章节正文
started as if they had been shot. Japp went as white as his
mottled face permitted. 'What the -' he gasped, and he
dropped the thing he was holding.
I picked it up, and laid it on the counter. 'So,' I said,
'diamonds, Mr Japp. You have found the pipe I was looking
for. I congratulate you.'
My words gave the old ruffian his cue. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'I
have, or rather my friend 'Mwanga has. He has just been
telling me about it.'
The Kaffir looked miserablyuncomfortable. He shifted from
one leg to the other, casting longing glances at the closed door.
'I tink I go,' he said. 'Afterwards we will speak more.'
I told him I thought he had better go, and opened the door
for him. Then I bolted it again, and turned to Mr Japp.
'So that's your game,' I said. 'I thought there was something
funny about you, but I didn't know it was I.D.B. you were up to.'
He looked as if he could kill me. For five minutes he cursed
me with a perfection of phrase which I had thought beyond
him. It was no I.D.B., he declared, but a pipe which 'Mwanga
had discovered.
'In this kind of country?' I said, quoting his own words.
'Why, you might as well expect to find ocean pearls as
diamonds. But scrape in the spruit if you like; you'll maybe
find some garnets.'
He choked down his wrath, and tried a new tack. 'What will
you take to hold your tongue? I'll make you a rich man if you'll
come in with me.' And then he started with offers which
showed that he had been making a good thing out of the traffic.
I stalked over to him, and took him by the shoulder. 'You
old reprobate,' I roared, 'if you breathe such a proposal to me
again, I'll tie you up like a sack and carry you to Pietersdorp.'
At this he broke down and wept maudlin tears, disgusting
to witness. He said he was an old man who had always lived
honestly, and it would break his heart if his grey hairs were to
be disgraced. As he sat rocking himself with his hands over his
face, I saw his wicked little eyes peering through the slits of
his fingers to see what my next move would be.
'See here, Mr Japp,' I said, 'I'm not a police spy, and it's no
business of mine to inform against you. I'm willing to keep
you out of gaol, but it must be on my own conditions. The
first is that you resign this job and clear out. You will write to
Mr Colles a letter at my dictation, saying that you find the
work too much for you. The second is that for the time you
remain here the diamond business must utterly cease. If
'Mwanga or anybody like him comes inside the store, and if I
get the slightest hint that you're back at the trade, in you go to
Pietersdorp. I'm not going to have my name disgraced by
being associated with you. The third condition is that when
you leave this place you go clear away. If you come within
twenty miles of Blaauwildebeestefontein and I find you, I will
give you up.'
He groaned and writhed at my terms, but in the end
accepted them. He wrote the letter, and I posted it. I had no
pity for the old scamp, who had feathered his nest well. Small
wonder that the firm's business was not as good as it might be,
when Japp was giving most of his time to buying diamonds
from native thieves. The secret put him in the power of any
Kaffir who traded him a stone. No wonder he cringed to
ruffians like 'Mwanga.
The second thing I did was to shift my quarters. Mr
Wardlaw had a spare room which he had offered me before,
and now I accepted it. I wanted to be no more mixed up with
Japp than I could help, for I did not know what villainy he
might let me in for. Moreover, I carried Zeeta with me, being
ashamed to leave her at the mercy of the old bully. Japp went
up to the huts and hired a slattern to mind his house, and then
drank heavily for three days to console himself.
That night I sat smoking with Mr Wardlaw in his sitting-
room, where a welcome fire burned, for the nights on the Berg
were chilly. I remember the occasion well for the queer turn
the conversation took. Wardlaw, as I have said, had been
working like a slave at the Kaffir tongues. I talked a kind of
Zulu well enough to make myself understood, and I could
follow it when spoken; but he had real scholarship in the thing,
and knew all about the grammar and the different dialects.
