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+Project Gutenberg’s Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by Olive Schreiner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
+
+Author: Olive Schreiner
+
+Posting Date: September 15, 2008 [EBook #1431]
+Release Date: August, 1998
+Last Updated: October 12, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROOPER PETER HALKET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+TROOPER PETER HALKET OF MASHONALAND
+
+by Olive Schreiner
+
+Author of “Dreams,” “Dream Life and Real Life,” “The Story of an African
+Farm,” etc.
+
+Colonial Edition
+
+(A photographic plate at the front of the book shows three people
+hanging from a tree by their necks. Around them stand eight men, looking
+not at all troubled by their participation in the scene. Of this event
+all the survivors appear to be white, the victims black. The plate is
+titled “From a Photograph taken in Matabeleland.” S.A.)
+
+
+To a Great Good Man, Sir George Grey,
+
+Once Governor of the Cape Colony, who, during his rule in South Africa,
+bound to himself the Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Natives he governed, by
+an uncorruptible justice and a broad humanity; and who is remembered
+among us today as representing the noblest attributes of an Imperial
+Rule.
+
+     “Our low life was the level’s and the night’s;
+      He’s for the morning.”
+
+Olive Schreiner.
+
+     19, Russell Road,
+     Kensington, W.,
+     February, 1897.
+
+
+     Aardvark - The great anteater.
+     Cape Smoke - A very inferior brandy made in Cape Colony.
+     Kopje - Little hillock.
+     Kraal - A Kaffir encampment.
+     Mealies - Maize (corn).
+     Riem - A thong of undressed leather universally used in South Africa.
+     Vatje of Old Dop - A little cask of Cape brandy.
+     Veld - Open Country.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+It was a dark night; a chill breath was coming from the east; not enough
+to disturb the blaze of Trooper Peter Halket’s fire, yet enough to make
+it quiver. He sat alone beside it on the top of a kopje.
+
+All about was an impenetrable darkness; not a star was visible in the
+black curve over his head.
+
+He had been travelling with a dozen men who were taking provisions of
+mealies and rice to the next camp. He had been sent out to act as scout
+along a low range of hills, and had lost his way. Since eight in the
+morning he had wandered among long grasses, and ironstone kopjes, and
+stunted bush, and had come upon no sign of human habitation, but the
+remains of a burnt kraal, and a down-trampled and now uncultivated
+mealie field, where a month before the Chartered Company’s forces had
+destroyed a native settlement.
+
+Three times in the day it had appeared to him that he had returned to
+the very spot from which he had started; nor was it his wish to travel
+very far, for he knew his comrades would come back to look for him, to
+the neighbourhood where he had last been seen, when it was found at the
+evening camping ground that he did not appear.
+
+Trooper Peter Halket was very weary. He had eaten nothing all day; and
+had touched little of the contents of a small flask of Cape brandy
+he carried in his breast pocket, not knowing when it would again be
+replenished.
+
+As night drew near he determined to make his resting place on the top of
+one of the kopjes, which stood somewhat alone and apart from the others.
+He could not easily be approached there, without his knowing it. He had
+not much fear of the natives; their kraals had been destroyed and their
+granaries burnt for thirty miles round, and they themselves had fled:
+but he feared, somewhat, the lions, which he had never seen, but of
+which he had heard, and which might be cowering in the long grasses and
+brushwood at the kopje’s foot:--and he feared, vaguely, he hardly knew
+what, when he looked forward to his first long night alone in the veld.
+
+By the time the sun had set he had gathered a little pile of stumps and
+branches on the top of the kopje. He intended to keep a fire burning all
+night; and as the darkness began to settle down he lit it. It might
+be his friends would see it from far, and come for him early in the
+morning; and wild beasts would hardly approach him while he knelt beside
+it; and of the natives he felt there was little fear.
+
+He built up the fire; and determined if it were possible to keep awake
+the whole night beside it.
+
+He was a slight man of middle height, with a sloping forehead and pale
+blue eyes: but the jaws were hard set, and the thin lips of the large
+mouth were those of a man who could strongly desire the material good of
+life, and enjoy it when it came his way. Over the lower half of the face
+were scattered a few soft white hairs, the growth of early manhood.
+
+From time to time he listened intently for possible sounds from the
+distance where his friends might be encamped, and might fire off their
+guns at seeing his light; or he listened yet more intently for sounds
+nearer at hand: but all was still, except for the occasional cracking
+of the wood in his own fire, and the slight whistle of the breeze as it
+crept past the stones on the kopje. He doubled up his great hat and put
+it in the pocket of his overcoat, and put on a little two-pointed cap
+his mother had made for him, which fitted so close that only one lock
+of white hair hung out over his forehead. He turned up the collar of his
+coat to shield his neck and ears, and threw it open in front that the
+blaze of the fire might warm him. He had known many nights colder than
+this when he had sat around the camp fire with his comrades, talking of
+the niggers they had shot or the kraals they had destroyed, or grumbling
+over their rations; but tonight the chill seemed to creep into his very
+bones.
+
+The darkness of the night above him, and the silence of the veld about
+him, oppressed him. At times he even wished he might hear the cry of a
+jackal or of some larger beast of prey in the distance; and he wished
+that the wind would blow a little louder, instead of making that little
+wheezing sound as it passed the corners of the stones. He looked down
+at his gun, which lay cocked ready on the ground at his right side;
+and from time to time he raised his hand automatically and fingered the
+cartridges in his belt. Then he stretched out his small wiry hands to
+the fire and warmed them. It was only half past ten, and it seemed to
+him he had been sitting here ten hours at the least.
+
+After a while he threw two more large logs on the fire, and took the
+flask out of his pocket. He examined it carefully by the firelight to
+see how much it held: then he took a small draught, and examined it
+again to see how much it had fallen; and put it back in his breast
+pocket.
+
+Then Trooper Peter Halket fell to thinking.
+
+It was not often that he thought. On patrol and sitting round camp fires
+with the other men about him there was no time for it; and Peter Halket
+had never been given to much thinking. He had been a careless boy at the
+village school; and though, when he left, his mother paid the village
+apothecary to read learned books with him at night on history and
+science, he had not retained much of them. As a rule he lived in the
+world immediately about him, and let the things of the moment impinge
+on him, and fall off again as they would, without much reflection.
+But tonight on the kopje he fell to thinking, and his thoughts shaped
+themselves into connected chains.
+
+He wondered first whether his mother would ever get the letter he had
+posted the week before, and whether it would be brought to her cottage
+or she would go to the post office to fetch it. And then, he fell to
+thinking of the little English village where he had been born, and where
+he had grown up. He saw his mother’s fat white ducklings creep in and
+out under the gate, and waddle down to the little pond at the back of
+the yard; he saw the school house that he had hated so much as a
+boy, and from which he had so often run away to go a-fishing, or
+a-bird’s-nesting. He saw the prints on the school house wall on which
+the afternoon sun used to shine when he was kept in; Jesus of Judea
+blessing the children, and one picture just over the door where he hung
+with his arms stretched out and the blood dropping from his feet. Then
+Peter Halket thought of the tower at the ruins which he had climbed so
+often for birds’ eggs; and he saw his mother standing at her cottage
+gate when he came home in the evening, and he felt her arms round his
+neck as she kissed him; but he felt her tears on his cheek, because he
+had run away from school all day; and he seemed to be making apologies
+to her, and promising he never would do it again if only she would not
+cry. He had often thought of her since he left her, on board ship, and
+when he was working with the prospectors, and since he had joined the
+troop; but it had been in a vague way; he had not distinctly seen and
+felt her. But tonight he wished for her as he used to when he was
+a small boy and lay in his bed in the next room, and saw her shadow
+through the door as she bent over her wash-tub earning the money which
+was to feed and clothe him. He remembered how he called her and she came
+and tucked him in and called him “Little Simon,” which was his second
+name and had been his father’s, and which she only called him when he
+was in bed at night, or when he was hurt.
+
+He sat there staring into the blaze. He resolved he would make a great
+deal of money, and she should live with him. He would build a large
+house in the West End of London, the biggest that had ever been seen,
+and another in the country, and they should never work any more.
+
+Peter Halket sat as one turned into stone, staring into the fire.
+
+All men made money when they came to South Africa,--Barney Barnato,
+Rhodes--they all made money out of the country, eight millions, twelve
+millions, twenty-six millions, forty millions; why should not he!
+
+Peter Halket started suddenly and listened. But it was only the wind
+coming up the kopje like a great wheezy beast creeping upwards; and he
+looked back into the fire.
+
+He considered his business prospects. When he had served his time
+as volunteer he would have a large piece of land given him, and the
+Mashonas and Matabeles would have all their land taken away from them in
+time, and the Chartered Company would pass a law that they had to work
+for the white men; and he, Peter Halket, would make them work for him.
+He would make money.
+
+Then he reflected on what he should do with the land if it were no good
+and he could not make anything out of it. Then, he should have to
+start a syndicate; called the Peter Halket Gold, or the Peter Halket
+Iron-mining, or some such name, Syndicate. Peter Halket was not very
+clear as to how it ought to be started; but he felt certain that he and
+some other men would have to take shares. They would not have to pay for
+them. And then they would get some big man in London to take shares. He
+need not pay for them; they would give them to him; and then the company
+would be floated. No one would have to pay anything; it was just the
+name--“The Peter Halket Gold Mining Company, Limited.” It would float
+in London; and people there who didn’t know the country would buy the
+shares; THEY would have to give ready money for them, of course; perhaps
+fifteen pounds a share when they were up!--Peter Halket’s eyes blinked
+as he looked into the fire.--And then, when the market was up, he,
+Peter Halket, would sell out all his shares. If he gave himself only six
+thousand and sold them each for ten pounds, then he, Peter Halket, would
+have sixty thousand pounds! And then he would start another company, and
+another.
+
+Peter Halket struck his knee softly with his hand.
+
+That was the great thing--“Always sell out at the right time.”
+ That point Peter Halket was very clear on. He had heard it so often
+discussed. Give some shares to men with big names, and sell out: they
+can sell out too at the right time.
+
+Peter Halket stroked his knee thoughtfully.
+
+And then the other people, that bought the shares for cash! Well, they
+could sell out too; they could all sell out!
+
+Then Peter Halket’s mind got a little hazy. The matter was getting too
+difficult for him, like a rule of three sum at school when he could not
+see the relation between the two first terms and the third. Well, if
+they didn’t like to sell out at the right time, it was their own faults.
+Why didn’t they? He, Peter Halket, did not feel responsible for them.
+Everyone knew that you had to sell out at the right time. If they didn’t
+choose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn’t. “It’s the
+shares that you sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money.”
+
+But if they couldn’t sell them?
+
+Here Peter Halket hesitated.--Well, the British Government would have to
+buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
+lose. “The British Government can’t let British share-holders suffer.”
+ He’d heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay for
+the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
+couldn’t, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
+lords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn’t they
+pay for his company? He would have a lord in it too!
+
+Peter Halket looked into the fire completely absorbed in his
+calculations.--Peter Halket, Esq., Director of the Peter Halket Gold
+Mining Company, Limited. Then, when he had got thousands, Peter
+Halket, Esq., M.P. Then, when he had millions, Sir Peter Halket, Privy
+Councillor!
+
+He reflected deeply, looking into the blaze. If you had five or six
+millions you could go where you liked and do what you liked. You could
+go to Sandringham. You could marry anyone. No one would ask what your
+mother had been; it wouldn’t matter.
+
+A curious dull sinking sensation came over Peter Halket; and he drew in
+his broad leathern belt two holes tighter.
+
+Even if you had only two millions you could have a cook and a valet, to
+go with you when you went into the veld or to the wars; and you could
+have as much champagne and other things as you liked. At that moment
+that seemed to Peter more important than going to Sandringham.
+
+He took out his flask of Cape Smoke, and drew a tiny draught from it.
+
+Other men had come to South Africa with nothing, and had made
+everything! Why should not he?
+
+He stuck small branches under the two great logs, and a glorious flame
+burst out. Then he listened again intently. The wind was falling and the
+night was becoming very still. It was a quarter to twelve now. His back
+ached, and he would have liked to lie down; but he dared not, for fear
+he should drop asleep. He leaned forward with his hands between his
+crossed knees, and watched the blaze he had made.
+
+Then, after a while, Peter Halket’s thoughts became less clear: they
+became at last, rather, a chain of disconnected pictures, painting
+themselves in irrelevant order on his brain, than a line of connected
+ideas. Now, as he looked into the crackling blaze, it seemed to be one
+of the fires they had make to burn the natives’ grain by, and they were
+throwing in all they could not carry away: then, he seemed to see his
+mother’s fat ducks waddling down the little path with the green grass
+on each side. Then, he seemed to see his huts where he lived with the
+prospectors, and the native women who used to live with him; and he
+wondered where the women were. Then--he saw the skull of an old Mashona
+blown off at the top, the hands still moving. He heard the loud cry of
+the native women and children as they turned the maxims on to the kraal;
+and then he heard the dynamite explode that blew up a cave. Then again
+he was working a maxim gun, but it seemed to him it was more like the
+reaping machine he used to work in England, and that what was going down
+before it was not yellow corn, but black men’s heads; and he thought
+when he looked back they lay behind him in rows, like the corn in
+sheaves.
+
+The logs sent up a flame clear and high, and, where they split, showed
+a burning core inside: the cracking and spluttering sounded in his brain
+like the discharge of a battery of artillery. Then he thought suddenly
+of a black woman he and another man caught alone in the bush, her baby
+on her back, but young and pretty. Well, they didn’t shoot her!--and a
+black woman wasn’t white! His mother didn’t understand these things;
+it was all so different in England from South Africa. You couldn’t
+be expected to do the same sort of things here as there. He had an
+unpleasant feeling that he was justifying himself to his mother, and
+that he didn’t know how to.
+
+He leaned further and further forward: so far at last, that the little
+white lock of his hair which hung out under his cap was almost singed by
+the fire. His eyes were still open, but the lids drooped over them, and
+his hands hung lower and lower between his knees. There was no picture
+left on his brain now, but simply an impress of the blazing logs before
+him.
+
+Then, Trooper Peter Halket started. He sat up and listened. The wind had
+gone; there was not a sound: but he listened intently. The fire burnt up
+into the still air, two clear red tongues of flame.
+
+Then, on the other side of the kopje he heard the sound of footsteps
+ascending; the slow even tread of bare feet coming up.
+
+The hair on Trooper Peter Halket’s forehead slowly stiffened itself. He
+had no thought of escaping; he was paralyzed with dread. He took up his
+gun. A deadly coldness crept from his feet to his head. He had worked a
+maxim gun in a fight when some hundred natives fell and only one white
+man had been wounded; and he had never known fear; but tonight his
+fingers were stiff on the lock of his gun. He knelt low, tending
+a little to one side of the fire, with his gun ready. A stone half
+sheltered him from anyone coming up from the other side of the kopje,
+and the instant the figure appeared over the edge he intended to fire.
+
+Then, the thought flashed on him; what, and if it were one of his own
+comrades come in search of him, and no bare-footed enemy! The anguish of
+suspense wrung his heart; for an instant he hesitated. Then, in a cold
+agony of terror, he cried out, “Who is there?”
+
+And a voice replied in clear, slow English, “A friend.”
+
+Peter Halket almost let his gun drop, in the revulsion of feeling. The
+cold sweat which anguish had restrained burst out in large drops on his
+forehead; but he still knelt holding his gun.
+
+“What do you want?” he cried out quiveringly.
+
+From the darkness at the edge of the kopje a figure stepped out into the
+full blaze of the firelight.
+
+Trooper Peter Halket looked up at it.
+
+It was the tall figure of a man, clad in one loose linen garment,
+reaching lower than his knees, and which clung close about him. His
+head, arms, and feet were bare. He carried no weapon of any kind; and on
+his shoulders hung heavy locks of dark hair.
+
+Peter Halket looked up at him with astonishment. “Are you alone?” he
+asked.
+
+“Yes, I am alone.”
+
+Peter Halket lowered his gun and knelt up.
+
+“Lost your way, I suppose?” he said, still holding his weapon loosely.
+
+“No; I have come to ask whether I may sit beside your fire for a while.”
+
+“Certainly, certainly!” said Peter, eyeing the stranger’s dress
+carefully, still holding his gun, but with the hand off the lock. “I’m
+confoundedly glad of any company. It’s a beastly night for anyone to be
+out alone. Wonder you find your way. Sit down! sit down!” Peter looked
+intently at the stranger; then he put his gun down at his side.
+
+The stranger sat down on the opposite side of the fire. His complexion
+was dark; his arms and feet were bronzed; but his aquiline features, and
+the domed forehead, were not of any South African race.
+
+“One of the Soudanese Rhodes brought with him from the north, I
+suppose?” said Peter, still eyeing him curiously.
+
+“No; Cecil Rhodes has had nothing to do with my coming here,” said the
+stranger.
+
+“Oh--” said Peter. “You didn’t perhaps happen to come across a company
+of men today, twelve white men and seven coloured, with three cart loads
+of provisions? We were taking them to the big camp, and I got parted
+from my troop this morning. I’ve not been able to find them, though I’ve
+been seeking for them ever since.”
+
+The stranger warmed his hands slowly at the fire; then he raised his
+head:--“They are camped at the foot of those hills tonight,” he said,
+pointing with his hand into the darkness at the left. “Tomorrow early
+they will be here, before the sun has risen.”
+
+“Oh, you’ve met them, have you!” said Peter joyfully; “that’s why you
+weren’t surprised at finding me here. Take a drop!” He took the small
+flask from his pocket and held it out. “I’m sorry there’s so little, but
+a drop will keep the cold out.”
+
+The stranger bowed his head; but thanked and declined.
+
+Peter raised the flask to his lips and took a small draught; then
+returned it to his pocket. The stranger folded his arms about his knees,
+and looked into the fire.
+
+“Are you a Jew?” asked Peter, suddenly; as the firelight fell full on
+the stranger’s face.
+
+“Yes; I am a Jew.”
+
+“Ah,” said Peter, “that’s why I wasn’t able to make out at first what
+nation you could be of; your dress, you know--” Then he stopped, and
+said, “Trading here, I suppose? Which country do you come from; are you
+a Spanish Jew?”
+
+“I am a Jew of Palestine.”
+
+“Ah!” said Peter; “I haven’t seen many from that part yet. I came out
+with a lot on board ship; and I’ve seen Barnato and Beit; but they’re
+not very much like you. I suppose it’s coming from Palestine makes the
+difference.”
+
+All fear of the stranger had now left Peter Halket. “Come a little
+nearer the fire,” he said, “you must be cold, you haven’t too much
+wraps. I’m chill in this big coat.” Peter Halket pushed his gun a little
+further away from him; and threw another large log on the fire. “I’m
+sorry I haven’t anything to eat to offer you; but I haven’t had anything
+myself since last night. It’s beastly sickening, being out like this
+with nothing to eat. Wouldn’t have thought a fellow’d feel so bad after
+only a day of it. Have you ever been out without grub?” said Peter
+cheerfully, warming his hands at the blaze.
+
+“Forty days and nights,” said the stranger.
+
+“Forty days! Ph--e--ew!” said Peter. “You must have have had a lot to
+drink, or you wouldn’t have stood it. I was feeling blue enough when you
+turned up, but I’m better now, warmer.”
+
+Peter Halket re-arranged the logs on the fire.
+
+“In the employ of the Chartered Company, I suppose?” said Peter, looking
+into the fire he had made.
+
+“No,” said the stranger; “I have nothing to do with the Chartered
+Company.”
+
+“Oh,” said Peter, “I don’t wonder, then, that things aren’t looking very
+smart with you! There’s not too much cakes and ale up here for those
+that do belong to it, if they’re not big-wigs, and none at all for those
+who don’t. I tried it when I first came up here. I was with a prospector
+who was hooked on to the Company somehow, but I worked on my own account
+for the prospector by the day. I tell you what, it’s not the men
+who work up here who make the money; it’s the big-wigs who get the
+concessions!”
+
+Peter felt exhilarated by the presence of the stranger. That one unarmed
+man had robbed him of all fear.
+
+Seeing that the stranger did not take up the thread of conversation, he
+went on after a time: “It wasn’t such a bad life, though. I only wish I
+was back there again. I had two huts to myself, and a couple of nigger
+girls. It’s better fun,” said Peter, after a while, “having these black
+women than whites. The whites you’ve got to support, but the niggers
+support you! And when you’ve done with them you can just get rid of
+them. I’m all for the nigger gals.” Peter laughed. But the stranger sat
+motionless with his arms about his knees.
+
+“You got any girls?” said Peter. “Care for niggers?”
+
+“I love all women,” said the stranger, refolding his arms about his
+knees.
+
+“Oh, you do, do you?” said Peter. “Well, I’m pretty sick of them. I had
+bother enough with mine,” he said genially, warming his hands by the
+fire, and then interlocking the fingers and turning the palms towards
+the blaze as one who prepares to enjoy a good talk. “One girl was only
+fifteen; I got her cheap from a policeman who was living with her, and
+she wasn’t much. But the other, by Gad! I never saw another nigger like
+her; well set up, I tell you, and as straight as that--” said Peter,
+holding up his finger in the firelight. “She was thirty if she was a
+day. Fellows don’t generally fancy women that age; they like slips of
+girls. But I set my heart on her the day I saw her. She belonged to the
+chap I was with. He got her up north. There was a devil of a row about
+his getting her, too; she’d got a nigger husband and two children;
+didn’t want to leave them, or some nonsense of that sort: you know what
+these niggers are? Well, I tried to get the other fellow to let me have
+her, but the devil a bit he would. I’d only got the other girl, and I
+didn’t much fancy her; she was only a child. Well, I went down Umtali
+way and got a lot of liquor and stuff, and when I got back to camp I
+found them clean dried out. They hadn’t had a drop of liquor in camp for
+ten days, and the rainy season coming on and no knowing when they’d get
+any. Well, I’d a vatje of Old Dop as high as that--,” indicating with
+his hand an object about two feet high, “and the other fellow wanted to
+buy it from me. I knew two of that. I said I wanted it for myself. He
+offered me this, and he offered me that. At last I said, ‘Well, just to
+oblige you, I give you the vatje and you give me the girl!’ And so
+he did. Most people wouldn’t have fancied a nigger girl who’d had two
+nigger children, but I didn’t mind; it’s all the same to me. And I tell
+you she worked. She made a garden, and she and the other girl worked in
+it; I tell you I didn’t need to buy a sixpence of food for them in six
+months, and I used to sell green mealies and pumpkins to all the fellows
+about. There weren’t many flies on her, I tell you. She picked up
+English quicker than I picked up her lingo, and took to wearing a dress
+and shawl.”
+
+The stranger still sat motionless, looking into the fire.
+
+Peter Halket reseated himself more comfortably before the fire. “Well,
+I came home to the huts one day, rather suddenly, you know, to fetch
+something; and what did I find? She, talking at the hut door with a
+nigger man. Now it was my strict orders they were neither to speak a
+word to a nigger man at all; so I asked what it was. And she answers, as
+cool as can be, that he was a stranger going past on the road, and asked
+her to give him a drink of water. Well, I just ordered him off. I didn’t
+think anything more about it. But I remember now. I saw him hanging
+about the camp the day after. Well, she came to me the next day and
+asked me for a lot of cartridges. She’d never asked me for anything
+before. I asked her what the devil a woman wanted with cartridges, and
+she said the old nigger woman who helped carry in water to the garden
+said she couldn’t stay and help her any more unless she got some
+cartridges to give her son who was going up north hunting elephants. The
+woman got over me to give her the cartridges because she was going to
+have a kid, and she said she couldn’t do the watering without help. So I
+gave them her. I never put two and two together.
+
+“Well, when I heard that the Company was going to have a row with the
+Matabele, I thought I’d volunteer. They said there was lots of loot to
+be got, and land to be given out, and that sort of thing, and I thought
+I’d only be gone about three months. So I went. I left those women
+there, and a lot of stuff in the garden and some sugar and rice, and I
+told them not to leave till I came back; and I asked the other man to
+keep an eye on them. Both those women were Mashonas. They always said
+the Mashonas didn’t love the Matabele; but, by God, it turned out
+that they loved them better than they loved us. They’ve got the damned
+impertinence to say, that the Matabele oppressed them sometimes, but the
+white man oppresses them all the time!
+
+“Well, I left those women there,” said Peter, dropping his hands on his
+knees. “Mind you, I’d treated those women really well. I’d never given
+either of them one touch all the time I had them. I was the talk of all
+the fellows round, the way I treated them. Well, I hadn’t been gone a
+month, when I got a letter from the man I worked with, the one who had
+the woman first--he’s dead now, poor fellow; they found him at his hut
+door with his throat cut--and what do you think he said to me? Why, I
+hadn’t been gone six hours when those two women skooted! It was all the
+big one. What do you think she did? She took every ounce of ball and
+cartridge she could find in that hut, and my old Martini-Henry, and even
+the lid off the tea-box to melt into bullets for the old muzzle-loaders
+they have; and off she went, and took the young one too. The fellow
+wrote me they didn’t touch another thing: they left the shawls and
+dresses I gave them kicking about the huts, and went off naked with only
+their blankets and the ammunition on their heads. A nigger man met them
+twenty miles off, and he said they were skooting up for Lo Magundi’s
+country as fast as they could go.
