A Veldt Vendetta

“Walk, Kuliso!”

The chief stared – stared at the deadly weapon – stared at the face behind it. Then he – walked.

I, too, looked at that face. The large eyes shone from its hard, deadly whiteness, with a fell and appalling stare. Could this be the face whose sunny, equable sweetness had captured my heart, and held it? Now it was as the face of a fiend – a ruthless, unswerving, vengeful fiend. Seeing it thus, I scarcely wondered that this great savage, the chief of a large section of a powerful tribe, should docilely obey its compelling force to the extent of walking forth alone, unarmed, from among his hundreds of turbulent followers, at the behest of one individual, and that individual a woman.

Then as we paced forth in this strange order of march, a spell seemed to have fallen upon all who beheld. Not a hand was raised, not a voice. It was as though they were bewitched. After the first gasp of wonder the silence was intense – awful. But it was not to last.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Judge and Executioner

No, it was not to last. Something seemed to break the spell – and that with the same magical suddenness wherewith it had come about. A roar of rage arose, terrible in its menace, thundering upon the stillness of the night. Many had run swiftly back to the huts, and now I could see them, and others, swarming forward, and in the moonlight the glint of assagais. They had returned to arm themselves.

It was a fearful moment. Every nerve within me thrilled, tingled, as revolver gripped, I half-turned my horse, to check, if possible, the onrushing mass. In a moment we should be cut to pieces. We were but two – two against hundreds. Nothing could save us. But Beryl, whose eyes were never removed for so much as a second from her august captive, whose weapon never deflected from straightly covering his form, cried out —

“The first spear thrown means the death of Kuliso!”

Her tones, clear and incisive, rose above the wild, bass hubbub of furious voices. A dead silence succeeded, even as before, and the forward rush became a foot’s pace. For they knew that she would keep her word.

Never shall I forget that scene, and assuredly it was one to stand forth in a man’s memory for the remainder of his life: the tall form of the savage chieftain stalking sullenly before that pitiless weapon; the resolute, ruthless figure of that beautiful yet terrific avenger of blood, sitting erect as she paced her horse forward with firm, controlling hand, and I, half turned in my saddle, with pistol pointed at the following-on crowd of exasperated barbarians.

This seemed effective, and they paused somewhat. Whether it was that they feared for Kuliso or themselves, or both, they forbore to rush us, and thus, with the crowd still following, but at a respectful distance, we gained the high “neck,” beyond which lay our own valley.

And now, behind us, a weird, low, long-drawn cry arose. It seemed to float along the midnight veldt, caught up, echoed forth, from point to point. Was it a rallying cry? If so the whole location would be aroused and upon us, and – what then? Yet at that moment my mind held but two thoughts – admiration for the intrepidity which had prompted and carried out this undertaking; the other the sense of a compelling force which was stronger than myself – that force, Beryl.

“Oh, keep straight on, Kuliso,” said the latter. “Do not stop, do not turn your head, or my bullet is certain to crash through the back of it. You know I never miss.”

The chief muttered savagely to himself, but he dared not disobey. Then he said —

“Has not our walk lasted long enough, Umlungase? Because, if so, I would prefer to return home.”

“There are two who will never return home, Kuliso. Soon there will be three,” came the answer.

“Hau! This is very dark talking – too dark. I know not what is meant.”

“You are a liar, Kuliso,” replied Beryl calmly. “A great chief of the House of Ndhlambe is a great liar. Ha! Do not stop. Again I warn you – do not stop.”

I thought that moment was Kuliso’s last. That terrible merciless look, which had temporarily frozen down, gleamed forth anew on Beryl’s face. I caught my breath. But again the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than his natural exasperation, and he stepped forward with renewed alacrity.

“We shall never get him in to Fort Lamport, or anything like as far,” I said, as the road thither lay but a short space in front of us. “He’ll be rescued, or give us the slip long before.”

“I don’t intend to take him to Fort Lamport, or anything like as far,” she answered shortly.

“But – where then?” I asked, thoroughly mystified.

“I am going to take him to look upon those he has murdered. Then I am going to shoot him dead – there, at the place where he has murdered them.”

I gasped.

“Great heavens, Beryl! you are never going to do anything so mad!”

“I am. What do you suppose I brought him all this way for – Be careful, Kuliso,” relapsing into Kafir. “My eyes are on you, although I’m talking. The bullet, too, is just as ready.”