Further, he had read a lot about native history, and was full of
the doings of Tchaka and Mosilikatse and Moshesh, and the
kings of old. Having little to do in the way of teaching, he had
made up for it by reading omnivorously. He used to borrow
books from the missionaries, and he must have spent half his
salary in buying new ones.
To-night as he sat and puffed in his armchair, he was full of
stories about a fellow called Monomotapa. It seems he was a
great black emperor whom the Portuguese discovered about
the sixteenth century. He lived to the north in Mashonaland,
and had a mountain full of gold. The Portuguese did not make
much of him, but they got his son and turned him into a priest.
I told Wardlaw that he was most likely only a petty chief,
whose exploits were magnified by distance, the same as the
caciques in Mexico. But the schoolmaster would not accept this.
'He must have been a big man, Davie. You know that the
old ruins in Rhodesia, called Zimbabwe, were long believed
to be Phoenician in origin. I have a book here which tells all
about them. But now it is believed that they were built by
natives. I maintain that the men who could erect piles like
that' - and he showed me a picture - 'were something more
than petty chiefs.'
Presently the object of this conversation appeared. Mr
Wardlaw thought that we were underrating the capacity of the
native. This opinion was natural enough in a schoolmaster,
but not in the precise form Wardlaw put it. It was not
his intelligence which he thought we underrated, but his
dangerousness. His reasons, shortly, were these: There were five
or six of them to every white man; they were all, roughly
speaking, of the same stock, with the same tribal beliefs; they
had only just ceased being a warrior race, with a powerful
military discipline; and, most important, they lived round the
rim of the high-veld plateau, and if they combined could cut
off the white man from the sea. I pointed out to him that it
would only be a matter of time before we opened the road
again. 'Ay,' he said, 'but think of what would happen before
then. Think of the lonely farms and the little dorps wiped out
of the map. It would be a second and bloodier Indian mutiny.
'I'm not saying it's likely,' he went on, 'but I maintain it's
possible. Supposing a second Tchaka turned up, who could
get the different tribes to work together. It wouldn't be so very
hard to smuggle in arms. Think of the long, unwatched coast
in Gazaland and Tongaland. If they got a leader with prestige
enough to organize a crusade against the white man, I don't
see what could prevent a rising.'
'We should get wind of it in time to crush it at the start,'
I said.
'I'm not so sure. They are cunning fellows, and have arts
that we know nothing about. You have heard of native
telepathy. They can send news over a thousand miles as quick
as the telegraph, and we have no means of tapping the wires.
If they ever combined they could keep it as secret as the grave.
My houseboy might be in the rising, and I would never suspect
it till one fine morning he cut my throat.'
'But they would never find a leader. If there was some exiled
prince of Tchaka's blood, who came back like Prince Charlie
to free his people, there might be danger; but their royalties
are fat men with top hats and old frock-coats, who live in
dirty locations.'
Wardlaw admitted this, but said that there might be other
kinds of leaders. He had been reading a lot about Ethiopianism,
which educated American negroes had been trying to
preach in South Africa. He did not see why a kind of bastard
Christianity should not be the motive of a rising. 'The Kaffir
finds it an easy job to mix up Christian emotion and pagan
practice. Look at Hayti and some of the performances in the
Southern States.'
Then he shook the ashes out of his pipe and leaned forward
with a solemn face. 'I'll admit the truth to you, Davie. I'm
black afraid.'
He looked so earnest and serious sitting there with his short-
sighted eyes peering at me that I could not help being impressed.
'Whatever is the matter?' I asked. 'Has anything happened?'
He shook his head. 'Nothing I can put a name to. But I have
a presentiment that some mischief is afoot in these hills. I feel
it in my bones.'
I confess I was startled by these words. You must remember
that I had never given a hint of my suspicions to Mr Wardlaw
beyond asking him if a wizard lived in the neighbourhood - a
question anybody might have put. But here was the schoolmaster
discovering for himself some mystery in Blaauwildebeestefontein.