+
+“And do you know,” said Peter, striking his knee, and looking
+impressively across the fire at the stranger; “what I’m as sure of as
+that I’m sitting here? It’s that that nigger I caught at my hut, that
+day, was her nigger husband! He’d come to fetch her that time; and when
+she saw she couldn’t get away without our catching her, she got the
+cartridges for him!” Peter paused impressively between the words. “And
+now she’s gone back to him. It’s for him she’s taken that ammunition!”
+
+Peter looked across the fire at the stranger, to see what impression his
+story was making.
+
+“I tell you what,” said Peter, “if I’d had any idea that day who that
+bloody nigger was, the day I saw him standing at my door, I’d have given
+him one cartridge in the back of his head more than ever he reckoned
+for!” Peter looked triumphantly at the stranger. This was his only
+story; and he had told it a score of times round the camp fire for the
+benefit of some new-comer. When this point was reached, a low murmur
+of applause and sympathy always ran round the group: tonight there was
+quiet; the stranger’s large dark eyes watched the fire almost as though
+he heard nothing.
+
+“I shouldn’t have minded so much,” said Peter after a while, “though no
+man likes to have his woman taken away from him; but she was going to
+have a kid in a month or two--and so was the little one for anything I
+know; she looked like it! I expect they did away with it before it came;
+they’ve no hearts, these niggers; they’d think nothing of doing that
+with a white man’s child. They’ve no hearts; they’d rather go back to a
+black man, however well you’ve treated them. It’s all right if you get
+them quite young and keep them away from their own people; but if once
+a nigger woman’s had a nigger man and had children by him, you might as
+well try to hold a she-devil! they’ll always go back. If ever I’m shot,
+it’s as likely as not it’ll be by my own gun, with my own cartridges.
+And she’d stand by and watch it, and cheer them on; though I never gave
+her a blow all the time she was with me. But I tell you what--if ever I
+come across that bloody nigger, I’ll take it out of him. He won’t count
+many days to his year, after I’ve spotted him!” Peter Halket paused.
+It seemed to him that the eyes under their heavy, curled lashes, were
+looking at something beyond him with an infinite sadness, almost as of
+eyes that wept.
+
+“You look awfully tired,” said Peter; “wouldn’t you like to lie down and
+sleep? You could put your head down on that stone, and I’d keep watch.”
+
+“I have no need of sleep,” the stranger said; “I will watch with you.”
+
+“You’ve been in the wars, too, I see,” said Peter, bending forward a
+little, and looking at the stranger’s feet. “By God! Both of them!--And
+right through! You must have had a bad time of it?”
+
+“It was very long ago,” said the stranger.
+
+Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire. “Do you know,” he said,
+“I’ve been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of.
+It’s my mother! You’re not like her in the face, but when your eyes look
+at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me. Curious, isn’t it?
+I don’t know you from Adam, and you’ve hardly spoken a word since you
+came; and yet I seem as if I’d known you all my life.” Peter moved a
+little nearer him. “I was awfully afraid of you when you first came;
+even when I first saw you;--you aren’t dressed as most of us dress,
+you know. But the minute the fire shone on your face I said, ‘It’s all
+right.’ Curious, isn’t it?” said Peter. “I don’t know you from Adam, but
+if you were to take up my gun and point it at me, I wouldn’t move! I’d
+lie down here and go to sleep with my head at your feet; curious, isn’t
+it, when I don’t know you from Adam? My name’s Peter Halket. What’s
+yours?”
+
+But the stranger was arranging the logs on the fire. The flames shot up
+bright and high, and almost hid him from Peter Halket’s view.
+
+“By gad! how they burn when you arrange them!” said Peter.
+
+They sat quiet in the blaze for a while.
+
+Then Peter said, “Did you see any niggers about yesterday? I haven’t
+come across any in this part.”
+
+“There is,” said the stranger, raising himself, “an old woman in a cave
+over yonder, and there is one man in the bush, ten miles from this spot.
+He has lived there six weeks, since you destroyed the kraal, living on
+roots or herbs. He was wounded in the thigh, and left for dead. He is
+waiting till you have all left this part of the country that he may set
+out to follow his own people. His leg is not yet so strong that he may
+walk fast.”
+
+“Did you speak to him?” said Peter.
+
+“I took him down to the water where a large pool was. The bank was too
+high for the man to descend alone.”
+
+“It’s a lucky thing for you our fellows didn’t catch you,” said Peter.
+“Our captain’s a regular little martinet. He’d shoot you as soon as look
+at you, if he saw you fooling round with a wounded nigger. It’s lucky
+you kept out of his way.”
+
+“The young ravens have meat given to them,” said the stranger, lifting
+himself up; “and the lions go down to the streams to drink.”
+
+“Ah--yes--” said Peter; “but that’s because we can’t help it!”
+
+They were silent again for a little while. Then Peter, seeing that the
+stranger showed no inclination to speak, said, “Did you hear of the
+spree they had up Bulawayo way, hanging those three niggers for spies? I
+wasn’t there myself, but a fellow who was told me they made the niggers
+jump down from the tree and hang themselves; one fellow wouldn’t bally
+jump, till they gave him a charge of buckshot in the back: and then he
+caught hold of a branch with his hands and they had to shoot ‘em loose.
+He didn’t like hanging. I don’t know if it’s true, of course; I wasn’t
+there myself, but a fellow who was told me. Another fellow who was at
+Bulawayo, but who wasn’t there when they were hung, said they fired at
+them just after they jumped, to kill ‘em. I--”
+
+“I was there,” said the stranger.
+
+“Oh, you were?” said Peter. “I saw a photograph of the niggers hanging,
+and our fellows standing round smoking; but I didn’t see you in it. I
+suppose you’d just gone away?”
+
+“I was beside the men when they were hung,” said the stranger.
+
+“Oh, you were, were you?” said Peter. “I don’t much care about seeing
+that sort of thing myself. Some fellows think it’s the best fun out to
+see the niggers kick; but I can’t stand it: it turns my stomach. It’s
+not liver-heartedness,” said Peter, quickly, anxious to remove any
+adverse impression as to his courage which the stranger might form; “if
+it’s shooting or fighting, I’m there. I’ve potted as many niggers as any
+man in our troop, I bet. It’s floggings and hangings I’m off. It’s the
+way one’s brought up, you know. My mother never even would kill our
+ducks; she let them die of old age, and we had the feathers and the
+eggs: and she was always drumming into me;--don’t hit a fellow smaller
+than yourself; don’t hit a fellow weaker than yourself; don’t hit a
+fellow unless he can hit you back as good again. When you’ve always had
+that sort of thing drummed into you, you can’t get rid of it, somehow.
+Now there was that other nigger they shot. They say he sat as still as
+if he was cut out of stone, with his arms round his legs; and some of
+the fellows gave him blows about the head and face before they took him
+off to shoot him. Now, that’s the sort of thing I can’t do. It makes me
+sick here, somehow.” Peter put his hand rather low down over the pit of
+his stomach. “I’ll shoot as many as you like if they’ll run, but they
+mustn’t be tied up.”
+
+“I was there when that man was shot,” said the stranger.
+
+“Why, you seem to have been everywhere,” said Peter. “Have you seen
+Cecil Rhodes?”
+
+“Yes, I have seen him,” said the stranger.
+
+“Now he’s death on niggers,” said Peter Halket, warming his hands by the
+fire; “they say when he was Prime Minister down in the Colony he tried
+to pass a law that would give their masters and mistresses the right to
+have their servants flogged whenever they did anything they didn’t like;
+but the other Englishmen wouldn’t let him pass it. But here he can do
+what he likes. That’s the reason some fellows don’t want him to be
+sent away. They say, ‘If we get the British Government here, they’ll be
+giving the niggers land to live on; and let them have the vote, and get
+civilised and educated, and all that sort of thing; but Cecil Rhodes,
+he’ll keep their noses to the grindstone.’ ‘I prefer land to niggers,’
+he says. They say he’s going to parcel them out, and make them work on
+our lands whether they like it or not--just as good as having slaves,
+you know: and you haven’t the bother of looking after them when they’re
+old. Now, there I’m with Rhodes; I think it’s an awfully good move. We
+don’t come out here to work; it’s all very well in England; but we’ve
+come here to make money, and how are we to make it, unless you get
+niggers to work for you, or start a syndicate? He’s death on niggers,
+is Rhodes!” said Peter, meditating; “they say if we had the British
+Government here and you were thrashing a nigger and something happened,
+there’d be an investigation, and all that sort of thing. But, with
+Cecil, it’s all right, you can do what you like with the niggers,
+provided you don’t get HIM into trouble.”
+
+The stranger watched the clear flame as it burnt up high in the still
+night air; then suddenly he started.
+
+“What is it?” said Peter; “do you hear anything?”
+
+“I hear far off,” said the stranger, “the sound of weeping, and the
+sound of blows. And I hear the voices of men and women calling to me.”
+
+Peter listened intently. “I don’t hear anything!” he said. “It must be
+in your head. I sometimes get a noise in mine.” He listened intently.
+“No, there’s nothing. It’s all so deadly still.”
+
+They sat silent for a while.
+
+“Peter Simon Halket,” said the stranger suddenly--Peter started; he had
+not told him his second name--“if it should come to pass that you should
+obtain those lands you have desired, and you should obtain black men to
+labour on them and make to yourself great wealth; or should you create
+that company”--Peter started--“and fools should buy from you, so that
+you became the richest man in the land; and if you should take to
+yourself wide lands, and raise to yourself great palaces, so that
+princes and great men of earth crept up to you and laid their hands
+against yours, so that you might slip gold into them--what would it
+profit you?”
+
+“Profit!” Peter Halket stared: “Why, it would profit everything.
+What makes Beit and Rhodes and Barnato so great? If you’ve got eight
+millions--”
+
+“Peter Simon Halket, which of those souls you have seen on earth is to
+you greatest?” said the stranger, “Which soul is to you fairest?”
+
+“Ah,” said Peter, “but we weren’t talking of souls at all; we were
+talking of money. Of course if it comes to souls, my mother’s the best
+person I’ve ever seen. But what does it help her? She’s got to stand
+washing clothes for those stuck-up nincompoops of fine ladies! Wait till
+I’ve got money! It’ll be somebody else then, who--”
+
+“Peter Halket,” said the stranger, “who is the greatest; he who serves
+or he who is served?” Peter looked at the stranger: then it flashed on
+him that he was mad.
+
+“Oh,” he said, “if it comes to that, what’s anything! You might as well
+say, sitting there in your old linen shirt, that you were as great as
+Rhodes or Beit or Barnato, or a king. Of course a man’s just the same
+whatever he’s got on or whatever he has; but he isn’t the same to other
+people.”
+
+“There have kings been born in stables,” said the stranger.
+
+Then Peter saw that he was joking, and laughed. “It must have been a
+long time ago; they don’t get born there now,” he said. “Why, if God
+Almighty came to this country, and hadn’t half-a-million in shares, they
+wouldn’t think much of Him.”
+
+Peter built up his fire. Suddenly he felt the stranger’s eyes were fixed
+on him.
+
+“Who gave you your land?” the stranger asked.
+
+“Mine! Why, the Chartered Company,” said Peter.
+
+The stranger looked back into the fire. “And who gave it to them?” he
+asked softly.
+
+“Why, England, of course. She gave them the land to far beyond the
+Zambezi to do what they liked with, and make as much money out of as
+they could, and she’d back ‘em.”
+
+“Who gave the land to the men and women of England?” asked the stranger
+softly.
+
+“Why, the devil! They said it was theirs, and of course it was,” said
+Peter.
+
+“And the people of the land: did England give you the people also?”
+
+Peter looked a little doubtfully at the stranger. “Yes, of course, she
+gave us the people; what use would the land have been to us otherwise?”
+
+“And who gave her the people, the living flesh and blood, that she might
+give them away, into the hands of others?” asked the stranger, raising
+himself.
+
+Peter looked at him and was half afeared. “Well, what could she do with
+a lot of miserable niggers, if she didn’t give them to us? A lot of
+good-for-nothing rebels they are, too,” said Peter.
+
+“What is a rebel?” asked the stranger.
+
+“My Gawd!” said Peter, “you must have lived out of the world if you
+don’t know what a rebel is! A rebel is a man who fights against his king
+and his country. These bloody niggers here are rebels because they are
+fighting against us. They don’t want the Chartered Company to have them.
+But they’ll have to. We’ll teach them a lesson,” said Peter Halket, the
+pugilistic spirit rising, firmly reseating himself on the South African
+earth, which two years before he had never heard of, and eighteen months
+before he had never seen, as if it had been his mother earth, and the
+land in which he first saw light.
+
+The stranger watched the fire; then he said musingly, “I have seen a
+land far from here. In that land are men of two kinds who live side by
+side. Well nigh a thousand years ago one conquered the other; they have
+lived together since. Today the one people seeks to drive forth the
+other who conquered them. Are these men rebels, too?”
+
+“Well,” said Peter, pleased at being deferred to, “that all depends who
+they are, you know!”
+
+“They call the one nation Turks, and the other Armenians,” said the
+stranger.
+
+“Oh, the Armenians aren’t rebels,” said Peter; “they are on our
+side! The papers are all full of it,” said Peter, pleased to show his
+knowledge. “Those bloody Turks! What right had they to conquer the
+Armenians? Who gave them their land? I’d like to have a shot at them
+myself!”
+
+“WHY are Armenians not rebels?” asked the stranger, gently.
+
+“Oh, you do ask such curious questions,” said Peter. “If they don’t
+like the Turks, why should they have ‘em? If the French came now and
+conquered us, and we tried to drive them out first chance we had; you
+wouldn’t call us rebels! Why shouldn’t they try to turn those bloody
+Turks out? Besides,” said Peter, bending over and talking in the manner
+of one who imparts secret and important information; “you see, if
+we don’t help the Armenians the Russians would; and we,” said Peter,
+looking exceedingly knowing, “we’ve got to prevent that: they’d get
+the land; and it’s on the road to India. And we don’t mean them to. I
+suppose you don’t know much about politics in Palestine?” said Peter,
+looking kindly and patronisingly at the stranger.
+
+“If these men,” said the stranger, “would rather be free, or be under
+the British Government, than under the Chartered Company, why, when they
+resist the Chartered Company, are they more rebels than the Armenians
+when they resist the Turk? Is the Chartered Company God, that every knee
+should bow before it, and before it every head be bent? Would you, the
+white men of England, submit to its rule for one day?”
+
+“Ah,” said Peter, “no, of course we shouldn’t, but we are white men, and
+so are the Armenians--almost--” Then he glanced at the stranger’s dark
+face, and added quickly, “At least, it’s not the colour that matters,
+you know. I rather like a dark face, my mother’s eyes are brown--but the
+Armenians, you know, they’ve got long hair like us.”
+
+“Oh, it is the hair, then, that matters,” said the stranger softly.
+
+“Oh, well,” said Peter, “it’s not altogether, of course. But it’s quite
+a different thing, the Armenians wanting to get rid of the Turks,
+and these bloody niggers wanting to get rid of the Chartered Company.
+Besides, the Armenians are Christians, like us!”
+
+“Are YOU Christians?” A strange storm broke across the stranger’s
+features; he rose to his feet.
+
+“Why, of course, we are!” said Peter. “We’re all Christians, we English.
+Perhaps you don’t like Christians, though? Some Jews don’t, I know,”
+ said Peter, looking up soothingly at him.
+
+“I neither love nor hate any man for that which he is called,” said the
+stranger; “the name boots nothing.”
+
+The stranger sat down again beside the fire, and folded his hands.
+
+“Is the Chartered Company Christian also?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, oh yes,” said Peter.
+
+“What is a Christian?” asked the stranger.
+
+“Well, now, you really do ask such curious questions. A Christian is a
+man who believes in Heaven and Hell, and God and the Bible, and in Jesus
+Christ, that he’ll save him from going to Hell, and if he believes he’ll
+be saved, he will be saved.”
+
+“But here, in this world, what is a Christian?”
+
+“Why,” said Peter, “I’m a Christian--we’re all Christians.”
+
+The stranger looked into the fire; and Peter thought he would change the
+subject. “It’s curious how like my mother you are; I mean, your ways.
+She was always saying to me, ‘Don’t be too anxious to make money, Peter.
+Too much wealth is as bad as too much poverty.’ You’re very like her.”
+
+After a while Peter said, bending over a little towards the stranger,
+“If you don’t want to make money, what did you come to this land for? No
+one comes here for anything else. Are you in with the Portuguese?”
+
+“I am not more with one people than with another,” said the stranger.
+“The Frenchman is not more to me than the Englishman, the Englishman
+than the Kaffir, the Kaffir than the Chinaman. I have heard,” said the
+stranger, “the black infant cry as it crept on its mother’s body and
+sought for her breast as she lay dead in the roadway. I have heard also
+the rich man’s child wail in the palace. I hear all cries.”
+
+Peter looked intently at him. “Why, who are you?” he said; then, bending
+nearer to the stranger and looking up, he added, “What is it that you
+are doing here?”
+
+“I belong,” said the stranger, “to the strongest company on earth.”
+
+“Oh,” said Peter, sitting up, the look of wonder passing from his face.
+“So that’s it, is it? Is it diamonds, or gold, or lands?”
+
+“We are the most vast of all companies on the earth,” said the stranger;
+“and we are always growing. We have among us men of every race and from
+every land; the Esquimo, the Chinaman, the Turk, and the Englishman, we
+have of them all. We have men of every religion, Buddhists, Mahomedans,
+Confucians, Freethinkers, Atheists, Christians, Jews. It matters to us
+nothing by what name the man is named, so he be one of us.”
+
+And Peter said, “It must be hard for you all to understand one another,
+if you are of so many different kinds?”
+
+The stranger answered, “There is a sign by which we all know one
+another, and by which all the world may know us.” (By this shall all men
+know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.)
+
+And Peter said, “What is that sign?”
+
+But the stranger was silent.
+
+“Oh, a kind of freemasonry!” said Peter, leaning on his elbow towards
+the stranger, and looking up at him from under his pointed cap. “Are
+there any more of you here in this country?”
+
+“There are,” said the stranger. Then he pointed with his hand into the
+darkness. “There in a cave were two women. When you blew the cave up
+they were left unhurt behind a fallen rock. When you took away all the
+grain, and burnt what you could not carry, there was one basketful that
+you knew nothing of. The women stayed there, for one was eighty, and one
+near the time of her giving birth; and they dared not set out to follow
+the remnant of their tribe because you were in the plains below. Every
+day the old woman doled grain from the basket; and at night they cooked
+it in their cave where you could not see their smoke; and every day
+the old woman gave the young one two handfuls and kept one for herself,
+saying, ‘Because of the child within you.’ And when the child was born
+and the young woman strong, the old woman took a cloth and filled it
+with all the grain that was in the basket; and she put the grain on
+the young woman’s head and tied the child on her back, and said, ‘Go,
+keeping always along the bank of the river, till you come north to the
+land where our people are gone; and some day you can send and fetch me.’
+And the young woman said, ‘Have you corn in the basket to last till they
+come?’ And she said, ‘I have enough.’ And she sat at the broken door of
+the cave and watched the young woman go down the hill and up the river
+bank till she was hidden by the bush; and she looked down at the plain
+below, and she saw the spot where the kraal had been and where she had
+planted mealies when she was a young girl--”
+
+“I met a woman with corn on her head and a child on her back!” said
+Peter under his breath.
+
+“--And tonight I saw her sit again at the door of the cave; and when the
+sun had set she grew cold; and she crept in and lay down by the basket.
+Tonight, at half-past three, she will die. I have known her since she
+was a little child and played about the huts, while her mother worked in
+the mealie fields. She was one of our company.”
+
+“Oh,” said Peter.
+
+“Other members we have here,” said the stranger. “There was a
+prospector”--he pointed north; “he was a man who drank and swore when it
+listed him; but he had many servants, and they knew where to find him in
+need. When they were ill, he tended them with his own hands; when they
+were in trouble, they came to him for help. When this war began, and all
+black men’s hearts were bitter, because certain white men had lied
+to them, and their envoys had been killed when they would have asked
+England to put her hand out over them; at that time certain of the
+men who fought the white men came to the prospector’s hut. And the
+prospector fired at them from a hole he had cut in his door; but they
+fired back at him with an old elephant gun, and the bullet pierced
+his side and he fell on the floor:--because the innocent man suffers
+oftentimes for the guilty, and the merciful man falls while the
+oppressor flourishes. Then his black servant who was with him took him
+quickly in his arms, and carried him out at the back of the hut, and
+down into the river bed where the water flowed and no man could trace
+his footsteps, and hid him in a hole in the river wall. And when the men
+broke into the hut they could find no white man, and no traces of his
+feet. But at evening, when the black servant returned to the hut to get
+food and medicine for his master, the men who were fighting caught him,
+and they said, ‘Oh, you betrayer of your people, white man’s dog,
+who are on the side of those who take our lands and our wives and our
+daughters before our eyes; tell us where you have hidden him?’ And when
+he would not answer them, they killed him before the door of the hut.
+And when the night came, the white man crept up on his hands and knees,
+and came to his hut to look for food. All the other men were gone, but
+his servant lay dead before the door; and the white man knew how it must
+have happened. He could not creep further, and he lay down before
+the door, and that night the white man and the black lay there dead
+together, side by side. Both those men were of my friends.”
+
+“It was damned plucky of the nigger,” said Peter; “but I’ve heard of
+their doing that sort of thing before. Even of a girl who wouldn’t tell
+where her mistress was, and getting killed. But,” he added doubtfully,
+“all your company seem to be niggers or to get killed?”
+
+“They are of all races,” said the stranger. “In a city in the old Colony
+is one of us, small of stature and small of voice. It came to pass on a
+certain Sunday morning, when the men and women were gathered before him,
+that he mounted his pulpit: and he said when the time for the sermon
+came, ‘In place that I should speak to you, I will read you a history.’
+And he opened an old book more than two thousand years old: and he read:
+‘Now it came to pass that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which
+was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
+
+“‘And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may
+have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I
+will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seemeth good
+to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.
+
+“‘And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the
+inheritance of my father unto thee.
+
+“‘And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word
+which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken unto him; for he had said, I will
+not give thee the inheritance of my fathers.’
+
+“The man read the whole story until it was ended. Then he closed the
+book, and he said, ‘My friends, Naboth has a vineyard in this land;
+and in it there is much gold; and Ahab has desired to have it that the
+wealth may be his.’
+
+“And he put the old book aside, and he took up another which was written
+yesterday. And the men and women whispered one to another, even in the
+church, ‘Is not that the Blue Book Report of the Select Committee of the
+Cape Parliament on the Jameson raid?’
+
+“And the man said, ‘Friends, the first story I have read you is one of
+the oldest stories of the world: the story I am about to read you is
+one of the newest. Truth is not more truth because it is three thousand
+years old, nor is it less truth because it is of yesterday. All books
+which throw light on truth are God’s books, therefore I shall read to
+you from the pages before me. Shall the story of Ahab king of Samaria
+profit us when we know not the story of the Ahabs of our day; and the
+Naboths of our land be stoned while we sit at east?’ And he read to them
+portions of that book. And certain rich men and women rose up and went
+out even while he spoke, and his wife also went out.
+
+“And when the service was ended and the man returned to his home, his
+wife came to him weeping; and she said, ‘Did you see how some of the
+most wealthy and important people got up and went out this morning? Why
+did you preach such a sermon, when we were just going to have the new
+wing added to our house, and you thought they were going to raise your
+salary? You have not a single Boer in your congregation! Why need you
+say the Chartered Company raid on Johannesburg was wrong?’
+
+“He said, ‘My wife, if I believe that certain men whom we have raised on
+high, and to whom we have given power, have done a cowardly wrong, shall
+I not say it?’
+
+“And she said, ‘Yes, and only a little while ago, when Rhodes was
+licking the dust off the Boers’ feet that he might keep them from
+suspecting while he got ready this affair, then you attacked both Rhodes
+and the Bond (The Afrikander Bond, the organised Dutch political party,
+through whom Mr. Rhodes worked, and by whom he was backed.) for trying
+to pass a Bill for flogging the niggers, and we lost fifty pounds we
+might have got for the church?’ And he said, ‘My wife, cannot God be
+worshipped as well under the dome of the heaven He made as in a golden
+palace? Shall a man keep silence, when he sees oppression, to earn money
+for God? If I have defended the black man when I believed him to be
+wronged, shall I not also defend the white man, my flesh-brother? Shall
+we speak when one man is wronged and not when it is another?’
