset her that—how shall I phrase

it?—her hopes were disappointed.

He next appeared at a place called Hangodi—according to native

report—and was so anxious about the safety of a fair lady there (the

missionary young woman who travelled out with him and me a year and a

half ago)—that he took her away with him and has seemingly gone waltzing

off to the unknown with this fair charge. Quite romantic, isn’t it? In

this case his warning as to an impending attack seems to have been only

too well founded, if what has been reported to the Germans is true.

Soon after he left this place—Hangodi—it was apparently attacked and

destroyed and the missionaries all killed—except, of course, the lady

who left with him. Ill-natured people will naturally ask why he did not

stay and defend the station.

It is only two days off Christmas, and I can picture to myself the happy

preparations going on at Spilsbury—the carols the village children are

practising for Christmas Day, and the Christmas-tree which I am sure

Mrs. Molyneux and your daughter are preparing for their reward.

These ridiculous sentimental Germans are, of course, getting up

Christmas-trees, too, and are practising Carols to be sung round them,

though the town is still more or less besieged on the landward side.

_Who_ and _what_ was Good King Wenceslaus, and why should we sing about

him at Christmastide? There is no library here, except the one they

have at the French Mission, and that mentions nothing about Germany.

We are told here that a certain Captain Wissmann will soon arrive with a

large force of Sudanese soldiers to take command and finish the Arabs.

Still no news of Stanley, except it be the wildest, most improbable

rumours. If he really emerges from the heart of Africa it will only

be—I fear—to fall into some ambush laid by the Arabs.

With our united kindest regards and best wishes for 1889,

Believe me, dear Mr. Molyneux,

Yours sincerely,

EMILIA BAZZARD.

Roger and Lucy reached Unguja in their Arab dau at the end of December,

when the Europeans therefore were recovering from the surfeit of

Christmas junketings and preparing for another round of New Year

festivities, but a little bit peevish and liverish in the interval. The

arrival of the British Consul for Zangia was not unexpected, because

telegraphic news of his emergence from the interior had already reached

the British Agency. In the afternoon of December 29th he walked into

the office of the Agency and reported himself to Sir Godfrey Dewburn....

"Ah! my _dear_ Brentham, _how_ are you? _What_ a time you must have

had, to be sure! We all gave you up for lost, or thought you had gone

in search of Stanley or Emin, or were off to attack the Mahdi. Well: and

how is the fair companion of your travels, Mrs.—Mrs. ... er ..."

_Brentham_: "Mrs. John Baines? She is, I believe, at Mr. Callaway’s at

the present moment. I advised her to go there as he is Agent here for

their Mission, and would probably have definite news about—about—the

attack on her husband’s station ... and the results. Have you heard

anything, Sir?"

_Sir Godfrey_: "Nothing more than the rumour that after you left it was

attacked, and, I think, all the Whites were killed ..."

At this moment a clerk comes in and says: "This is a note with an

enclosure, Sir Godfrey, from Mr. Callaway." Sir Godfrey asks Brentham

to be seated and hastily runs his eye over a very long communication.

Five minutes elapse. Then whilst he is still reading, another door

leading to the residential part of the Agency opens and there appears a

handsome woman of middle age, with the stamp of elegance and fashion

upon her, dressed in some agreeable adaptation of an Englishwoman’s

dress for the tropics. She says, "Godfrey, my dear, tea’s ready and as

you don’t like it drawn or cold I thought if I came myself—but I see you

have a visitor...."

"Oh! Ah! ... Yes.... To be sure.... Er.... Brentham, this is Lady

Dewburn—" (They shake hands. Lady Dewburn looks him over approvingly.)

"You’d better come in and have tea with us and then we can talk over

this extraordinary communication of Callaway’s. It couldn’t have come

more appropriately. Evidently it must have been brought by your dau.

It’s been sent down by some Arab and it is all about the attack on the

station where these missionary friends of yours were living. It seems

they were not all killed, two of ’em at any rate ... though I think the

husband of your lady friend _was_.... But come along and we’ll have a

confab all about it. The Bazzards are over at your Consulate on the

mainland, so whilst you’re here you’d better take possession of their

quarters. The golden-haired Emily says she left it in apple-pie order

when she departed for Medina.... This way ... would you like to wash

your hands first? You look quite the Wild Man of Borneo, and I don’t

wonder.... _Must_ have had a beastly time.... I should suggest a

whisky and soda first and tea afterwards...."

Lucy meantime was reading Ann Anderson’s letter, given in a previous

chapter. She had been placed once more in the bedroom she had occupied

in Mr. Callaway’s house before her marriage, and shuddered at the

memories it enshrined. Dear, kind Mrs. Stott was far away in the Happy

Valley ... and she could never again hear John’s voice calling to her

from the courtyard under the great fig-trees that the Sultan’s carriage

was waiting hard-by to take them for a drive; or making some other

proposition which she probably snubbed in fretfulness.

She was consumed with remorse. Ann’s statement that in his last

agonies, dying with poisoned blood, he had only thought and spoken of

_her_, made her heart ache, almost literally—the aching of unshed tears

over the irrevocable. She had not been unfaithful to him in body; but

in mind, in desire, _yes_: from the day of the marriage onwards, and

never more so than from the day of her departure from Hangodi. She knew

she had hoped then that somehow this departure, this desertion of John

when danger was approaching—might be the beginning of her severance from

him, and lead to her union with Roger. To _him_ at any time during the

long _safari_ she would have surrendered herself....

Yet though her upper consciousness—the "speaking to one’s self" (which

we almost do sometimes aloud, as if to an audience that may register our

words and resolves)—asserted that the _only_ reparation she _could_ make

was _never_ to see Roger again—(what a mercy he had behaved better than

she had done!)—her innermost intention was to stay on in Unguja on some

pretext or other, in the faint hope he might ... _might_ ... "do the

right thing," as Ann had put it ... might marry her. If he would _only_

do that her whole remaining life should be _one long atonement_ to John.

She would _never_ forget him and his unselfish love of a shallow,

ungrateful woman.

Mr. Callaway had hinted she might like to take the next steamer home:

there was one going in a week—back to England. But how could she go

back ... and face Mrs. Baines ... and live on her parents? John had

probably no money to leave her; the Mission, after so short a term of

married life, would certainly give her no pension ... why should it?

The post of National school-teacher at Aldermaston was long ago filled

up. And could she even resume her life there? At no great distance was

Engledene, with Lord and Lady Silchester. Lady Silchester she vaguely

dreaded as a person who might mock at her.—She must have heard something

about her from Captain Brentham. What—what—_what_ was she to do? Insist

on remaining out in Africa and rejoin the Mission? And work under Ann?

The thought of the altered circumstances repelled her. Who would care

_now_ if she were ill? She had had several illnesses and many fits of

malaise—and tears of self-pity now ran down her cheeks. And how _good_

and _uncomplaining_——here choking sobs, hiccups, almost a loud wailing

intervened—dear John had been. The cups of broth he had brought to her

bedside, the little meals to tempt her appetite.... And Roger? ... The

equal solicitude—the interest _he_ had shown, even in her whims!

* * * * *

The realization of her bereavement kept Callaway from intruding on her

solitude, even by a message through Halima. This was a mercy, she

thought—at first—because however well-meaning, he struck her

fastidiousness as "common," not very attractive in appearance, with a

harsh voice, and effluent piety, and bad table manners.... But need

Halima have been quite so neglectful? Halima latterly was so wrapped up

in the project of marrying the Goanese cook that she unhesitatingly

neglected her mistress and avowed her complete readiness to enter the

Roman Church if that act could remove Antonio da Silva e Andrade’s last

scruple of reluctance to wed with a Negress. She spent much of her time

oiling and combing her fuzzy hair into a European coiffure, and did not

hesitate to "borrow" details of Lucy’s scanty wardrobe for her own

adornment. When she came with Lucy’s meals into the hot ... _hot_ ...

_hot_ bedroom, with its dreadful insect swarms, from which the iron

bedstead, with its lowered mosquito curtain, was almost the only refuge,

she—Halima—bore a sulky face. She would evidently _not_ stay with Lucy

in misfortune....

One way and another, Lucy was fretting and worrying herself into a state

of illness; afraid to go out or to show herself; loathing life in this

low-ceilinged, vermin-infested bedroom, hot by day, stifling at night,

as she lay inside the mosquito netting in the blackest darkness,

shuddering at the possibilities beyond the bed. Rats romped and

squeaked and occasionally fell from the rafters into the sagging

mosquito net; scorpions, no doubt, were lurking in the crevices of the

floor-boards to sting her toes if she stepped out of the insufferably

hot bed. Cockroaches alternated their love-flights from the window with

frantic and wily attempts to get under the curtain. Mosquitoes, all the

night through, kept up a sonorous diapason of unbroken humming,

indignant at being denied access to her body. And the loneliness!

Halima was supposed to sleep on the landing outside; a polite

supposition which Lucy was unwilling to test, lest inquiry should lead

to a defiant withdrawal from her service.... Her service! Where were

Halima’s wages to come from?

* * * * *

It was ten a.m.—more or less. Lucy had risen, washed hurriedly, and

hurriedly put on the only clean cotton dress left to her. (She really

must go out one day and buy some things for the voyage—only where was

the money?) The door was thrown open by an excited, more amiable

Halima, who shouted "_Yupo Bibi Balosi_! Anakuita!"

A pleasant, high-bred voice explained:

"I am looking for Mrs. Baines. Is she in here?"

Lucy scrambled off the bed from under the mosquito curtain and stood

before Lady Dewburn, the Consul-General’s wife....

Broken apologies ... explanations—"Bed only place where you could be

tolerably free from mosquitoes...."

Lady Dewburn is a handsome shrewd-looking woman of middle age. She

wears a single eyeglass at times, for greater precision of sight, and

because she is the daughter of a permanent official. But though she

inspires a certain awe, she is in reality a kind creature, irresistibly

impelled to interfere—she hopes for the best—in other people’s affairs,

especially out here. Her children are either out in the world or at

school in England, and she is exceedingly bored on this feverishly

tropical, gloriously squalid island. The day before she had heard all

about Lucy from Captain Brentham....

_Lady Dewburn_: "My _poor_ child! _Please_ overlook all formalities and

come away with me, _just as you are_. Your woman here—if you can trust

her—shall pack up what you have—you can’t have _much_, I should think,

after that _appalling_ journey to the coast.... Come away with me....

Why, you must have hardly _any_ clothes to wear! I don’t _wonder_ you

stop in bed! We’ve got lots of spare rooms—as a matter of fact, Sir

Godfrey and I are alone just now. Come and stay with us till you can

look round and make your plans. It seems to me as though I ought to put

you to bed for a week to begin with...."

Lucy’s acceptance of this Fairy Godmother proposal dissolved from words

into gulping sobs and convulsive eye-dabbings and nose-blowing. But she

was practical enough to find her sola topi and white umbrella, to make

her cotton dress look a little tidier, and gasp a few directions in

Swahili to the over-awed Halima. Halima was wearing Lucy’s evening

"fichu" all the time and was uneasily conscious of having blundered into

felony through ill-timed contempt for her lady.

Lucy observed none of this, but followed Lady Dewburn’s fastidious steps

down the stairs of palm planks out into the yard, where Mr.

Callaway—really a very decent sort, who after all had done his best for

Lucy—was awaiting them. He was personally gratified and relieved in his

mind that the first lady in Unguja should have taken his forlorn little

client under her wing. After picking their way with skirts lifted high

through narrow unsavoury lanes between high blank houses, they at last

reached Unguja’s one broad highway. Here was a handsomely appointed

carriage, and in it they rolled away to the Agency.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*LUCY’S SECOND MARRIAGE*

_From Sir Godfrey Dewburn, K.C.I.E., to Mr. Bennet

Molyneux, African Department, Foreign Office._

H.M. Agency and Consulate-General,

Unguja,

_March_ 15, 1889.

DEAR MOLYNEUX,—

In the matter of Brentham, I think a private letter to you might meet

the case better than an exchange of cables or an official dispatch.

I quite understand your Department is annoyed at the questions put in

Parliament last month after the news about the deaths at the Mission

station at Hangodi. But I cannot help thinking the Department is

disposed to be too hard on Brentham, as though it were prejudiced from

some other quarter than me. I admit when I first came out here I jibbed

a little at his cocksureness, his assumption that no one knew anything

about Ungujan affairs to compare with his own knowledge; and it seemed

to me he made rather a parade about the number of languages he had

acquired, which contrasted unfavourably with my acquaintance—then—with

only three (I have tried since to learn Swahili). And so on and so on.

I moved easier and got my bearings better when I had sent him over to

his proper sphere, the mainland. I also thought his contempt for the

Bazzards a little too marked, though I must admit subsequently my wife

and I have found that a little of Mrs. B. goes a long way. But I hate

writing disagreeable things about anybody—a climate like this excuses

hair-dye, face-powder, irritability and even a moderate degree of

illicit love (don’t treat this as official!) ... But about Brentham: if

his mission to the missionaries—telling them to clear out before the

Arab danger—_was_ a failure, in that in most places there was no danger,

_your_ apprehensions and _my_ instructions were to blame for starting

Brentham off on his wild-goose chase. The missionaries in Usagara seem

to cut up rough because they weren’t attacked, were "quittes pour la

peur." But that was hardly Brentham’s fault.

The Hangodi business is a different matter. There is little doubt in my

mind that B. was a little spoony on Mrs. Baines—They had travelled out

together, and it seems she comes from near his part of the world in

Berkshire-Hampshire—Jolly district, near the Carnarvons and the

Silchesters.—Ever go there to shoot? But Mrs. Baines had been ill from

one of these confinements that Missionary ladies—married, of course—have

so regularly, and her husband seems really to have wished his wife to go

away with Brentham. To make it all right and proper he packed off at

the same time the other woman at their station, a strong-minded female

named Jamblin. (She figures very much in the dispatches I sent home

last mail.) Well: according to Brentham, this Jamblin woman, when they

had done a few marches and stopped at another Mission station, insisted,

positively _insisted_ on going back to Hangodi, and equally insisted on

_his_ taking Mrs. Baines to the coast. He oughtn’t to have agreed.