I tried to get at his evidence, but it was very little. He
thought there were an awful lot of blacks about. 'The woods
are full of them,' he said. I gathered he did not imagine he was
being spied on, but merely felt that there were more natives
about than could be explained.
'There's another thing,' he said. 'The native bairns have all
left the school. I've only three scholars left, and they are from
Dutch farms. I went to Majinje to find out what was up, and
an old crone told me the place was full of bad men. I tell you,
Davie, there's something brewing, and that something is not
good for us.'
There was nothing new to me in what Wardlaw had to tell,
and yet that talk late at night by a dying fire made me feel
afraid for the second time since I had come to
Blaauwildebeestefontein. I had a clue and had been on the look-out
for mysteries, but that another should feel the strangeness for
himself made it seem desperately real to me. Of course I
scoffed at Mr Wardlaw's fears. I could not have him spoiling
all my plans by crying up a native rising for which he had not
a scrap of evidence.
'Have you been writing to anybody?' I asked him.
He said that he had told no one, but he meant to, unless
things got better. 'I haven't the nerve for this job, Davie,' he
said; 'I'll have to resign. And it's a pity, for the place suits my
health fine. You see I know too much, and I haven't your
whinstone nerve and total lack of imagination.'
I told him that it was simply fancy, and came from reading
too many books and taking too little exercise. But I made him
promise to say nothing to anybody either by word of mouth or
letter, without telling me first. Then I made him a rummer
of toddy and sent him to bed a trifle comforted.
The first thing I did in my new room was to shift the bed
into the corner out of line with the window. There were no
shutters, so I put up an old table-top and jammed it between
the window frames. Also, I loaded my shot-gun and kept it by
my bedside. Had Wardlaw seen these preparations he might
have thought more of my imagination and less of my nerve. It
was a real comfort to me to put out a hand in the darkness and
feel Colin's shaggy coat.
CHAPTER VI
THE DRUMS BEAT AT SUNSET
japp was drunk for the next day or two, and I had the business
of the store to myself. I was glad of this, for it gave me leisure
to reflect upon the various perplexities of my situation. As I
have said, I was really scared, more out of a sense of impotence
mottled face permitted. 'What the -' he gasped, and he
dropped the thing he was holding.
I picked it up, and laid it on the counter. 'So,' I said,
'diamonds, Mr Japp. You have found the pipe I was looking
for. I congratulate you.'
My words gave the old ruffian his cue. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'I
have, or rather my friend 'Mwanga has. He has just been
telling me about it.'
The Kaffir looked miserablyuncomfortable. He shifted from
one leg to the other, casting longing glances at the closed door.
'I tink I go,' he said. 'Afterwards we will speak more.'
I told him I thought he had better go, and opened the door
for him. Then I bolted it again, and turned to Mr Japp.
'So that's your game,' I said. 'I thought there was something
funny about you, but I didn't know it was I.D.B. you were up to.'
He looked as if he could kill me. For five minutes he cursed
me with a perfection of phrase which I had thought beyond
him. It was no I.D.B., he declared, but a pipe which 'Mwanga
had discovered.
'In this kind of country?' I said, quoting his own words.
'Why, you might as well expect to find ocean pearls as
diamonds. But scrape in the spruit if you like; you'll maybe
find some garnets.'
He choked down his wrath, and tried a new tack. 'What will
you take to hold your tongue? I'll make you a rich man if you'll
come in with me.' And then he started with offers which
showed that he had been making a good thing out of the traffic.
I stalked over to him, and took him by the shoulder. 'You
old reprobate,' I roared, 'if you breathe such a proposal to me
again, I'll tie you up like a sack and carry you to Pietersdorp.'
At this he broke down and wept maudlin tears, disgusting
to witness. He said he was an old man who had always lived
honestly, and it would break his heart if his grey hairs were to
be disgraced. As he sat rocking himself with his hands over his
face, I saw his wicked little eyes peering through the slits of
his fingers to see what my next move would be.