+
+“And she said, ‘Yes, but you have your family and yourself to think of!
+Why are you always in opposition to the people who could do something
+for us? You are only loved by the poor. If it is necessary for you to
+attack some one, why don’t you attack the Jews for killing Christ, or
+Herod, or Pontius Pilate; why don’t you leave alone the men who are in
+power today, and who with their money can crush you!’
+
+“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, those Jews, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate are
+long dead. If I should preach of them now, would it help them? Would it
+save one living thing from their clutches? The past is dead, it lives
+only for us to learn from. The present, the present only, is ours to
+work in, and the future ours to create. Is all the gold of Johannesburg
+or are all the diamonds in Kimberley worth, that one Christian man
+should fall by the hand of his fellows--aye, or one heathen brother?’
+
+“And she answered, ‘Oh, that is all very well. If you were a really
+eloquent preacher, and could draw hundreds of men about you, and in time
+form a great party with you at its head, I shouldn’t mind what you said.
+But you, with your little figure and your little voice, who will ever
+follow you? You will be left all alone; that is all the good that will
+ever come to you through it.’
+
+“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped that
+they who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would lift
+up their voices and speak--and there is only a deadly silence? Here
+and there one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the
+hand; one says, ‘My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud’;
+and another says, ‘I have a promise of land’; and another, ‘I am
+socially intimate with these men, and should lose my social standing if
+I let my voice be heard.’ Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which
+we had hoped would be free and strong among the peoples of earth, is
+rotten and honeycombed with the tyranny of gold! We who had hoped to
+stand first in the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, are
+not even fit to stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak is
+my voice; and that that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remain
+silent? Shall the glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is not
+a star set up on high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warm
+one frozen man’s hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming across
+the earth? Ever a voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me--‘Why
+break your head against a stone wall? Leave this work to the greater and
+larger men of your people; they who will do it better than you can do
+it! Why break your heart when life could be so fair to you?’ But, oh my
+wife, the strong men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know my
+power is as nothing?’
+
+“He laid his head upon his hands.
+
+“And she said, ‘I cannot understand you. When I come home and tell
+you that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you
+always answer me, ‘Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we
+cannot help them?’ A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to
+visit people and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would
+not go. Yet when the richest and strongest men in the land, who could
+crush you with their money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger
+and thumb, take a certain course, you stand and oppose them.’
+
+“And he said, ‘My wife, with the sins of the private man, what have I to
+do, if so be I have not led him into them? Am I guilty? I have enough to
+do looking after my own sins. The sin that a man sins against himself is
+his alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is his
+and theirs, not mine: but the sins that a man sins, in that he is taken
+up by the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they have
+armed with their sword, whose power to strike is their power--his sins
+are theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he dares
+say, ‘I have no responsibility for this man’s action.’ We armed him, we
+raised him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is more
+ours than his. If this man’s end in South Africa should be accomplished,
+and the day should come when, from the Zambezi to the sea, white man
+should fly at white man’s throat, and every man’s heart burn with
+bitterness against his fellow, and the land be bathed with blood as
+rain--shall I then dare to pray, who have now feared to speak? Do not
+think I wish for punishment upon these men. Let them take the millions
+they have wrung out of this land, and go to the lands of their birth,
+and live in wealth, luxury, and joy; but let them leave this land they
+have tortured and ruined. Let them keep the money they have made here;
+we may be the poorer for it; but they cannot then crush our freedom with
+it. Shall I ask my God Sunday by Sunday to brood across the land, and
+bind all its children’s hearts in a close-knit fellowship;--yet, when I
+see its people betrayed, and their jawbone broken by a stroke from the
+hand of gold; when I see freedom passing from us, and the whole land
+being grasped by the golden claw, so that the generation after us shall
+be born without freedom, to labour for the men who have grasped all,
+shall I hold my peace? The Boer and the Englishman who have been in this
+land, have not always loved mercy, nor have they always sought after
+justice; but the little finger of the speculator and monopolist who are
+devouring this land will be thicker on the backs of the children of this
+land, black and white, than the loins of the Dutchmen and Englishmen who
+have been.’
+
+“And she said, ‘I have heard it said that it was our duty to sacrifice
+ourselves for the men and women living in the world at the same time as
+ourselves; but I never before heard that we had to sacrifice ourselves
+for people that are not born. What are they to you? You will be dust,
+and lying in your grave, before that time comes. If you believe in God,’
+she said, ‘why cannot you leave it to Him to bring good out of all this
+evil? Does He need YOU to be made a martyr of? or will the world be lost
+without YOU?’
+
+“He said, ‘Wife, if my right hand be in a fire, shall I not pull it out?
+Shall I say, ‘God may bring good out of this evil,’ and let it burn?
+That Unknown that lies beyond us we know of no otherwise than through
+its manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sons
+of men than through man. And shall I feel no bond binding me to the men
+to come, and desire no good or beauty for them--I, who am what I am,
+and enjoy what I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have
+lived and laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no
+costs? Would the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be
+accomplished, if men counted the cost and created for their own lives
+alone? And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. You
+cannot tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice
+within me, I know not what, cries out ever, ‘Live for them as for your
+own children.’ When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, and
+I despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something nobler
+and fairer may spring up in the spot where I now stand.’
+
+“And she said, ‘You want to put everyone against us! The other women
+will not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor
+people. Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know
+you would be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to
+niggers. If they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to
+help white men. You will never be on the side of the people who can do
+anything for us! You know the offer we had from--’
+
+“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the
+Turk to me; am I responsible for their action? It is my own nation,
+mine, which I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me. I
+would that wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples
+of earth might gather under it, saying, ‘Under this banner is freedom
+and justice which knows no race or colour.’ I wish that on our banner
+were blazoned in large letters “Justice and Mercy”, and that in every
+new land which our feet touch, every son among us might see ever
+blazoned above his head that banner, and below it the great order:--“By
+this sign, Conquer!”--and that the pirate flag which some men now wave
+in its place, may be torn down and furled for ever! Shall I condone the
+action of some, simply because they happen to be of my own race, when in
+Bushman or Hottentot I would condemn it? Shall men belonging to one of
+the mightiest races of earth, creep softly on their bellies, to attack
+an unwarned neighbour; when even the Kaffir has again and again given
+notice of war, saying, ‘Be ready, on such and such a day I come to fight
+you?’ Is England’s power so broken, and our race so enfeebled, that we
+dare no longer to proclaim war; but must creep silently upon our bellies
+in the dark to stab, like a subject people to whom no other course is
+open? These men are English; but not English-MEN. When the men of our
+race fight, they go to war with a blazoned flag and the loud trumpet
+before them. It is because I am an Englishman that these things crush
+me. Better that ten thousand of us should lie dead and defeated on one
+battlefield, fighting for some great cause, and my own sons among
+them, than that those twelve poor boys should have fallen at Doornkop,
+fighting to fill up the pockets of those already oe’r-heavy with gold.’
+
+“And she said, ‘YOU, what does it matter what you feel or think; YOU
+will never be able to do anything!’
+
+“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, stand by me; do not crush me. For me in this
+matter there is no path but one on which light shines.’
+
+“And she said, ‘You are very unkind; you don’t care what the people say
+about us!’ and she wept bitterly, and went out of the room. But as soon
+as the door was shut, she dried her tears; and she said to herself, ‘Now
+he will never dare to preach such a sermon again. He dares never oppose
+me when once I have set down my foot.’
+
+“And the man spoke to no one, and went out alone in the veld. All the
+afternoon he walked up and down among the sand and low bushes; and I
+walked there beside him.
+
+“And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel. Many were
+absent, but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there.
+And the light shone on the empty benches. And when the time came he
+opened the old book of the Jews; and he turned the leaves and read:--‘If
+thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that
+are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, ‘Behold we knew it not!’ Doth not
+he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul,
+doth he not know it?’
+
+“And he said, ‘This morning we considered the evils this land is
+suffering under at the hands of men whose aim is the attainment of
+wealth and power. Tonight we shall look at our own share in the matter.
+I think we shall realise that with us, and not with the men we have
+lifted up on high, lies the condemnation.’ Then his wife rose and went
+out, and others followed her; and the little man’s voice rolled among
+the empty benches; but he spoke on.
+
+“And when the service was over he went out. No elder came to the porch
+to greet him; but as he stood there one, he saw not whom, slipped a
+leaflet into his hand. He held it up, and read in the lamplight what was
+written on it in pencil. He crushed it up in his hand, as a man crushes
+that which has run a poisonous sting into him; then he dropped it on
+the earth as a man drops that he would forget. A fine drizzly rain was
+falling, and he walked up the street with his arms folded behind him,
+and his head bent. The people walked up the other side; and it seemed to
+him he was alone. But I walked behind him.”
+
+“And then,” asked Peter, seeing that the stranger was silent, “what
+happened to him after that?”
+
+“That was only last Sunday,” said the stranger.
+
+There was silence again for some seconds.
+
+Then Peter said, “Well, anyhow, at least he didn’t die!”
+
+The stranger crossed his hands upon his knees. “Peter Simon Halket,”
+ he said, “it is easier for a man to die than to stand alone. He who can
+stand alone can, also, when the need be, die.”
+
+Peter looked up wistfully into the stranger’s face. “I should not like
+to die myself,” he said, “not yet. I shall not be twenty-one till next
+birthday. I should like to see life first.”
+
+The stranger made no answer.
+
+Presently Peter said, “Are all the men of your company poor men?”
+
+The stranger waited a while before he answered; then he said,--“There
+have been rich men who have desired to join us. There was a young man
+once; and when he heard the conditions, he went away sorrowful, for he
+had great possessions.”
+
+There was silence again for a while.
+
+“Is it long since your company was started?” asked Peter.
+
+“There is no man living who can conceive of its age,” said the stranger.
+“Even here on this earth it began, when these hills were young, and
+these lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man
+still raised himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his
+thighs were weak. In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when
+he hungered, fed on the flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet. Yet
+even in those days it came to pass that there was one whose head was
+higher than her fellows and her thought keener, and, as she picked the
+flesh from a human skull, she pondered. And so it came to pass the next
+night, when men were gathered around the fire ready to eat, that she
+stole away, and when they went to the tree where the victim was bound,
+they found him gone. And they cried one to another, ‘She, only she, has
+done this, who has always said, ‘I like not the taste of man-flesh; men
+are too like me; I cannot eat them.’ ‘She is mad,’ they cried; ‘let us
+kill her!’ So, in those dim, misty times that men reck not of now, that
+they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in the heads of certain men
+and women a new thought had taken root; they said, ‘We also will not eat
+of her. There is something evil in the taste of human flesh.’ And ever
+after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-flesh, these stood aside,
+and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not; then, as the years
+passed, none ate.
+
+“Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily
+open their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you
+would learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the
+dicynodont bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you
+find now nowhere on earth’s surface, save buried in stone, called with
+love to his mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew
+in the sunshine calling joyfully to one another--even in those days when
+man was not, the fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And
+still as the sun rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow
+and grow.”
+
+The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and
+behind him, the darkness stood out.
+
+“All earth is ours. And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down
+on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark
+with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the
+East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe;
+and nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows. And they shall
+beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks:
+nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
+war any more. And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree;
+and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and man shall
+nowhere crush man on all the holy earth. Tomorrow’s sun shall rise,”
+ said the stranger, “and it shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and
+the rocks shall glint in it. Not more certain is that rising than the
+coming of that day. And I say to you that even here, in the land where
+now we stand, where today the cries of the wounded and the curses of
+revenge ring in the air; even here, in this land where man creeps on
+his belly to wound his fellow in the dark, and where an acre of gold
+is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining dirt is worth half a
+people, and the vultures are heavy with man’s flesh--even here that day
+shall come. I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here on the spot where
+now we stand shall be raised a temple. Man shall not gather in it to
+worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it shoulder to
+shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the inhabitant of
+the land; and the place shall be holy; for men shall say, ‘Are we not
+brethren and the sons of one Father?’”
+
+Peter Halket looked upward silently. And the stranger said: “Certain
+men slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark. And, as they
+slept, at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred. Far off to the
+eastward, through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint
+line, thin as a hair’s width, that edged the hill tops. And he whispered
+in the darkness to his fellows: ‘The dawn is coming.’ But they, with
+fast-closed eyelids murmured, ‘He lies, there is no dawn.’
+
+“Nevertheless, day broke.”
+
+The stranger was silent. The fire burnt up in red tongues of flame that
+neither flickered nor flared in the still night air. Peter Halket crept
+near to the stranger.
+
+“When will that time be?” he whispered; “in a thousand years’ time?”
+
+And the stranger answered, “A thousand years are but as our yesterday’s
+journey, or as our watch tonight, which draws already to its close. See,
+piled, these rocks on which we now stand? The ages have been young and
+they have grown old since they have lain here. Half that time shall
+not pass before that time comes; I have seen its dawning already in the
+hearts of men.”
+
+Peter moved nearer, so that he almost knelt at the stranger’s feet: his
+gun lay on the ground at the other side of the fire.
+
+“I would like to be one of your men,” he said. “I am tired of belonging
+to the Chartered Company.”
+
+The stranger looked down gently. “Peter Simon Halket,” he said, “can you
+bear the weight?”
+
+And Peter said, “Give me work, that I may try.”
+
+There was silence for a time; then the stranger said, “Peter Simon
+Halket, take a message to England”--Peter Halket started--“Go to that
+great people and cry aloud to it: ‘Where is the sword was given into
+your hand, that with it you might enforce justice and deal out mercy?
+How came you to give it up into the hands of men whose search is gold,
+whose thirst is wealth, to whom men’s souls and bodies are counters in a
+game? How came you to give up the folk that were given into your hands,
+into the hand of the speculator and the gamester; as though they were
+dumb beasts who might be bought or sold?
+
+“‘Take back your sword, Great People--but wipe it first, lest some of
+the gold and blood stick to your hand.
+
+“‘What is this, I see!--the sword of the Great People, transformed to
+burrow earth for gold, as the snouts of swine for earth nuts! Have you
+no other use for it, Great Folk?
+
+“‘Take back your sword; and, when you have thoroughly cleansed it and
+wiped it of the blood and mire, then raise it to set free the oppressed
+of other climes.
+
+“‘Great Prince’s Daughter, take heed! You put your sword into the hands
+of recreant knights; they will dull its edge and mar its brightness,
+and, when your hour of need comes and you would put it into other hands,
+you will find its edge chipped and its point broken. Take heed! Take
+heed!’
+
+“Cry to the wise men of England: ‘You, who in peace and calm in
+shaded chambers ponder on all things in heaven and earth, and take all
+knowledge for your province, have you no time to think of this? To whom
+has England given her power? How do the men wield it who have filched it
+from her? Say not, What have we to do with folk across the waters; have
+we not matter enough for thought in our own land? Where the brain of
+a nation has no time to go, there should its hands never be sent to
+labour: where the power of a people goes, there must its intellect and
+knowledge go, to guide it. Oh, you who sit at ease, studying past and
+future--and forget the present--you have no right to sit at ease knowing
+nothing of the working of the powers you have armed and sent to work on
+men afar. Where is your nation’s sword--you men of thought?’
+
+“Cry to the women of England: ‘You, who repose in sumptuous houses, with
+children on your knees; think not it is only the rustling of the soft
+draped curtains, or the whistling of the wind, you hear. Listen! May it
+not be the far off cry of those your sword governs, creeping towards
+you across wide oceans till it pierces even into your inmost sanctuary?
+Listen!
+
+“For the womanhood of a dominant people has not accomplished all its
+labour when it has borne its children and fed them at its breast: there
+cries to it also from over seas and across continents the voice of the
+child-peoples--‘Mother-heart, stand for us!’ It would be better for you
+that your wombs should be barren and that your race should die out; than
+that you should listen, and give no answer.’”
+
+The stranger lifted his hands upwards as he spoke, and Peter saw there
+were the marks of old wounds in both.
+
+“Cry aloud to the working men and women of England: ‘You, who for ages
+cried out because the heel of your masters was heavy on you; and who
+have said, ‘We curse the kings that sit at ease, and care not who
+oppresses the folk, so their coffers be full and their bellies
+satisfied, and they be not troubled with the trouble of rule’; you, who
+have taken the king’s rule from him and sit enthroned within his seat;
+is his sin not yours today? If men should add but one hour to your day’s
+labour, or make but one fraction dearer the bread you eat, would you not
+rise up as one man? Yet, what is dealt out to men beyond seas whom you
+rule wounds you not. Nay, have you not sometimes said, as kings of old:
+‘It matters not who holds out our sword, marauder or speculator, so he
+calls it ours, we must cloak up the evil it has done!’ Think you, no
+other curses rise to heaven but yours? Where is your sword? Into whose
+hand has it fallen? Take it quickly and cleanse it!’”
+
+Peter Halket crouched, looking upwards; then he cried: “Master, I cannot
+give that message, I am a poor unlearn’d man. And if I should go to
+England and cry aloud, they would say, ‘Who is this, who comes preaching
+to a great people? Is not his mother with us, and a washerwoman; and was
+not his father a day labourer at two shillings a day?’ and they would
+laugh me to scorn. And, in truth, the message is so long I could not
+well remember it; give me other work to do.”
+
+And the stranger said, “Take a message to the men and women of this
+land. Go, from the Zambezi to the sea, and cry to its white men and
+women, and say: ‘I saw a wide field, and in it were two fair beasts.
+Wide was the field about them and rich was the earth with sweet scented
+herbs, and so abundant was the pasturage that hardly might they consume
+all that grew about them: and the two were like one to another, for
+they were the sons of one mother. And as I looked, I saw, far off to the
+northward, a speck within the sky, so small it was, and so high it was,
+that the eye scarce might mark it. Then it came nearer and hovered over
+the spot where the two beasts fed:--and its neck was bare, and its
+beak was hooked, and its talons were long, and its wings strong. And it
+hovered over the field where the two beasts were; and I saw it settle
+down upon a great white stone; and it waited. And I saw more specks to
+the northward, and more and more came onward to join him who sat upon
+the stone. And some hovered over the beasts, and some sharpened their
+beaks on the stones; and some walked in and out between the beasts’
+legs. And I saw that they were waiting for something.
+
+“‘Then he who first came flew from one of the beasts to the other, and
+sat upon their necks, and put his beak within their ears. And he flew
+from one to the other and flapped his wings in their faces till the
+beasts were blinded, and each believed it was his fellow who attacked
+him. And they fell to, and fought; they gored one another’s sides till
+the field was red with blood and the ground shook beneath them. The
+birds sat by and watched; and when the blood flowed they walked round
+and round. And when the strength of the two beasts was exhausted they
+fell to earth. Then the birds settled down upon them, and feasted; till
+their maws were full, and their long bare necks were wet; and they stood
+with their beaks deep in the entrails of the two dead beasts; and looked
+out with their keen bright eyes from above them. And he who was king of
+all plucked out the eyes, and fed on the hearts of the dead beasts. And
+when his maw was full, so that he could eat no more, he sat on his stone
+hard by and flapped his great wings.’
+
+“Peter Simon Halket, cry to the white men and women of South Africa:
+‘You have a goodly land; you and your children’s children shall scarce
+fill it; though you should stretch out your arms to welcome each
+stranger who comes to live and labour with you. You are the twin
+branches of one tree; you are the sons of one mother. Is this goodly
+land not wide enough for you, that you should rend each other’s flesh
+at the bidding of those who will wet their beaks within both your
+vitals?--Look up, see, they circle in the air above you!’”
+
+Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the
+black sky of Mashonaland over his head.
+
+The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire. Peter Halket
+half clasped his arms about his knees.
+
+“My master,” he cried, “how can I take this message? The Dutchmen of
+South Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman.
+And the Englishmen will say: ‘Who is this fellow who comes preaching
+peace, peace, peace? Has he not been a year in the country and he has
+not a share in a single company? Can anything he says be worth hearing?
+If he were a man of any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at
+least.’ And they will not listen to me. Give me another labour!”
+
+And the stranger said: “Take a message to one man. Find him, whether he
+sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him: ‘Where are the
+souls of the men that you have bought?’
+
+“And if he shall answer you and say: ‘I bought no men’s souls! The souls
+that I bought were the souls of dogs?’ Then ask him this question, say
+to him, ‘Where are the--’
+
+“And if he cry out, ‘You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say.
+What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government?
+It is all a lie!’ Then question him no further. But say: ‘There was a
+rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went
+out--and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.
+
+“‘And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse,
+that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might
+see its steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
+
+“‘And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way
+and it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared
+altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept
+their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, ‘We are
+safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.’ And on
+dark nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the
+midnight they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
+
+“‘What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight;
+in that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted
+it? Shall it not be put out?’
+
+“And if he shall answer, saying, ‘What are men to me? they are fools,
+all fools! Let them die!’--tell him again this story: ‘There was a
+streamlet once: it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain’s
+crown; and the snow made a cove over it. It ran on pure and blue and
+clear as the sky above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle. Then
+it came to a spot where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by
+which it might journey; one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and
+stones, and down long sunlit slopes to the sea; and the other, down a
+chasm. And the stream hesitated: it twirled and purled, and went this
+way and went that. It MIGHT have been, that it would have forced its
+way past rocks and ridges and along mountain slopes, and made a path for
+itself where no path had been; the banks would have grown green, and the
+mountain daisy would have grown beside it; and all night the stars would
+have looked at their faces in it; and down the long sunny slopes the sun
+would have played on it by day; and the wood dove would have built her
+nest in the trees beside it; and singing, singing, always singing, it
+would have made its way at last to the great sea, whose far-off call all
+waters hear.
+
+“‘But it hesitated.--It might have been, that, had but some hand been
+there to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way
+past rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea--it might have
+been! But no hand was there. The streamlet gathered itself together,
+and (it might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the
+sea!)--it made one leap into the abyss.
+
+“‘The rocks closed over it. Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark
+pool it lay. The green lichen hung from the rocks. No sunlight came
+there, and the stars could not look down at night. The pool lay still
+and silent. Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered
+its strength together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed
+its way silently on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains
+closed it around. And the streamlet laughed to itself, ‘Ha, ha! I shall
+make a great lake here; a sea!’ And it oozed, and it oozed, and it
+filled half the plain. But no lake came--only a great marsh--because
+there was no way outwards, and the water rotted. The grass died out
+along its edges; and the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the
+water; and the wood dove who had built her nest there flew up to the
+mountains, because her young ones died. And the toads sat on the stones
+and dropped their spittle in the water; and the reeds were yellow that
+grew along the edge. And at night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the
+water, so that the stars could not see through it; and by day a fine
+white mist hung over it, and the sunbeams could not play on it. And no
+man knew that once the marsh had leapt forth clear and blue from under
+a hood of snow on the mountain’s top: aye, and that the turning of one
+stone might have caused that it had run on and on, and mingled its song
+with the sea’s song for ever.’”
+
+The stranger was silent for a while.
+
+Then he said, “Should he answer you and say, ‘What do I care! What are
+coves and mountain tops to me? Gold is real, and the power to crush men
+within my hand’; tell him no further.
+
+“But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to
+him, clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it: ‘The morning
+may break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the
+evening’s sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning’s
+dullness, and the darkness of the noon. So that all men shall say, ‘Ah,
+for the beauty of that day!’--For the stream that has once descended
+there is no path upwards.--It is never too late for the soul of a man.’
+
+“And if he should laugh, and say: ‘You fool, a man may remake himself
+entirely before twenty; he may reshape himself before thirty; but after
+forty he is fixed. Shall I, who for forty-three years have sought money
+and power, seek for anything else now? You want me to be Jesus Christ, I
+suppose! How can I be myself and another man?’ Then answer him: ‘Deep in
+the heart of every son of man lies an angel; but some have their wings
+folded. Wake yours! He is larger and stronger than another man’s; mount
+up with him!’
+
+“But if he curses you, and says, ‘I have eight millions of money, and I
+care neither for God nor man!’--then make no answer, but stoop and write
+before him.” The stranger bent down and wrote with his finger in the
+white ashes of the fire. Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two
+words the stranger had written.
+
+The stranger said: “Say to him: ‘Though you should seek to make that
+name immortal in this land; and should write it in gold dust, and set it
+with diamonds, and cement it with human blood, shed from the Zambezi
+to the sea, yet--.” The stranger passed his foot over the words; Peter
+Halket looked down, and he saw only a bed of smooth white ashes where
+the name had been.
+
+The stranger said: “And if he should curse yet further, and say, ‘There
+is not one man nor woman in South Africa I cannot buy with my money!
+When I have the Transvaal, I shall buy God Almighty Himself, if I care
+to!’
+
+“Then say to him this one thing only, ‘Thy money perish with thee!’ and
+leave him.”
