Hilary Blachland

“ In uttering that sublime lie, Hilary Blachland had set the seal to his triumph.
But for it his comrade would have refused to leave him, on that point he was sure, whereas to throw away his life for one who was dead already, would be an act of sheer lunacy on Skelsey’s part. One must die or both, and he had elected to be that one. ”

“ In the conjecture that his cousin had fallen into an infatuation for Hermia, Hilary Blachland was right—the only respect in which he had failed to grasp the full situation being that he had not fathomed the depth of that infatuation.
He knew her little ways, none better; knew well how insidiously dangerous she could be to those who did not know them, when she saw fit to lay herself out to attract. That she was laying herself out to entrap Percy was the solution of the whole problem. ”

“ Hilary Blachland triumphed.
Turning his steed with a mighty wrench, he rode straight back to the unhorsed trooper. From the ranks of the charging savages, now near enough to recognise him, there arose a mighty roar.
“Isipau! Ha! Isipau!”
“Quick, Spence! Get up behind me. Quick!”
The other needed no second bidding. As the horse with its double burden—either of these, singly, would have been a sufficient one for the poor brute, blown as he was—started once more, the foremost line of the savages was barely two hundred yards distant. ”

“ The New Year is very young now, and Lannercost is well-nigh hidden in its wealth of leafiness, and very different is the rich languorous midsummer air to the bracing crispness under which we last saw it. Other things are different too, as we, perchance, shall see, but what is not different is the warmth of welcome accorded to Hilary Blachland to that which he expected it to be—for the war in far-away Matabeleland is practically over, and this man who has borne so full a part in it, is enjoying a much-needed and well-earned rest. ”

“ The horse, relieved of its double burden, shot forward, its pace accelerated by a stone, lightly hurled by its late owner, which struck it on the hindquarters. A glance convinced him that his comrade was now in comparative safely, and Hilary Blachland turned to await the onrushing mass of his ruthless foes—single-handed, alone, and—as yet, absolutely unhurt. ”

“ Percival West and Hilary Blachland were both orphaned sons of two of Sir Luke’s sisters, and had been to him even as his own children. There was a difference of many years between their ages, however, and their characters were totally dissimilar, as we have heard set forth.
“Time for tiffin is it, Percy?” said Sir Luke, glancing at his watch. “You see we old fogies haven’t got your fine healthy jackass-and-a-bundle-of-greens appetite. We must have overlooked it.” ”

“ Many a man in his position, alone, unarmed, and without food, in the heart of a trackless wilderness whose every inhabitant was uncompromisingly hostile, would have lost his head and got turned round indeed. But Hilary Blachland was made of different stuff. He was far too experienced and resourceful an up-country man to lose his head in the smallest degree. He understood how to shape his bearings by the stars, and fortunately the sky was unclouded; and in the daytime by the sun and the trend of the watercourses whether dry or not. ”

“ Now he made no reply to his companion’s very confident and more than ominous forecast. But more than one wistful glance did he send in the direction of the great natural mausoleum. The King’s grave! This rock sepulchre would hold all that was weird and uncommon, and into it no European eye had ever gazed. That was sufficient for one of Hilary Blachland’s temperament.
Soon the last resting-place of Umzilikazi, the Great King, was hidden from sight behind. ”

“ Clair and Blachland.’ Have you forgotten that, Canon?” snorted Sir Luke. “And Blachland! My nephew!”
“How long ago was that?”
“How long ago? Why, you know as well as I do. Six years. Rather over than under.”
“Yes. Six years is a long time. Time enough for a man to recognise that he has made worse than a fool of himself. How do you know that Hilary has not come to recognise that—is not doing all he can to wipe out that sin?”
“Exactly. How do I know? That’s just it. He has never had the grace or decency to let me know that he has—to let me know whether he’s dead or alive.” ”

“ Jealous! There is, or ought to be, no such thing, once past the callowness of youth. The self-respect of any man should be above whining to any one woman because she prefers somebody else. The mere fact of her doing so renders her utterly valueless in his sight there and then.”
“You don’t really mean that, Hilary?” she said. “You’re only just talking, you know.” ”