'See here, Mr Japp,' I said, 'I'm not a police spy, and it's no
business of mine to inform against you. I'm willing to keep
you out of gaol, but it must be on my own conditions. The
first is that you resign this job and clear out. You will write to
Mr Colles a letter at my dictation, saying that you find the
work too much for you. The second is that for the time you
remain here the diamond business must utterly cease. If
'Mwanga or anybody like him comes inside the store, and if I
get the slightest hint that you're back at the trade, in you go to
Pietersdorp. I'm not going to have my name disgraced by
being associated with you. The third condition is that when
you leave this place you go clear away. If you come within
twenty miles of Blaauwildebeestefontein and I find you, I will
give you up.'
He groaned and writhed at my terms, but in the end
accepted them. He wrote the letter, and I posted it. I had no
pity for the old scamp, who had feathered his nest well. Small
wonder that the firm's business was not as good as it might be,
when Japp was giving most of his time to buying diamonds
from native thieves. The secret put him in the power of any
Kaffir who traded him a stone. No wonder he cringed to
ruffians like 'Mwanga.
The second thing I did was to shift my quarters. Mr
Wardlaw had a spare room which he had offered me before,
and now I accepted it. I wanted to be no more mixed up with
Japp than I could help, for I did not know what villainy he
might let me in for. Moreover, I carried Zeeta with me, being
ashamed to leave her at the mercy of the old bully. Japp went
up to the huts and hired a slattern to mind his house, and then
drank heavily for three days to console himself.
That night I sat smoking with Mr Wardlaw in his sitting-
room, where a welcome fire burned, for the nights on the Berg
were chilly. I remember the occasion well for the queer turn
the conversation took. Wardlaw, as I have said, had been
working like a slave at the Kaffir tongues. I talked a kind of
Zulu well enough to make myself understood, and I could
follow it when spoken; but he had real scholarship in the thing,
and knew all about the grammar and the different dialects.
Further, he had read a lot about native history, and was full of
the doings of Tchaka and Mosilikatse and Moshesh, and the
kings of old. Having little to do in the way of teaching, he had
made up for it by reading omnivorously. He used to borrow
books from the missionaries, and he must have spent half his
salary in buying new ones.
To-night as he sat and puffed in his armchair, he was full of
stories about a fellow called Monomotapa. It seems he was a
great black emperor whom the Portuguese discovered about
the sixteenth century. He lived to the north in Mashonaland,
and had a mountain full of gold. The Portuguese did not make
much of him, but they got his son and turned him into a priest.
I told Wardlaw that he was most likely only a petty chief,
whose exploits were magnified by distance, the same as the
caciques in Mexico. But the schoolmaster would not accept this.
'He must have been a big man, Davie. You know that the
old ruins in Rhodesia, called Zimbabwe, were long believed
to be Phoenician in origin. I have a book here which tells all
about them. But now it is believed that they were built by
natives. I maintain that the men who could erect piles like
that' - and he showed me a picture - 'were something more
than petty chiefs.'
Presently the object of this conversation appeared. Mr
Wardlaw thought that we were underrating the capacity of the
native. This opinion was natural enough in a schoolmaster,
but not in the precise form Wardlaw put it. It was not
his intelligence which he thought we underrated, but his
dangerousness. His reasons, shortly, were these: There were five
or six of them to every white man; they were all, roughly
speaking, of the same stock, with the same tribal beliefs; they
had only just ceased being a warrior race, with a powerful
military discipline; and, most important, they lived round the
rim of the high-veld plateau, and if they combined could cut
off the white man from the sea. I pointed out to him that it
would only be a matter of time before we opened the road
again. 'Ay,' he said, 'but think of what would happen before
then. Think of the lonely farms and the little dorps wiped out
of the map. It would be a second and bloodier Indian mutiny.