To say that I was thunderstruck is to put it mildly. When I had agreed to our daring and desperate scheme, the arrest of the chief in the very thick of his own followers, I had never bargained for this. The idea was that by seizing him ourselves we could bring him to justice and thus prevent his escape, for if his said arrest were attempted in the ordinary way his followers would never give him up. They would resist any attempt to take him by force, as sure as such attempt were made. This would probably bring on a war, but not condign punishment upon Kuliso. I was filled with admiration for the promptitude and resolution with which she had forced him to accompany us, but that he was marching to his swift and certain doom had never entered my head – that Beryl had constituted herself his judge, jury and executioner, least of all. No, assuredly I had never bargained for this.

“Think better of it,” I urged. “Think better of it, and let us carry out our original plan and take him into the town.”

“It was never my original plan,” she answered, in the same low, monotonous tone. “Besides, to use your own words, we should never get him anything like as far. He’d be rescued or give us the slip long before. No. My original plan is the one I am going to carry out – Cross the road, Kuliso. That’s right. Keep straight on.”

“Beryl, you cannot do this thing yourself,” I urged earnestly. “We will manage to keep possession of him somehow, but – leave the rest to the hangman.”

“The hangman would never get him, in that case. The Government itself would find some pretext for letting him go, for fear of bringing on a war. Kenrick, you stood beside me when we found them– you, too, saw them. Have you so soon forgotten?”

“Forgotten? It would take more than a lifetime to forget that. Still, for your own sake do not do this. I believe you yourself will regret it afterwards. And then the law may call it murder. What then?”

“There isn’t a jury in the land that would convict me,” she said. “They would call it an act of justice. And it will be. I have thought it all out, you see.”

What was I to answer? She was very likely right in her surmise. I remembered Brian’s words, uttered the day after my arrival here – words to that very effect.

“Even then it will wear an ugly look,” I persisted. “We bring this man a considerable distance across country – the two of us – then shoot him in cold blood.”

“Has your blood cooled then, Kenrick?” she said. “Mine hasn’t, nor will it, until I see this murderer lying dead beside those he has killed.”

“Understand, I am not pleading for his life,” I went on, “only that you should not be his executioner. Besides, what if he is the wrong man? What if he should be speaking the truth after all when he says he knows nothing about it?”

“A chief is responsible for the acts of his followers, even under their own law. And he was not speaking the truth; he was lying. I know these people better than you do, Kenrick. If he knew nothing of – of – what has happened, do you think I could have frightened him into going with us? Not for a moment. He knew all about it, and encouraged it, if he did not actually instigate it. He is the principal murderer; afterwards I shall find out the others.”

“I was wrong in something I said just now,” she went on while I was thinking what next to urge. “I told you I had thought the matter all out. Well, I was wrong. There was one side of it that escaped me.”

“And that is?” I said eagerly, catching at a possible straw.

“Yourself.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to suffer for this in any way. You have helped me this far, Kenrick. Now go – and leave the rest to me. You are not supposed to know what I am about to do; and I’ll take care it shall never leak out that you did. Go back to the house and wait for me.”

“That’s so likely, isn’t it?” I answered. “Of course, under any circumstances I’d be sure to slink off and leave you in the middle of the veldt at night, surrounded by Kuliso’s cut-throats, watching an opportunity to revenge the death of their chief. That would be me all over, wouldn’t it?”

“If only I could see some way out of it – for you! Let me think.”

“No, Beryl. Don’t think. There’s nothing further to be said. Whatever this is we are in it together.”

It must not be supposed that during all this talk Beryl’s vigilance over her captive was relaxed for one single moment. Nor must it be supposed that I – that either of us – imagined that we were going to have things all our own way, and that Kuliso’s people had tamely left their chief to his fate.

We could not see them, but that they were keeping us under observation the whole way neither of us had a shadow of a doubt. But while keeping a sharp look-out, I was able to turn over the situation in my mind. If only Brian had been here. As it was, would he not hold me responsible for Beryl’s action, and any disastrous consequences which might ensue? Well, for that matter he could hardly do so, if only that he knew his sister well enough to know also that under the circumstances she would simply laugh at the advice or attempted control of anybody, and that had I discountenanced her project by refusing to accompany her she would simply have embarked on it alone, and then – putting the question on its lowest ground – what sort of figure should I have cut?

Now we were drawing near the fatal spot. We seemed to be moving in a dream – worse – a nightmare. The face of the murdered boy, swollen and ghastly, staring upward to the full broad moon, again seemed to come before my gaze – and that other face, calm, placid, as overtaken by death before a last moment of fleeting horror had had time to stamp it. My nerves were strung to the utmost tension. The Ndhlambe chief would now guess why he had been brought here, and that moment would be his last; for, thus rendered desperate, would he not make one last effort for life? All was still – still as death, save for the tread of the horses; yet momentarily I awaited the roar of the shot which should send Kuliso into that unseen world whither his victims had preceded him.