That’s where he was weak. He ought to have returned to Hangodi and

helped to beat off the attack—if it came, as it did—and then have

refused to take the ladies away unless the men came too. Instead of

that, Brentham, having found some missionaries of whom he was in search,

hung about their place until the news of the attack on Hangodi and the

death of Mrs. Baines’s husband reached him. After that he made for the

coast by the northern route, the only one open to him at that time

without fighting. Even on this route they had some most extraordinary

adventures and spent a devil of a time before they got back to

civilization—as we call ourselves by contrast.

The general opinion among the missionaries, I know, is unfavourable to

Mrs. Baines, and in consequence to Brentham. But Brentham swears to me

on his honour—_and I believe him_—there was nothing "wrong" between

them. Jennie—my wife—says he’s as straight as a die; though never

having seen a "die," I can’t say. At any rate, Jennie, on whose

judgment I always rely, has taken a great liking to Brentham. So she

has also to the young party with whom he has become involved, this Mrs.

John Baines. The poor girl—she doesn’t look her age—26—was stranded

here at their Mission Depôt, and Jennie, after hearing about her, went

over in her impulsive way and brought her to the Agency. This has put a

stopper on local gossip, which has thus been deprived of a rare morsel

that would otherwise have acted as a real tonic on a fever-stricken

community. Now Jennie says that although there’s never been anything

between them but what was right and proper, they ought to marry as soon

as six months is up from the death of the first husband—which we presume

took place on October 29th, from the accounts of that masterful person

who now calls herself Ann Anderson. Jennie had but to make the

suggestion and they both consented, so the civil marriage—the only legal

one here—is fixed for March 31. Whether Archdeacon Gravening will

consent to marry them at the Cathedral in addition, I cannot say. He is

thinking it over. The matter has been speeded up by your intimation

that the F.O. intends to recall Brentham. If he went back and didn’t

marry her, things would go hardly with Mrs. Baines. (I really have

taken a liking to her, and I could imagine when she gets to a good

climate she might be quite pretty. She is very quiet, and in a quiet

way is rather entertaining in her accounts of what they went through in

their wild journey to the coast.)

Well: when the wedding is over, I propose breaking to him the F.O.

instructions to return and give an account of himself. I must give him

just enough time to go over to the mainland and try to settle things at

his Consulate there. The Spencer Bazzards—who have a down on him—report

that an utter muddle followed his departure for the interior last

September, and accuse his Indian clerk of embezzling Consular funds,

and, worse still, of selling the office cipher code to the Germans.

This, if true, is a confounded nuisance, as it will oblige us to make

changes all round. Fortunately it is only Cipher Q.

I suppose you know Captain Wissmann has arrived at Medina at the head of

a force of over a thousand picked men to fight the Arabs to a finish?

Other German officers have met him there with further contingents—Zulus

and Makua. Wissmann’s people are mainly Sudanese. I suppose we have

done right in enabling him to raise this force on what is practically

British territory—British or Portuguese? I like Wissmann personally.

After all—as Brentham says—if we hadn’t the pluck to take all East

Africa for ourselves at the time we were first challenged by Bismarck,

it is better that the German share should be properly controlled and not

fall back into a state of anarchy and slave-raiding. But, of course,

what ties our hands in all these matters is the intense desire of France

to raise the Egyptian question to our disadvantage.—Therefore, don’t

think I am girding at the Office for irresolution. The French here make

my life a burden to me with their intrigues....

* * * * *

Yours sincerely,

GODFREY DEWBURN.

_From Lucy Brentham to Mrs. Albert Josling, Church

Farm, Aldermaston._

Mbweni,

Unguja,

_April_ 2, 1889.

DARLING MOTHER,—

I expect you got my letter written early in January after I had got back

to Unguja. The news must have come to you as an awful shock. And what

it has been to Mrs. Baines I dare not _think_. I expect I shall get

some sort of answer from you in a day or two when the mail comes in.

But as there is a steamer going to-morrow I dash off this letter to give

you other news: _good_ news this time, dearest.

I was married on March 31st last to Captain Roger Brentham, the Consul

for the Mainland. You know all about him from my letters. It is true

it is only a little more than six months since poor John died, and some

people will think it much too soon afterwards to marry again, but you

and Father will understand. Roger is shortly going home.—_Think_ of it,

darling mother! We are going—or should one say, "we are coming"?—HOME.

I put it in capitals. He has wanted to marry me ever since we knew of

John’s death. We both feel sure John would think it the wisest thing to

do, even Ann Jamblin does. Well, Roger being called back by the Foreign

Office, he could hardly leave me behind here and if he hadn’t asked me

to marry him I couldn’t have stopped here all by myself, unless I had

joined some missionary society. And that I didn’t feel inclined to do.

I don’t think I’m suited for the work. But don’t think I want _to run

down_ the Missionaries. Far from it, after all I’ve seen. Mission work

quite changed John. It made him so _good_ and _unselfish_. And

although I’ve many reasons for feeling sore and angry about Ann Jamblin

that was.—She isn’t dead, but she’s married in a sort of a way to that

Ebenezer Anderson of our Mission.—Well, even Ann is twice the woman she

was in old days at Tilehurst. They call her here—at least, the local

paper does—It’s run by an Eurasian—I’ll tell you some day what Eurasian

means ... they call her "The Heroine of Hangodi." I believe somebody is

going to write about her in the English papers; and the German commander

on the mainland, Captain Wissmann—has sent her his compliments, and said

he can always admire a brave woman no matter what her nationality.

Isn’t it all funny when we think of what she was like at school and how

greedy she used to be at the prayer-meetings? There is a missionary

couple here—I’ve mentioned them in my other letters, Mr. and Mrs. Stott.

You can’t _think_ how good they’ve been to me. I’ve got lots and lots

and lots to tell you when we meet. But I must be quick and finish this

letter.

Well: I was married to my darling Roger last Wednesday, and if it wasn’t

every now and then that I think about poor John I should be the happiest

woman alive. Mother, I’ve _always_ loved him since that first morning

we met on the steamer and he pointed out the Isle of Wight, and then

took such care of me all through the voyage. And he says he fell in

love with me the same time. Isn’t that _wonderful_ when you think of

all the great ladies he has seen, many of them I’m sure in love with

him. When I asked him why, he just kissed me and said it was my violet

eyes and my look of utter helplessness. But I feel it is _too sacred_

to talk or write about. I was always a true wife to poor John. People

may think and say what they like. There is a horrid old cat here on the

Mainland, who also travelled out with me. I’m sure she says and writes

horrid things about me. It’s only jealousy. But even now, Mother, I

haven’t told you almost the most wonderful thing of all! I did just say

in my last letter how I’d gone to stay with the wife of the

Consul-General. It happened this way. When we first landed here from

one of those dreadful Arab sailing-boats that are full of what you

_will_ call B flats but what I think—and so does Roger—it is much more

sensible to call "bugs" straight out—when we landed Roger said, "You’d

better go to Mr. Callaway and stay there first till I can find out what

it’s best to do for you." So there I went, and I was just _miserable_.

I didn’t like to tell you how much at the time for fear of its upsetting

you. I really felt almost like committing suicide, only I should never

do anything so wicked. But there I lay, inside my mosquito curtain in a

room like a Turkish bath, crying, _crying_ to myself about poor John and

thinking I should never see Roger again, and what Mrs. Baines would say

when I came back all alone; when in walked Lady Dewburn, the wife of the

Consul-General—"my boss"—as Roger calls him. She would have it that I

was to go away with her then and there. Mother, I’d hardly any clothes

after that dreadful journey; that was one reason I felt ashamed to go

out. Well, she put me in a lovely cool bedroom at the top of her

house.—It has a flat roof and I used so to enjoy walking out of my room

and looking at the sea and the natives down below and the ships and

palms. She had my meals sent up to me and often came up herself to

inquire, and for a week she got Indian tailors to cut out and sew

clothes for me to wear. When they were ready I had got quite well

again, and then she brought me down and introduced me to her husband,

who is the great man of this place. _He_ used rather to make fun of me,

tease me you know, but he was kind under it all. Mother, if I’d been

_their own daughter_ they couldn’t have treated me kinder. She wouldn’t

let me thank her, said I was a distressed British subject and it was her

duty. And after I’d been staying with them about six weeks and was

beginning to say I ought to earn my living or else go home, she said,

wouldn’t you as an alternative like to marry Roger Brentham? And I

said, He’d never ask me and if he did I should only spoil his career.

And she said, _Nonsense_. And the next day, when they had both gone out

driving, Roger came to the room where I was working with Halima (who,

strange to say, has married his cook!) and asked me to be his wife. How

could I say anything but "yes"? I know now I should have died of

consumption or something if he hadn’t. But of course I said—"It can’t

be till poor John has been dead a year." Then that evening when I told

Lady Dewburn, she said, "Nonsense! I can see no reason why it shouldn’t

be at the end of March. Then if Captain Brentham has to go home you can

return with him." So, of course, I gave in.

I’m afraid it’ll make lots of people angry, especially Mrs. Baines. How

can we break it to her?

There are a _thousand_ other things I can tell you, but if I don’t

finish this letter now I shan’t be in time to put it in the Agency

mail-bag, which I always think is so much safer than the ordinary post,

and I don’t have to stamp it.

So in a few more weeks darling mother you will meet again

Your own

LUCY.

P.S. Love to father and the dear girls. _Do_ see what you can do with

Mrs. Baines. I feel _so_ sorry for her, and I should so like to tell

her about John. Things might have been so different if only my little

baby had lived, John felt it _dreadfully_.

Private and Confidential.

H.M. Agency and Consulate-General,

Unguja,

_April_ 2.

DEAR BAZZARD,—

I take advantage of a British steamer which is crossing to-day to Medina

to send you this hurried note.

Your colleague, Captain Brentham, was married on March 31 to Mrs. John

Baines, the widow of the poor fellow who was killed at Hangodi.

Brentham will probably be returning to England very shortly on leave of

absence (I understood from you you were willing to postpone your leave

for a few months). Before he goes I have asked him to co-operate with

you in getting affairs at the Medina Consulate settled up

satisfactorily, so that you may formally take over from him and be

Acting Consul there till there are further developments. I am very

grateful to you and Mrs. Bazzard for stepping into the breach caused by

these confounded disturbances which have not only occurred in the German

hinterland but are now beginning in ours—so we mustn’t boast too soon!

Brentham had to leave, as you know, very hurriedly last September, and

if the Arabs had succeeded in taking the town matters would have been

ever so much worse than they are. He says if there turns out really to

be any deficit in the cash due to the embezzlement of the Indian

clerk—if he did embezzle—but _what_ has become of him? Was he

killed?—he is willing to make it good out of his own pocket. (Rather

hard on him as he could not help leaving this man in charge; but I may

come in like a benevolent arbiter if the affair is serious.) The loss

or disappearance of the office cipher is a serious business—very—. I

don’t see what good it would be retrieving it from the Germans, as, if

they _have_ had it at all in their possession, they have probably

derived from it all the information they want!

Whilst Brentham is over at Medina I want him to have an interview with

the German commandant, Captain Wissmann, as he can convey to him a

message from me.

I hope Mrs. Bazzard continues well? She has certainly shown she can

stand the climate. But we mustn’t try her _too_ far.

Sincerely yours ...

GODFREY DEWBURN.

When this letter reached Spencer Bazzard he took it promptly to his

wife, who was seated before her dressing-table rubbing a little of the

"hair-restorer" into the very roots of her hair, which had an

exasperating way of not starting gold from the skin-level. She said,

keeping her eyes fixed on the glass, "Read it aloud." He did so.

"Hooray," she exclaimed, with ordered joy so as not to interfere with

the delicate operation—they were going out to dine that night with a

German functionary—"Hooray! That means he’s scuppered. He’s going

home, you bet, rather off colour. They’ve made him marry her to placate

the missionaries. But he’ll never bother us again out here. Well, we’ll

be civil to him in the clearing up."

_From Captain Roger Brentham to Lady Silchester._

Mbweni, Unguja,

_April_ 2, 1889.

DEAR SIBYL,—

I don’t think you have any realization of what I’ve been through lately

or you’d have written to inquire, or condole, or encourage. I’ve had a

regular "gaffe"—tell you more about it by and bye. And a wonderful

journey in the interior worthy of a Royal Geographical Society’s

medal—tell you more about _that_ too some day—and—don’t start—I’ve got

married!

You always predicted I should marry a "missionaryess." Well: I’ve done

so. Yes, you were right, true Sibyl that you are. I’ve married the

dear little girl—for so she seems to me—whom I escorted out to Unguja

three years ago and whom I married myself to her young missionary

husband, who was going to a station in the interior called Hangodi.

There followed a tragic time. I dare say the newspapers will have told

you all about it. She and I got locked up, so to speak, in the far

interior and I never thought she, at any rate, would get to the coast

alive.

Well: I felt after all we’d gone through together there was only one

thing—the right thing—to do, being also very much in love with her.

Lady Dewburn (you know whom I mean) thought precisely the same; and Lady

Dewburn, let me say, is about the _best_ woman I know. I shall _never_

forget what she did for my poor Lucy. Dewburn performed the civil

ceremony for us and gave a small and quiet wedding breakfast after the

"small and quiet" wedding at the Cathedral. My old friend Gravening

("the Venble. Archdeacon") was awfully nice about the whole thing ...

fully approved of my marrying Lucy, under all the sad circumstances, and

said he’d fix up the religious part. Because you know what women are.

They never think they’ve been properly married unless it’s in a Church

or if they do, their mothers don’t.