'I'm not saying it's likely,' he went on, 'but I maintain it's
possible. Supposing a second Tchaka turned up, who could
get the different tribes to work together. It wouldn't be so very
hard to smuggle in arms. Think of the long, unwatched coast
in Gazaland and Tongaland. If they got a leader with prestige
enough to organize a crusade against the white man, I don't
see what could prevent a rising.'
'We should get wind of it in time to crush it at the start,'
I said.
'I'm not so sure. They are cunning fellows, and have arts
that we know nothing about. You have heard of native
telepathy. They can send news over a thousand miles as quick
as the telegraph, and we have no means of tapping the wires.
If they ever combined they could keep it as secret as the grave.
My houseboy might be in the rising, and I would never suspect
it till one fine morning he cut my throat.'
'But they would never find a leader. If there was some exiled
prince of Tchaka's blood, who came back like Prince Charlie
to free his people, there might be danger; but their royalties
are fat men with top hats and old frock-coats, who live in
dirty locations.'
Wardlaw admitted this, but said that there might be other
kinds of leaders. He had been reading a lot about Ethiopianism,
which educated American negroes had been trying to
preach in South Africa. He did not see why a kind of bastard
Christianity should not be the motive of a rising. 'The Kaffir
finds it an easy job to mix up Christian emotion and pagan
practice. Look at Hayti and some of the performances in the
Southern States.'
Then he shook the ashes out of his pipe and leaned forward
with a solemn face. 'I'll admit the truth to you, Davie. I'm
black afraid.'
He looked so earnest and serious sitting there with his short-
sighted eyes peering at me that I could not help being impressed.
'Whatever is the matter?' I asked. 'Has anything happened?'
He shook his head. 'Nothing I can put a name to. But I have
a presentiment that some mischief is afoot in these hills. I feel
it in my bones.'
I confess I was startled by these words. You must remember
that I had never given a hint of my suspicions to Mr Wardlaw
beyond asking him if a wizard lived in the neighbourhood - a
question anybody might have put. But here was the schoolmaster
discovering for himself some mystery in Blaauwildebeestefontein.
I tried to get at his evidence, but it was very little. He
thought there were an awful lot of blacks about. 'The woods
are full of them,' he said. I gathered he did not imagine he was
being spied on, but merely felt that there were more natives
about than could be explained.
'There's another thing,' he said. 'The native bairns have all
left the school. I've only three scholars left, and they are from
Dutch farms. I went to Majinje to find out what was up, and
an old crone told me the place was full of bad men. I tell you,
Davie, there's something brewing, and that something is not
good for us.'
There was nothing new to me in what Wardlaw had to tell,
and yet that talk late at night by a dying fire made me feel
afraid for the second time since I had come to
Blaauwildebeestefontein. I had a clue and had been on the look-out
for mysteries, but that another should feel the strangeness for
himself made it seem desperately real to me. Of course I
scoffed at Mr Wardlaw's fears. I could not have him spoiling
all my plans by crying up a native rising for which he had not
a scrap of evidence.
'Have you been writing to anybody?' I asked him.
He said that he had told no one, but he meant to, unless
things got better. 'I haven't the nerve for this job, Davie,' he
said; 'I'll have to resign. And it's a pity, for the place suits my
health fine. You see I know too much, and I haven't your
whinstone nerve and total lack of imagination.'
I told him that it was simply fancy, and came from reading
too many books and taking too little exercise. But I made him
promise to say nothing to anybody either by word of mouth or
letter, without telling me first. Then I made him a rummer
of toddy and sent him to bed a trifle comforted.
The first thing I did in my new room was to shift the bed
into the corner out of line with the window. There were no
shutters, so I put up an old table-top and jammed it between
the window frames. Also, I loaded my shot-gun and kept it by
my bedside. Had Wardlaw seen these preparations he might
have thought more of my imagination and less of my nerve. It
was a real comfort to me to put out a hand in the darkness and
feel Colin's shaggy coat.