“ The Matabele, foiled in his cupidity, would have no further motive for guiding him into safety. All his malevolence would be aroused. He would at once jump to the conclusion that he had been cheated—that Blachland had hidden the gold in some place of safety, intending to return and possess himself of the whole of it. He would never for a moment believe there was none there, or if there was that it was inaccessible. A white man could do everything, was the burden of native reasoning. ”

“ The huge granite pile loomed forth overhead, grim, frowning, indistinct. Then, as the faint streak in the blackness of the eastern horizon banded into red width, the outlines of the great natural mausoleum stood forth clearer and clearer.
Blachland’s pulses beat hard, as he stood gazing. At last he had reached the goal of his undertaking—at last he stood upon the forbidden ground. The uneasy consciousness that discovery meant Death—death, moreover, in some barbarous and lingering form—was hardly calculated to still his bounding pulses. He stood there alone. ”

“ He could not even lay the spurious balm to his soul that “every man for himself” was the maxim which justified everything—that the glorious fascinations of this woman went wholly unappreciated by the man who should have been the one of all others to prize them, and therefore were reserved and destined for another, and that himself. This sort of reasoning somehow would not do. It struck him as desperately thin in the cool judicial hour of waking. He had behaved shabbily towards Blachland, and, the worst of it was, he knew he should go on doing so. ”

“ Now, Hlangulu, men are men, and men have motives. Why are you going to do this?”
“What is that which is most desired by all white men, Nkose?”
“Gold.”
“Yeh-bo, Nkose, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle and wives. Hau! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of it.”
Blachland didn’t start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man’s words were plain enough. A quantity of treasure had been buried with the dead King. That was the interpretation.
“Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?” he said, producing a sovereign.
“Eh-hé, Nkose!” assented the Matabele. ”

“ Like ants besetting the unwary beetle or cricket which has strayed into the disturbed nest, the savages threw themselves upon the luckless animals, and drawing off, revealed these securely bound. Then followed a scene which, his own peril notwithstanding, turned Blachland sick. The wretched beasts were not merely slaughtered, but were half flayed and cut to pieces alive. ”

“ Blachland all braced up by the prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did, was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in some far-away land where Lo Bengula’s arm could not reach, where he could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy wives, young and new, whenever inclined. ”

“ Spence complied, less out of selfishness than an unwillingness to go against the other in any single detail. A curious change had come over him since his rescue—since the man he had wronged, as he thought, had ridden into the very jaws of death to bring him out. He regarded his rescuer now with feelings akin to veneration. He had at the time, expressed his sorrow and regret in shamefaced tones, but Blachland had met him with the equable reassurance that it didn’t matter. ”

“ He had not always done so, Justin had gathered; and from Hermia’s reminiscences of camp life she seemed to have enjoyed it. If he, Justin, had been in Blachland’s place, not for a single day should she have been away from him. But then, Justin was very young, and all the circumstances and surroundings went to make him think that way.
He had known these people for some months, but of them he knew nothing. The hard, reticent, self-reliant up-country trader was not the man to make a confidant of one whom he regarded as a mere callow youth. ”

“ Leaning back against the rock wall, Blachland began to attune himself to the situation. At last he had explored the King’s grave, he, all by himself. What a laugh he would have over Sybrandt and Pemberton bye-and-bye—they who had scouted the feat as utterly impossible. Well, he had done it, he alone, had done what no white man had ever done before him—what possibly no white man would ever do again. ”

“ Then a blue gleam of lightning along the grim granite faces; and a dull boom, re-echoed again and again as the thunder-peal is tossed from crag to crag in a hundred deep-toned reverberations.
Standing just within their ample shelter—which is formed by the overhang of a great boulder—Blachland gazes forth upon the weird and awe-inspiring solitude. Opposite, a huge castellated rock, many hundreds of feet in height, balances on its summit a mighty slab, which it seems would need but the touch of a finger to send crashing into the valley beneath ”