I know I’ve got some rough places to get over before I can settle down

to work and go full steam ahead, but I look to you and other true

friends, real pals—to pull me through. The F.O. seems to have a down on

me and a proportion of the Mission World likewise. But when they hear

the whole story they will see I was simply dogged with misfortune and

did all I could possibly have done. Unfortunately while I was away in

the interior everything went to pieces at my Consulate, and two awful

bounders—the Bazzards, more about them when we meet—are exploiting it to

the utmost.

I am going back to the mainland after a week’s holiday to get things put

right at the Consulate. Hope I shan’t take Bazzard by the throat, or

lose my temper with his Bayswater wife. I simply _mustn’t_. Well: when

I have done all that and left the Bazzards properly installed I take the

next steamer back with Lucy. Two years, nearly, have I been out here,

and six months’ leave on full pay is due to me. I am going home

nominally to report. Wonder whether they will send me back? In any

case I look to you, dear Cousin and friend, to give me a helping

hand—not so much about Consular matters—I feel there if common justice

is dealt out I can stand on my own—but as regards little Lucy. Her

father’s status and that of my father are not very different, when you

come to look at it, except that Josling is probably a much more useful

member of the community. But she may want a helping hand when we come

home, if we are asked out and about. Of course, with her extraordinary

African experience behind her she will be quite as interesting to meet

as a Lady Baker, a Miss Gordon Cumming, or Isabella Bird——

I’ve written a short note to good old Maud and a still shorter one to

the Pater. Rather rough on a man after only two days of honeymoon to

have to sit down and compose all these epistles, even though it is in a

tropical paradise like Mbweni—but with the thermometer at ninety

something in the shade. I am sure Maud will take to Lucy; not so sure

about you. You have become so grand. As to the Pater, he’ll hardly pay

much attention to us unless we could consent to be buried at Silchester

and excavated by him! Maud wrote some time ago to say his neglect of

his Church work for excavation of Roman sites was becoming such a

scandal that they’d had to engage a curate for Farleigh.

And that the curate hadn’t been there two months before he had proposed

to her, been refused, and then settled down to a "filial" manner.

How is Silchester? It’s getting on for a year since I had a letter from

you; but I saw in a recent newspaper he’d been down with influenza but

was "making good progress." That always reads ominously.

Look out for me sometime in May. I hope I shall be as welcome as the

flowers of that same. I’m bringing you home some leopard skins and an

African rattle for Clitheroe. So long!

ROGER.

A week after these letters were put in the Consular mail-bag, Roger had

packed up and was waiting for a gun-boat to convey him across to the

mainland—where he was to have an important interview with Captain

Wissmann, fresh from a great victory over the Arabs. Sir Godfrey,

taking leave of him, said: "Looked at the Reuters this morning?"

_Roger_: "No! What’s up?"

_Sir Godfrey_: "Your friend Lord Silchester is dead."

"Phew!" said Roger, or as near as he could get to that conventional

exclamation of surprise and speculation as to what might have been....

*CHAPTER XV*

*IN ENGLAND*

Captain and Mrs. Brentham arrived in London from East Africa at the end

of May, 1889. You must picture Brentham with a reserve of savings of

about five hundred pounds lying to his credit at Cocks’s, and a salary

at the rate of seven hundred a year which will go on till some time in

October. After much consideration and discussion during the voyage they

have taken a furnished flat on the eighth floor of Hankey’s Mansions,

St. James’s Park, as having a better address—"being close to the

Government offices and the clubs, don’t you know, and of course if you

have the lift going night and day it don’t matter whether you’re on the

first or the eighth floor, to say nothing of the view." Lucy had

timidly suggested Pardew’s Family Hotel in Great Ormond Street as being

very cheap for relations of Aunt Ellen, but Roger with that wistful

snobbishness of his class decided it would be rather a come-down to hail

from the West Central part of London when you were wishing to impress

the Foreign Office favourably; so Hankey’s it was, with lots of

sunlight, superb views over the Park and the barrack ground with its

military challenges and cries.

Mr. Molyneux’s room at the Foreign Office.

"Ah, Brentham! Thought you’d soon be turning up. Dewburn’s been

writing to me about you.... Have a cigar? There are the matches. Well.

Horrid thing to say, when a man’s only just arrived, but you’ve stirred

up a reg’lar hornet’s nest among the unco’ guid. This confounded

Nonconformist Conscience that Stead’s invented or created. There’s an

obvious reference to you in the last _Review of Reviews_ and Labby’s put

a very caustic article in last week’s _Truth_, trying to get at the

Government’s East African policy through you. All this has mightily

upset the Old Man——"

Roger endeavours to give a lucid and not too lengthy account of the

whole sequence of events which led up to his marriage at Unguja;

expresses the most justly-felt wrath against the mosquitoes of the

Press; offers to horsewhip them or have them up before a court of

law....

_Molyneux_: "My _dear_ fellow, what _are_ you talking about? You’d

simply do for yourself and have to quit the career. First place,

horsewhipping’s out of date—dam’ low, in any case—in the second, there’s

nothing _libellous_ in what they’ve written—only general application,

don’t you know. If you took any action on it you’d just dot the _i_’s

and cross the _t_’s and get laughed at. And as to what they say in

Parliament, can’t call them into court over _that_. No. Best leave it

alone. _Most_ unfortunate. Dare say not a _bit_ your fault. Still I

think you might have been a trifle more prudent, not—so to speak—have

run your head into the noose. _Quite_ agree with Dewburn you’ve done

the _right_ thing in marrying her....

"Well: so much for that. Now how about this missing cipher? Not sure

_that_ don’t upset us a bit more than your carryings-on with missionary

ladies...."

Roger: "But I _didn’t_ carry on—I—I—really must protest against these

assumptions——"

_Molyneux_: "_All_ right. Keep your hair on.... Don’t get into a

wax.... I’m only talkin’ for your own good.... But tell us about this

cipher."

_Roger_ (still with an angry flush): "What _can I_ tell? I arrive at

Medina and am told all in a hurry to re-organize the Consulate there.

There was no one but an Indian clerk in charge. I simply take him over.

I put my cipher in the safe, but I had to leave the key with the clerk

when at very short notice I started for up-country to warn these

confounded missionaries.... Wish to _God_ I’d paid no heed to your

instructions" ("I _say_, old chap, draw it mild ... and mind what you’re

doin’ with that cigar-ash." Roger strides to the fireplace and throws

away the cigar into it.) "I wish to God," he continues, "I’d left ’em

alone to stand the racket if the Arabs _did_ come. However, what I mean

to say is, I only set out to do what I was told to do and couldn’t

foresee how long it would take. I didn’t get back to my Consulate till

last April. _How_ can I tell what happened to the clerk or the cipher

or the money? I paid up the deficit.... How do I know what those

Bazzards were up to? Mrs. Bazzard——"

_Molyneux_ (his manner has insensibly become stiffer and more

ceremonious): "I think we’ll leave the Bazzards out of it. At any rate

they aren’t here to defend themselves. We must refer the whole matter

to Dewburn for inquiry. Meantime here you are on leave and I dare say

badly wanting a rest. My advice is: go down to the country.... Your

father lives in the country, doesn’t he?" (Roger nods.) "Well, go down

and rusticate a bit and take Mrs. Brentham with you. In a week or two

the newspapers and the Nonconformist Conscience will be in full cry

after something else. As to whether you should go back, we must leave

that to the Old Man. He may think a change of scene advisable. Any use

asking you to a bachelor dinner? My wife’s out of town just now."

Roger (_very_ unwisely, scenting in this a reluctance to ask Lucy too):

"No, thank you. I think I’ll take your advice and go off to the

country. Ungrateful sort of country—I mean the nation—mine is! Here

I’ve made most important discoveries I’ve had no time to report on, I’ve

... I’ve ..." (Feelings too much for him. Takes his hat and stick,

bows to Molyneux and leaves his room.) In all this he has acted most

foolishly. If he’d gone to Molyneux’s—to "Good old Spavins’s"—as the

clerks called him in the room opposite—bachelor dinner, had told a few

good stories and hunting adventures, Molyneux, who really had his kindly

side like most men, would have forgotten the old grudge about his

intrusive appointment, have taken a much more charitable view about the

lost cipher and the hasty marriage and have written a memo for Lord

Wiltshire’s eye which would have suggested a year’s employment at home

and a fresh start in East Africa. Mrs. Molyneux would have called on

Mrs. Brentham at Hankey’s and Mrs. Brentham would have been pronounced

by Molyneux "a dam’ good-lookin’ wench—don’t wonder she turned his head

a bit—there can’t have been much to look at in East Africa"—and

Brentham’s difficulties were over; and the whole fate of East Africa

might have been a little different. As it was, he wrote some such memo

as this for the information of the Under-Secretary of State: "Saw

Brentham to-day—from Zangia Consulate, East Africa. Looks rather

fagged. Evidently had a rough time. But very angry when asked to

explain the awkward circumstances of his very protracted journey through

the interior with the lady who is now his wife. He protested with much

heat against the attacks of the Press and the attitude of the Missionary

Societies. I dare say he is a maligned man, but I should also say he is

what we call in diplomacy ’un mauvais coucheur.’ Difficult to get on

with, quarrelsome with colleagues. He could throw no light on the loss

of his cipher. Did not seem to realize what trouble and expense it has

caused. He has six months’ leave of absence due. Suggest when that is

coming to an end he be offered some Consular post in Norway or Algeria."

Roger called at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, but was told by the

man-servant opening the door that Lady Silchester and the little Lord

Silchester were still in the country, at Engledene, and that it was

improbable her Ladyship would be in town again until the autumn, being

in deep mourning. Roger scribbled on his card (which would be sent on

with other cards of calling and polite inquiries):

"So much want to see you. Starting to-morrow for Church Farm,

Aldermaston.—ROGER."

Roger delivered his blushing wife, rather overdressed (for he had

insisted on a fashionable outfit), to her parents at Aldermaston; he

shook hands heartily with his father-in-law to whom he took an immediate

liking, kissed his mother-in-law (to her confusion) and his

sisters-in-law, and then let his father-in-law drive him over to the

nearest station from which he could get a train to Basingstoke (for

Farleigh), promising to return in four days after he had seen his

father, sister, and brothers, one of them at Portsmouth. When he did

get back to Church Farm, Lucy was in bed, ill, and his father and

mother-in-law were looking grave and preoccupied. They were also—as

country people are—a little tiresomely reticent. _What had happened_?

_This_, as he afterwards pieced it together.

When Mrs. Baines had received Ann Anderson’s letter—written, as you will

remember, about November 30, but not posted from Unguja till early in

January—she had a knock-down blow. It is true the Mission on the

receipt of a telegram from Callaway had warned her to expect serious

news from Hangodi, but she had not paid much attention, so convinced was

she that God must avert all harm from a son of hers. But the

letter—from Ann, too, whom she would have welcomed as a

daughter-in-law—was convincing, and for the first few hours after she

had read it twice through, she locked herself into their joint bedroom

to Mr. Baines’s great discomfiture—he might wash and sleep where he

liked. She had shouted at him through the keyhole, in a hoarse,

strangled voice he hardly recognized as hers, that his son John was

dead, killed by the "A-rabs," no doubt with that slut of a Lucy’s full

approval; and left to digest this dreadful news as best he might.

Eliza, touched to great pity and a sympathetic sobbing over the fate of

Master John, made him up a sort of a shakedown bedroom arrangement in

the "libery," where he did his accounts....

Mrs. Baines did not emerge from her fastness for a day and a half. When

she did come out she was composed, but with such an awful look in her

eyes that no one dared offer sympathy or proffer advice. She gave her

orders in as few words as possible. She set to work to confection the

deepest mourning and pulled the blinds down, and down they had to remain

a full week. During that week by the aid of candle-light she wrote a

good many letters—for her. Eliza, who had to post them, for Mrs. Baines

shrank from encountering friends or acquaintances till the week was up,

noticed that some of them bore quite grand addresses: the member for

Reading, the Marquis of Wiltshire, the Editor of the _Review of

Reviews_....

How did Mrs. Baines know so soon that Lucy and Roger had returned to

England and come down to see the Joslings at Church Farm? Why, because

the miller of Aldermaston saw the Brenthams arrive at Aldermaston

station and witnessed the greeting of Farmer Josling—such a fine

upstanding man—and his son-in-law—just such another, only rather

sallow-like and thin; and the miller told old Mrs. Bunsby of the general

shop at Theale; and Mrs. Bunsby, wanting badly a supply of ginger beer,

for the weather was getting warm and Oxford undergraduates sometimes

pushed their walking tours as far as the Kennet Valley—Mrs. Bunsby

walked over to _John Baines & Co._ that very afternoon to give an order

for four dozen and mentioned the fact of "pore Master John’s widow"

having come back to her home "with a noo ’usband."

The assistant who registered the order for delivery in their next round,

after Mrs. Bunsby left slipped into Mr. Baines’s "libery," and

half-whispered the news of Lucy’s return. When, soon afterwards, Mrs.

Baines came into the dining-room to preside over the tea table, he—(he

looked very aged—my astral body floating over the scene felt a twinge of

pity for him; in his own dull way he had been fond and proud of his only

son and worked to provide him with a competency—some day)—he, with some

preparatory clearing of the throat, said: "Er ... Hrhm.... Er ...

Lucy’s back, I hear...."

"Indeed?" replied his wife swiftly. "Where? Bridewell? That’s where

she _ought_ to be...."

"I dare say, my dear, but she’s at Church Farm, her parents’, you

know.... P’raps she could tell you something about John?..."

"P’raps she could. But I won’t have her name mentioned in _this_ house.

_Do you understand_?"

Mr. Baines did, and took this intimation as final.