CHAPTER VI
THE DRUMS BEAT AT SUNSET
japp was drunk for the next day or two, and I had the business
of the store to myself. I was glad of this, for it gave me leisure
to reflect upon the various perplexities of my situation. As I
have said, I was really scared, more out of a sense of impotence
- phrase [freiz]
n.短语；词组；措词 (初中英语单词) - witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- resign [ri´zain] v.辞职；放弃；委托 (初中英语单词)
- feathered [´feðəd] a.有羽毛的；羽状的 (初中英语单词)
- moreover [mɔ:´rəuvə] ad.再者，此外，而且 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- chilly [´tʃili] a.凉飕飕的 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- doings [´du:iŋz] n.行动；所作的事 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- emperor [´empərə] n.皇帝 (初中英语单词)
- mexico [´meksikəu] n.墨西哥 (初中英语单词)
- origin [´ɔridʒin] n.起源；由来；出身 (初中英语单词)
- maintain [mein´tein] vt.维持；保持；继续 (初中英语单词)
- capacity [kə´pæsiti] n.容量；智能；能力 (初中英语单词)
- intelligence [in´telidʒəns] n.智力；消息 (初中英语单词)
- shortly [´ʃɔ:tli] ad.立刻，马上；不久 (初中英语单词)
- warrior [´wɔriə] n.勇士，战士 (初中英语单词)
- discipline [´disiplin] n.纪律；训练 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- organize [´ɔ:gənaiz] v.组织；编组；建立 (初中英语单词)
- cunning [´kʌniŋ] a.&n.狡猾(诡诈)的 (初中英语单词)
- telegraph [´teligrɑ:f] n.&v.(打)电报；电告 (初中英语单词)
- prince [´prins] n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词)
- motive [´məutiv] n.动机；主题 a.运动的 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- earnest [´ə:nist] a.认真的 n.认真；诚恳 (初中英语单词)
- mischief [´mistʃif] n.伤害；故障；调皮 (初中英语单词)
- confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
- mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- trifle [´traifəl] n.琐事，小事；少量 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- reflect [ri´flekt] v.反射；反响；表达 (初中英语单词)
- counter [´kauntə] n.计算者；柜台；计算机 (高中英语单词)
- congratulate [kən´grætjuleit] vt.祝贺 (高中英语单词)
- uncomfortable [ʌn´kʌmftəbəl] a.不舒服的，不自在的 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- perfection [pə´fekʃən] n.完美；极致；熟练 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- plateau [´plætəu] n.高原；平稳；托盘 (高中英语单词)
- crusade [kru:´seid] n.改革运动 (高中英语单词)
- desperately [´despəritli] ad.绝望地；拼命地 (高中英语单词)
- scrape [skreip] v.&n.刮，削，擦；搔 (英语四级单词)
- thieves [θi:vz] thief的复数 (英语四级单词)
- console [kən´səul] vt.安慰；慰问 (英语四级单词)
- scholarship [´skɔləʃip, ´skɑlər-] n.学术成就；学问 (英语四级单词)
- armchair [´ɑ:mtʃeə] n.扶手椅 (英语四级单词)
- portuguese [,pɔ:tʃu´gi:z] a.葡萄牙的 n.葡萄牙人 (英语四级单词)
- schoolmaster [´sku:l,mɑ:stə] n.教练；(男)教师 (英语四级单词)
- precise [pri´sais] a.精确的；清楚的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- wizard [´wizəd] n.术士；男巫 (英语四级单词)
- bedside [´bedsaid] n.床边 a.护理的 (英语四级单词)
- shaggy [´ʃægi] a.蓬乱的；多粗毛的 (英语四级单词)
- ruffian [´rʌfiən] n.流氓 a.残暴的 (英语六级单词)
- miserably [´mizərəbli] ad.悲惨地；糟糕地 (英语六级单词)
- smuggle [´smʌg(ə)l] v.走私；偷偷拿出(进) (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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