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment. Then the stranger stretched forth
+his hand. “Yet in that leaving him, remember;--It is not the act, but
+the will, which marks the soul of the man. He who has crushed a nation
+sins no more than he who rejoices in the death throe of the meanest
+creature. The stagnant pool is not less poisonous drop for drop than the
+mighty swamp, though its reach be smaller. He who has desired to be
+and accomplish what this man has been and accomplished, is as this man;
+though he have lacked the power to perform. Nay, remember this one thing
+more:--Certain sons of God are born on earth, named by men Children
+of Genius. In early youth each stands at the parting of the way and
+chooses; he bears his gift for others or for himself. But forget this
+never, whatever his choice may be; that there is laid on him a burden
+that is laid not on others--all space is open to him, and his choice is
+infinite--and if he falls beneath it, let men weep rather than curse,
+for he was born a Son of God.”
+
+There was silence again. Then Peter Halket clasped his arms about the
+stranger’s feet. “My master,” he cried, “I dare not take that message.
+It is not that men may say, ‘Here is Trooper Peter Halket, whom we all
+know, a man who kept women and shot niggers, turned prophet.’ But it is,
+that it is true. Have I not wished--” and Peter Halket would have poured
+out all his soul; but the stranger prevented him.
+
+“Peter Simon Halket,” he said, “is it the trumpet which gives forth
+the call to battle, whether it be battered tin or gilded silver, which
+boots? Is it not the call? What and if I should send my message by
+a woman or a child: shall truth be less truth because the bearer is
+despised? Is it the mouth that speaks or the word that is spoken which
+is eternal? Nevertheless, if you will have it so, go, and say, ‘I, Peter
+Halket, sinner among you all, who have desired women and gold, who have
+loved myself and hated my fellow, I--’” The stranger looked down at him,
+and placed his hand gently on his head. “Peter Simon Halket,” he said,
+“a harder task I give you than any which has been laid upon you. In that
+small spot where alone on earth your will rules, bring there into being
+the kingdom today. Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you.
+Walk ever forward, looking not to the right hand or the left. Heed not
+what men shall say of you. Succour the oppressed; deliver the captive.
+If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he is athirst give him drink.”
+
+A curious warmth and gladness stole over Peter Halket as he knelt;
+it was as, when a little child, his mother folded him to her: he saw
+nothing more about him but a soft bright light. Yet in it he heard a
+voice cry, “Because thou hast loved mercy--and hated oppression--”
+
+When Trooper Peter Halket raised himself, he saw the figure of the
+stranger passing from him. He cried, “My Master, let me go with you.”
+ But the figure did not turn. And, as it passed into the darkness, it
+seemed to Peter Halket that the form grew larger and larger: and as it
+descended the further side of the kopje it seemed that for one instant
+he still saw the head with a pale, white light upon it: then it
+vanished.
+
+And Trooper Peter Halket sat alone upon the kopje.
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+It was a hot day. The sun poured down its rays over the scattered trees,
+and stunted bush, and long grass, and over the dried up river beds. Far
+in the blue, so high the eye could scarcely mark them, vultures were
+flying southward, where forty miles off kraals had been destroyed and
+two hundred black carcasses were lying in the sun.
+
+Under a group of tall straggling trees among the grass and low scrub,
+on the banks of an almost dried up river bed, a small camp had been
+pitched.
+
+The party had lost their mules, and pending their recovery had already
+been there seven days. The three cart loads of provisions they were
+conveying to the large camp were drawn up under the trees and had a sail
+thrown across them to form a shelter for some of the men; while on the
+other side of the cleared and open space that formed the camp, a smaller
+sail was thrown across two poles forming a rough tent; and away to the
+left, a little cut off from the rest of the camp by some low bushes,
+was the bell-shaped tent of the captain, under a tall tree. Before
+the bell-shaped tent stood a short stunted tree; its thick white stem
+gnarled and knotted; while two stunted misshapen branches, like arms,
+stretched out on either side.
+
+Before this tree, up and down, with his gun upon his arm, his head
+bent and his eyes fixed on the ground, while the hot sun blazed on his
+shoulders, walked a man.
+
+Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts,
+three cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men,
+their stock of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth,
+which was watched by a native boy, contained the more appetising meal of
+the Captain.
+
+Most of the men were out of camp; the coloured boys having gone to fetch
+the mules, which had been discovered in the hills a few miles off, and
+were expected to arrive in the evening; and the white men had gone out
+to see what game they could bring down with their guns to flavour
+the mealie pots, or to reconnoitre the country; though all native
+habitations had been destroyed within a radius of thirty miles, and the
+land was as bare of black men as a child’s hand of hair; and even the
+beasts seemed to have vanished.
+
+In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay
+three white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp.
+They were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their
+stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation,
+or taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for
+tobacco was precious in the camp.
+
+Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality
+was uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British
+Isles, and who had travelled round the world. He was currently reported
+to have done three years’ labour for attempted rape in Australia, but
+nothing certain was known regarding his antecedents. He had been up on
+guard half the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with
+his arm thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in
+his jaw as he slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when
+he turned it round the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken
+yellow stumps set in very red gums.
+
+The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him. Two, who were
+slowly smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose
+set about the shoulders, which is common among Colonial Europeans of the
+third generation, whether Dutch or English, and had the placidity and
+general good temper of expression which commonly marks the Colonial
+European who grows up beyond the range of the cities. The third was
+smaller and more wiry and of an unusually nervous type, with aquiline
+nose, and sallow hatchet face, with a somewhat discontented expression.
+He was holding forth, while his companions smoked and listened.
+
+“Now what I say is this,” he brought his hand down on the red sand;
+“here we are with about one half teaspoon of Dop given us at night,
+while he has ten empty champagne bottles lying behind his tent. And we
+have to live on the mealies we’re convoying for the horses, while he
+has pati and beef, and lives like a lord! It’s all very well for the
+regulars; they know what they’re in for, and they’ve got gentlemen over
+them anyhow, and one can stomach anything if you know what kind of a
+fellow you’ve got over you. English officers are gentlemen, anyhow; or
+if one was under Selous now--”
+
+“Oh, Selous’s a MAN!” broke out the other two, taking their pipes from
+their mouths.
+
+“Yes, well, that’s what I say. But these fellows, who couldn’t do as
+farmers, and couldn’t do as shopkeepers, and God knows what else; and
+their friends in England didn’t want to have them; they’re sent out here
+to boss it over us! It’s a damned shame! Why, I want to know, amn’t I as
+good as any of these fellows, who come swelling it about here? Friends
+got money, I suppose!” He cast his sharp glance over towards the bell
+tent. “If they gave us real English officers now--”
+
+“Ah!” said the biggest of his companions, who, in spite of his huge
+form, had something of the simplicity and good nature of a child in his
+handsome face; “it’s because you’re not a big enough swell, you know!
+He’ll be a colonel, or a general, before we’ve done with him. I call
+them all generals or colonels up here; it’s safest, you know; if they’re
+not that today they will be tomorrow!”
+
+This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull
+world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but
+the first speaker remained serious.
+
+“I only know this,” he said, “I’d teach these fellows a lesson, if any
+one belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered
+here, while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. If my mother or
+sister had been killed here, I’d have taken a pistol and blown out the
+brains of the great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him. Fine
+administration of a country, this, to invite people to come in and live
+here, and then take every fighting man out of the country on a gold
+hunting marauding expedition to the Transvaal, and leave us to face
+the bitter end. I look upon every man and woman who was killed here as
+murdered by the Chartered Company.”
+
+“Well, Jameson only did what he was told. He had to obey orders, like
+the rest of us. He didn’t make the plan, and he’s got the punishment.”
+
+“What business had he to listen? What’s all this fine administration
+they talk of? It’s six years since I came to this country, and I’ve
+worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men
+who’ve worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in
+the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water
+or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow,
+what would she find?--everything of value in the land given over to
+private concessionaires--they’ll line their pockets if the whole land
+goes to pot! It’ll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse’s
+bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones.”
+
+“Oh, you wait a bit and you’ll be squared,” said the handsome man. “I’ve
+been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven’t got
+anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
+shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way”--he
+nodded towards the bell tent--“never got drunk or didn’t know how to
+swear, I’d sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after
+it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it
+would only come my way.”
+
+The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had
+not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his
+mouth.
+
+“I tell you what,” said the keen man, “those of us up here who have got
+a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting
+pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we’d had a few men like the
+Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this
+would never have happened. And there’s no knowing when a reason won’t
+turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a
+time, to break out just when one’s settled down to work. It’s a damned
+convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off.”
+
+Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: “Let
+resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow,” he said,
+sententiously.
+
+A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though
+his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth
+relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
+
+“I’m always expecting,” said the big handsome man, “to have a paper come
+round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the
+B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and
+how awfully good he is to them; and they’re going to subscribe to the
+brazen statue. There’s nothing a man can’t be squared to do.”
+
+The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he
+held above his face. “What’s that in the Bible,” he said, slowly, “about
+the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?”
+
+“I don’t know much about the Bible,” said the keen man, “I’m going to
+see if my pot isn’t boiling over. Won’t yours burn?”
+
+“No, I asked the Captain’s boy to keep an eye on it--but I expect he
+won’t. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?”
+
+“Got to; I’ve got no other pot. And the fellows don’t object. It’s a
+tasty variety, you know!”
+
+The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire
+burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his
+own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left
+alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and
+he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and
+watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand,
+just under his nose.
+
+A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick
+cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems;
+but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little
+flat-topped tree in front of the captain’s tent, not a creature stirred
+in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might
+be heard half across the camp.
+
+The intense midday heat had settled down.
+
+At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass
+and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp,
+and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the
+other a bird which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not
+long from Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in
+spite of the superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with
+heat; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their
+sensitive refinement.
+
+He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. “That is
+all I’ve got,” he said.
+
+He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the
+loose flap of the tent.
+
+The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the
+ground took up the bird. “I’ll put it into the pot; it’ll give it the
+flavour of something except weevily mealies”; he said, and fell to
+plucking it.
+
+The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his
+forehead.
+
+“Knocked up, eh?” said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. “I’ve a
+few drops in my flask still.”
+
+“Oh, no, I can stand it well enough. It’s only a little warm.” He gave
+a slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm. His eyes
+watched mechanically the Colonial’s manipulation of the bird. He had
+left England to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because
+it was a place where he could earn an open-air living, and save his
+parents from the burden of his support.
+
+“What’s Halket doing over there?” he asked suddenly, raising his head.
+
+“Weren’t you here this morning?” asked the Colonial. “Didn’t you know
+they’d had a devil of a row?”
+
+“Who?” asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.
+
+“Halket and the Captain.” The Colonial paused in the plucking. “My God,
+you never saw anything like it!”
+
+The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where
+Halket’s bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.
+
+“What’s he doing out there in this blazing sun?”
+
+“He’s on guard,” said the Colonial. “I thought you were here when it
+happened. It’s the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!”
+ He rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance. “You
+see, some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools
+of water, and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank,
+not five hundred yards from here! They found the bloody rascal by a
+little path he tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a
+porcupine’s walk. They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush
+over the mouth, so you couldn’t see it. He’d evidently been there a long
+time, the floor was full of bones of fish he’d caught in the pool, and
+there was a bit of root like a stick half gnawed through. He’d been
+potted, and got two bullet wounds in the thigh; but he could walk
+already. It’s evident he was just waiting till we were gone, to clear
+off after his people. He’d got that beastly scurvy look a nigger gets
+when he hasn’t had anything to eat for a long time.
+
+“Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew
+and swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow;
+he’d hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this
+evening, so he’d wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn’t
+come he’d hang him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as
+sure as the sun rose. He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree
+before his tent, with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist,
+and a riem round his neck.”
+
+“What did the native say?” asked the Englishman.
+
+“Oh, he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a soul in the camp could have
+understood him if he had. The coloured boys don’t know his language. I
+expect he’s one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the
+bush out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state
+it must have been, I don’t know. He didn’t try to fight when they caught
+him; just stared in front of him--fright, I suppose. He must have been a
+big strapping devil before he was taken down.
+
+“Well, I tell you, we’d just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just
+going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing
+round, when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his
+front lock--you know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could
+have seen it! I’ll never forget it to my dying day!” The Colonial seemed
+bursting with internal laughter. “He begins, ‘Sir, may I speak to you?’
+in a formal kind of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and
+then all of a sudden he starts off--oh, my God, you never heard such a
+thing! It was like a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture
+he’s learnt off by heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he’s not
+going to be stopped till he gets to the end of it.”
+
+“What did he say,” asked the Englishman.
+
+“Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would
+be a terrible thing to kill him if we weren’t quite sure; perhaps he was
+hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after
+all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight
+against the French if they came and took England from us; and the
+niggers were brave men, ‘please sir’--(every five minutes he’d pull his
+forelock, and say, ‘please sir!’)--‘and if we have to fight against them
+we ought to remember they’re fighting for freedom; we shouldn’t shoot
+wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn’t shoot them if they
+were white!’ And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You
+never heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a
+black man as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant
+folk, and we had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we
+ought to let this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and
+tell him to go back to his people, and tell them we hadn’t come to take
+their land but to teach them and love them. ‘It’s hard to love a nigger,
+Captain, but we must try it; we must try it!’--And every five minutes
+he’d break out with, ‘And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I’m
+not sure, but I think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!’--as if any born
+devil cared whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere
+else! I’m sure he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, ‘I don’t
+mean that I’m better than you or anybody else, Captain; I’m as bad a man
+as any in camp, and I know it.’ And off he started, telling us all the
+sins he’d ever committed; and he kept on, ‘I’m an unlearned, ignorant
+man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he’s got no one else!’
+And then he says--‘If you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I’m
+not afraid; and I’ll tell the people there that it’s not their land and
+their women that we want, it’s them to be our brothers and love us. If
+you’ll only let me go, sir, I’ll go and make peace; give the man to me,
+sir!’” The Colonial shook with laughter.
+
+“What did the Captain say?” asked the Englishman.
+
+“The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing
+all round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down
+at each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder
+and redder: and all he could say was, ‘My Gawd! my Gawd!’ I thought
+he’d burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as
+though he didn’t see a soul of us all there.”
+
+“What did the Captain do?”
+
+“Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the
+tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good
+as Halket himself. And when he’d finished and got sane a bit, he said
+Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the
+nigger. And he gave orders that if the big troop didn’t come up tonight,
+that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was
+to shoot him.”
+
+The Englishman started: “What did Halket say?”
+
+“Nothing. He’s been walking there with his gun all day.”
+
+The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket’s head
+appeared and disappeared.
+
+“Is the nigger hanging there now?”
+
+“Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything
+to eat or drink all day: but--” The Colonial glanced round where the
+trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, “This
+morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain’s coloured boy
+to ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and
+the poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the
+water out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had
+become of my mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the
+Captain’s tent, before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody
+nigger drink out of my mug. The riem was so tight round his neck he
+couldn’t drink but slowly, and there was Halket holding it up to him! If
+the Captain had looked out! W-h-e-w! I wouldn’t have been Halket!”
+
+“Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?” asked the Englishman.
+
+“Of course he will. He’s the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a
+fuss about it, or it’ll be the worse for him.”
+
+“His time’s up tomorrow evening!”
+
+“Yes, but not tomorrow morning. And I wouldn’t make a row about it if I
+was Halket. It doesn’t do to fall out with the authorities here. What’s
+one nigger more or less? He’ll get shot some other way, or die of
+hunger, if we don’t do it.”
+
+“It’s hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs,” said the
+Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a
+little.
+
+“Oh, they don’t feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I’ve
+seen a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling
+like that!--without a sound. They’ve no feeling, these niggers; I don’t
+suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you
+know.”
+
+The Englishman’s eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which
+Halket’s head appeared and disappeared.
+
+“They have no right to order Halket to do it--and he will not do it!”
+ said the Englishman slowly.
+
+“You’re not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?” said the
+Colonial, looking curiously at him. “It doesn’t pay. I’ve made up my
+mind never to speak whatever happens. What’s the good? Suppose one were
+to make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he’s made to
+shoot the nigger against his will; what would come of it? There’d be
+half-a-dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted--not
+to speak of a fellow like that”--turning his thumb in the direction of
+the sleeping trooper--“who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on
+the Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one’s wires are edited
+before they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through.
+There are many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us
+are there, do you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making
+anything in Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he
+had a real row with the Company? I’ve a great liking for Halket myself,
+he’s a real good fellow, and he’s done me many a good turn--took my
+watch only last night, because I was off colour; I’d do anything for him
+in reason. But, I say this flatly, I couldn’t and wouldn’t fly in the
+face of the authorities for him or anyone else. I’ve my own girl waiting
+for me down in the Colony, and she’s been waiting for me these five
+years. And whether I’m able to marry her or not depends on how I stand
+with the Company: and I say, flatly, I’m not going to fall out with it.
+I came here to make money, and I mean to make it! If other people like
+to run their heads against stone walls, let them: but they mustn’t
+expect me to follow them. This isn’t a country where a man can say what
+he thinks.”
+
+The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. “And the Union Jack is
+supposed to be flying over us.”
+
+“Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company,” laughed the Colonial.
+
+“Do you ever have the nightmare?” asked the Englishman suddenly.
+
+“I? Oh yes, sometimes”; he looked curiously at his companion; “when I’ve
+eaten too much, I get it.”
+
+“I always have it since I came up here,” said the Englishman. “It is
+that a vast world is resting on me--a whole globe: and I am a midge
+beneath it. I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under
+it--and let it crush me!”
+
+“It’s curious you should have the nightmare so up here,” said the
+Colonial; “one gets so little to eat.”
+
+There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the
+bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
+
+“Mind you,” the Colonial said at last, “I don’t say that in this case
+the Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He’s
+never been quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night
+out on the kopje. When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of
+dead sleep; we couldn’t wake him; yet it wasn’t cold enough for him to
+have been frozen. He’s never been the same man since; queer, you know;
+giving his rations away to the coloured boys, and letting the other
+fellows have his dot of brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of
+apart to himself, you know. The other fellows think he’s got a touch of
+fever on, caught wandering about in the long grass that day. But I don’t
+think it’s that; I think it’s being alone in the veld that’s got hold of
+him. Man, have you ever been out like that, alone in the veld, night
+and day, and not a soul to speak to? I have; and I tell you, if I’d been
+left there three days longer I’d have gone mad or turned religious. Man,
+it’s the nights, with the stars up above you, and the dead still all
+around. And you think, and think, and think! You remember all kinds of
+things you’ve never thought of for years and years. I used to talk to
+myself at last, and make believe it was another man. I was out seven
+days: and he was only out one night. But I think it’s the loneliness
+that got hold of him. Man, those stars are awful; and that stillness
+that comes toward morning!” He stood up. “It’s a great pity, because
+he’s as good a fellow as ever was. But perhaps he’ll come all right.”
+
+He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand. When he had
+gone the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm
+across his forehead.
+
+High, high up, between the straggling branches of the tree, in the
+clear, blue African sky above him, he could see the vultures flying
+southward.
+
+*****
+
+That evening the men sat eating their suppers round the fires. The large
+troop had not come up; and the mules had been brought in; and they were
+to make a start early the next morning.
+
+Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a
+little in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.
+
+The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their
+mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be
+asked him; and the men, fearing the Colonial’s size and the Englishman’s
+nerve, left him in peace. The men laughed and chatted round the fire,
+while the big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates,
+and passed them round to the men. Presently he passed one to Halket,
+who lay half behind him leaning on his elbow. For a while Halket ate
+nothing, then he took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.
+
+“You are eating nothing, Halket,” said the Englishman, cheerily, looking
+back.
+
+“I am not hungry now,” he said. After a while he took out his red
+handkerchief, and emptied carefully into it the contents of the plate;
+and tied it up into a bundle. He set it beside him on the ground, and
+again lay on his elbow.
+
+“You won’t come nearer to the fire, Halket?’ asked the Englishman.
+
+“No, thank you, the night is warm.”
+
+After a while Peter Halket took out from his belt a small hunting knife
+with a rough wooden handle. A small flat stone lay near him, and he
+passed the blade slowly up and down on it, now and then taking it up,
+and feeling the edge with his finger. After a while he put it back in
+his belt, and rose slowly, taking up his small bundle and walked away to
+the tent.
+
+“He’s had a pretty stiff day,” said the Colonial. “I expect he’s glad
+enough to turn in.”
+
+Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns. Would
+the Captain stick to his word tomorrow? Was Halket going to do it?
+Had the Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead
+of letting them fire a volley? One man said he would do it gladly in
+Halket’s place, if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So
+they chatted till nine o’clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to
+turn in. They found Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with
+his face turned to the canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might
+not disturb him.
+
+At ten o’clock all the camp was asleep, excepting the two men told off
+to keep guard; who paced from one end of the camp to the other to keep
+themselves awake; or stood chatting by the large fire, which still burnt
+at one end.
+
+In the Captain’s tent a light was kept burning all night, which shone
+through the thin canvas sides, and shed light on the ground about; but,
+for the rest, the camp was dead and still.
+
+By half-past one the moon had gone down, and there was left only a blaze
+of stars in the great African sky.
+
+Then Peter Halket rose up; softly he lifted the canvas and crept out.
+On the side furthest from the camp he stood upright. On his arm was tied
+his red handkerchief with its contents. For a moment he glanced up at
+the galaxy of stars over him; then he stepped into the long grass, and
+made his way in a direction opposite to that in which the camp lay. But
+after a short while he turned, and made his way down into the river bed.
+He walked in it for a while. Then after a time he sat down upon the bank
+and took off his heavy boots and threw them into the grass at the side.
+Then softly, on tip-toe, he followed the little footpath that the men
+had trodden going down to the river for water. It led straight up to the
+Captain’s tent, and the little flat-topped tree, with its white stem,
+and its two gnarled branches spread out on either side. When he was
+within forty paces of it, he paused. Far over the other side of the
+camp the two men who were on guard stood chatting by the fire. A dead
+stillness was over the rest of the camp. The light through the walls of
+the Captain’s tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but
+there was no sound of movement within.
+
+For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the
+tree. The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to
+it that they seemed one. His hands were tied to his sides, and his head
+drooped on his breast. His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had
+once been those of a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints
+stand out. The wool on his head was wild and thick with neglect, and
+stood out roughly in long strands; and his skin was rough with want and
+exposure.
+
+The riems had cut a little into his ankles; and a small flow of blood
+had made the ground below his feet dark.
+
+Peter Halket looked up at him; the man seemed dead. He touched him
+softly on the arm, then shook it slightly.
+
+The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at
+Peter from under his weary eyebrows. Except that they moved they might
+have been the eyes of a dead thing.
+
+Peter put up his fingers to his own lips--“Hus-h! hus-h!” he said.
+
+The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.
+
+Quickly Peter Halket knelt down and took the knife from his belt. In an
+instant the riems that bound the feet were cut through; in another he
+had cut the riems from the waist and neck: the riems dropped to
+the ground from the arms, and the man stood free. Like a dazed dumb
+creature, he stood, with his head still down, eyeing Peter.
+
+Instantly Peter slipped the red bundle from his arm into the man’s
+passive hand.
+
+“Ari-tsemaia! Hamba! Loop! Go!” whispered Peter Halket; using a word
+from each African language he knew. But the black man still stood
+motionless, looking at him as one paralysed.
+
+“Hamba! Sucka! Go!” he whispered, motioning his hand.
+
+In an instant a gleam of intelligence shot across the face; then a wild
+transport. Without a word, without a sound, as the tiger leaps when the
+wild dogs are on it, with one long, smooth spring, as though unwounded
+and unhurt, he turned and disappeared into the grass. It closed behind
+him; but as he went the twigs and leaves cracked under his tread.
+
+The Captain threw back the door of his tent. “Who is there?” he cried.
+
+Peter Halket stood below the tree with the knife in his hand.
+
+The noise roused the whole camp: the men on guard came running; guns
+were fired: and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their
+weapons. There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry
+went round the camp, “The Mashonas are releasing the spy!”
+
+When the men got to the Captain’s tent, they saw that the nigger was
+gone; and Peter Halket was lying on his face at the foot of the tree;
+with his head turned towards the Captain’s door.
+
+There was a wild confusion of voices. “How many were there?” “Where have
+they gone to now?” “They’ve shot Peter Halket!”--“The Captain saw them
+do it”--“Stand ready, they may come back any time!”
+
+When the Englishman came, the other men, who knew he had been a medical
+student, made way for him. He knelt down by Peter Halket.
+
+“He’s dead,” he said, quietly.
+
+When they had turned him over, the Colonial knelt down on the other
+side, with a little hand-lamp in his hand.
+
+“What are you fellows fooling about here for?” cried the Captain. “Do
+you suppose it’s any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping!
+Go, guard the camp on all sides!”
+
+“I will send four coloured boys,” he said to the Englishman and the
+Colonial, “to dig the grave. You’d better bury him at once; there’s no
+use waiting. We start first thing in the morning.”