The next day was Sunday. Mrs. Baines spent much of the day (as she had

decided she could not go to chapel) communing in prayer with her Maker

in the bedroom fastness. Some of the prayers heard by the frightened

Eliza through the keyhole sounded more like objurgations, and the

Scripture readings were the minatory passage directed by the Minor

Prophets against harlots and light women.

After two days of Aldermaston Lucy had quite recovered her spirits—she

had felt rather depressed at Hankey’s Mansions and not at all lightened

at heart by her week of shopping under Aunt Pardew’s furtive guidance

and rather checked congratulations. On the Monday morning she was

standing with her parents and Clara in front of the beautiful old farm

house, inhaling the scents of May, revelling with the eye over the

landscape beauty she had so often recalled to herself in Africa. Farmer

Josling had repeatedly given expression to the pleasure he had derived

from the looks, manner, and hand-grip of his son-in-law, and Mrs.

Josling still blushed and laughed at the remembrance of his having

kissed her cheek. They could not help the gratification of feeling that

their daughter’s second marriage was into a social stratum worthy of her

looks, her superior education and their hopes for her....

Clara, walking away to glance at the bee-hives, called back to the

group, "Here’s Mrs. Baines coming up from the road."

Instinctively the parents withdrew into the porch of the house, leaving

their daughter to meet Mrs. Baines for the first few minutes alone, with

no other listeners to the sad story she had to tell. Lucy, like the

bird fascinated by the snake, remained where she was, her fingers

playing with a pansy she had just picked. Mrs. Baines, all in black,

with black plumes to a large bonnet and black gloves, walked slowly and

consideringly up to the spell-bound Lucy. When she was close to her she

said: "_What ... have ... you done ... with ... my ... son?..._"

"Oh! I ... I ... haven’t you heard?" stammered Lucy.

"I _have_ heard ... and I’ve guessed much _more_ than I’ve heard....

_You ... you harlot—you adulteress—you—you strumpet!_" roared Mrs.

Baines, who had been cooking her vengeance and rehearsing this scene

with a dictionary, during the last twenty-four hours. And forthwith

before Lucy could reply or any one intervene she had dealt her two

terrific boxes on the ears, first on one side and then on the other.

Lucy fell on to the pansy bed, temporarily stunned. Mr. Josling,

scarcely able at first to believe ears and eyes, rushed out with a roar

like a bull, picked up Mrs. Baines round her iron stays, as though she

weighed no more than a wisp, ran round to the other side of the house

where there was a great horse trough full of water, and soused in this

the head and huge plumed bonnet of the angry woman. And again, giving

her time to catch her breath, he plunged her head and bonnet beneath the

water. Then, standing her on her feet, he said, "_There! that’ll_ cool

your hot blood. That is some return for your half-killing my

daughter—you _blasted she-tiger, you_ ... Be _off_! Or I’ll set the

dogs on you.... I’ll..."

"Father, _dear_," said Clara, crying for pity and rage over the hapless

Lucy, yet careful of appearances: "Father _dear, don’t_ shout so! For

goodness’ sake, let the old witch go, and don’t attract everybody’s

attention. What ever _will_ the neighbours think! Here!" she said,

thrusting on Mrs. Baines the umbrella she had brought and dropped on the

garden path at the moment of the assault, "be off with you, you wicked

old woman. It’s a mercy father ain’t killed you, he’s that strong. And

if you’ve done any real harm to my sister, we’ll soon let you know and

have you up before the courts, you _wicked old snivelling psalm-singin’

Methody_!"

Mrs. Baines said nothing to this counter-attack. She drained the water

from her plumes with her fingers, put her flopping bonnet as straight as

was possible, pressed the water from her shoulders, and made some

attempt to wipe her face with a handkerchief; and then, summoning all

her strength and resolution (for in reality she was much shaken and near

collapse), she walked firmly past them, uttering never a word, walked

slowly down the garden path, turned to the right and contrived not to

halt on her way back to the station till she was well out of their

sight. They were a little over-awed by her dignity.

It was decided—and Lucy when she could speak implored them to adopt this

negative course—not to write to Roger, and as far as possible not to

talk of this painful scene to any neighbour. But to keep it from

country gossip was an impossibility. This, that, or the other farm

servant had seen it, from the rafters of a barn in repair, from the

stables, from the dairy window; and so the treatment old Mrs. Baines had

served out to her former daughter-in-law became noised abroad,

penetrated from the kitchen and still-room of Engledene House to its

mistress’s dressing-room. A vague rumour of it even reached the African

Department of the Foreign Office and Molyneux publicly shrugged his

shoulders in Sir Mulberry Hawk’s room. The Carnarvons at Highclere heard

a perversion of it—rather a humorous one—from one of their farmer

tenants, and reconsidered their idea of asking Brentham and Mrs.

Brentham over to a week-end party to relate some of their extraordinary

experiences. The Vicar of Farleigh Wallop realized that something of

the kind had occurred to interrupt his musings on the arrangements of

the streets in Calleva Atrebatum, and when he drove over with Maud to

make the acquaintance of his daughter-in-law—now convalescent and

thankful to find the drum of the worst smacked ear had not been split—he

was merely coldly polite and expressed very little interest in

missionary questions. Indeed he took no interest in Christian Missions

after 700 A.D. Up to that time he reckoned—more or less—they had been

spreading the ideas of Imperial Rome, of Roman civilization.

Roger, however, though he commented little on the episode of the

assault, and felt in every way the least said, soonest mended, borrowed

his father-in-law’s riding-horse and rode early one morning over to

Tilehurst. He entered the factory, of design, just as Mr. Baines was

about to take his seat in the office and run his eyes over the day’s

orders. "Oh, don’t be alarmed!" he said to Mr. Baines, who was

instinctively about to withdraw, guessing his visitor’s identity. "I’m

not a violent heathen like your wife. Sit down and let us talk this

over like sensible men."

He then put the matter very plainly before Mr. Baines.

Mrs. Baines, summoned by half-fearful, half-exultant Eliza, had "locked

herself in her bedroom, she ’ave an’ ast me to go for the police!"

"Then you, too," said Roger to the startled Eliza, "remain and hear what

I have to say. Since your termagant of a mistress refuses to come, you

shall repeat my words to her. You are, from what my wife tells me, an

old and trusted servant of the family" (Eliza bridled and pleated the

hem of her apron). "When she returns to sanity, you may get a chance of

saying a word to your mistress in season, even if her husband has not

the courage to do so. Tell her then, if she ever annoys or slanders or

upsets my wife in any way I will leave no stone unturned to punish her.

And if she appears at Church Farm or anywhere else again with the

intention of assaulting my wife I will knock her on the head like the

mad dog she is. Now you can leave us. But I trust also to you as an

honourable woman and one who was sincerely fond of poor John Baines, who

ought never to be connected with these hateful sayings and doings, not

to chatter about this business outside this house."

And Eliza did not. She was much impressed by Brentham’s appeal. The

interview with John’s father even ended in a kind of reconciliation. He

heard from Brentham for the first time the whole story, so far as it was

known, of the circumstances which led up to the attack on the station,

John’s death, and Lucy’s journey to the coast; of how her baby had died

and how ill she had been; of the Stotts, and of Ann Jamblin’s obstinacy.

Roger purposely prolonged the interview. It was doing the miserable

father good, and was keeping Mrs. Baines a prisoner in her bedroom just

when she wanted to be busy at house-work.

Maud on her return from visiting the Joslings tightened her lips and

"went for" her father as he had never been truth-told before; so Mrs.

Baines, if she did harm to Lucy’s good name and gave her nervous system

a nasty shock, also provoked good in other directions. A disturbance of

the kind seldom fails to clear the air and create a fresher atmosphere.

Maud reproached her father bitterly with his incivility to his eldest

son’s wife; with his general indifference to the well-being of his

children, his selfish absorption in his archæological work, his

unfairness to them in lavishing on it funds which should have been their

patrimony. She even issued a sort of ultimatum: the subsidies to the

Silchester Excavation fund must cease; the curate at Farleigh must be

given his congé and the Vicar—still able-bodied—carry out his own Church

duties: _or_ she would go away and earn her own living as a secretary or

something or other. And she was at once, and on his authority, to ask

Lucy to stay—with Roger, of course—for at least a month. He gave in.

Maud had deeper plans hidden under this surface wrath. Roger was in

difficulties with the Foreign Office, she guessed. He had resigned from

the Indian Army. He might at any time have to forge a new career for

himself and would want a little capital to start with. She reckoned

that her father having originally been a well-to-do man and her mother

having come to him with a substantial dowry, there ought to be a least

twelve thousand pounds to be divided between the four of them. If that

left her father almost entirely dependent on his income—about five

hundred a year—from the twin benefices of Farleigh and Cliddesden, that

would serve him right. He had no business to squander his children’s

money—as it really was—on a work of excavation which the County or the

Nation should finance.

A little repentant and more than a little rheumatic—(besides, Roman

Silchester was turning out so distressingly Christian and so little

Pompeian and Pagan)—he agreed at any rate to look into the matter. The

letter was sent to Lucy, and she came, now quite restored to health.

She found in Maud the selfless friend and good adviser she had long

needed. All she begged and prayed of Roger was that he might leave her

at Farleigh for a time and not frighten her and upset her nerves by

requiring of her the going out into smart Society, where she was ever on

the twitter for fear of being questioned as to her birth and bringing-up

and the circumstances of her life in Africa.

Roger rather ruefully consented. Maud would gradually cure her of her

nerves and her rusticity. Meantime he would now tackle Sibyl. Sibyl had

taken no notice of his card and call; but about three weeks afterwards

had written to Maud, picturing herself as having now emerged from a

swoon of grief and being ready to see Roger for a _few_ minutes if he

would _promise_ to move gently and speak in a level voice, as _the least

thing_ upset her. Pressed to be more definite, she consented to see

him—and him only—at Engledene on a certain Wednesday afternoon at three

o’clock.

He found her in a little boudoir, which was draped with pleated

lavender-mauve cashmere and shaded to a dim light. She was dressed in

black, not having as yet the hardihood to discard widows’ weeds, still

less some diaphanous, filmy _coiffe_, some ghost of a widow’s cap.

Queen Victoria was still a great power in Society and kept Peeresses in

order. If you were too daring you might be banned at Court and then

where would your social and political influence be?

"Wheel up, or better still _lift_ up—I can’t bear the _slightest_ jar,

just now—that small armchair, Roger—the purple velvet one—and put it

near enough for me to hear and speak without effort; but not _too_ near,

because I notice you have a very powerful aura. I’ve only just learnt

about auras, and I realize now _what_ a difference they make!..."

"All right," said Roger, obeying these instructions, "but what’s an

aura? Is it the smell of my Harris tweeds, or do you doubt my having

had a bath this morning?"

"Don’t be so perfectly horrid ... and coarse.... You never _used_ to be

coarse, whatever you were—I suppose it comes from marrying a farmer’s

daughter; but for the matter of that, what am _I_? My poor dear dad is

trying hard to be a farmer after spending his best years in the Army. I

didn’t mean anything much about your ’aura,’ except, I suppose, that as

I’m only recently widowed all my relations with men-visitors should be a

little frigid. But I’m simply talking nonsense to gain time, to

remember what I wanted to say to you." (A pause.) ... "Roger! Your

_dreadful_ letter from that Gouging place, coming just on top of poor

Francis’s death, _knocked me over_. The doctors put it all down to

Francis, of course ... I don’t deny that his death _did_ upset me....

But I’d been expecting _that_ any time within the last six months....

The doctors told me _definitely_ last winter his heart was very unsound

and that he must not over-exert himself in any way or be contraried or

argued with.... _That_ was why I gave up the orange-velvet curtains and

general redecoration of the dining-room at 6A, Carlton House

Terrace—which is dingy beyond belief. I shall do it now.... It’s too

early for tea ... won’t you smoke?" (Roger: "Thank you.") "Well, there’s

everything on that little table.... No. Not those ones; they’ve got

the wee-est flavour of opium.... Obliged to do _something_ for my

nerves.... Well, now, about your Gouging letter.... I mean about your

marriage.... My _dear_ Roger! _What_ a _gaffe_! I mean, how _could_

you?"

"Could I what?"

"_Ruin_ your hopes and mine?"

"Well, I did hope to marry Lucy ... for at least six months before the

knot was tied.... Ever since her husband’s death. So _my_ hopes were

fulfilled. And as to you, I never prevented you from marrying Lord S.

So where the ruin comes in, I can’t see."

"Oh," wailed Sibyl, "_why_ beat about the bush? You must have known that

I always hoped if anything happened to poor Francis—and anything _might_

well have done so—after all, you or I might be in a railway accident or

break our necks out hunting. In such case you _must_ have known I

_counted_ on you ... I mean, on our being happy _at last_.... Don’t

interrupt! ... And just think! Francis loved me awfully. I really _was

perfectly sweet_ to him and did my duty to him _in every way_. His

gratitude for that boy ... for a direct heir! ... Well, after Clithy was

born he made his will! ... Don’t be silly ... and don’t joke about

things I regard almost as sacred.... I mean _Francis_ re-made his will;

and left me sole guardian of the boy and sole trustee, sole

_everything_; and mistress for my life of Engledene, and of 6A, till

Clithy came of age ... and a jointure of £10,000 a year to keep them up.

Clithy has also the Silchester house which is let and which I intend to

_keep_ let till he comes of age, the moors in Scotland _and_ the

shooting lodge. Of course he has the reversionary rights of

_everything_ after my death. And equally of course he has fifteen

thousand a year, which I control till he is twenty-one or until he

marries....

"Just _think_ what I could have done for you, out of all this—if you’d

_waited_! If _only_ you’d waited!..." (buries her face in the mauve

silk cushions and cries a little or pretends to). (Roger fidgets on his

chair. An exquisite little purple Sèvres clock on the white mantelpiece

ticks ... ticks ... ticks.)