“ All these conditions held good here, yet one, at any rate, of those privileged to enjoy them, keen sportsman as he was, felt that day that something was wanting—that a cloud was dimming the sun-lit beauty of the rolling plains, and an invisible weight crushing the exhilaration of each successful shot.
Blachland, pursuing his sport mechanically, was striving to shake off an unpleasant impression, and striving in vain. Something seemed to have happened between yesterday and to-day. Or was it the thought that Lyn Bayfield would be more or less in Hermia’s society throughout the whole of that day? ”

“ Here they discovered two little Mashona boys, Blachland’s servants, who were hiding in terror. These were dragged forth, and regardless of their shrieks for mercy, were ruthlessly speared, the bloodthirsty savages roaring with delight as they tossed the miserable little wretches to and fro among each other, on the blades of their great assegais. Then they went away, leaving the bleeding and mangled corpses lying in the gateway, and calling out to the sick occupant of the place that the time for killing white people had not come yet. ”

“ The Matabele, however, asked no questions, and if a quick, fleeting look across his mask-like countenance, as they took their way onward through the starlight, betrayed his feelings it was all that did. Just before dawn they turned into a secure hiding-place formed by the angle of two great boulders, walled in in front by another accidental one—to rest throughout the hours of daylight.
And now a sure and certain instinct had taken hold upon Blachland, and the burden of it was that under no circumstances whatever dare he go to sleep. ”

“ For you know as well as I do, Luke, that Hilary holds and always will hold the first place in your heart.”
“And the same holds good of Percy in regard to yours, eh, Canon? Yet you are arguing against him for all you know how.”
“I am arguing against you, not against him. You invited remark upon the contents of this document, Luke, and asked me to advise you, and I have done my best to comply with both desires. Don’t be in a hurry to commit an act of injustice which you yourself may bitterly repent when it is too late, and past remedying. ”

“ The kopje up which he had taken his way, ascended by an easy acclivity to a point which commanded an immense view to the south and westward. Range upon range of rolling slope and wooded ridge lay there outspread—vast and scarcely inhabited country, a land given over to wild game and a few shrinking, starving remnants of tribes living in daily fear of the sweep of the terrible Matabele besom. The evening was still, and golden, and beautiful, and, seated under a mahobo-hobo tree, Blachland lit his pipe, and began to think out the position. ”

“ But Blachland is in condition as hard as steel, and far more at home in the water than the Matabele chief, so while gripping the latter by the wrists, he ducks his head beneath the surface, endeavouring to drown him if possible. He dare not let go his hold lest he should be the one grasped, and those above dare not fire down for fear of shooting their chief—even if they could see the contending parties—which they cannot. ”

“ In the deep, soft ground, rendered almost boggy in parts by the recent and continuous rains, their imprint was as the face of an open book. Blachland’s heart rose exceedingly. He would soon find the wanderer, mount him behind him on his horse and bring him back safely.
Then another thought struck him. Skelsey was no raw Britisher. He was a Natal man, and had been up-country, prospecting, for the last two or three years. Why the deuce then should he be unable to follow a plain broad spoor, for this seemed the only way of accounting for his deflection? ”

“ A thick volume of smoke rolled up as Blachland scrambled over the piled stones, nearly choking him, even in the open air. A sharp, sickening pain shot through his bruised ankle. Was it the fangs of the deadly mamba? Two or three of the great stones, displaced, rattled loosely—but the thunderous Snake song raised below must have drowned the rattle. Heavens! the smoke was parting! Only for a moment though, but in that moment the desperate man caught sight of that which encouraged him. The savages were clustering around the burning holocaust, heaping on piles of grass and brush. ”

“ Their servants, the two Bechuana boys, went grey with fear.
“Is it a case of leg-bail?” said Blachland, surveying the on-coming horde.
“No, we must face it anyhow,” answered Pemberton, puffing at his pipe tranquilly. “Besides, we can’t leave these poor devils of boys to be murdered. Eh, Sybrandt?”
“Never run away, except in a losing fight and there’s no help for it,” was the reply.
Accordingly they kept their horses at a walk. But the moment was a thrilling one. On swept the impi; but now it had drawn up into a walk, and from its ranks arose a song—
“Uti mayihlome, mayihlome katese njebo! ”