+
+When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket’s breast.
+There was one small wound just under the left bosom; and one on the
+crown of the head; which must have been made after he had fallen down.
+
+“Strange, isn’t it, what he can have been doing here?” said the
+Colonial; “a small wound, isn’t it?”
+
+“A pistol shot,” said the Englishman, closing the bosom.
+
+“A pistol--”
+
+The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
+
+“I told you he would not kill that nigger.--See--here--” He took up the
+knife which had fallen from Peter Halket’s grasp, and fitted it into a
+piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.
+
+“But you don’t think--” The Colonial stared at him with wide open eyes;
+then he glanced round at the Captain’s tent.
+
+“Yes, I think that--Go and fetch his great-coat; we’ll put him in it. If
+it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he
+is dead!”
+
+They brought his great-coat, and they looked in the pockets to see if
+there was anything which might show where he had come from or who his
+friends were. But there was nothing in the pockets except an empty
+flask, and a leathern purse with two shillings in, and a little
+hand-made two-pointed cap.
+
+So they wrapped Peter Halket up in his great-coat, and put the little
+cap on his head.
+
+And, one hour after Peter Halket had stood outside the tent looking up,
+he was lying under the little tree, with the red sand trodden down over
+him, in which a black man and a white man’s blood were mingled.
+
+All the rest of the night the men sat up round the fires, discussing
+what had happened, dreading an attack.
+
+But the Englishman and the Colonial went to their tent, to lie down.
+
+“Do you think they will make any inquiries?” asked the Colonial.
+
+“Why should they? His time will be up tomorrow.”
+
+“Are you going to say anything?”
+
+“What is the use?”
+
+They lay in the dark for an hour, and heard the men chatting outside.
+
+“Do you believe in a God?” said the Englishman, suddenly.
+
+The Colonial started: “Of course I do!”
+
+“I used to,” said the Englishman; “I do not believe in your God; but I
+believed in something greater than I could understand, which moved in
+this earth, as your soul moves in your body. And I thought this worked
+in such wise, that the law of cause and effect, which holds in the
+physical world, held also in the moral: so, that the thing we call
+justice, ruled. I do not believe it any more. There is no God in
+Mashonaland.”
+
+“Oh, don’t say that!” cried the Colonial, much distressed. “Are you
+going off your head, like poor Halket?”
+
+“No; but there is no God,” said the Englishman. He turned round on his
+shoulder, and said no more: and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.
+
+Before dawn the next morning the men had packed up the goods, and
+started.
+
+By five o’clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before
+and behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty
+circle; save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones
+about which the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.
+
+Only under the little stunted tree, the Colonial and the Englishman were
+piling up stones. Their horses stood saddled close by.
+
+Presently the large trooper came riding back. He had been sent by the
+Captain to ask what they were fooling behind for, and to tell them to
+come on.
+
+The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned
+in his saddle and looked back. The morning sun was lighting up the
+straggling branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the
+camp; and fell on the little stunted tree, with its white stem and
+outstretched arms; and on the stones beneath it.
+
+“It’s all that night on the kopje!” said the Colonial, sadly.
+
+But the Englishman looked back. “I hardly know,” he said, “whether it is
+not better for him now, than for us.”
+
+Then they rode on after the troop.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by
+Olive Schreiner
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diff --git a/old/1431-0.zip b/old/1431-0.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by Olive Schreiner
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by Olive Schreiner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
+
+Author: Olive Schreiner
+
+Release Date: September 15, 2008 [EBook #1431]
+Last Updated: October 12, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROOPER PETER HALKET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      TROOPER PETER HALKET OF MASHONALAND
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by Olive Schreiner
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      Author of &ldquo;Dreams,&rdquo; &ldquo;Dream Life and Real Life,"<br /> &ldquo;The Story of an
+      African Farm,&rdquo; etc.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonial Edition
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (A photographic plate at the front of the book shows three people hanging
+      from a tree by their necks. Around them stand eight men, looking not at
+      all troubled by their participation in the scene. Of this event all the
+      survivors appear to be white, the victims black. The plate is titled &ldquo;From
+      a Photograph taken in Matabeleland.&rdquo; S.A.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a Great Good Man, Sir George Grey,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once Governor of the Cape Colony, who, during his rule in South Africa,
+      bound to himself the Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Natives he governed, by an
+      uncorruptible justice and a broad humanity; and who is remembered among us
+      today as representing the noblest attributes of an Imperial Rule.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Our low life was the level&rsquo;s and the night&rsquo;s;
+      He&rsquo;s for the morning.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Olive Schreiner.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     19, Russell Road,
+     Kensington, W.,
+     February, 1897.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Aardvark - The great anteater.
+     Cape Smoke - A very inferior brandy made in Cape Colony.
+     Kopje - Little hillock.
+     Kraal - A Kaffir encampment.
+     Mealies - Maize (corn).
+     Riem - A thong of undressed leather universally used in South Africa.
+     Vatje of Old Dop - A little cask of Cape brandy.
+     Veld - Open Country.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Contents
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0001"> Chapter I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0002"> Chapter II. </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Chapter I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a dark night; a chill breath was coming from the east; not enough
+      to disturb the blaze of Trooper Peter Halket&rsquo;s fire, yet enough to make it
+      quiver. He sat alone beside it on the top of a kopje.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All about was an impenetrable darkness; not a star was visible in the
+      black curve over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been travelling with a dozen men who were taking provisions of
+      mealies and rice to the next camp. He had been sent out to act as scout
+      along a low range of hills, and had lost his way. Since eight in the
+      morning he had wandered among long grasses, and ironstone kopjes, and
+      stunted bush, and had come upon no sign of human habitation, but the
+      remains of a burnt kraal, and a down-trampled and now uncultivated mealie
+      field, where a month before the Chartered Company&rsquo;s forces had destroyed a
+      native settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three times in the day it had appeared to him that he had returned to the
+      very spot from which he had started; nor was it his wish to travel very
+      far, for he knew his comrades would come back to look for him, to the
+      neighbourhood where he had last been seen, when it was found at the
+      evening camping ground that he did not appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trooper Peter Halket was very weary. He had eaten nothing all day; and had
+      touched little of the contents of a small flask of Cape brandy he carried
+      in his breast pocket, not knowing when it would again be replenished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As night drew near he determined to make his resting place on the top of
+      one of the kopjes, which stood somewhat alone and apart from the others.
+      He could not easily be approached there, without his knowing it. He had
+      not much fear of the natives; their kraals had been destroyed and their
+      granaries burnt for thirty miles round, and they themselves had fled: but
+      he feared, somewhat, the lions, which he had never seen, but of which he
+      had heard, and which might be cowering in the long grasses and brushwood
+      at the kopje&rsquo;s foot:&mdash;and he feared, vaguely, he hardly knew what,
+      when he looked forward to his first long night alone in the veld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time the sun had set he had gathered a little pile of stumps and
+      branches on the top of the kopje. He intended to keep a fire burning all
+      night; and as the darkness began to settle down he lit it. It might be his
+      friends would see it from far, and come for him early in the morning; and
+      wild beasts would hardly approach him while he knelt beside it; and of the
+      natives he felt there was little fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He built up the fire; and determined if it were possible to keep awake the
+      whole night beside it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a slight man of middle height, with a sloping forehead and pale
+      blue eyes: but the jaws were hard set, and the thin lips of the large
+      mouth were those of a man who could strongly desire the material good of
+      life, and enjoy it when it came his way. Over the lower half of the face
+      were scattered a few soft white hairs, the growth of early manhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From time to time he listened intently for possible sounds from the
+      distance where his friends might be encamped, and might fire off their
+      guns at seeing his light; or he listened yet more intently for sounds
+      nearer at hand: but all was still, except for the occasional cracking of
+      the wood in his own fire, and the slight whistle of the breeze as it crept
+      past the stones on the kopje. He doubled up his great hat and put it in
+      the pocket of his overcoat, and put on a little two-pointed cap his mother
+      had made for him, which fitted so close that only one lock of white hair
+      hung out over his forehead. He turned up the collar of his coat to shield
+      his neck and ears, and threw it open in front that the blaze of the fire
+      might warm him. He had known many nights colder than this when he had sat
+      around the camp fire with his comrades, talking of the niggers they had
+      shot or the kraals they had destroyed, or grumbling over their rations;
+      but tonight the chill seemed to creep into his very bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The darkness of the night above him, and the silence of the veld about
+      him, oppressed him. At times he even wished he might hear the cry of a
+      jackal or of some larger beast of prey in the distance; and he wished that
+      the wind would blow a little louder, instead of making that little
+      wheezing sound as it passed the corners of the stones. He looked down at
+      his gun, which lay cocked ready on the ground at his right side; and from
+      time to time he raised his hand automatically and fingered the cartridges
+      in his belt. Then he stretched out his small wiry hands to the fire and
+      warmed them. It was only half past ten, and it seemed to him he had been
+      sitting here ten hours at the least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while he threw two more large logs on the fire, and took the flask
+      out of his pocket. He examined it carefully by the firelight to see how
+      much it held: then he took a small draught, and examined it again to see
+      how much it had fallen; and put it back in his breast pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Trooper Peter Halket fell to thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not often that he thought. On patrol and sitting round camp fires
+      with the other men about him there was no time for it; and Peter Halket
+      had never been given to much thinking. He had been a careless boy at the
+      village school; and though, when he left, his mother paid the village
+      apothecary to read learned books with him at night on history and science,
+      he had not retained much of them. As a rule he lived in the world
+      immediately about him, and let the things of the moment impinge on him,
+      and fall off again as they would, without much reflection. But tonight on
+      the kopje he fell to thinking, and his thoughts shaped themselves into
+      connected chains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wondered first whether his mother would ever get the letter he had
+      posted the week before, and whether it would be brought to her cottage or
+      she would go to the post office to fetch it. And then, he fell to thinking
+      of the little English village where he had been born, and where he had
+      grown up. He saw his mother&rsquo;s fat white ducklings creep in and out under
+      the gate, and waddle down to the little pond at the back of the yard; he
+      saw the school house that he had hated so much as a boy, and from which he
+      had so often run away to go a-fishing, or a-bird&rsquo;s-nesting. He saw the
+      prints on the school house wall on which the afternoon sun used to shine
+      when he was kept in; Jesus of Judea blessing the children, and one picture
+      just over the door where he hung with his arms stretched out and the blood
+      dropping from his feet. Then Peter Halket thought of the tower at the
+      ruins which he had climbed so often for birds&rsquo; eggs; and he saw his mother
+      standing at her cottage gate when he came home in the evening, and he felt
+      her arms round his neck as she kissed him; but he felt her tears on his
+      cheek, because he had run away from school all day; and he seemed to be
+      making apologies to her, and promising he never would do it again if only
+      she would not cry. He had often thought of her since he left her, on board
+      ship, and when he was working with the prospectors, and since he had
+      joined the troop; but it had been in a vague way; he had not distinctly
+      seen and felt her. But tonight he wished for her as he used to when he was
+      a small boy and lay in his bed in the next room, and saw her shadow
+      through the door as she bent over her wash-tub earning the money which was
+      to feed and clothe him. He remembered how he called her and she came and
+      tucked him in and called him &ldquo;Little Simon,&rdquo; which was his second name and
+      had been his father&rsquo;s, and which she only called him when he was in bed at
+      night, or when he was hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there staring into the blaze. He resolved he would make a great
+      deal of money, and she should live with him. He would build a large house
+      in the West End of London, the biggest that had ever been seen, and
+      another in the country, and they should never work any more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket sat as one turned into stone, staring into the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All men made money when they came to South Africa,&mdash;Barney Barnato,
+      Rhodes&mdash;they all made money out of the country, eight millions,
+      twelve millions, twenty-six millions, forty millions; why should not he!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket started suddenly and listened. But it was only the wind
+      coming up the kopje like a great wheezy beast creeping upwards; and he
+      looked back into the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered his business prospects. When he had served his time as
+      volunteer he would have a large piece of land given him, and the Mashonas
+      and Matabeles would have all their land taken away from them in time, and
+      the Chartered Company would pass a law that they had to work for the white
+      men; and he, Peter Halket, would make them work for him. He would make
+      money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he reflected on what he should do with the land if it were no good
+      and he could not make anything out of it. Then, he should have to start a
+      syndicate; called the Peter Halket Gold, or the Peter Halket Iron-mining,
+      or some such name, Syndicate. Peter Halket was not very clear as to how it
+      ought to be started; but he felt certain that he and some other men would
+      have to take shares. They would not have to pay for them. And then they
+      would get some big man in London to take shares. He need not pay for them;
+      they would give them to him; and then the company would be floated. No one
+      would have to pay anything; it was just the name&mdash;&ldquo;The Peter Halket
+      Gold Mining Company, Limited.&rdquo; It would float in London; and people there
+      who didn&rsquo;t know the country would buy the shares; THEY would have to give
+      ready money for them, of course; perhaps fifteen pounds a share when they
+      were up!&mdash;Peter Halket&rsquo;s eyes blinked as he looked into the fire.&mdash;And
+      then, when the market was up, he, Peter Halket, would sell out all his
+      shares. If he gave himself only six thousand and sold them each for ten
+      pounds, then he, Peter Halket, would have sixty thousand pounds! And then
+      he would start another company, and another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket struck his knee softly with his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the great thing&mdash;&ldquo;Always sell out at the right time.&rdquo; That
+      point Peter Halket was very clear on. He had heard it so often discussed.
+      Give some shares to men with big names, and sell out: they can sell out
+      too at the right time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket stroked his knee thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the other people, that bought the shares for cash! Well, they
+      could sell out too; they could all sell out!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter Halket&rsquo;s mind got a little hazy. The matter was getting too
+      difficult for him, like a rule of three sum at school when he could not
+      see the relation between the two first terms and the third. Well, if they
+      didn&rsquo;t like to sell out at the right time, it was their own faults. Why
+      didn&rsquo;t they? He, Peter Halket, did not feel responsible for them. Everyone
+      knew that you had to sell out at the right time. If they didn&rsquo;t choose to
+      sell out at the right time, well, they didn&rsquo;t. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the shares that you
+      sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But if they couldn&rsquo;t sell them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Peter Halket hesitated.&mdash;Well, the British Government would have
+      to buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
+      lose. &ldquo;The British Government can&rsquo;t let British share-holders suffer.&rdquo;
+       He&rsquo;d heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay for
+      the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
+      couldn&rsquo;t, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
+      lords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn&rsquo;t they pay
+      for his company? He would have a lord in it too!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket looked into the fire completely absorbed in his calculations.&mdash;Peter
+      Halket, Esq., Director of the Peter Halket Gold Mining Company, Limited.
+      Then, when he had got thousands, Peter Halket, Esq., M.P. Then, when he
+      had millions, Sir Peter Halket, Privy Councillor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected deeply, looking into the blaze. If you had five or six
+      millions you could go where you liked and do what you liked. You could go
+      to Sandringham. You could marry anyone. No one would ask what your mother
+      had been; it wouldn&rsquo;t matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A curious dull sinking sensation came over Peter Halket; and he drew in
+      his broad leathern belt two holes tighter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even if you had only two millions you could have a cook and a valet, to go
+      with you when you went into the veld or to the wars; and you could have as
+      much champagne and other things as you liked. At that moment that seemed
+      to Peter more important than going to Sandringham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took out his flask of Cape Smoke, and drew a tiny draught from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other men had come to South Africa with nothing, and had made everything!
+      Why should not he?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stuck small branches under the two great logs, and a glorious flame
+      burst out. Then he listened again intently. The wind was falling and the
+      night was becoming very still. It was a quarter to twelve now. His back
+      ached, and he would have liked to lie down; but he dared not, for fear he
+      should drop asleep. He leaned forward with his hands between his crossed
+      knees, and watched the blaze he had made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, after a while, Peter Halket&rsquo;s thoughts became less clear: they
+      became at last, rather, a chain of disconnected pictures, painting
+      themselves in irrelevant order on his brain, than a line of connected
+      ideas. Now, as he looked into the crackling blaze, it seemed to be one of
+      the fires they had make to burn the natives&rsquo; grain by, and they were
+      throwing in all they could not carry away: then, he seemed to see his
+      mother&rsquo;s fat ducks waddling down the little path with the green grass on
+      each side. Then, he seemed to see his huts where he lived with the
+      prospectors, and the native women who used to live with him; and he
+      wondered where the women were. Then&mdash;he saw the skull of an old
+      Mashona blown off at the top, the hands still moving. He heard the loud
+      cry of the native women and children as they turned the maxims on to the
+      kraal; and then he heard the dynamite explode that blew up a cave. Then
+      again he was working a maxim gun, but it seemed to him it was more like
+      the reaping machine he used to work in England, and that what was going
+      down before it was not yellow corn, but black men&rsquo;s heads; and he thought
+      when he looked back they lay behind him in rows, like the corn in sheaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The logs sent up a flame clear and high, and, where they split, showed a
+      burning core inside: the cracking and spluttering sounded in his brain
+      like the discharge of a battery of artillery. Then he thought suddenly of
+      a black woman he and another man caught alone in the bush, her baby on her
+      back, but young and pretty. Well, they didn&rsquo;t shoot her!&mdash;and a black
+      woman wasn&rsquo;t white! His mother didn&rsquo;t understand these things; it was all
+      so different in England from South Africa. You couldn&rsquo;t be expected to do
+      the same sort of things here as there. He had an unpleasant feeling that
+      he was justifying himself to his mother, and that he didn&rsquo;t know how to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned further and further forward: so far at last, that the little
+      white lock of his hair which hung out under his cap was almost singed by
+      the fire. His eyes were still open, but the lids drooped over them, and
+      his hands hung lower and lower between his knees. There was no picture
+      left on his brain now, but simply an impress of the blazing logs before
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, Trooper Peter Halket started. He sat up and listened. The wind had
+      gone; there was not a sound: but he listened intently. The fire burnt up
+      into the still air, two clear red tongues of flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, on the other side of the kopje he heard the sound of footsteps
+      ascending; the slow even tread of bare feet coming up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hair on Trooper Peter Halket&rsquo;s forehead slowly stiffened itself. He
+      had no thought of escaping; he was paralyzed with dread. He took up his
+      gun. A deadly coldness crept from his feet to his head. He had worked a
+      maxim gun in a fight when some hundred natives fell and only one white man
+      had been wounded; and he had never known fear; but tonight his fingers
+      were stiff on the lock of his gun. He knelt low, tending a little to one
+      side of the fire, with his gun ready. A stone half sheltered him from
+      anyone coming up from the other side of the kopje, and the instant the
+      figure appeared over the edge he intended to fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, the thought flashed on him; what, and if it were one of his own
+      comrades come in search of him, and no bare-footed enemy! The anguish of
+      suspense wrung his heart; for an instant he hesitated. Then, in a cold
+      agony of terror, he cried out, &ldquo;Who is there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And a voice replied in clear, slow English, &ldquo;A friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket almost let his gun drop, in the revulsion of feeling. The
+      cold sweat which anguish had restrained burst out in large drops on his
+      forehead; but he still knelt holding his gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; he cried out quiveringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the darkness at the edge of the kopje a figure stepped out into the
+      full blaze of the firelight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trooper Peter Halket looked up at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the tall figure of a man, clad in one loose linen garment, reaching
+      lower than his knees, and which clung close about him. His head, arms, and
+      feet were bare. He carried no weapon of any kind; and on his shoulders
+      hung heavy locks of dark hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket looked up at him with astonishment. &ldquo;Are you alone?&rdquo; he
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket lowered his gun and knelt up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost your way, I suppose?&rdquo; he said, still holding his weapon loosely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I have come to ask whether I may sit beside your fire for a while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly!&rdquo; said Peter, eyeing the stranger&rsquo;s dress carefully,
+      still holding his gun, but with the hand off the lock. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m confoundedly
+      glad of any company. It&rsquo;s a beastly night for anyone to be out alone.
+      Wonder you find your way. Sit down! sit down!&rdquo; Peter looked intently at
+      the stranger; then he put his gun down at his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger sat down on the opposite side of the fire. His complexion was
+      dark; his arms and feet were bronzed; but his aquiline features, and the
+      domed forehead, were not of any South African race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the Soudanese Rhodes brought with him from the north, I suppose?&rdquo;
+       said Peter, still eyeing him curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; Cecil Rhodes has had nothing to do with my coming here,&rdquo; said the
+      stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t perhaps happen to come across a
+      company of men today, twelve white men and seven coloured, with three cart
+      loads of provisions? We were taking them to the big camp, and I got parted
+      from my troop this morning. I&rsquo;ve not been able to find them, though I&rsquo;ve
+      been seeking for them ever since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger warmed his hands slowly at the fire; then he raised his head:&mdash;&ldquo;They
+      are camped at the foot of those hills tonight,&rdquo; he said, pointing with his
+      hand into the darkness at the left. &ldquo;Tomorrow early they will be here,
+      before the sun has risen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;ve met them, have you!&rdquo; said Peter joyfully; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s why you
+      weren&rsquo;t surprised at finding me here. Take a drop!&rdquo; He took the small
+      flask from his pocket and held it out. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry there&rsquo;s so little, but a
+      drop will keep the cold out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger bowed his head; but thanked and declined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter raised the flask to his lips and took a small draught; then returned
+      it to his pocket. The stranger folded his arms about his knees, and looked
+      into the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a Jew?&rdquo; asked Peter, suddenly; as the firelight fell full on the
+      stranger&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I am a Jew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s why I wasn&rsquo;t able to make out at first what
+      nation you could be of; your dress, you know&mdash;&rdquo; Then he stopped, and
+      said, &ldquo;Trading here, I suppose? Which country do you come from; are you a
+      Spanish Jew?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a Jew of Palestine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Peter; &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen many from that part yet. I came out with
+      a lot on board ship; and I&rsquo;ve seen Barnato and Beit; but they&rsquo;re not very
+      much like you. I suppose it&rsquo;s coming from Palestine makes the difference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All fear of the stranger had now left Peter Halket. &ldquo;Come a little nearer
+      the fire,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you must be cold, you haven&rsquo;t too much wraps. I&rsquo;m
+      chill in this big coat.&rdquo; Peter Halket pushed his gun a little further away
+      from him; and threw another large log on the fire. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry I haven&rsquo;t
+      anything to eat to offer you; but I haven&rsquo;t had anything myself since last
+      night. It&rsquo;s beastly sickening, being out like this with nothing to eat.
+      Wouldn&rsquo;t have thought a fellow&rsquo;d feel so bad after only a day of it. Have
+      you ever been out without grub?&rdquo; said Peter cheerfully, warming his hands
+      at the blaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty days and nights,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty days! Ph&mdash;e&mdash;ew!&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;You must have have had a
+      lot to drink, or you wouldn&rsquo;t have stood it. I was feeling blue enough
+      when you turned up, but I&rsquo;m better now, warmer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket re-arranged the logs on the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the employ of the Chartered Company, I suppose?&rdquo; said Peter, looking
+      into the fire he had made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the stranger; &ldquo;I have nothing to do with the Chartered
+      Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wonder, then, that things aren&rsquo;t looking very
+      smart with you! There&rsquo;s not too much cakes and ale up here for those that
+      do belong to it, if they&rsquo;re not big-wigs, and none at all for those who
+      don&rsquo;t. I tried it when I first came up here. I was with a prospector who
+      was hooked on to the Company somehow, but I worked on my own account for
+      the prospector by the day. I tell you what, it&rsquo;s not the men who work up
+      here who make the money; it&rsquo;s the big-wigs who get the concessions!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter felt exhilarated by the presence of the stranger. That one unarmed
+      man had robbed him of all fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that the stranger did not take up the thread of conversation, he
+      went on after a time: &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t such a bad life, though. I only wish I
+      was back there again. I had two huts to myself, and a couple of nigger
+      girls. It&rsquo;s better fun,&rdquo; said Peter, after a while, &ldquo;having these black
+      women than whites. The whites you&rsquo;ve got to support, but the niggers
+      support you! And when you&rsquo;ve done with them you can just get rid of them.
+      I&rsquo;m all for the nigger gals.&rdquo; Peter laughed. But the stranger sat
+      motionless with his arms about his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You got any girls?&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;Care for niggers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love all women,&rdquo; said the stranger, refolding his arms about his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you do, do you?&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m pretty sick of them. I had
+      bother enough with mine,&rdquo; he said genially, warming his hands by the fire,
+      and then interlocking the fingers and turning the palms towards the blaze
+      as one who prepares to enjoy a good talk. &ldquo;One girl was only fifteen; I
+      got her cheap from a policeman who was living with her, and she wasn&rsquo;t
+      much. But the other, by Gad! I never saw another nigger like her; well set
+      up, I tell you, and as straight as that&mdash;&rdquo; said Peter, holding up his
+      finger in the firelight. &ldquo;She was thirty if she was a day. Fellows don&rsquo;t
+      generally fancy women that age; they like slips of girls. But I set my
+      heart on her the day I saw her. She belonged to the chap I was with. He
+      got her up north. There was a devil of a row about his getting her, too;
+      she&rsquo;d got a nigger husband and two children; didn&rsquo;t want to leave them, or
+      some nonsense of that sort: you know what these niggers are? Well, I tried
+      to get the other fellow to let me have her, but the devil a bit he would.