_Roger_: "Look here, Sibyl. You’re altogether on the wrong tack,

believe me. You might have married me in ’86. I was quite ready then

and fancied myself in love with you. But if you had we mightn’t have

got on. My seven hundred a year would have been nowhere to give you

surroundings like this...." (And he looks round the boudoir "done" in

white, lavender, mauve and purple, with its exquisite bits of furniture,

its velvet-covered armchair and Charles II day-bed, and pillow covers of

mauve silk; and looked also at the sinuous figure of the woman coiled on

the day-bed in her filmy black dress, with her face half buried in the

silk cushions, and one disconsolate arm lying listlessly along her side,

and at the magnificent rings of emeralds and diamonds on the pink

fingers.) "You were _quite_ right: you could _never_ have stood the

strain of Africa. I’ll tell you by and bye some of the things Lucy and

I went through." (At this hint of comradeship with Lucy, the little

black velvet shoes gave angry thumps on the frame of the day-bed.) "I

know," continues Roger, "you used to throw out mysterious hints after

you were married that I might wait till some far-off date when you were

free; I mean after Lord Silchester was dead. But what decent man would

have taken you at your word? Why, Silchester might well be alive now.

He did not die of old age...."

_Sibyl_ (in a muffled voice): "N-no; he ... he ... didn’t. He—overrated

his strength. He—he—oh, _how_ can I tell you? He was so anxious to

play a great part in public affairs ... but he had lost all his

energy...." (Sitting up with flushed cheeks—damnably good-looking,

Roger feels.) "_Well_! What can I do for you? You’ve failed _me_. But

I suppose you’ve come here to ask me to help you in some way. Men don’t

generally waste their time on afternoon calls without a motive. What is

it? I’ve got no influence anywhere since Francis died" (a sob). "So

it’s no good asking _me_ to write to Lord Wiltshire or to Spavins. I

hear you are out of favour at the F.O. It’s not _my_ fault, is it?

It’s all due to your gallivanting after missionaries’ wives...." (Roger

looks sullen.) ... "Heigh ho! I expect with all this crying and

tousling among cushions, to hide I _was_ crying from your cynical eyes,

I’d better go into my room and bathe my face before the butler brings in

the tea.... _There!_ you can pull up two of the blinds—when I am

gone—my eyes are so red—and you can look at some of my new books till I

come in to make the tea. You mustn’t _dream_ of going before we’ve had

tea and finished our talk."

"I suppose," said Sibyl a quarter of an hour later when they were

discussing tea and tea-cake and pâté-de-foie sandwiches and assorted

cakelets, "what you really came to ask was would I present this

Lucy-pucy of yours at Court. But, my _dear_, I shall be in mourning for

a year, and the Queen——"

"_Lord_ no! Such a thing never entered my head. It would scare Lucy

into fits. I hope before next season comes round I shall be back in

Africa—or somewhere. So far as I connected Lucy with this visit I might

have intended to ask you to let me bring her here one day, and for you

to be kind to her ... not frighten her, as you very well could do,

pretending all the time to be her best friend...."

_Sibyl_: "Well: I’ll tell you what you shall do. You must remember I’m

in mourning, of course.... We always have to think of what the servants

will say.... And—ah! Did I tell you? Aunt Christabel is here. I sent

her out the longest drive I could think of, so that we might have our

afternoon alone; still, she’s staying here till I emerge from the

deepest of my mourning.... By the bye she’s _horrified_ at your

marriage, just as she used to be horrified at the idea of your marrying

_me_.... Well, bring your Lucy over one day at the end of July and I’ll

just have a look at her. And then, in the autumn—say October—you and

she, and of course if you like to have them, Maurice and Geoffrey too,

could come here for the shooting. _Of course_ I shan’t have a regular

party; but somebody must come and shoot the pheasants. The Queen

couldn’t object to that. I’ve asked a man—I did before Francis’s

death—to come. You might like to meet him: a Sir Willowby Patterne....

Dare say you’ve heard of him?"

_Roger_: "I’ve heard no _good_ of him...."

"Oh, what tittle-tattlers and scandal-mongers you men are! I think he’s

so amusing, and every one says he’s a splendid shot.... However, we

will make up just a _tiny_ party and you and Lucy shall entertain for

me. I shall purposely be very little seen and shall give out my cousins

have come over to help me with my guests.... And, _Roger_! If I am to

help you you must help _me_. The doctor says I positively _must_ take

up my riding again unless I am to drift into being an invalid. Couldn’t

you—sometimes—whilst you’re down in this part of the world—come over and

ride with me? I can ’mount’ you. You could ride poor Francis’s cob ...

not showy but very steady."

"I will, when I come back from town," said Roger, and took his

departure, not at all dissatisfied with his afternoon.

Two days afterwards he thought it might be prudent to see how things

were going at the Foreign Office. So he went up to town, changed into

town togs at Hankey’s (where their flat was becoming a white elephant,

owing to Lucy’s dislike to London, so he arranged to give it up), and

betook himself to Downing Street, and asked to see Mr. Bennet Molyneux.

"Mr. Bennet Molyneux," he was presently told, "is very sorry, sir, but

he is much engaged this morning; would you go into the Department and

see one of the young gentlemen there?"

The Department was a large, long room with a cubby-hole at its further

end for the accommodation of the senior clerk, a sort of school prefect

who had to keep order among the high-spirited juniors and therefore

required to work a little apart from them. When Brentham entered the

main room, announced by the office messenger, he recognized two friends

of yore and several new, ingenuous faces. There also emerged from the

cubby hole a man whom he had known as a junior three years previously:

an agreeable gentleman of agricultural and sporting tastes, who, because

of his occasional remonstrances and enforcement of discipline, was known

as "Snarley Yow or the Dog Fiend." Then there were "Rosie" Walrond and

Ted Parsons. (The others do not matter in this narrative: they merely

served as chorus and acclaimers of the witticisms of the elder boys.

They were all nice to look at, all well-mannered and all well-dressed.)

"Rosie" Walrond was a young man—older than he looked—with wavy flaxen

hair and mocking grey eyes, and an extremely cynical manner overlying an

exceedingly kind heart.

_Walrond_: "Hullo! Here’s _Brentham_, the rescuer of beleaguered

Gospellers. We’ve got a grudge against you. You came here months ago

and were closeted with Spavins and never gave us a look-in. And we were

dying to hear all about the elopement and its sequel. We were prepared

to subscribe to a wedding present for a teller of good stories...."

Then he added: "D’you admire my grotto?"

Brentham, after the necessary greetings and introductions, strode up to

"Rosie’s" desk. Its ledges and escarpments were piled with rock

specimens on which tattered, brown, and half-decipherable labels had

been pasted.

"_My mineral specimens_ ... from" (he checked himself) ... "from East

Africa! Then you _never_ sent them on?"

"My _dear_ chap! Where was I to send them to? The Consular Mail

bags—two of them—arrived here all right, addressed to me, but nary a

letter with them or any directions. Also two skulls which, as you see,

decorate our mantelpiece, and which I am proposing to have mounted in

silver at Snarley’s expense for our Departmental Dinner. Meantime, I

have arranged my desk as a grotto, in spite of the office cleaner’s

objections...."

_Brentham_: "I suppose the letter of directions went astray. I asked

you to send the rocks to the School of Mines and the skulls to the

Natural History Museum. However, I’ll take them all away presently in a

cab."

"But _not_ the skulls, I beg, just as we were being initiated into Devil

worship by Snarley, who has learnt the Black Mass...."

"Yes, the skulls, too. They’re most important——"

"But so are _we_," said Parsons.

Then followed half an hour of chaff, out of which Roger gleaned no grain

of information as to his own probable fate and was too diffident to ask

outright if any decision as to his return had been arrived at. He

accepted an invitation to dine with the Department at the Cheshire

Cheese and meet Arthur Broadmead; then drove to the School of Mines in

Jermyn Street, handed in his rocks and asked the Curator for a report on

them, at his leisure. After that, Professor Flower and the skulls;

which were those of two men of that Hamitic race colonizing the Happy

Valley. He had found them lying about on the outskirts of a village and

had received the careless permission of the villagers to take them away.

They might serve to determine the relationships of this incongruous

type.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*SIBYL AS SIREN*

In August, 1889, Lucy conveyed to Roger her belief that she was going to

have a child.

"But that is no reason you should not come down with me to Sibyl’s place

in Scotland. You can’t be going to have a baby till—till well on in the

winter, and meantime a stay in the Highlands will brace you up. Of

course as Sibyl is in mourning she can only have a very small house

party—just two or three men like myself to shoot the grouse, rabbits and

stags. I don’t suppose there will be any women there except her aunt

and you." Lucy acquiesced unwillingly.

She was living once more with her parents, while Roger’s plans were so

unsettled. The rooms at Hankey’s had been given up, and on his frequent

journeys to London—mainly on Sibyl’s business—he slept at Aunt Pardew’s

Hotel in Great Ormond Street, where they made him very comfortable. He

had taken Lucy over to Engledene twice in July—once he had left her

there a whole afternoon, _tête-à-tête_ with the still languid young

widow. On that occasion he had purposely ridden over to Tilehurst to

see Mr. Baines with more news—sent on by Callaway from Unguja—about Ann

Anderson and the restoration of Hangodi station, and what the Mission

proposed to do in regard to a memorial grave-stone. It tickled his

sense of humour that he should improve his acquaintance with John’s

father and thus allay any local feeling against Lucy: his visits there

not only cheered the Aerated Waters’ manufacturer, but they enraged Mrs.

Baines.

She was obliged all the time to keep locked up in her bedroom, and this

caused Eliza to get out of hand.

But so far, the hope of a friendship growing up between his wife and his

one-time sweetheart had little encouragement from either. Sibyl, not

wishing to fall out with Roger, declared she _tried_ to like Lucy. Yet

when other people were present she somehow brought out her rusticity and

simplicity, or she adopted towards her a patronizing manner which was

evident even to the not very acute senses of Roger’s wife.

The visit to Glen Sporran Lodge did not improve their relations. Lucy

in matters of dress was by no means without taste or discernment, but

she was quite ignorant of the modernest modes. She had no idea that a

stay in the Highlands—even in 1889—involved a special wardrobe: short,

kilted skirts and high-buttoned leggings, boots, or spats for the day’s

adventures—going, to meet the guns, tramping over the moors, picnics

when the wet weather permitted, and all the shifts for facing a good

deal of rain without looking forlorn or ridiculous. Trailing skirts and

wet weather were irreconcilable; so were yachting and a silk dress.

Perpetual sitting indoors in a town dress, over a turf fire, and reading

novels provoked sarcasms not only from Sibyl but from the tart tongue of

Aunt Christabel; who wasn’t at all inclined to spare Lucy.

What had that good-looking Roger with _such_ a career before him had in

his mind that he should throw himself away on this village

schoolmistress? She did not care, either, for Sibyl’s new infatuation

for Roger; would have liked to keep them well apart. The distant

cousinship was not through her or her sister, Mrs. Grayburn, but through

Roger’s mother and Colonel Grayburn. Sibyl, when her year of mourning

was up, had much better marry again into the peerage; and if she wanted

a smart man as Agent—for land-agents of the middle-class-bailiff type

were "passés de mode" on all _big_ estates ... well, there was Willowby,

Willowby Patterne (a nephew-in-law of Aunt Christabel), who really might

very well do for the post. Willowby had been very wild, had run through

much of his own money and his unsuitable wife’s—they were never asked

out together. But he was a first-class shot, had been to Canada with

the Duke of Ulster, knew a lot about blood-stock, had tried farming and

ranching and would be quite all there helping Sibyl entertain her house

parties and giving an eye to the manly education of James—Aunt

Christabel did not countenance Sibyl’s silly freak of imposing the name

of "Clitheroe" on the little Lord Silchester.

Lucy had the greatest regard for economy and always wanted to save Roger

from any unnecessary expenditure. She remembered that she had come to

him without a dowry and that his future financially was very uncertain.

So that she had not taken him at his word, "Spend what you like," at the

Sloane Street shops when they were last up in town together. She had

only brought two evening dresses with her to Glen Sporran, and one of

them a plain black silk. After they had become familiar to the eye,

Sibyl had offered to lend some of _her_ gowns, but had done it in such a

way that Lucy’s pride was touched and she declined, with an unwonted

sparkle in her eye and a turning of the rabbit on the stoat. Sibyl

then, half amusedly, dropped this method of annoyance and openly praised

Mrs. Brentham for her simplicity of life and regard for economy.

All this was rather amusing to the speculative and speculating Sir

Willowby Patterne who arrived at Glen Sporran a fortnight later than

Roger and Lucy. He must then have been about thirty. As you surmise

from his name, he was descended from a famous mid-nineteenth century

baronet. His grandfather (in diplomacy) married a Russian lady of the

Court after the Napoleonic wars when Russians were in the fashion. But I

think it wholly unfair to attribute to this alliance the curious vein of

cruelty which ran through his descendants and which in Willowby’s father

was slaked by the contemporary British field sports. This father died

from the envenomed bite of an impaled badger, and in Willowby’s case

there was a long minority; so that he started at twenty-one—already a

subaltern in the Guards—with quite a respectable fortune to "blue." He

had been a vicious, tipsy boy at Eton and did not improve as he grew

older. One thing that developed with him into a mania was the love of

killing. He had seen a little service in the Sudan, but disgusted his

brother officers by his exultation over the more gory episodes in

skirmishes (he generally kept out of battles), and by his interest in

executions and floggings. Owing to family influence he was for a very

brief time in the suite of a travelling Royalty; but an episode in the

garden of a Lisbon hotel, when he with a friend was seen worrying a cat

to death with two bull-terriers—and laughing frenziedly the while—put an

end to that appointment. He had had some success on the turf and in

steeplechase riding, and over shooting pigeons at Monte Carlo; had

betrayed quite a number of trusting women—including his wife; but

nevertheless was rather popular still in Society, especially the society

of rich, idle women, seeking after sensation without scandal. What

there was about him, save his faultless tailoring and evil reputation to

attract women, a man like Brentham could not understand. His face was

thin and he had those deep ugly lines around the mouth, that tightness

of skin over the temples and jaw, the thin lips and thin hair, aquiline

nose, and thin capable hands that go with cruelty and pitilessness. But

that women _did_ run after him, there was no denying; though at this

time his wife was shudderingly seeking grounds for divorce, or at any

rate separation, which would satisfy a male judge and jury.

Roger enjoyed the shooting with rifle and shot-gun, and his dislike of

Willowby was a little tempered by the latter’s unwilling admiration of

his marksmanship. I forget whether in August-September you fish for

salmon in Scotland with a rod and line, but if so you may be sure

Captain Brentham, to whom field sports of all kinds came as second

nature, displayed no less prowess in that direction. Moreover Willowby

tried to be civil to his deputy host because he was very much drawn to

big-game shooting in East Africa and thought Roger could put him up to

the right place, right time of year, and right strings to pull.

But when the day’s sport was done and they had bathed and changed and

laid themselves out for a jolly evening, Roger began to be nervous and

sensitive about Lucy: sometimes to wish she would not open her mouth; at

others to yearn for her to show some brilliance in conversation. Her

little naïvetés of speech and turns of phrase which seemed so amusing

and even endearing in Africa, or to an admiring, bucolic audience at

Aldermaston, or an indulgent sister-in-law at Farleigh Vicarage, here

withered into imbecilities under the mocking glance or the bored

incomprehension of Sibyl, and the cool, eyeglass stare of Willowby

Patterne. Sibyl, also, was afflicted with deafness when Lucy ventured

her inquiries at breakfast as to health or the state of the weather.

Out of fear of Queen Victoria, Sibyl thought to make friends at Court

and attest at the same time the "smallness" and "quietness" of her house

party by inviting for a week a lady of the Royal Household who was off

duty and at all times not unwilling to eat well and sleep softly at some

one else’s expense. But she, also, was disconcerting (though no doubt a

pyramid of flawless chastity). She wore a single eyeglass through which

everything and everybody was scanned. At first she was disposed to be

very much interested in Roger, until she gathered he might not be

returning to Africa. She had friends who were casting in their lots

with Cecil Rhodes’s ventures. To her mental vision, Africa was about

the size of an English county. A man in East Africa ought at any moment

to run up against that perfectly delightful creature, Rhodes, ... "the

dear Queen is getting _so_ interested in him" ... "was there gold by the

bye where Captain Brentham had been employed?" But when she learnt that

Sibyl’s cousin was probably not resuming his post there and that this

very dull, oddly dressed woman was not Sibyl’s secretary but Roger’s

wife, a former missionary in East Africa, she quietly gave them both up

as much too much outside her own track through life ever to be of use or

interest again.

Another guest for a brief time was the Rev. Stacy Bream. Mr. Bream even

in those distant days was not—and did not behave like—the conventional

clergyman. He was the incumbent of some Chapel Royal or Chaplaincy

somewhere, wholly in the Royal gift and generally bestowed on some one

who had been for a brief period a bear-leader or College tutor to a

princeling going through a make-believe course of study at Oxford or

Cambridge. Mr. Bream, in order to take a line of his own, plunged

boldly into the world, even the half-world, for his congregation and his

confidants. He confessed and absolved the leading ladies of the stage

when they reached that period of ripe middle age in which husbands began

to be unfaithful and lovers shy and the lady herself felt just the

slightest dread of a hereafter. He came forward to marry, when

re-marriage was legal but not savoury—sooner than that the poor dears

should live in sin. He dealt—I dare say very kindly and

considerately—with scabrous cases of moral downfall that no one else

would touch. He was a well-known first-nighter and his evening dress so

nearly unclerical that you might have been pardoned for not spotting him

at once, in the crush room, for a parson, and he would have been the

first to pardon you. He always went where Society did in order to be

able at once to render first aid where morals had met with an accident.

He left town consequently in time for the grouse, occasionally handled a

gun—quite skilfully—and was very fond of games of chance in the evening

if the stakes were not too high.

Bridge had not then reached Great Britain. Where they would have played

Bridge ten years ago they played Baccarat, or Unlimited Loo, or Nap, or

Poker. Lucy only knew "Pope Joan" and had a horror of losing money over

cards and no capacity for mastering any card game, not even Snip Snap

Snorum. The Rev. Stacy Bream—who as much as any cleric might, stood in

lieu of a Spiritual director to Lady Silchester—called Lucy once or

twice "My dear che-ild" and then found her so uninteresting and

inexplicable that he ceased to study her any more.

So Lucy at last, in dread of snubs if she entered the battledore and

shuttlecock conversation or of revealing her utter ignorance of the ways

of smart society, fell silent at meal-times and after meals. When the

others played cards or roulette on a miniature green table, she would

read a book in a corner or steal away up to bed before the maids had

done her room for the night. And gradually she developed the red, moist

nose that comes to a woman who cries in secret, and there were wrought

other changes in good looks and figure attend ant on her condition. And

then one day, early in September, Roger, returning to his dressing-room

for a cigarette-case and to ascertain if Lucy was ready to start on an

excursion, found her on her bedroom sofa in a crisis of weeping. Sibyl

had summed up her makeshift costume—for a day’s yachting—in one short

phrase.... This on top of having completely overlooked her existence at

yesterday’s picnic lunch, and left her cupless and tealess at the late

tea which followed their return. "R—Ro—ger, oh dear Roger, _let_ me go

home! I’m only in _every one’s_ way here. I never felt so stupid in my

life before. _I can’t_ think what’s the matter with me—it’s the feeling

they all _despise me_—and—and—pity you for having made a fool of

yourself. Let me go home to mother—and Maud!..."

Roger consented at once. He felt full of remorse and pity, promised

soon to join her in the south, escorted her as far as Carlisle, and

arranged that kind Maud should meet her at Euston and take her home to

Aldermaston. The others were too utterly uninterested in her to listen

much to his explanation with its discreet allusion. She was a bore and

a wet blanket out of the way, and they could now settle down to enjoy

themselves. Sibyl, to keep up the fiction of being in mourning, wore

black and absented herself from most of the pleasure outings; going

about instead alone with Roger, to show him the ins and outs of the

estate and enable him to formulate plans for its profitable development.

Early in October, Captain Brentham saw young Lord Tarrington (heir to

the Earldom of Pitchingham and précis-writer to Lord Wiltshire). He was

told that Lord W. had given careful attention to his case. His Lordship

thoroughly appreciated his painstaking work for a year or more as Acting

Consul-General, but thought that under the circumstances it was better

he should not return to the scene of his former labours on the mainland.

H.L., however, though Captain Brentham had scarcely been more than an

officer selected for special service in Africa, would be pleased to

consider him favourably for the consular posts of Bergen or of

Baranquilla.

"I suppose you know where Bergen is?" added Lord Tarrington. "A little

bit near the North Pole—or is it North Cape? I always mix the two. But

it’s in _Norway, very_ bracing climate, _awfully_ good sea-fishing, and

£350 a year. Or if you prefer heat, there’s Baranquilla, northern South

America, _not_ a good climate, but the last man stood it for two years

before he succumbed to yellow fever ... and it’s £550 a year and two

years count for three in service. Which is it to be? Make up your mind

soon, ’cos lots of fellows are on the waiting list—snap at either."

Tarrington’s tone, for all its bluff good nature sounded final. Roger

seeing his dreams of an African empire fade in that dingy room, all its

tones having sombred with twenty years’ fog and smoke into shades of

yellow white and yellow brown, felt at first inclined to refuse

haughtily either consolation for the loss of Zangia. But a married man

and prospective father with very slight resources cannot permit himself

the luxury of ill-temper. So he replied civilly that he would think if

over and let Lord Tarrington know.

As he left the first floor of the building he crossed the path of the

august Secretary of State himself walking probably round the quadrangle

to the India Office. There was no look of recognition in his deep-set

eyes. How different from two and a half years ago when he had been

hailed by this statesman as an authority on East Africa far better worth

listening to than Mr. Bennet Molyneux, now noting down complacently in

his room below the fact that the Consulate at Zangia with its seven

hundred pounds a year was to be offered to the acting man, Mr. Spencer

Bazzard.

Brentham went down that evening—pretending he didn’t care in the least

for this definite set-back—to Reading, and, chartering a fly, drove out

to Engledene. A rather late little dinner with Sibyl and Aunt Christabel

was followed by a long consultation with Sibyl in the Library.

Lady Silchester’s plans had long been ready, though she seemed to

develop them as she spoke. "Become my agent, Rodge-podge, in place of

old Parkins. He’s an out-of-date duffer. I’ll either pension him off,

or better still send him to live on the Staffordshire property. He’s

let that go down very much; it ought to yield twice its present rents.

I’ll give you £700 a year, and there’ll be all sorts of legitimate

pickings as well. You can have the Lodge at Englefield to live in. I’ll

do it up for you. Lucy can live there and go on having babies for the

next ten years. I’m sure _I_ don’t want to ask her to dinner or to

anything else, if she doesn’t want to come. She needn’t curtsy to me if

we meet, if it’s _that_ she dislikes....

"But you’ve _great_ abilities, Roger. You’ve been _shamefully_ treated

by Lord W.... He’s always tried to snub _me_ ... _I_ don’t know why ...

I’ll tell you _what_. I’ll _run_ you. After all, I am a rich woman ...

now. You shall get into Parliament ... and be a great Imperialist, as

that seems to be going to become the fashion. What ... _what_ ... WHAT

a pity you married like that, all in a hurry! And you see it’s done you

no good with the Nonconformist conscience and those stuffy old things at

the F.O. However, it’s no good crying over spilt milk. _I’ll_ make a

career for you!" And she looked at him with shining eyes, betraying her

palpable secret....

"This is awfully good of you, Syb," said Roger, not meeting her look.

"But do you think it is fair on others? Why not put in your father——?

Or one of your brothers?"

"_Rubbish_! Dad would make just as great a mess of the Silchester

estates—only on a far bigger scale—as he is doing over his three hundred

acres at Aldermaston. I think we’ll send him up to care-take at Glen

Sporran and make him sell up the Aldermaston place. Helping him with

loans is like pouring money into—what do you pour it into when it runs

away? A sieve? And the two boys have both got jobs and are none too

bright, at that. Besides, it’s no fun working with brothers, and I’m

going to throw myself heart and soul into the development of the Estate.

It’ll be ... it’ll be ... what’s two and a third from twenty-one? Well,

at any rate, more than eighteen years before Clithy comes of age. In

that time we’ll have raised the annual value of the property to twice

what it is now, and incidentally we’ll have a glorious time, influencing

people, don’t you know, getting up a new opposition in Parliament, and

making ourselves felt...."

"Well, in any case, it’s awfully good of you ... _awfully_ ... somehow I

don’t deserve it...."

"You don’t, after the way you threw me over. But stick to me now,

through thick and thin, and"—she was going to have added impulsively,

"Oh, _Roger_, I _do_ love you, I can’t help it," and perhaps have flung

herself on to a sofa with a burst of hysterical tears to salve all his

scruples, but quickly thought better of this and added rather tamely,

"And we’ll make a great success of our partnership. And now we must go

and play backgammon or bezique or something with Aunt Christabel, or she

will come poking her nose in here to see what we’re up to. How tiresome

the old are! It’s only on account of what the Queen would say that I

keep her on here. She thinks you’re ’dangerous’ to my peace of mind,

Roger. But if I had mother here instead she would be equally boring,

and father can’t bear to be separated from her, and the two of them

would be _unthinkable_."

Though some instinct told Roger Sibyl’s scheme would never work, without

damage to his peace of mind and his conjugal relations, he felt her

Circe influence already. He accepted her offer—at any rate for one

year. At the end of that time she and he should be free to cancel the

arrangement. He decided for the present to lodge with his wife’s

parents and ride backwards and forwards till Lucy had had her baby. At

the utmost he would have a bedroom at the Lodge and the Parkinses—Mrs.

Parkins, at any rate—should not vacate it definitely till Lucy was able

to set up house there. He wrote civilly but briefly to Lord Tarrington

declining to go either to Norway or to Colombia, and resigned "with much

regret" his commission for Zangia.

About this time he received two letters which gave him much to think

about, but which he put at the back of his mind. I will give the

shortest first:—

_To Captain Brentham, F.R.G.S.,

H.B.M. Consul for Zangia._

School of Mines,

Jermyn Street, S.W.

_October_ 5, 1889.

DEAR SIR,—

You will remember calling here in last July, just before I took my

holiday.

You left with me for examination a series of rock specimens and some

sediment of lake water from East Africa.

Of the rock specimens, at least six give indications of great interest.

Those two labelled "Iraku I" and "Iraku II" are so rich in gold that

their importance must have been apparent to yourself—unless you mistook

the gold for iron pyrites, an inverse of the customary deception, which

is generally the other way about. The specimen labelled "Marasha" is

simply coal—rather shaley coal, probably a surface fragment. There are

two specimens, unfortunately with their labels missing or

indecipherable, which are a hard bluish green serpentine rock, obviously

related to the "blue ground" of South Africa and probably

diamondiferous. A fifth specimen yields evidence of wolframite, and in

three other samples there is much mica. The lake sediment is being

further examined by a colleague of mine. He believes it to be an

indication of the formation of phosphates in the lake bed or shores

which should be of great importance to agriculture as a constituent of

chemical manure. These phosphates might be derived from birds’ dung in

great quantities, from guano in fact.

I assume you have duly registered the exact geographical localities of

these specimens? Otherwise, they are very tantalizing, for they

evidently indicate—if they come from one region and not from a wide area

of travel—one of the wealthiest of African territories.