+      I&rsquo;d only got the other girl, and I didn&rsquo;t much fancy her; she was only a
+      child. Well, I went down Umtali way and got a lot of liquor and stuff, and
+      when I got back to camp I found them clean dried out. They hadn&rsquo;t had a
+      drop of liquor in camp for ten days, and the rainy season coming on and no
+      knowing when they&rsquo;d get any. Well, I&rsquo;d a vatje of Old Dop as high as that&mdash;,&rdquo;
+       indicating with his hand an object about two feet high, &ldquo;and the other
+      fellow wanted to buy it from me. I knew two of that. I said I wanted it
+      for myself. He offered me this, and he offered me that. At last I said,
+      &lsquo;Well, just to oblige you, I give you the vatje and you give me the girl!&rsquo; 
+      And so he did. Most people wouldn&rsquo;t have fancied a nigger girl who&rsquo;d had
+      two nigger children, but I didn&rsquo;t mind; it&rsquo;s all the same to me. And I
+      tell you she worked. She made a garden, and she and the other girl worked
+      in it; I tell you I didn&rsquo;t need to buy a sixpence of food for them in six
+      months, and I used to sell green mealies and pumpkins to all the fellows
+      about. There weren&rsquo;t many flies on her, I tell you. She picked up English
+      quicker than I picked up her lingo, and took to wearing a dress and
+      shawl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger still sat motionless, looking into the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket reseated himself more comfortably before the fire. &ldquo;Well, I
+      came home to the huts one day, rather suddenly, you know, to fetch
+      something; and what did I find? She, talking at the hut door with a nigger
+      man. Now it was my strict orders they were neither to speak a word to a
+      nigger man at all; so I asked what it was. And she answers, as cool as can
+      be, that he was a stranger going past on the road, and asked her to give
+      him a drink of water. Well, I just ordered him off. I didn&rsquo;t think
+      anything more about it. But I remember now. I saw him hanging about the
+      camp the day after. Well, she came to me the next day and asked me for a
+      lot of cartridges. She&rsquo;d never asked me for anything before. I asked her
+      what the devil a woman wanted with cartridges, and she said the old nigger
+      woman who helped carry in water to the garden said she couldn&rsquo;t stay and
+      help her any more unless she got some cartridges to give her son who was
+      going up north hunting elephants. The woman got over me to give her the
+      cartridges because she was going to have a kid, and she said she couldn&rsquo;t
+      do the watering without help. So I gave them her. I never put two and two
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, when I heard that the Company was going to have a row with the
+      Matabele, I thought I&rsquo;d volunteer. They said there was lots of loot to be
+      got, and land to be given out, and that sort of thing, and I thought I&rsquo;d
+      only be gone about three months. So I went. I left those women there, and
+      a lot of stuff in the garden and some sugar and rice, and I told them not
+      to leave till I came back; and I asked the other man to keep an eye on
+      them. Both those women were Mashonas. They always said the Mashonas didn&rsquo;t
+      love the Matabele; but, by God, it turned out that they loved them better
+      than they loved us. They&rsquo;ve got the damned impertinence to say, that the
+      Matabele oppressed them sometimes, but the white man oppresses them all
+      the time!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I left those women there,&rdquo; said Peter, dropping his hands on his
+      knees. &ldquo;Mind you, I&rsquo;d treated those women really well. I&rsquo;d never given
+      either of them one touch all the time I had them. I was the talk of all
+      the fellows round, the way I treated them. Well, I hadn&rsquo;t been gone a
+      month, when I got a letter from the man I worked with, the one who had the
+      woman first&mdash;he&rsquo;s dead now, poor fellow; they found him at his hut
+      door with his throat cut&mdash;and what do you think he said to me? Why, I
+      hadn&rsquo;t been gone six hours when those two women skooted! It was all the
+      big one. What do you think she did? She took every ounce of ball and
+      cartridge she could find in that hut, and my old Martini-Henry, and even
+      the lid off the tea-box to melt into bullets for the old muzzle-loaders
+      they have; and off she went, and took the young one too. The fellow wrote
+      me they didn&rsquo;t touch another thing: they left the shawls and dresses I
+      gave them kicking about the huts, and went off naked with only their
+      blankets and the ammunition on their heads. A nigger man met them twenty
+      miles off, and he said they were skooting up for Lo Magundi&rsquo;s country as
+      fast as they could go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you know,&rdquo; said Peter, striking his knee, and looking impressively
+      across the fire at the stranger; &ldquo;what I&rsquo;m as sure of as that I&rsquo;m sitting
+      here? It&rsquo;s that that nigger I caught at my hut, that day, was her nigger
+      husband! He&rsquo;d come to fetch her that time; and when she saw she couldn&rsquo;t
+      get away without our catching her, she got the cartridges for him!&rdquo; Peter
+      paused impressively between the words. &ldquo;And now she&rsquo;s gone back to him.
+      It&rsquo;s for him she&rsquo;s taken that ammunition!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter looked across the fire at the stranger, to see what impression his
+      story was making.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;if I&rsquo;d had any idea that day who that
+      bloody nigger was, the day I saw him standing at my door, I&rsquo;d have given
+      him one cartridge in the back of his head more than ever he reckoned for!&rdquo;
+       Peter looked triumphantly at the stranger. This was his only story; and he
+      had told it a score of times round the camp fire for the benefit of some
+      new-comer. When this point was reached, a low murmur of applause and
+      sympathy always ran round the group: tonight there was quiet; the
+      stranger&rsquo;s large dark eyes watched the fire almost as though he heard
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have minded so much,&rdquo; said Peter after a while, &ldquo;though no
+      man likes to have his woman taken away from him; but she was going to have
+      a kid in a month or two&mdash;and so was the little one for anything I
+      know; she looked like it! I expect they did away with it before it came;
+      they&rsquo;ve no hearts, these niggers; they&rsquo;d think nothing of doing that with
+      a white man&rsquo;s child. They&rsquo;ve no hearts; they&rsquo;d rather go back to a black
+      man, however well you&rsquo;ve treated them. It&rsquo;s all right if you get them
+      quite young and keep them away from their own people; but if once a nigger
+      woman&rsquo;s had a nigger man and had children by him, you might as well try to
+      hold a she-devil! they&rsquo;ll always go back. If ever I&rsquo;m shot, it&rsquo;s as likely
+      as not it&rsquo;ll be by my own gun, with my own cartridges. And she&rsquo;d stand by
+      and watch it, and cheer them on; though I never gave her a blow all the
+      time she was with me. But I tell you what&mdash;if ever I come across that
+      bloody nigger, I&rsquo;ll take it out of him. He won&rsquo;t count many days to his
+      year, after I&rsquo;ve spotted him!&rdquo; Peter Halket paused. It seemed to him that
+      the eyes under their heavy, curled lashes, were looking at something
+      beyond him with an infinite sadness, almost as of eyes that wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look awfully tired,&rdquo; said Peter; &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t you like to lie down and
+      sleep? You could put your head down on that stone, and I&rsquo;d keep watch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no need of sleep,&rdquo; the stranger said; &ldquo;I will watch with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been in the wars, too, I see,&rdquo; said Peter, bending forward a
+      little, and looking at the stranger&rsquo;s feet. &ldquo;By God! Both of them!&mdash;And
+      right through! You must have had a bad time of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was very long ago,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire. &ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of.
+      It&rsquo;s my mother! You&rsquo;re not like her in the face, but when your eyes look
+      at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me. Curious, isn&rsquo;t it? I
+      don&rsquo;t know you from Adam, and you&rsquo;ve hardly spoken a word since you came;
+      and yet I seem as if I&rsquo;d known you all my life.&rdquo; Peter moved a little
+      nearer him. &ldquo;I was awfully afraid of you when you first came; even when I
+      first saw you;&mdash;you aren&rsquo;t dressed as most of us dress, you know. But
+      the minute the fire shone on your face I said, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s all right.&rsquo; Curious,
+      isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know you from Adam, but if you were to
+      take up my gun and point it at me, I wouldn&rsquo;t move! I&rsquo;d lie down here and
+      go to sleep with my head at your feet; curious, isn&rsquo;t it, when I don&rsquo;t
+      know you from Adam? My name&rsquo;s Peter Halket. What&rsquo;s yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the stranger was arranging the logs on the fire. The flames shot up
+      bright and high, and almost hid him from Peter Halket&rsquo;s view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By gad! how they burn when you arrange them!&rdquo; said Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat quiet in the blaze for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter said, &ldquo;Did you see any niggers about yesterday? I haven&rsquo;t come
+      across any in this part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is,&rdquo; said the stranger, raising himself, &ldquo;an old woman in a cave
+      over yonder, and there is one man in the bush, ten miles from this spot.
+      He has lived there six weeks, since you destroyed the kraal, living on
+      roots or herbs. He was wounded in the thigh, and left for dead. He is
+      waiting till you have all left this part of the country that he may set
+      out to follow his own people. His leg is not yet so strong that he may
+      walk fast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you speak to him?&rdquo; said Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took him down to the water where a large pool was. The bank was too
+      high for the man to descend alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lucky thing for you our fellows didn&rsquo;t catch you,&rdquo; said Peter.
+      &ldquo;Our captain&rsquo;s a regular little martinet. He&rsquo;d shoot you as soon as look
+      at you, if he saw you fooling round with a wounded nigger. It&rsquo;s lucky you
+      kept out of his way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young ravens have meat given to them,&rdquo; said the stranger, lifting
+      himself up; &ldquo;and the lions go down to the streams to drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;yes&mdash;&rdquo; said Peter; &ldquo;but that&rsquo;s because we can&rsquo;t help it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent again for a little while. Then Peter, seeing that the
+      stranger showed no inclination to speak, said, &ldquo;Did you hear of the spree
+      they had up Bulawayo way, hanging those three niggers for spies? I wasn&rsquo;t
+      there myself, but a fellow who was told me they made the niggers jump down
+      from the tree and hang themselves; one fellow wouldn&rsquo;t bally jump, till
+      they gave him a charge of buckshot in the back: and then he caught hold of
+      a branch with his hands and they had to shoot &lsquo;em loose. He didn&rsquo;t like
+      hanging. I don&rsquo;t know if it&rsquo;s true, of course; I wasn&rsquo;t there myself, but
+      a fellow who was told me. Another fellow who was at Bulawayo, but who
+      wasn&rsquo;t there when they were hung, said they fired at them just after they
+      jumped, to kill &lsquo;em. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was there,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you were?&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;I saw a photograph of the niggers hanging,
+      and our fellows standing round smoking; but I didn&rsquo;t see you in it. I
+      suppose you&rsquo;d just gone away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was beside the men when they were hung,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you were, were you?&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t much care about seeing that
+      sort of thing myself. Some fellows think it&rsquo;s the best fun out to see the
+      niggers kick; but I can&rsquo;t stand it: it turns my stomach. It&rsquo;s not
+      liver-heartedness,&rdquo; said Peter, quickly, anxious to remove any adverse
+      impression as to his courage which the stranger might form; &ldquo;if it&rsquo;s
+      shooting or fighting, I&rsquo;m there. I&rsquo;ve potted as many niggers as any man in
+      our troop, I bet. It&rsquo;s floggings and hangings I&rsquo;m off. It&rsquo;s the way one&rsquo;s
+      brought up, you know. My mother never even would kill our ducks; she let
+      them die of old age, and we had the feathers and the eggs: and she was
+      always drumming into me;&mdash;don&rsquo;t hit a fellow smaller than yourself;
+      don&rsquo;t hit a fellow weaker than yourself; don&rsquo;t hit a fellow unless he can
+      hit you back as good again. When you&rsquo;ve always had that sort of thing
+      drummed into you, you can&rsquo;t get rid of it, somehow. Now there was that
+      other nigger they shot. They say he sat as still as if he was cut out of
+      stone, with his arms round his legs; and some of the fellows gave him
+      blows about the head and face before they took him off to shoot him. Now,
+      that&rsquo;s the sort of thing I can&rsquo;t do. It makes me sick here, somehow.&rdquo;
+       Peter put his hand rather low down over the pit of his stomach. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+      shoot as many as you like if they&rsquo;ll run, but they mustn&rsquo;t be tied up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was there when that man was shot,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you seem to have been everywhere,&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;Have you seen Cecil
+      Rhodes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have seen him,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now he&rsquo;s death on niggers,&rdquo; said Peter Halket, warming his hands by the
+      fire; &ldquo;they say when he was Prime Minister down in the Colony he tried to
+      pass a law that would give their masters and mistresses the right to have
+      their servants flogged whenever they did anything they didn&rsquo;t like; but
+      the other Englishmen wouldn&rsquo;t let him pass it. But here he can do what he
+      likes. That&rsquo;s the reason some fellows don&rsquo;t want him to be sent away. They
+      say, &lsquo;If we get the British Government here, they&rsquo;ll be giving the niggers
+      land to live on; and let them have the vote, and get civilised and
+      educated, and all that sort of thing; but Cecil Rhodes, he&rsquo;ll keep their
+      noses to the grindstone.&rsquo; &lsquo;I prefer land to niggers,&rsquo; he says. They say
+      he&rsquo;s going to parcel them out, and make them work on our lands whether
+      they like it or not&mdash;just as good as having slaves, you know: and you
+      haven&rsquo;t the bother of looking after them when they&rsquo;re old. Now, there I&rsquo;m
+      with Rhodes; I think it&rsquo;s an awfully good move. We don&rsquo;t come out here to
+      work; it&rsquo;s all very well in England; but we&rsquo;ve come here to make money,
+      and how are we to make it, unless you get niggers to work for you, or
+      start a syndicate? He&rsquo;s death on niggers, is Rhodes!&rdquo; said Peter,
+      meditating; &ldquo;they say if we had the British Government here and you were
+      thrashing a nigger and something happened, there&rsquo;d be an investigation,
+      and all that sort of thing. But, with Cecil, it&rsquo;s all right, you can do
+      what you like with the niggers, provided you don&rsquo;t get HIM into trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger watched the clear flame as it burnt up high in the still
+      night air; then suddenly he started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; said Peter; &ldquo;do you hear anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear far off,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;the sound of weeping, and the sound
+      of blows. And I hear the voices of men and women calling to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter listened intently. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hear anything!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It must be in
+      your head. I sometimes get a noise in mine.&rdquo; He listened intently. &ldquo;No,
+      there&rsquo;s nothing. It&rsquo;s all so deadly still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat silent for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket,&rdquo; said the stranger suddenly&mdash;Peter started; he
+      had not told him his second name&mdash;&ldquo;if it should come to pass that you
+      should obtain those lands you have desired, and you should obtain black
+      men to labour on them and make to yourself great wealth; or should you
+      create that company&rdquo;&mdash;Peter started&mdash;&ldquo;and fools should buy from
+      you, so that you became the richest man in the land; and if you should
+      take to yourself wide lands, and raise to yourself great palaces, so that
+      princes and great men of earth crept up to you and laid their hands
+      against yours, so that you might slip gold into them&mdash;what would it
+      profit you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Profit!&rdquo; Peter Halket stared: &ldquo;Why, it would profit everything. What
+      makes Beit and Rhodes and Barnato so great? If you&rsquo;ve got eight millions&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket, which of those souls you have seen on earth is to you
+      greatest?&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;Which soul is to you fairest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;but we weren&rsquo;t talking of souls at all; we were talking
+      of money. Of course if it comes to souls, my mother&rsquo;s the best person I&rsquo;ve
+      ever seen. But what does it help her? She&rsquo;s got to stand washing clothes
+      for those stuck-up nincompoops of fine ladies! Wait till I&rsquo;ve got money!
+      It&rsquo;ll be somebody else then, who&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peter Halket,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;who is the greatest; he who serves or
+      he who is served?&rdquo; Peter looked at the stranger: then it flashed on him
+      that he was mad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if it comes to that, what&rsquo;s anything! You might as well
+      say, sitting there in your old linen shirt, that you were as great as
+      Rhodes or Beit or Barnato, or a king. Of course a man&rsquo;s just the same
+      whatever he&rsquo;s got on or whatever he has; but he isn&rsquo;t the same to other
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There have kings been born in stables,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter saw that he was joking, and laughed. &ldquo;It must have been a long
+      time ago; they don&rsquo;t get born there now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why, if God Almighty
+      came to this country, and hadn&rsquo;t half-a-million in shares, they wouldn&rsquo;t
+      think much of Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter built up his fire. Suddenly he felt the stranger&rsquo;s eyes were fixed
+      on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who gave you your land?&rdquo; the stranger asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine! Why, the Chartered Company,&rdquo; said Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger looked back into the fire. &ldquo;And who gave it to them?&rdquo; he
+      asked softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, England, of course. She gave them the land to far beyond the Zambezi
+      to do what they liked with, and make as much money out of as they could,
+      and she&rsquo;d back &lsquo;em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who gave the land to the men and women of England?&rdquo; asked the stranger
+      softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the devil! They said it was theirs, and of course it was,&rdquo; said
+      Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the people of the land: did England give you the people also?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter looked a little doubtfully at the stranger. &ldquo;Yes, of course, she
+      gave us the people; what use would the land have been to us otherwise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who gave her the people, the living flesh and blood, that she might
+      give them away, into the hands of others?&rdquo; asked the stranger, raising
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter looked at him and was half afeared. &ldquo;Well, what could she do with a
+      lot of miserable niggers, if she didn&rsquo;t give them to us? A lot of
+      good-for-nothing rebels they are, too,&rdquo; said Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is a rebel?&rdquo; asked the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Gawd!&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;you must have lived out of the world if you don&rsquo;t
+      know what a rebel is! A rebel is a man who fights against his king and his
+      country. These bloody niggers here are rebels because they are fighting
+      against us. They don&rsquo;t want the Chartered Company to have them. But
+      they&rsquo;ll have to. We&rsquo;ll teach them a lesson,&rdquo; said Peter Halket, the
+      pugilistic spirit rising, firmly reseating himself on the South African
+      earth, which two years before he had never heard of, and eighteen months
+      before he had never seen, as if it had been his mother earth, and the land
+      in which he first saw light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger watched the fire; then he said musingly, &ldquo;I have seen a land
+      far from here. In that land are men of two kinds who live side by side.
+      Well nigh a thousand years ago one conquered the other; they have lived
+      together since. Today the one people seeks to drive forth the other who
+      conquered them. Are these men rebels, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Peter, pleased at being deferred to, &ldquo;that all depends who
+      they are, you know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They call the one nation Turks, and the other Armenians,&rdquo; said the
+      stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the Armenians aren&rsquo;t rebels,&rdquo; said Peter; &ldquo;they are on our side! The
+      papers are all full of it,&rdquo; said Peter, pleased to show his knowledge.
+      &ldquo;Those bloody Turks! What right had they to conquer the Armenians? Who
+      gave them their land? I&rsquo;d like to have a shot at them myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY are Armenians not rebels?&rdquo; asked the stranger, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you do ask such curious questions,&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t like
+      the Turks, why should they have &lsquo;em? If the French came now and conquered
+      us, and we tried to drive them out first chance we had; you wouldn&rsquo;t call
+      us rebels! Why shouldn&rsquo;t they try to turn those bloody Turks out?
+      Besides,&rdquo; said Peter, bending over and talking in the manner of one who
+      imparts secret and important information; &ldquo;you see, if we don&rsquo;t help the
+      Armenians the Russians would; and we,&rdquo; said Peter, looking exceedingly
+      knowing, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve got to prevent that: they&rsquo;d get the land; and it&rsquo;s on the
+      road to India. And we don&rsquo;t mean them to. I suppose you don&rsquo;t know much
+      about politics in Palestine?&rdquo; said Peter, looking kindly and patronisingly
+      at the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If these men,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;would rather be free, or be under the
+      British Government, than under the Chartered Company, why, when they
+      resist the Chartered Company, are they more rebels than the Armenians when
+      they resist the Turk? Is the Chartered Company God, that every knee should
+      bow before it, and before it every head be bent? Would you, the white men
+      of England, submit to its rule for one day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;no, of course we shouldn&rsquo;t, but we are white men, and
+      so are the Armenians&mdash;almost&mdash;&rdquo; Then he glanced at the
+      stranger&rsquo;s dark face, and added quickly, &ldquo;At least, it&rsquo;s not the colour
+      that matters, you know. I rather like a dark face, my mother&rsquo;s eyes are
+      brown&mdash;but the Armenians, you know, they&rsquo;ve got long hair like us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it is the hair, then, that matters,&rdquo; said the stranger softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s not altogether, of course. But it&rsquo;s quite a
+      different thing, the Armenians wanting to get rid of the Turks, and these
+      bloody niggers wanting to get rid of the Chartered Company. Besides, the
+      Armenians are Christians, like us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are YOU Christians?&rdquo; A strange storm broke across the stranger&rsquo;s
+      features; he rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course, we are!&rdquo; said Peter. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re all Christians, we English.
+      Perhaps you don&rsquo;t like Christians, though? Some Jews don&rsquo;t, I know,&rdquo; said
+      Peter, looking up soothingly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I neither love nor hate any man for that which he is called,&rdquo; said the
+      stranger; &ldquo;the name boots nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger sat down again beside the fire, and folded his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the Chartered Company Christian also?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, oh yes,&rdquo; said Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is a Christian?&rdquo; asked the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, you really do ask such curious questions. A Christian is a man
+      who believes in Heaven and Hell, and God and the Bible, and in Jesus
+      Christ, that he&rsquo;ll save him from going to Hell, and if he believes he&rsquo;ll
+      be saved, he will be saved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But here, in this world, what is a Christian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Peter, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a Christian&mdash;we&rsquo;re all Christians.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger looked into the fire; and Peter thought he would change the
+      subject. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s curious how like my mother you are; I mean, your ways. She
+      was always saying to me, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be too anxious to make money, Peter. Too
+      much wealth is as bad as too much poverty.&rsquo; You&rsquo;re very like her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while Peter said, bending over a little towards the stranger, &ldquo;If
+      you don&rsquo;t want to make money, what did you come to this land for? No one
+      comes here for anything else. Are you in with the Portuguese?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not more with one people than with another,&rdquo; said the stranger. &ldquo;The
+      Frenchman is not more to me than the Englishman, the Englishman than the
+      Kaffir, the Kaffir than the Chinaman. I have heard,&rdquo; said the stranger,
+      &ldquo;the black infant cry as it crept on its mother&rsquo;s body and sought for her
+      breast as she lay dead in the roadway. I have heard also the rich man&rsquo;s
+      child wail in the palace. I hear all cries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter looked intently at him. &ldquo;Why, who are you?&rdquo; he said; then, bending
+      nearer to the stranger and looking up, he added, &ldquo;What is it that you are
+      doing here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I belong,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;to the strongest company on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Peter, sitting up, the look of wonder passing from his face.