Pursuant to your wish, however, I shall treat the matter as

confidential. But if you can at any time supply me with the exact

geographical information I require I shall be pleased to write a report

on the collection for the Petrographical Society or for the confidential

information of the Government: whichever you prefer.

Yours faithfully,

DANIEL RUTTER.

Unguja,

_August_ 26, 1889.

DEAR CAPTAIN BRENTHAM,—

Mrs. Stott and I, we thank you very heartily for your kind remembrances

of us. The generous present of tea you sent us as soon as you got back

to England reached our good friend Callaway a little while ago and I

found it here waiting for us when I arrived from the interior.

Captain Wissmann has had a wonderful series of victories over the Arabs

and Wangwana, which in the good providence of God have cleared the way

between Ugogo and the coast. I heard something of this in the Happy

Valley last April; so, as we were running terribly short of supplies and

as we felt "seed time was come" and that the Lord desired us to reopen

our Burungi Station, and establish his tabernacle strongly in this

glorious place—Manyara—"ripe unto harvest"—I felt my way cautiously up

the Valley and through the Irangi country to Burungi. The place was not

any worse treated than when you left it—you made a great impression on

the Wagogo—so, as their elders begged me to rebuild the station I left

some of our trained workers to do so. Besides that, Captain Wissmann,

whom we met near-by, has lent us two German sergeants—biddable men and

clever with their hands. They’d been sick, and wounded in the legs and

he said it would do them good to have a spell of quiet sedentary life.

He also put under their orders a guard of five Sudanese soldiers to

guard the station whilst it is being rebuilt. So here I am at the

coast, chopping yarns with Mr. Callaway, and laying in great supplies

which I have been able to buy out of the price of that ivory you shot

for us.

Captain Brentham, you don’t know what a mine of wealth the Happy Valley

is, and the cliffs and mountains on the western side (Iraku and Ilamba).

I am an Australian, and before I found Christ I had a course of

instruction as a mining engineer. The rocks in and about the Happy

Valley tell me at first sight more than they would an ordinary

Englishman. I suppose some one will have to find out this, sooner or

later. I’d much sooner it were _you_. You may yet get it taken over by

Great Britain. At any rate, if you came out here and prospected you

would see what I mean. What did you do with the specimens you took away

with you for analysis? Did you lose them on your way to the coast?

Maybe if the Happy Valley is to come under the Germans they would give

you a concession. This Captain Wissmann seems to like you, and he said

it was far from his Government’s intention to drive away English

missionaries or English capital. He likes the English very much and

speaks English very well.

I only write this because they say here you are not coming back as

Consul. I am sorry. Why not then come out on your own? I’ve opened

your letter to Mrs. Stott, which came with the tea, and _right glad_ I

was to hear—and so will she be—that you’d married poor Lucy Baines.

_Right glad_. Bring her out here with you, and Mrs. Stott shall look

after her whilst you go round prospecting and staking out your claims.

We may not see eye to eye over the Lord’s work. The Lord hasn’t revealed

himself to you yet as He has to us. He will in His own good time. But

you’ve got the root of the matter in you. I never yet met an unbeliever

who was so reverent and so tender of other people’s beliefs.... You’re

a good man, if you’ll forgive my saying so. You wouldn’t ever interfere

with our work here, I know. It’s getting on _grand_. We baptized the

Chief of the Wambugwe and fifty of his men in the Lake at Manyara just

before you left, and please God, we’ve saved the whole valley from

Islam.

Mrs. Stott had always a first-class opinion of you, though you weren’t

of our way of thinking in religion. She is sure you’ll always stand up

for the natives and protect their rights. I hope I haven’t been taking

a liberty, writing this letter. If you don’t like to come out yourself,

any one you sent we should trust to do the right thing and would show

him round. Otherwise, we have been careful to say _nothing_ about the

Happy Valley, and so far no Arabs and no Germans have troubled us.

May God’s blessing rest on you and on your sorely tried wife. I feel

sure there are happier days in store for her.

Your sincere friend—if you’ll allow me to say so.

JAMES EWART STOTT.

In regard to the School of Mines Report, Roger for acquitment of

conscience and because he always liked to do the right thing, sent a

résumé of Professor Rutter’s analysis to the F.O., stating that the

specimens referred to had been picked up by him on his recent tour

through the interior of German East Africa.

In reply, the Under Secretary of State Was directed to thank Captain

Brentham for this valuable information.

In reality it was decided to pigeon-hole the report, certainly to give

it no publicity. Let the Germans find out for themselves the value of

their territories. If they discovered they had bitten off more than they

could chew, why ... then....

In January, 1890, Lucy was delivered of a son. Roger was hugely

delighted. When he asked Lucy a week after the birth if she had any

preference for a name—_her_ father’s, _his_ father’s, his own—she said

in a faint voice but with some finality in the accent: "Let him be

called ’John’!" Then, as he did not reply, she added, "John loved me

and I wasn’t worthy of his love...."

"Well, and don’t _I_ love you?" answered Roger with a tinge of

compunction.

"She’s a bit wandery in her mind, sir," said the nurse. "Don’t pay any

attention to what she’s a saying. She’s mistook your name. Several

times since the baby was born she’s seemed to be talking with a John,

but it was you she was a thinkin’ about, _I’ll_ be bound. She wants

keeping very quiet...."

Once Captain Brentham took up the affairs of the Silchester

estates—which he did definitely in October, 1889, he went very

thoroughly into their condition and their possibilities of development.

He was not, of course, a trained, professional land agent, which was why

his shrewd and original ideas of enhancing the value and productivity of

land made the Institute of Land Agents so angry. But he knew something

of surveying, and had been accustomed to value countries by the eye, to

judge of soils, espy defects in farming, by his boyish life at Farleigh

and his experiences in India and Africa.

Lord Silchester in his fondness for landscape beauty had preferred a

lovely, unkempt, autumn-wistful wilderness to a possible brick-field,

though to a geologist the clay was almost crying out to be turned to the

service of man. He liked great spaces without a sign of man’s

habitation to mar the poem. Roger, though he had a strongly developed

sense of the beautiful in Nature, yet combined with it a realization

that much waste land in the England of latter days, and even in

Scotland, is an offence and a temptation to discontent on the part of

the landless. Another charm can be contributed to landscapes by the

handiwork of man, provided the cottage is tastefully and soundly built,

the manufactory—even the brick-kilns and chimneys—are of the right

material for the neighbourhood, of harmonious colour and appropriate

design.

In the Berkshire and Hampshire estates woodlands required thinning,

cattle wanted new blood and better breeding. The lobster fishery at

Sporran Bay should certainly be developed. A proportion of the deer in

Scotland and at Engledene might with advantage be sold. The farmer

tenants generally wanted shaking up. Some of them could well afford to

pay twice their present rent and let him out of the increased rent-roll

rebuild their houses, barns, granaries, pigsties and cow-sheds. Why,

the dairy business alone might be trebled in value with this proximity

of a milk-hungry London. Farmer Josling, a right-down superior man with

much self-given education, should help him in this. Incidentally, with

Sibyl’s consent, he had given his father-in-law a life-lease of his farm

as some acknowledgment of his excellent use of it, and his progressive

influence on the other farmers.

The bracing outdoor life and constant riding, the hunting and shooting

did his health a world of good. He had never looked so well, so set up

and robust as he did at the age of thirty-two, as Sibyl’s factotum. The

worst of this was that he seemed more desirable than ever in Sibyl’s

eyes, as she admitted with her disarming frankness. "What a pity it is,

Roger, the silly laws of this sanctimonious country will not permit

polygamy. We are just in the prime of life, you and I. I am much

better looking than I was ten years ago—I shudder at my old

photographs—I wore a fringe then and a bustle, and a lot of hair down my

back, and a terrible simper when I faced the camera. It’s a crime

against Nature that we can’t marry. We should have the handsomest

children and we could easily arrange matters with Lucy. She’s not

exacting."

Roger laughed at these speeches, but they made him a little

uncomfortable. Had Sibyl been a complete stranger to him he might have

succumbed long before to her wiles; few men of his build, his time, his

complexion were Josephs. But the slight relationship between them acted

as a barrier to concupiscence. It permitted a familiarity in speech and

address which made any closer intimacy repellent to his sense of

decency....

Sibyl it must be admitted, was shameless when they were together. She

would study his features attentively; admire the curl of his eyelashes,

the outline of his profile, even the not quite classical prominence of

the cheek bones, the virile twist upwards of his moustache, the firm

chin and strong white teeth, the well-set ear and close-cropped hair at

the back of his head: the while she pretended, pen in hand, to be

considering his propositions. Thought-transference told him what this

scrutiny meant, and he would colour a little in shame and become abrupt

in manner—even say to himself, "This _can’t_ go on—I wish she’d think of

something else...."

He was conscientiously attentive to Lucy at this time and she was really

happy during this phase in Roger’s life. In the spring she took up her

residence in the Lodge at Englefield and made a comfortable home for her

devoted husband, who seemed resolved to show her how happy he was in his

marriage. Maud, from Farleigh, was a constant visitor, stayed weeks

together with Lucy and Roger and served as a _trait d’union_ with Sibyl,

who allowed Maud to chaff her and scold her as she would no one else.

Sibyl was quite civil to Lucy, did not bother her, left her alone except

for an occasional greeting and the showing of some curiosity as to

little John. "You may call him _John_ as much as you like, but he’s

certainly Roger’s child."

Clithy and his nurse were often sent down to the Lodge to be with Lucy;

Sibyl deigning to say that her influence over children was a good one

and Clithy was never fretful with _her_. In her mocking moods she

called her little son "The Prince with the Nose" and declared he was

under an enchantment. He had for a child of three a preternaturally

large nose, and as she said to Roger, there could be no doubt as to his

paternity. "How pleased Francis would have been! He was always so proud

of the Mallard nose. Said it could be traced back in pictures to

Charles I’s reign—Anne of Denmark, who was rather larky after she had

been married ten years, had a side-slip—you know what a _tipsy_ court

they were!—and bore a daughter to the Lord Chamberlain, who was

particularly active in the revels. James overlooked her breach of good

manners and ultimately gave the large-nosed little girl in marriage with

Silchester Manor to a favourite, who founded the House of Mallard.

Francis was going to have put this into his Memoirs, but he died, poor

dear, leaving them three-quarters finished. I think _I_ shall finish

them for a lark. Will you help me?"

One reason why Lucy was dreamily happy at Englefield Lodge was that she

seemed there to link up with the life of her girlhood. She had so often

strolled round the precincts of Engledene with John Tilehurst, she dared

not revisit for fear of meeting Mrs. Barnes. But she would sometimes

walk over the same path she had traced with John on that Sunday in June,

1886. She would sit on the seat at _The View_ and go over once more in

memory, and with a sad little smile her naïve and petulant questions and

answers on that Sunday walk. How she had told John her desire to

encounter lions, and yet when a lion had visited their camp, what abject

terror she had shown! Hangodi! That name was first uttered to her in

Engledene Park and she remembered John saying it meant "The Place of

Firewood."

One day Roger brought over to see her in the dog-cart old Mr. Baines—as

he was beginning to be called. They both shed a few tears, but he told

her with more sincerity than he usually put into his husky voice that he

exonerated her from all blame in the catastrophe which had overtaken his

son (Lucy herself was not so sure). "Mother’s taken it awfully bad,

Lucy. She’s goin’ out of her mind, I’m fearin’. First she was writin’

an’ writin’ to Lord Wiltshire, him as is Prime Minister, don’t you know,

to give your husband the sack as bein’ the real cause of John’s death.

Then next she’d bother our member, wantin’ ’im to ask questions in the

’Ouse of Commons, till at last they give up answerin’ them. Then she

set to and slanged that Missionary Society that John belonged to, sayin’

they wasn’t ’alf careful enough about ’is precious life. Now this

spring, blessed if she ain’t cut our Connexion! She won’t go to Salem

Chapel; goes to Church instead ... St. Michael’s. Shouldn’t wonder if

she ended up a papist! ... S’pose you know _Ann’s_ in England? They’re

makin’ a lot of fuss about ’er in Reading and London. Call her a

Heroine. She’s bin down with ’er ’usband—rather a half-baked feller—to

see us; but ’er talk with Mother ain’t done Mother much good, partly

’cos Ann wouldn’t join ’er in abusin’ you. She says to Mother: ’I just

told you the plain truth in that letter. I’m not goin’ to add nor

subtract one word, an’ you’ve gone and put into it much more than I ever

said. Just leave Lucy alone to God’s judgment. At any rate, John loved

her and died believin’ her true; and I dessay she was. Africa’s a funny

country and you must put down a lot to the climate.’ ... Ann’s going

back to Africa next autumn, with three more recruits and a lot of money

to spend on the Mission School. Old Mrs. Doland sent for ’er and give

’er five hundred pounds. I tell ’er she ought to come and see you

before she goes. P’raps she will, p’raps she won’t. I told ’er you

called your baby ’John,’ and the tears reg’lar came into ’er eyes...."

Roger owned to Maud he felt a bit restless in the spring and early

summer of 1890. He couldn’t get Africa out of his mind, somehow. There

was first the fuss about Stanley and the return of the Emin Pasha Relief

Expedition—surely one of the most wasted feats of heroism and brave

endeavour in the history of Africa. Then came the 1890 Agreement with

Germany. This left the Happy Valley pretty much where it had

lain—unmarked as yet—on the map, but by approximate latitude and

longitude entirely German, as Roger knew. But the discussion of

frontiers in Africa caused him to feel fretful and resentful at being

"out of it." Sir Mulberry Hawk, who had negotiated the treaty, might

surely have turned to him for enlightenment on this point and that?

Even though he had left the African Service, there were his reports of

1884-5 and -6, and of 1887-9. He felt impelled to go and see Broadmead,

always accessible to men of worth. Broadmead said it was a beastly

shame—spite perhaps on the part of Molyneux—but every one now was

thinking of the Recess.... London was becoming awfully stale.... He

and Roger should meet in the early autumn. Broadmead would perhaps come

down to Engledene and shoot Sibyl’s pheasants, and talk over Africa....

If Roger was still hankering after East Africa, why didn’t he suck up to

"Wully MacNaughten?" He had a show place somewhere up in the Highlands,

not an immeasurable distance from Glen Sporran.

"Who was Wully? Didn’t Brentham know? Why, he had begun life as a small

grocer in some Scotch town, and bankrupted through giving credit to the

crofters. Not to be bested by Fate, he went out to China as a clerk and

in twenty years had made quite a respectable fortune. Friends said out

of tea, enemies out of opium, smuggled into India; probable cause, the

great coolie traffic between China and the rest of the world, which

prompted him to found a navy of tramp steamers to carry the coolies,

many of them over to Africa. Then he nibbled at East Africa; began with

missionary stations, sort of atonement, don’t you know, for anything

naughty he’d done—Chaps in China used to call him

’MacNaughty-naughty’—s’posed to have had a half-caste family. Not a word

of truth in it. However, there it was, and he couldn’t go on refreshing

Brentham’s memory. Brentham had been in East Africa and must know all

about MacNaughten there?..."

"Why, yes, I know, of course, he’s the Chairman of the Chartered Company

of Ibea—Mvita, you know."

"Well, they are going to extend their operations inland to the Victoria

Nyanza and they want a go-ahead man as Governor. The chap at present

out there is—— However, nothing can be done now. See you later on, give

you a letter to him.... Tata."

If Roger was restless with unavowed hankerings after his first mistress,

Africa, Sibyl, unconscious that he ever dreamed of release from her

Circe toils, was radiant in the spring and summer of that particularly

radiant year, 1890. Her prescribed mourning was over, so that the

"horrid old Queen" could have no ground of objection to her entertaining

like any other opulent peeress.

Roger had worked wonders with the estates, and before long the revenues,

over which she would have control till her son’s majority, would be

increased by at least one-third. Her choice of him from a business

point of view was amply justified. Her pulse quickened and her eyes

grew brighter than their ordinary at the thought he might some day be

her lover. If only that tiresome Lucy died in one of her confinements,

he might even be her husband. Of course, she would most carefully avoid

any foolishness which might give the least ground for scandal. If she

did that, she could take life as pleasantly as Lady Ramsgate (the

ridiculous one, called "Popsy"), or Lady Ann Vizor. Every one knew that

Popsy Ramsgate had had a child by her farm bailiff and kept it at the

farm, and no one thought the worse of her. Ramsgate was dead. Lady

Ann’s stockbroker was obviously her lover, but he was very gentlemanly

and no one would have guessed unless they had been specially told.

Even if Roger were free, she was not sure she wanted exactly to marry

him. She would then lose her title or, at any rate, her social rights

as a peeress. And Roger as husband might be too masterful. She wanted

to "queen it" as a rich woman with intelligence and taste might do in

those days. Now her mourning was over she would commence at once to

give parties at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, which should put those of

Suzanne Feenix quite in the shade. She would create a salon, to which

should be attracted the younger bloods, the rebels of the Conservative

Party. She would revivify Lord Randolph, join hands with Mary March,

who had a wonderful _flair_ for inveigling millionaires. She and a few

other clever women—the Tennants, perhaps—should create a young and

intellectual Conservative Party—or Unionist Party, if you liked. They

would get hold of Choselwhit—perhaps Rhodes, if he came to England.

Lord Wiltshire should rue the day that he had snubbed her at a

Chapelmead week-end—the last time poor Francis went out anywhere—and cut

her at two Foreign Office receptions. The Brinsleys should be shown

their reign was over.

Her initiates—she really founded the half-legendary "Souls"—should

include the smartest writers and the most daring painters, the weirdest

poets of the day. They would have their own press, if it wasn’t too

expensive, but Mary March’s millionaires might manage that ... hadn’t

she been introduced at one of Mary’s theatre parties to an enormously

rich and humble person called Tooley? Lady Tarrington had asked him if

he owned Tooley Street and the stupid creature had said: "Beg pardon, me

lady?" Well, Tooley should be ensorcelled—perhaps an invitation up to

Glen Sporran—and buy their newspaper for them.

And then she had an idea of starting a monthly Review which she would

edit herself and which should tell the naked truth. No

squeamishness.... Praed, the architect, should send them one or two of

his queer storiettes....

As to mother and father, they would spoil any circles with their

banalities and old-fashioned ideas ... and father’s stories would never

be followed to their finish by the modern young man or woman. They

would devastate her circle. No. They must stop in the country. Mother

seemed to be developing some internal complaint—probably indigestion or

something which could be cured at Aix or Homburg—and she was becoming

very strait-laced and anxious-eyed. Sibyl would take Roger’s advice: buy

up father’s three hundred acres; it could be made a most profitable milk

farm. Father should stay on as tenant at a nominal rent, with a bailiff

to manage—perhaps that young Harden, the cricketer, who had married

Lucy’s sister.

Sibyl resolved to send mother to Aix at her expense and have Aunt

Christabel to stay with her indefinitely as long as she wanted a

chaperon.

As to her sisters: thank goodness, _they_ were off her hands. They had

married and gone away with their husbands to those blessed colonies,

Clara to New Zealand and Juliet to British Columbia. Long might they

remain there! Relations—unless very distant—were like reproaches or bad

replicas of one’s self. They sapped all one’s originality....

These were some of the musings of Sibyl when having her hair brushed by

Sophie, or when undergoing Swedish massage under the firm but soothing

hands of a blonde giantess; when breakfasting in bed; or undergoing a

long train journey in a first-class compartment with a defective lamp.

There was no question in this year of Lucy’s accompanying her husband to

Glen Sporran. She was starting another baby and was firm about not

wishing to go. Sibyl took this decision most amiably; said Lucy was

quite wise, and further proposed that she should have Maud with her and

care-take for Sibyl at Engledene House. Clitheroe was likewise to be

left behind. His life in the Highlands was one long succession of

dangerous colds and there wasn’t enough accommodation for his retinue of

nurses; especially as every one you asked nowadays must have with them a

maid or a valet. Clithy had grown so absurdly fond of Lucy that Sibyl

suggested jocosely they should change babies. She thought little John a

perfect darling—so like Roger—why hadn’t Lucy chosen her as god-mother

instead of Maud? No doubt Clithy would grow up more like a normal boy

when the rest of his features balanced Anne of Denmark’s nose....

Meantime, it was very fortunate things were as they were. And Lucy

would oblige her enormously by looking after her boy while she was

entertaining all those horrid people in the North.

Not that the house-party was to be a large one. It ran away with so

much money, and people were never grateful. There would just be Stacy

Bream; the Honble. Victoria Masham, the Maid of Honour—old Vicky

Long-i’-the-tooth, Sibyl called her behind her back, and never imagined

the nickname could be repeated and counteract the expense of a month’s

hospitality. _Must_ have Vicky to keep in touch, you know, with what

the old Queen was saying and doing—and an acolyte of Stacy’s named

Reggie, something in the Colonial Office—he could flirt with Vicky—and

p’raps Arthur Broadmead. Then—for a day or two—that insufferable cad,

Elijah Tooley—"but he’s so frightfully, frightfully rich and _might_ be

useful." Aunt Christabel, of course, would come, to keep order, and

Aggie Freebooter and Gertie Wentworth would make up the house-party.

Aggie Freebooter was that tiresome Lady Towcester’s daughter—"one of six

girls, my dear"—but when she was away from her mother’s eye she was

deliciously larky and awfully plucky, and didn’t mind what you played

at; while Gertie Wentworth—or the Honble. Gertrude—thirty-five, lots of

money, dresses like a man, whisky and cigars, takes the bank at Roulette

and loses everything but her temper.

"Well, at any rate," said Maud, "I’m glad Willowby Patterne is not in

the party, _this_ time...."

"My dear!..." said Sibyl with a scream. "I’ve absolutely dropped him,

after that row in the City and that extraordinary case in the courts

which was compromised and hushed up. He’s gone out to East Africa.

Haven’t you heard?"

Maud had not heard and cared very little what had happened to the

spendthrift baronet. But Roger had, and was a little uneasy as to his

cherished Happy Valley. Willowby Patterne, mixed up once more with a

very shady Company to take over and boom a new mineral water—some

proposition of Bax Strangeways—and a matter of slander and a club-steps

whipping, settled out of court ... and pending proceedings of his wife’s

for a separation; had decided abruptly to make "peau neuve" in East

Africa. He had depicted the thrills of big-game shooting to one of his

dupes just come of age and into possession of a pot of money. This

young man would stand the racket of the expense—£5,000—and Willowby

would put him up to all the dodges. And perhaps they might find

minerals and get a concession....

Whilst he was up in Scotland Roger did manage, with the aid of Arthur

Broadmead, to obtain an interview with Sir William MacNaughten on the

subject of East African developments and the Company’s future

administration. But Sir William seemed vague, and much more interested

and definite in regard to another question: King Solomon’s Temple. Had

Captain Brentham, as an Orientalist, ever given his mind to that

problem, the shape and structure of the Temple, its adornment, and the

hidden meaning of the Divine ordinances? No, Captain Brentham had not

... but ... er ... no doubt it was very interesting and full of meaning

... only ... East Africa?...

"Oh, East Africa—our Charter—Oh, yes! Well, come and see me about that

when I’m back in London. You know my address there? Westminster Palace

Hotel?"

The Glen Sporran party broke up with the rain and chill winds of the

equinox; but Roger stayed on there with Sibyl and Aunt Christabel:

nominally to examine the affairs of the estate and the installation of

the lobster fishery; in reality because his resolves had all dissolved

before her insistence, her tears, her threats to make a scene. Circe

triumphed; preened herself; became once more gay and debonnaire. But

her wretched lover felt indeed a pig. Aunt Christabel, the very

servants seemed to guess what Sibyl thought was kept wholly secret from

the rest of the world.

A month’s absence in Staffordshire and London, and a shamefaced visit to

Engledene Lodge did something to restore his self-respect. He called on

Sir William at his hotel, resolved to broach the subject of the East

Africa Governorship, but found him out. Nevertheless, to his delight

there came a note to Pardew’s Hotel from Sir William with these words in

it: "Come to breakfast to-morrow morning at nine. I have something very

interesting to discuss with you, and should value your opinion."

He arrived punctually. Lady MacNaughten was there—rather vinegary and

with pursed lips. She dispensed the tea and coffee with a very strong

Glasgow accent. The materials of the breakfast were—Roger

thought—rather meagre for such wealthy people, who could afford to

retain by the year this large suite of rooms. As no mention of East

Africa was made during breakfast it was clearly more tactful to wait

till the subject was introduced. Perhaps Sir William preferred not to

discuss business in his wife’s presence. At last, however, he finished

his second cup of coffee, wiped his lips, said a grace of thanks for

"our bounteous meal" in which Lady MacNaughten joined; and then asked

Roger to accompany him to his sitting-room.

The folding doors were opened and shut behind them by an officious

waiter; the window of the sitting-room looking out on incipient Victoria

Street was also closed because the west wind was chilly. And Sir

William then turned and said with great heartiness, pointing to a

cardboard and _papier-mâché_ contraption under a glass case:

"There! _That’s_ what I wanted to discuss with you, who know the East

so well: a Model of King Solomon’s Temple, made to my own design!"

* * * * *

The Governorship of the Mombasa Concession was shortly after conferred

on Lady MacNaughten’s nephew.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*BACK TO THE HAPPY VALLEY*

Roger, ever since he returned from Scotland, resolved that a break with

Sibyl should come as soon as he could see before him the re-opening of

an African career. Only fortified with such a resolve could he face his

wife’s candid eyes and her unquestioning trust in him—or Maud’s more

quizzical gaze and occasional sardonic remarks.... "That old fox,

MacNaughten," he said to himself, "had determined all along to evade the

well-meant suggestions of candidates from the Foreign, Colonial, and

India Offices, and as soon as he got his Baronetcy (which came with the

New Year’s honours) to take a line of his own."

However, Fate for once hastened the dénouement by causing Roger’s father

to catch cold over the excavation of the Basilica at Silchester, to

neglect his cold, and to die of double pneumonia in the week preceding

Christmas, 1890. Roger could not help being profoundly grateful to his

archæological parent for dying _before_ rather than after Christmas,

because this decease, with the conventions in force, and Queen Victoria

behind the conventions, absolutely freed him from the obligation to

attend the elaborate Christmas and New Year festivities ordained by

Sibyl at Engledene. She had set aside a suite of rooms—bedroom,

sitting-room and office—at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, and would no

longer hear of his staying at Pardew’s Hotel when in London to transact

business with her. There were times when he seriously considered

shooting himself—and strange to say, all through this period of

episodical infidelity he had never loved Lucy better, or found her

smiling silence or unimportant, unexacting conversation more soothing.

Her approaching confinement and his father’s death together constituted

a barrier of reserve that even Sibyl was bound to respect. He therefore

utilized this respite to work assiduously at his plans for flight from

the enchantress. He was most anxious after he was gone that no one

should say with justification that he had let Lady Silchester down, had

treated her badly, got things into a muddle, and then bolted.

As far back as the preceding October he had brought his younger brother,

Maurice, the barrister into the Estate Office to be his assistant.

Sibyl could suggest no one else and told him he could make what

arrangements he liked—if _only_—if—_only_ he would not be _cruel_ to

her, not talk of going at the end of the trial year. As he had not

complete confidence in Maurice becoming efficient for the head post, he

had entered into a provisional arrangement for a first-class man to put

over Maurice, selecting him at the Institute of Land Agents’

recommendation...

So much therefore had been done to safeguard h employer’s interests.

Then as to his own. The administration of his father’s estate would

eventually secure a total sum of £4,300 to each of the four children of