+      &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s it, is it? Is it diamonds, or gold, or lands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are the most vast of all companies on the earth,&rdquo; said the stranger;
+      &ldquo;and we are always growing. We have among us men of every race and from
+      every land; the Esquimo, the Chinaman, the Turk, and the Englishman, we
+      have of them all. We have men of every religion, Buddhists, Mahomedans,
+      Confucians, Freethinkers, Atheists, Christians, Jews. It matters to us
+      nothing by what name the man is named, so he be one of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Peter said, &ldquo;It must be hard for you all to understand one another, if
+      you are of so many different kinds?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger answered, &ldquo;There is a sign by which we all know one another,
+      and by which all the world may know us.&rdquo; (By this shall all men know that
+      ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Peter said, &ldquo;What is that sign?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the stranger was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a kind of freemasonry!&rdquo; said Peter, leaning on his elbow towards the
+      stranger, and looking up at him from under his pointed cap. &ldquo;Are there any
+      more of you here in this country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are,&rdquo; said the stranger. Then he pointed with his hand into the
+      darkness. &ldquo;There in a cave were two women. When you blew the cave up they
+      were left unhurt behind a fallen rock. When you took away all the grain,
+      and burnt what you could not carry, there was one basketful that you knew
+      nothing of. The women stayed there, for one was eighty, and one near the
+      time of her giving birth; and they dared not set out to follow the remnant
+      of their tribe because you were in the plains below. Every day the old
+      woman doled grain from the basket; and at night they cooked it in their
+      cave where you could not see their smoke; and every day the old woman gave
+      the young one two handfuls and kept one for herself, saying, &lsquo;Because of
+      the child within you.&rsquo; And when the child was born and the young woman
+      strong, the old woman took a cloth and filled it with all the grain that
+      was in the basket; and she put the grain on the young woman&rsquo;s head and
+      tied the child on her back, and said, &lsquo;Go, keeping always along the bank
+      of the river, till you come north to the land where our people are gone;
+      and some day you can send and fetch me.&rsquo; And the young woman said, &lsquo;Have
+      you corn in the basket to last till they come?&rsquo; And she said, &lsquo;I have
+      enough.&rsquo; And she sat at the broken door of the cave and watched the young
+      woman go down the hill and up the river bank till she was hidden by the
+      bush; and she looked down at the plain below, and she saw the spot where
+      the kraal had been and where she had planted mealies when she was a young
+      girl&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I met a woman with corn on her head and a child on her back!&rdquo; said Peter
+      under his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;And tonight I saw her sit again at the door of the cave; and when
+      the sun had set she grew cold; and she crept in and lay down by the
+      basket. Tonight, at half-past three, she will die. I have known her since
+      she was a little child and played about the huts, while her mother worked
+      in the mealie fields. She was one of our company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Other members we have here,&rdquo; said the stranger. &ldquo;There was a prospector&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      pointed north; &ldquo;he was a man who drank and swore when it listed him; but
+      he had many servants, and they knew where to find him in need. When they
+      were ill, he tended them with his own hands; when they were in trouble,
+      they came to him for help. When this war began, and all black men&rsquo;s hearts
+      were bitter, because certain white men had lied to them, and their envoys
+      had been killed when they would have asked England to put her hand out
+      over them; at that time certain of the men who fought the white men came
+      to the prospector&rsquo;s hut. And the prospector fired at them from a hole he
+      had cut in his door; but they fired back at him with an old elephant gun,
+      and the bullet pierced his side and he fell on the floor:&mdash;because
+      the innocent man suffers oftentimes for the guilty, and the merciful man
+      falls while the oppressor flourishes. Then his black servant who was with
+      him took him quickly in his arms, and carried him out at the back of the
+      hut, and down into the river bed where the water flowed and no man could
+      trace his footsteps, and hid him in a hole in the river wall. And when the
+      men broke into the hut they could find no white man, and no traces of his
+      feet. But at evening, when the black servant returned to the hut to get
+      food and medicine for his master, the men who were fighting caught him,
+      and they said, &lsquo;Oh, you betrayer of your people, white man&rsquo;s dog, who are
+      on the side of those who take our lands and our wives and our daughters
+      before our eyes; tell us where you have hidden him?&rsquo; And when he would not
+      answer them, they killed him before the door of the hut. And when the
+      night came, the white man crept up on his hands and knees, and came to his
+      hut to look for food. All the other men were gone, but his servant lay
+      dead before the door; and the white man knew how it must have happened. He
+      could not creep further, and he lay down before the door, and that night
+      the white man and the black lay there dead together, side by side. Both
+      those men were of my friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was damned plucky of the nigger,&rdquo; said Peter; &ldquo;but I&rsquo;ve heard of their
+      doing that sort of thing before. Even of a girl who wouldn&rsquo;t tell where
+      her mistress was, and getting killed. But,&rdquo; he added doubtfully, &ldquo;all your
+      company seem to be niggers or to get killed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are of all races,&rdquo; said the stranger. &ldquo;In a city in the old Colony
+      is one of us, small of stature and small of voice. It came to pass on a
+      certain Sunday morning, when the men and women were gathered before him,
+      that he mounted his pulpit: and he said when the time for the sermon came,
+      &lsquo;In place that I should speak to you, I will read you a history.&rsquo; And he
+      opened an old book more than two thousand years old: and he read: &lsquo;Now it
+      came to pass that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in
+      Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may
+      have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I
+      will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seemeth good to
+      thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the
+      inheritance of my father unto thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word
+      which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken unto him; for he had said, I will
+      not give thee the inheritance of my fathers.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man read the whole story until it was ended. Then he closed the book,
+      and he said, &lsquo;My friends, Naboth has a vineyard in this land; and in it
+      there is much gold; and Ahab has desired to have it that the wealth may be
+      his.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he put the old book aside, and he took up another which was written
+      yesterday. And the men and women whispered one to another, even in the
+      church, &lsquo;Is not that the Blue Book Report of the Select Committee of the
+      Cape Parliament on the Jameson raid?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the man said, &lsquo;Friends, the first story I have read you is one of the
+      oldest stories of the world: the story I am about to read you is one of
+      the newest. Truth is not more truth because it is three thousand years
+      old, nor is it less truth because it is of yesterday. All books which
+      throw light on truth are God&rsquo;s books, therefore I shall read to you from
+      the pages before me. Shall the story of Ahab king of Samaria profit us
+      when we know not the story of the Ahabs of our day; and the Naboths of our
+      land be stoned while we sit at east?&rsquo; And he read to them portions of that
+      book. And certain rich men and women rose up and went out even while he
+      spoke, and his wife also went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when the service was ended and the man returned to his home, his wife
+      came to him weeping; and she said, &lsquo;Did you see how some of the most
+      wealthy and important people got up and went out this morning? Why did you
+      preach such a sermon, when we were just going to have the new wing added
+      to our house, and you thought they were going to raise your salary? You
+      have not a single Boer in your congregation! Why need you say the
+      Chartered Company raid on Johannesburg was wrong?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;My wife, if I believe that certain men whom we have raised on
+      high, and to whom we have given power, have done a cowardly wrong, shall I
+      not say it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;Yes, and only a little while ago, when Rhodes was licking
+      the dust off the Boers&rsquo; feet that he might keep them from suspecting while
+      he got ready this affair, then you attacked both Rhodes and the Bond (The
+      Afrikander Bond, the organised Dutch political party, through whom Mr.
+      Rhodes worked, and by whom he was backed.) for trying to pass a Bill for
+      flogging the niggers, and we lost fifty pounds we might have got for the
+      church?&rsquo; And he said, &lsquo;My wife, cannot God be worshipped as well under the
+      dome of the heaven He made as in a golden palace? Shall a man keep
+      silence, when he sees oppression, to earn money for God? If I have
+      defended the black man when I believed him to be wronged, shall I not also
+      defend the white man, my flesh-brother? Shall we speak when one man is
+      wronged and not when it is another?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;Yes, but you have your family and yourself to think of!
+      Why are you always in opposition to the people who could do something for
+      us? You are only loved by the poor. If it is necessary for you to attack
+      some one, why don&rsquo;t you attack the Jews for killing Christ, or Herod, or
+      Pontius Pilate; why don&rsquo;t you leave alone the men who are in power today,
+      and who with their money can crush you!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;Oh my wife, those Jews, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate are
+      long dead. If I should preach of them now, would it help them? Would it
+      save one living thing from their clutches? The past is dead, it lives only
+      for us to learn from. The present, the present only, is ours to work in,
+      and the future ours to create. Is all the gold of Johannesburg or are all
+      the diamonds in Kimberley worth, that one Christian man should fall by the
+      hand of his fellows&mdash;aye, or one heathen brother?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she answered, &lsquo;Oh, that is all very well. If you were a really
+      eloquent preacher, and could draw hundreds of men about you, and in time
+      form a great party with you at its head, I shouldn&rsquo;t mind what you said.
+      But you, with your little figure and your little voice, who will ever
+      follow you? You will be left all alone; that is all the good that will
+      ever come to you through it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped that
+      they who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would lift up
+      their voices and speak&mdash;and there is only a deadly silence? Here and
+      there one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the hand;
+      one says, &lsquo;My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud&rsquo;; and
+      another says, &lsquo;I have a promise of land&rsquo;; and another, &lsquo;I am socially
+      intimate with these men, and should lose my social standing if I let my
+      voice be heard.&rsquo; Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which we had hoped
+      would be free and strong among the peoples of earth, is rotten and
+      honeycombed with the tyranny of gold! We who had hoped to stand first in
+      the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, are not even fit to
+      stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak is my voice; and that
+      that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remain silent? Shall the
+      glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is not a star set up on
+      high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warm one frozen man&rsquo;s
+      hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming across the earth? Ever a
+      voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me&mdash;&lsquo;Why break your
+      head against a stone wall? Leave this work to the greater and larger men
+      of your people; they who will do it better than you can do it! Why break
+      your heart when life could be so fair to you?&rsquo; But, oh my wife, the strong
+      men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know my power is as
+      nothing?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He laid his head upon his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;I cannot understand you. When I come home and tell you
+      that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you always
+      answer me, &lsquo;Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we cannot help
+      them?&rsquo; A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to visit people
+      and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would not go. Yet when
+      the richest and strongest men in the land, who could crush you with their
+      money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger and thumb, take a certain
+      course, you stand and oppose them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;My wife, with the sins of the private man, what have I to
+      do, if so be I have not led him into them? Am I guilty? I have enough to
+      do looking after my own sins. The sin that a man sins against himself is
+      his alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is his
+      and theirs, not mine: but the sins that a man sins, in that he is taken up
+      by the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they have
+      armed with their sword, whose power to strike is their power&mdash;his
+      sins are theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he
+      dares say, &lsquo;I have no responsibility for this man&rsquo;s action.&rsquo; We armed him,
+      we raised him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is more
+      ours than his. If this man&rsquo;s end in South Africa should be accomplished,
+      and the day should come when, from the Zambezi to the sea, white man
+      should fly at white man&rsquo;s throat, and every man&rsquo;s heart burn with
+      bitterness against his fellow, and the land be bathed with blood as rain&mdash;shall
+      I then dare to pray, who have now feared to speak? Do not think I wish for
+      punishment upon these men. Let them take the millions they have wrung out
+      of this land, and go to the lands of their birth, and live in wealth,
+      luxury, and joy; but let them leave this land they have tortured and
+      ruined. Let them keep the money they have made here; we may be the poorer
+      for it; but they cannot then crush our freedom with it. Shall I ask my God
+      Sunday by Sunday to brood across the land, and bind all its children&rsquo;s
+      hearts in a close-knit fellowship;&mdash;yet, when I see its people
+      betrayed, and their jawbone broken by a stroke from the hand of gold; when
+      I see freedom passing from us, and the whole land being grasped by the
+      golden claw, so that the generation after us shall be born without
+      freedom, to labour for the men who have grasped all, shall I hold my
+      peace? The Boer and the Englishman who have been in this land, have not
+      always loved mercy, nor have they always sought after justice; but the
+      little finger of the speculator and monopolist who are devouring this land
+      will be thicker on the backs of the children of this land, black and
+      white, than the loins of the Dutchmen and Englishmen who have been.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;I have heard it said that it was our duty to sacrifice
+      ourselves for the men and women living in the world at the same time as
+      ourselves; but I never before heard that we had to sacrifice ourselves for
+      people that are not born. What are they to you? You will be dust, and
+      lying in your grave, before that time comes. If you believe in God,&rsquo; she
+      said, &lsquo;why cannot you leave it to Him to bring good out of all this evil?
+      Does He need YOU to be made a martyr of? or will the world be lost without
+      YOU?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said, &lsquo;Wife, if my right hand be in a fire, shall I not pull it out?
+      Shall I say, &lsquo;God may bring good out of this evil,&rsquo; and let it burn? That
+      Unknown that lies beyond us we know of no otherwise than through its
+      manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sons of
+      men than through man. And shall I feel no bond binding me to the men to
+      come, and desire no good or beauty for them&mdash;I, who am what I am, and
+      enjoy what I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have lived
+      and laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no costs?
+      Would the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be
+      accomplished, if men counted the cost and created for their own lives
+      alone? And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. You
+      cannot tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice
+      within me, I know not what, cries out ever, &lsquo;Live for them as for your own
+      children.&rsquo; When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, and I
+      despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something nobler and
+      fairer may spring up in the spot where I now stand.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;You want to put everyone against us! The other women will
+      not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor people.
+      Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know you would
+      be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to niggers. If
+      they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to help white men. You
+      will never be on the side of the people who can do anything for us! You
+      know the offer we had from&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the
+      Turk to me; am I responsible for their action? It is my own nation, mine,
+      which I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me. I would
+      that wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples of
+      earth might gather under it, saying, &lsquo;Under this banner is freedom and
+      justice which knows no race or colour.&rsquo; I wish that on our banner were
+      blazoned in large letters &ldquo;Justice and Mercy&rdquo;, and that in every new land
+      which our feet touch, every son among us might see ever blazoned above his
+      head that banner, and below it the great order:&mdash;&ldquo;By this sign,
+      Conquer!&rdquo;&mdash;and that the pirate flag which some men now wave in its
+      place, may be torn down and furled for ever! Shall I condone the action of
+      some, simply because they happen to be of my own race, when in Bushman or
+      Hottentot I would condemn it? Shall men belonging to one of the mightiest
+      races of earth, creep softly on their bellies, to attack an unwarned
+      neighbour; when even the Kaffir has again and again given notice of war,
+      saying, &lsquo;Be ready, on such and such a day I come to fight you?&rsquo; Is
+      England&rsquo;s power so broken, and our race so enfeebled, that we dare no
+      longer to proclaim war; but must creep silently upon our bellies in the
+      dark to stab, like a subject people to whom no other course is open? These
+      men are English; but not English-MEN. When the men of our race fight, they
+      go to war with a blazoned flag and the loud trumpet before them. It is
+      because I am an Englishman that these things crush me. Better that ten
+      thousand of us should lie dead and defeated on one battlefield, fighting
+      for some great cause, and my own sons among them, than that those twelve
+      poor boys should have fallen at Doornkop, fighting to fill up the pockets
+      of those already oe&rsquo;r-heavy with gold.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;YOU, what does it matter what you feel or think; YOU will
+      never be able to do anything!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;Oh my wife, stand by me; do not crush me. For me in this
+      matter there is no path but one on which light shines.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said, &lsquo;You are very unkind; you don&rsquo;t care what the people say
+      about us!&rsquo; and she wept bitterly, and went out of the room. But as soon as
+      the door was shut, she dried her tears; and she said to herself, &lsquo;Now he
+      will never dare to preach such a sermon again. He dares never oppose me
+      when once I have set down my foot.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the man spoke to no one, and went out alone in the veld. All the
+      afternoon he walked up and down among the sand and low bushes; and I
+      walked there beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel. Many were absent,
+      but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there. And the
+      light shone on the empty benches. And when the time came he opened the old
+      book of the Jews; and he turned the leaves and read:&mdash;&lsquo;If thou
+      forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are
+      ready to be slain; if thou sayest, &lsquo;Behold we knew it not!&rsquo; Doth not he
+      that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth
+      he not know it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;This morning we considered the evils this land is suffering
+      under at the hands of men whose aim is the attainment of wealth and power.
+      Tonight we shall look at our own share in the matter. I think we shall
+      realise that with us, and not with the men we have lifted up on high, lies
+      the condemnation.&rsquo; Then his wife rose and went out, and others followed
+      her; and the little man&rsquo;s voice rolled among the empty benches; but he
+      spoke on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when the service was over he went out. No elder came to the porch to
+      greet him; but as he stood there one, he saw not whom, slipped a leaflet
+      into his hand. He held it up, and read in the lamplight what was written
+      on it in pencil. He crushed it up in his hand, as a man crushes that which
+      has run a poisonous sting into him; then he dropped it on the earth as a
+      man drops that he would forget. A fine drizzly rain was falling, and he
+      walked up the street with his arms folded behind him, and his head bent.
+      The people walked up the other side; and it seemed to him he was alone.
+      But I walked behind him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; asked Peter, seeing that the stranger was silent, &ldquo;what
+      happened to him after that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was only last Sunday,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence again for some seconds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter said, &ldquo;Well, anyhow, at least he didn&rsquo;t die!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger crossed his hands upon his knees. &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;it is easier for a man to die than to stand alone. He who can stand
+      alone can, also, when the need be, die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter looked up wistfully into the stranger&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;I should not like to
+      die myself,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;not yet. I shall not be twenty-one till next
+      birthday. I should like to see life first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently Peter said, &ldquo;Are all the men of your company poor men?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger waited a while before he answered; then he said,&mdash;&ldquo;There
+      have been rich men who have desired to join us. There was a young man
+      once; and when he heard the conditions, he went away sorrowful, for he had
+      great possessions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence again for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it long since your company was started?&rdquo; asked Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no man living who can conceive of its age,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+      &ldquo;Even here on this earth it began, when these hills were young, and these
+      lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man still raised
+      himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his thighs were
+      weak. In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when he hungered, fed
+      on the flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet. Yet even in those days
+      it came to pass that there was one whose head was higher than her fellows
+      and her thought keener, and, as she picked the flesh from a human skull,
+      she pondered. And so it came to pass the next night, when men were
+      gathered around the fire ready to eat, that she stole away, and when they
+      went to the tree where the victim was bound, they found him gone. And they
+      cried one to another, &lsquo;She, only she, has done this, who has always said,
+      &lsquo;I like not the taste of man-flesh; men are too like me; I cannot eat
+      them.&rsquo; &lsquo;She is mad,&rsquo; they cried; &lsquo;let us kill her!&rsquo; So, in those dim,
+      misty times that men reck not of now, that they hardly believe in, that
+      woman died. But in the heads of certain men and women a new thought had
+      taken root; they said, &lsquo;We also will not eat of her. There is something
+      evil in the taste of human flesh.&rsquo; And ever after, when the fleshpots were
+      filled with man-flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human
+      flesh and half not; then, as the years passed, none ate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily open
+      their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you would
+      learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the dicynodont
+      bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you find now
+      nowhere on earth&rsquo;s surface, save buried in stone, called with love to his
+      mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew in the sunshine
+      calling joyfully to one another&mdash;even in those days when man was not,
+      the fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And still as the
+      sun rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow and grow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and behind
+      him, the darkness stood out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All earth is ours. And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down
+      on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark
+      with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the
+      East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe; and
+      nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows. And they shall beat their
+      swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall
+      not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
+      And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the
+      brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and man shall nowhere crush man on
+      all the holy earth. Tomorrow&rsquo;s sun shall rise,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;and it
+      shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and the rocks shall glint in it.
+      Not more certain is that rising than the coming of that day. And I say to
+      you that even here, in the land where now we stand, where today the cries
+      of the wounded and the curses of revenge ring in the air; even here, in
+      this land where man creeps on his belly to wound his fellow in the dark,
+      and where an acre of gold is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining
+      dirt is worth half a people, and the vultures are heavy with man&rsquo;s flesh&mdash;even
+      here that day shall come. I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here on the
+      spot where now we stand shall be raised a temple. Man shall not gather in
+      it to worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it shoulder to
+      shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the inhabitant of
+      the land; and the place shall be holy; for men shall say, &lsquo;Are we not
+      brethren and the sons of one Father?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket looked upward silently. And the stranger said: &ldquo;Certain men
+      slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark. And, as they slept,
+      at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred. Far off to the eastward,
+      through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint line, thin
+      as a hair&rsquo;s width, that edged the hill tops. And he whispered in the
+      darkness to his fellows: &lsquo;The dawn is coming.&rsquo; But they, with fast-closed
+      eyelids murmured, &lsquo;He lies, there is no dawn.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, day broke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger was silent. The fire burnt up in red tongues of flame that
+      neither flickered nor flared in the still night air. Peter Halket crept
+      near to the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When will that time be?&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;in a thousand years&rsquo; time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the stranger answered, &ldquo;A thousand years are but as our yesterday&rsquo;s
+      journey, or as our watch tonight, which draws already to its close. See,
+      piled, these rocks on which we now stand? The ages have been young and
+      they have grown old since they have lain here. Half that time shall not
+      pass before that time comes; I have seen its dawning already in the hearts
+      of men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter moved nearer, so that he almost knelt at the stranger&rsquo;s feet: his
+      gun lay on the ground at the other side of the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would like to be one of your men,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am tired of belonging to
+      the Chartered Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger looked down gently. &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;can you
+      bear the weight?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Peter said, &ldquo;Give me work, that I may try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence for a time; then the stranger said, &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket,
+      take a message to England&rdquo;&mdash;Peter Halket started&mdash;&ldquo;Go to that
+      great people and cry aloud to it: &lsquo;Where is the sword was given into your
+      hand, that with it you might enforce justice and deal out mercy? How came
+      you to give it up into the hands of men whose search is gold, whose thirst
+      is wealth, to whom men&rsquo;s souls and bodies are counters in a game? How came
+      you to give up the folk that were given into your hands, into the hand of
+      the speculator and the gamester; as though they were dumb beasts who might
+      be bought or sold?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Take back your sword, Great People&mdash;but wipe it first, lest some of
+      the gold and blood stick to your hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What is this, I see!&mdash;the sword of the Great People, transformed to
+      burrow earth for gold, as the snouts of swine for earth nuts! Have you no
+      other use for it, Great Folk?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Take back your sword; and, when you have thoroughly cleansed it and
+      wiped it of the blood and mire, then raise it to set free the oppressed of
+      other climes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Great Prince&rsquo;s Daughter, take heed! You put your sword into the hands of
+      recreant knights; they will dull its edge and mar its brightness, and,
+      when your hour of need comes and you would put it into other hands, you
+      will find its edge chipped and its point broken. Take heed! Take heed!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cry to the wise men of England: &lsquo;You, who in peace and calm in shaded
+      chambers ponder on all things in heaven and earth, and take all knowledge
+      for your province, have you no time to think of this? To whom has England
+      given her power? How do the men wield it who have filched it from her? Say
+      not, What have we to do with folk across the waters; have we not matter
+      enough for thought in our own land? Where the brain of a nation has no
+      time to go, there should its hands never be sent to labour: where the
+      power of a people goes, there must its intellect and knowledge go, to
+      guide it. Oh, you who sit at ease, studying past and future&mdash;and
+      forget the present&mdash;you have no right to sit at ease knowing nothing
+      of the working of the powers you have armed and sent to work on men afar.
+      Where is your nation&rsquo;s sword&mdash;you men of thought?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cry to the women of England: &lsquo;You, who repose in sumptuous houses, with
+      children on your knees; think not it is only the rustling of the soft
+      draped curtains, or the whistling of the wind, you hear. Listen! May it
+      not be the far off cry of those your sword governs, creeping towards you
+      across wide oceans till it pierces even into your inmost sanctuary?
+      Listen!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the womanhood of a dominant people has not accomplished all its
+      labour when it has borne its children and fed them at its breast: there
+      cries to it also from over seas and across continents the voice of the
+      child-peoples&mdash;&lsquo;Mother-heart, stand for us!&rsquo; It would be better for
+      you that your wombs should be barren and that your race should die out;
+      than that you should listen, and give no answer.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger lifted his hands upwards as he spoke, and Peter saw there
+      were the marks of old wounds in both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cry aloud to the working men and women of England: &lsquo;You, who for ages
+      cried out because the heel of your masters was heavy on you; and who have
+      said, &lsquo;We curse the kings that sit at ease, and care not who oppresses the
+      folk, so their coffers be full and their bellies satisfied, and they be
+      not troubled with the trouble of rule&rsquo;; you, who have taken the king&rsquo;s
+      rule from him and sit enthroned within his seat; is his sin not yours
+      today? If men should add but one hour to your day&rsquo;s labour, or make but
+      one fraction dearer the bread you eat, would you not rise up as one man?
+      Yet, what is dealt out to men beyond seas whom you rule wounds you not.
+      Nay, have you not sometimes said, as kings of old: &lsquo;It matters not who
+      holds out our sword, marauder or speculator, so he calls it ours, we must
+      cloak up the evil it has done!&rsquo; Think you, no other curses rise to heaven
+      but yours? Where is your sword? Into whose hand has it fallen? Take it
+      quickly and cleanse it!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket crouched, looking upwards; then he cried: &ldquo;Master, I cannot
+      give that message, I am a poor unlearn&rsquo;d man. And if I should go to
+      England and cry aloud, they would say, &lsquo;Who is this, who comes preaching
+      to a great people? Is not his mother with us, and a washerwoman; and was
+      not his father a day labourer at two shillings a day?&rsquo; and they would
+      laugh me to scorn. And, in truth, the message is so long I could not well
+      remember it; give me other work to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the stranger said, &ldquo;Take a message to the men and women of this land.
+      Go, from the Zambezi to the sea, and cry to its white men and women, and
+      say: &lsquo;I saw a wide field, and in it were two fair beasts. Wide was the
+      field about them and rich was the earth with sweet scented herbs, and so
+      abundant was the pasturage that hardly might they consume all that grew
+      about them: and the two were like one to another, for they were the sons
+      of one mother. And as I looked, I saw, far off to the northward, a speck
+      within the sky, so small it was, and so high it was, that the eye scarce
+      might mark it. Then it came nearer and hovered over the spot where the two
+      beasts fed:&mdash;and its neck was bare, and its beak was hooked, and its
+      talons were long, and its wings strong. And it hovered over the field
+      where the two beasts were; and I saw it settle down upon a great white
+      stone; and it waited. And I saw more specks to the northward, and more and
+      more came onward to join him who sat upon the stone. And some hovered over
+      the beasts, and some sharpened their beaks on the stones; and some walked
+      in and out between the beasts&rsquo; legs. And I saw that they were waiting for
+      something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Then he who first came flew from one of the beasts to the other, and sat
+      upon their necks, and put his beak within their ears. And he flew from one
+      to the other and flapped his wings in their faces till the beasts were
+      blinded, and each believed it was his fellow who attacked him. And they
+      fell to, and fought; they gored one another&rsquo;s sides till the field was red
+      with blood and the ground shook beneath them. The birds sat by and
+      watched; and when the blood flowed they walked round and round. And when
+      the strength of the two beasts was exhausted they fell to earth. Then the
+      birds settled down upon them, and feasted; till their maws were full, and
+      their long bare necks were wet; and they stood with their beaks deep in
+      the entrails of the two dead beasts; and looked out with their keen bright
+      eyes from above them. And he who was king of all plucked out the eyes, and
+      fed on the hearts of the dead beasts. And when his maw was full, so that
+      he could eat no more, he sat on his stone hard by and flapped his great
+      wings.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket, cry to the white men and women of South Africa: &lsquo;You
+      have a goodly land; you and your children&rsquo;s children shall scarce fill it;
+      though you should stretch out your arms to welcome each stranger who comes
+      to live and labour with you. You are the twin branches of one tree; you
+      are the sons of one mother. Is this goodly land not wide enough for you,
+      that you should rend each other&rsquo;s flesh at the bidding of those who will
+      wet their beaks within both your vitals?&mdash;Look up, see, they circle
+      in the air above you!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the
+      black sky of Mashonaland over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire. Peter Halket
+      half clasped his arms about his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;how can I take this message? The Dutchmen of South
+      Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman. And the
+      Englishmen will say: &lsquo;Who is this fellow who comes preaching peace, peace,
+      peace? Has he not been a year in the country and he has not a share in a
+      single company? Can anything he says be worth hearing? If he were a man of
+      any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at least.&rsquo; And they will
+      not listen to me. Give me another labour!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the stranger said: &ldquo;Take a message to one man. Find him, whether he
+      sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him: &lsquo;Where are the
+      souls of the men that you have bought?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he shall answer you and say: &lsquo;I bought no men&rsquo;s souls! The souls
+      that I bought were the souls of dogs?&rsquo; Then ask him this question, say to
+      him, &lsquo;Where are the&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he cry out, &lsquo;You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say.
+      What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government? It
+      is all a lie!&rsquo; Then question him no further. But say: &lsquo;There was a
+      rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went
+      out&mdash;and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse, that
+      it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might see its
+      steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way and
+      it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared
+      altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept
+      their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, &lsquo;We are
+      safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.&rsquo; And on dark
+      nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the midnight
+      they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight; in
+      that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted it?
+      Shall it not be put out?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he shall answer, saying, &lsquo;What are men to me? they are fools, all
+      fools! Let them die!&rsquo;&mdash;tell him again this story: &lsquo;There was a
+      streamlet once: it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain&rsquo;s
+      crown; and the snow made a cove over it. It ran on pure and blue and clear
+      as the sky above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle. Then it came
+      to a spot where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by which it
+      might journey; one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and stones, and
+      down long sunlit slopes to the sea; and the other, down a chasm. And the
+      stream hesitated: it twirled and purled, and went this way and went that.
+      It MIGHT have been, that it would have forced its way past rocks and
+      ridges and along mountain slopes, and made a path for itself where no path
+      had been; the banks would have grown green, and the mountain daisy would
+      have grown beside it; and all night the stars would have looked at their
+      faces in it; and down the long sunny slopes the sun would have played on
+      it by day; and the wood dove would have built her nest in the trees beside
+      it; and singing, singing, always singing, it would have made its way at
+      last to the great sea, whose far-off call all waters hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But it hesitated.&mdash;It might have been, that, had but some hand been
+      there to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way
+      past rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea&mdash;it might
+      have been! But no hand was there. The streamlet gathered itself together,
+      and (it might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the
+      sea!)&mdash;it made one leap into the abyss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The rocks closed over it. Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark
+      pool it lay. The green lichen hung from the rocks. No sunlight came there,
+      and the stars could not look down at night. The pool lay still and silent.
+      Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered its strength
+      together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed its way silently
+      on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains closed it around. And
+      the streamlet laughed to itself, &lsquo;Ha, ha! I shall make a great lake here;
+      a sea!&rsquo; And it oozed, and it oozed, and it filled half the plain. But no
+      lake came&mdash;only a great marsh&mdash;because there was no way
+      outwards, and the water rotted. The grass died out along its edges; and
+      the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the water; and the wood dove
+      who had built her nest there flew up to the mountains, because her young
+      ones died. And the toads sat on the stones and dropped their spittle in
+      the water; and the reeds were yellow that grew along the edge. And at
+      night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the water, so that the stars could
+      not see through it; and by day a fine white mist hung over it, and the
+      sunbeams could not play on it. And no man knew that once the marsh had
+      leapt forth clear and blue from under a hood of snow on the mountain&rsquo;s
+      top: aye, and that the turning of one stone might have caused that it had
+      run on and on, and mingled its song with the sea&rsquo;s song for ever.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger was silent for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he said, &ldquo;Should he answer you and say, &lsquo;What do I care! What are
+      coves and mountain tops to me? Gold is real, and the power to crush men
+      within my hand&rsquo;; tell him no further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to him,
+      clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it: &lsquo;The morning may
+      break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the
+      evening&rsquo;s sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning&rsquo;s
+      dullness, and the darkness of the noon. So that all men shall say, &lsquo;Ah,
+      for the beauty of that day!&rsquo;&mdash;For the stream that has once descended
+      there is no path upwards.&mdash;It is never too late for the soul of a
+      man.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he should laugh, and say: &lsquo;You fool, a man may remake himself
+      entirely before twenty; he may reshape himself before thirty; but after
+      forty he is fixed. Shall I, who for forty-three years have sought money
+      and power, seek for anything else now? You want me to be Jesus Christ, I
+      suppose! How can I be myself and another man?&rsquo; Then answer him: &lsquo;Deep in
+      the heart of every son of man lies an angel; but some have their wings
+      folded. Wake yours! He is larger and stronger than another man&rsquo;s; mount up
+      with him!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if he curses you, and says, &lsquo;I have eight millions of money, and I
+      care neither for God nor man!&rsquo;&mdash;then make no answer, but stoop and
+      write before him.&rdquo; The stranger bent down and wrote with his finger in the
+      white ashes of the fire. Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two
+      words the stranger had written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger said: &ldquo;Say to him: &lsquo;Though you should seek to make that name
+      immortal in this land; and should write it in gold dust, and set it with
+      diamonds, and cement it with human blood, shed from the Zambezi to the
+      sea, yet&mdash;.&rdquo; The stranger passed his foot over the words; Peter
+      Halket looked down, and he saw only a bed of smooth white ashes where the
+      name had been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger said: &ldquo;And if he should curse yet further, and say, &lsquo;There is
+      not one man nor woman in South Africa I cannot buy with my money! When I
+      have the Transvaal, I shall buy God Almighty Himself, if I care to!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then say to him this one thing only, &lsquo;Thy money perish with thee!&rsquo; and
+      leave him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dead silence for a moment. Then the stranger stretched forth
+      his hand. &ldquo;Yet in that leaving him, remember;&mdash;It is not the act, but
+      the will, which marks the soul of the man. He who has crushed a nation
+      sins no more than he who rejoices in the death throe of the meanest
+      creature. The stagnant pool is not less poisonous drop for drop than the
+      mighty swamp, though its reach be smaller. He who has desired to be and
+      accomplish what this man has been and accomplished, is as this man; though
+      he have lacked the power to perform. Nay, remember this one thing more:&mdash;Certain
+      sons of God are born on earth, named by men Children of Genius. In early
+      youth each stands at the parting of the way and chooses; he bears his gift
+      for others or for himself. But forget this never, whatever his choice may
+      be; that there is laid on him a burden that is laid not on others&mdash;all
+      space is open to him, and his choice is infinite&mdash;and if he falls
+      beneath it, let men weep rather than curse, for he was born a Son of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence again. Then Peter Halket clasped his arms about the
+      stranger&rsquo;s feet. &ldquo;My master,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I dare not take that message. It
+      is not that men may say, &lsquo;Here is Trooper Peter Halket, whom we all know,
+      a man who kept women and shot niggers, turned prophet.&rsquo; But it is, that it
+      is true. Have I not wished&mdash;&rdquo; and Peter Halket would have poured out
+      all his soul; but the stranger prevented him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is it the trumpet which gives forth the
+      call to battle, whether it be battered tin or gilded silver, which boots?
+      Is it not the call? What and if I should send my message by a woman or a
+      child: shall truth be less truth because the bearer is despised? Is it the
+      mouth that speaks or the word that is spoken which is eternal?
+      Nevertheless, if you will have it so, go, and say, &lsquo;I, Peter Halket,
+      sinner among you all, who have desired women and gold, who have loved
+      myself and hated my fellow, I&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo; The stranger looked down at him,
+      and placed his hand gently on his head. &ldquo;Peter Simon Halket,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;a
+      harder task I give you than any which has been laid upon you. In that
+      small spot where alone on earth your will rules, bring there into being
+      the kingdom today. Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you. Walk
+      ever forward, looking not to the right hand or the left. Heed not what men
+      shall say of you. Succour the oppressed; deliver the captive. If thine
+      enemy hunger, feed him; if he is athirst give him drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A curious warmth and gladness stole over Peter Halket as he knelt; it was
+      as, when a little child, his mother folded him to her: he saw nothing more
+      about him but a soft bright light. Yet in it he heard a voice cry,
+      &ldquo;Because thou hast loved mercy&mdash;and hated oppression&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Trooper Peter Halket raised himself, he saw the figure of the
+      stranger passing from him. He cried, &ldquo;My Master, let me go with you.&rdquo; But
+      the figure did not turn. And, as it passed into the darkness, it seemed to
+      Peter Halket that the form grew larger and larger: and as it descended the
+      further side of the kopje it seemed that for one instant he still saw the
+      head with a pale, white light upon it: then it vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Trooper Peter Halket sat alone upon the kopje.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Chapter II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a hot day. The sun poured down its rays over the scattered trees,
+      and stunted bush, and long grass, and over the dried up river beds. Far in
+      the blue, so high the eye could scarcely mark them, vultures were flying
+      southward, where forty miles off kraals had been destroyed and two hundred
+      black carcasses were lying in the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under a group of tall straggling trees among the grass and low scrub, on
+      the banks of an almost dried up river bed, a small camp had been pitched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The party had lost their mules, and pending their recovery had already
+      been there seven days. The three cart loads of provisions they were
+      conveying to the large camp were drawn up under the trees and had a sail
+      thrown across them to form a shelter for some of the men; while on the
+      other side of the cleared and open space that formed the camp, a smaller
+      sail was thrown across two poles forming a rough tent; and away to the
+      left, a little cut off from the rest of the camp by some low bushes, was
+      the bell-shaped tent of the captain, under a tall tree. Before the
+      bell-shaped tent stood a short stunted tree; its thick white stem gnarled
+      and knotted; while two stunted misshapen branches, like arms, stretched
+      out on either side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before this tree, up and down, with his gun upon his arm, his head bent
+      and his eyes fixed on the ground, while the hot sun blazed on his
+      shoulders, walked a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts, three
+      cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men, their stock
+      of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth, which was watched
+      by a native boy, contained the more appetising meal of the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most of the men were out of camp; the coloured boys having gone to fetch
+      the mules, which had been discovered in the hills a few miles off, and
+      were expected to arrive in the evening; and the white men had gone out to
+      see what game they could bring down with their guns to flavour the mealie
+      pots, or to reconnoitre the country; though all native habitations had
+      been destroyed within a radius of thirty miles, and the land was as bare
+      of black men as a child&rsquo;s hand of hair; and even the beasts seemed to have
+      vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay three
+      white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp. They
+      were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their
+      stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation, or
+      taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for tobacco
+      was precious in the camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality
+      was uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British
+      Isles, and who had travelled round the world. He was currently reported to
+      have done three years&rsquo; labour for attempted rape in Australia, but nothing
+      certain was known regarding his antecedents. He had been up on guard half
+      the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with his arm
+      thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in his jaw as
+      he slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when he turned it
+      round the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken yellow stumps set
+      in very red gums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him. Two, who were slowly
+      smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose set
+      about the shoulders, which is common among Colonial Europeans of the third
+      generation, whether Dutch or English, and had the placidity and general
+      good temper of expression which commonly marks the Colonial European who
+      grows up beyond the range of the cities. The third was smaller and more
+      wiry and of an unusually nervous type, with aquiline nose, and sallow
+      hatchet face, with a somewhat discontented expression. He was holding
+      forth, while his companions smoked and listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now what I say is this,&rdquo; he brought his hand down on the red sand; &ldquo;here
+      we are with about one half teaspoon of Dop given us at night, while he has
+      ten empty champagne bottles lying behind his tent. And we have to live on
+      the mealies we&rsquo;re convoying for the horses, while he has pati and beef,
+      and lives like a lord! It&rsquo;s all very well for the regulars; they know what
+      they&rsquo;re in for, and they&rsquo;ve got gentlemen over them anyhow, and one can
+      stomach anything if you know what kind of a fellow you&rsquo;ve got over you.
+      English officers are gentlemen, anyhow; or if one was under Selous now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Selous&rsquo;s a MAN!&rdquo; broke out the other two, taking their pipes from
+      their mouths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, well, that&rsquo;s what I say. But these fellows, who couldn&rsquo;t do as
+      farmers, and couldn&rsquo;t do as shopkeepers, and God knows what else; and
+      their friends in England didn&rsquo;t want to have them; they&rsquo;re sent out here
+      to boss it over us! It&rsquo;s a damned shame! Why, I want to know, amn&rsquo;t I as
+      good as any of these fellows, who come swelling it about here? Friends got
+      money, I suppose!&rdquo; He cast his sharp glance over towards the bell tent.
+      &ldquo;If they gave us real English officers now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the biggest of his companions, who, in spite of his huge form,
+      had something of the simplicity and good nature of a child in his handsome
+      face; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s because you&rsquo;re not a big enough swell, you know! He&rsquo;ll be a
+      colonel, or a general, before we&rsquo;ve done with him. I call them all
+      generals or colonels up here; it&rsquo;s safest, you know; if they&rsquo;re not that
+      today they will be tomorrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull
+      world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but the
+      first speaker remained serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only know this,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d teach these fellows a lesson, if any one
+      belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered here,
+      while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. If my mother or sister had
+      been killed here, I&rsquo;d have taken a pistol and blown out the brains of the
+      great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him. Fine administration of a
+      country, this, to invite people to come in and live here, and then take
+      every fighting man out of the country on a gold hunting marauding
+      expedition to the Transvaal, and leave us to face the bitter end. I look
+      upon every man and woman who was killed here as murdered by the Chartered
+      Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Jameson only did what he was told. He had to obey orders, like the
+      rest of us. He didn&rsquo;t make the plan, and he&rsquo;s got the punishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What business had he to listen? What&rsquo;s all this fine administration they
+      talk of? It&rsquo;s six years since I came to this country, and I&rsquo;ve worked like
+      a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who&rsquo;ve worked hard
+      at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in the land is given away
+      for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here. If
+      England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?&mdash;everything
+      of value in the land given over to private concessionaires&mdash;they&rsquo;ll
+      line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot! It&rsquo;ll be the jackals
+      eating all the flesh off the horse&rsquo;s bones, and calling the lion in to
+      lick the bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you wait a bit and you&rsquo;ll be squared,&rdquo; said the handsome man. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+      been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven&rsquo;t got
+      anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
+      shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      nodded towards the bell tent&mdash;&ldquo;never got drunk or didn&rsquo;t know how to
+      swear, I&rsquo;d sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it.
+      I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing&mdash;squaring&mdash;if it
+      would only come my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not
+      spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what,&rdquo; said the keen man, &ldquo;those of us up here who have got a
+      bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty
+      sick of this humbugging fighting. If we&rsquo;d had a few men like the Curries
+      and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never
+      have happened. And there&rsquo;s no knowing when a reason won&rsquo;t turn up for
+      keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out
+      just when one&rsquo;s settled down to work. It&rsquo;s a damned convenient thing to
+      have a war like this to turn on and off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: &ldquo;Let
+      resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow,&rdquo; he said,
+      sententiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though
+      his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth
+      relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m always expecting,&rdquo; said the big handsome man, &ldquo;to have a paper come
+      round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the
+      B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how
+      awfully good he is to them; and they&rsquo;re going to subscribe to the brazen
+      statue. There&rsquo;s nothing a man can&rsquo;t be squared to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he
+      held above his face. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that in the Bible,&rdquo; he said, slowly, &ldquo;about
+      the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know much about the Bible,&rdquo; said the keen man, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to see
+      if my pot isn&rsquo;t boiling over. Won&rsquo;t yours burn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I asked the Captain&rsquo;s boy to keep an eye on it&mdash;but I expect he
+      won&rsquo;t. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got to; I&rsquo;ve got no other pot. And the fellows don&rsquo;t object. It&rsquo;s a tasty
+      variety, you know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire
+      burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his
+      own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left
+      alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and he
+      folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and watched
+      lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand, just under
+      his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick cracked
+      in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except
+      where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in
+      front of the captain&rsquo;s tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and
+      the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the
+      camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The intense midday heat had settled down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and
+      bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp, and the
+      figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the other a bird
+      which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not long from
+      Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in spite of the
+      superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with heat; but the
+      clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive
+      refinement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. &ldquo;That is all
+      I&rsquo;ve got,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the loose
+      flap of the tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the
+      ground took up the bird. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll put it into the pot; it&rsquo;ll give it the
+      flavour of something except weevily mealies&rdquo;; he said, and fell to
+      plucking it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his
+      forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knocked up, eh?&rdquo; said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a
+      few drops in my flask still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, I can stand it well enough. It&rsquo;s only a little warm.&rdquo; He gave a
+      slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm. His eyes watched
+      mechanically the Colonial&rsquo;s manipulation of the bird. He had left England
+      to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because it was a place
+      where he could earn an open-air living, and save his parents from the
+      burden of his support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Halket doing over there?&rdquo; he asked suddenly, raising his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Weren&rsquo;t you here this morning?&rdquo; asked the Colonial. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you know
+      they&rsquo;d had a devil of a row?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Halket and the Captain.&rdquo; The Colonial paused in the plucking. &ldquo;My God,
+      you never saw anything like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where
+      Halket&rsquo;s bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s he doing out there in this blazing sun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s on guard,&rdquo; said the Colonial. &ldquo;I thought you were here when it
+      happened. It&rsquo;s the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!&rdquo; He
+      rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance. &ldquo;You see,
+      some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools of
+      water, and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank, not
+      five hundred yards from here! They found the bloody rascal by a little
+      path he tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a porcupine&rsquo;s
+      walk. They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush over the
+      mouth, so you couldn&rsquo;t see it. He&rsquo;d evidently been there a long time, the
+      floor was full of bones of fish he&rsquo;d caught in the pool, and there was a
+      bit of root like a stick half gnawed through. He&rsquo;d been potted, and got
+      two bullet wounds in the thigh; but he could walk already. It&rsquo;s evident he
+      was just waiting till we were gone, to clear off after his people. He&rsquo;d
+      got that beastly scurvy look a nigger gets when he hasn&rsquo;t had anything to
+      eat for a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew and
+      swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow; he&rsquo;d
+      hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this evening, so
+      he&rsquo;d wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn&rsquo;t come he&rsquo;d hang
+      him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as sure as the sun
+      rose. He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree before his tent,
+      with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist, and a riem round his
+      neck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did the native say?&rdquo; asked the Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he didn&rsquo;t say anything. There wasn&rsquo;t a soul in the camp could have
+      understood him if he had. The coloured boys don&rsquo;t know his language. I
+      expect he&rsquo;s one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the bush
+      out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state it
+      must have been, I don&rsquo;t know. He didn&rsquo;t try to fight when they caught him;
+      just stared in front of him&mdash;fright, I suppose. He must have been a
+      big strapping devil before he was taken down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I tell you, we&rsquo;d just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just
+      going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing round,
+      when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his front lock&mdash;you
+      know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could have seen it! I&rsquo;ll
+      never forget it to my dying day!&rdquo; The Colonial seemed bursting with
+      internal laughter. &ldquo;He begins, &lsquo;Sir, may I speak to you?&rsquo; in a formal kind
+      of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and then all of a sudden
+      he starts off&mdash;oh, my God, you never heard such a thing! It was like
+      a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture he&rsquo;s learnt off by
+      heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he&rsquo;s not going to be stopped till
+      he gets to the end of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he say,&rdquo; asked the Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would be
+      a terrible thing to kill him if we weren&rsquo;t quite sure; perhaps he was
+      hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after
+      all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight
+      against the French if they came and took England from us; and the niggers
+      were brave men, &lsquo;please sir&rsquo;&mdash;(every five minutes he&rsquo;d pull his
+      forelock, and say, &lsquo;please sir!&rsquo;)&mdash;&lsquo;and if we have to fight against
+      them we ought to remember they&rsquo;re fighting for freedom; we shouldn&rsquo;t shoot
+      wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn&rsquo;t shoot them if they
+      were white!&rsquo; And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You never
+      heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a black man
+      as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant folk, and we
+      had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we ought to let
+      this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and tell him to go
+      back to his people, and tell them we hadn&rsquo;t come to take their land but to
+      teach them and love them. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s hard to love a nigger, Captain, but we
+      must try it; we must try it!&rsquo;&mdash;And every five minutes he&rsquo;d break out
+      with, &lsquo;And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I&rsquo;m not sure, but I
+      think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!&rsquo;&mdash;as if any born devil cared
+      whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere else! I&rsquo;m sure
+      he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t mean that I&rsquo;m
+      better than you or anybody else, Captain; I&rsquo;m as bad a man as any in camp,
+      and I know it.&rsquo; And off he started, telling us all the sins he&rsquo;d ever
+      committed; and he kept on, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m an unlearned, ignorant man, Captain; but I
+      must stand by this nigger; he&rsquo;s got no one else!&rsquo; And then he says&mdash;&lsquo;If
+      you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I&rsquo;m not afraid; and I&rsquo;ll tell
+      the people there that it&rsquo;s not their land and their women that we want,
+      it&rsquo;s them to be our brothers and love us. If you&rsquo;ll only let me go, sir,
+      I&rsquo;ll go and make peace; give the man to me, sir!&rsquo;&rdquo; The Colonial shook with
+      laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did the Captain say?&rdquo; asked the Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing all
+      round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down at
+      each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder and
+      redder: and all he could say was, &lsquo;My Gawd! my Gawd!&rsquo; I thought he&rsquo;d
+      burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as though
+      he didn&rsquo;t see a soul of us all there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did the Captain do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the
+      tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good
+      as Halket himself. And when he&rsquo;d finished and got sane a bit, he said
+      Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the nigger.
+      And he gave orders that if the big troop didn&rsquo;t come up tonight, that he
+      was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was to shoot
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman started: &ldquo;What did Halket say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. He&rsquo;s been walking there with his gun all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket&rsquo;s head
+      appeared and disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the nigger hanging there now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything to
+      eat or drink all day: but&mdash;&rdquo; The Colonial glanced round where the
+      trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, &ldquo;This
+      morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain&rsquo;s coloured boy to
+      ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and the
+      poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the water
+      out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had become of my
+      mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the Captain&rsquo;s tent,
+      before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody nigger drink out of
+      my mug. The riem was so tight round his neck he couldn&rsquo;t drink but slowly,
+      and there was Halket holding it up to him! If the Captain had looked out!
+      W-h-e-w! I wouldn&rsquo;t have been Halket!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?&rdquo; asked the Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he will. He&rsquo;s the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a
+      fuss about it, or it&rsquo;ll be the worse for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His time&rsquo;s up tomorrow evening!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but not tomorrow morning. And I wouldn&rsquo;t make a row about it if I
+      was Halket. It doesn&rsquo;t do to fall out with the authorities here. What&rsquo;s
+      one nigger more or less? He&rsquo;ll get shot some other way, or die of hunger,
+      if we don&rsquo;t do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs,&rdquo; said the
+      Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, they don&rsquo;t feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I&rsquo;ve seen
+      a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling like that!&mdash;without
+      a sound. They&rsquo;ve no feeling, these niggers; I don&rsquo;t suppose they care much
+      whether they live or die, not as we should, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman&rsquo;s eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which
+      Halket&rsquo;s head appeared and disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have no right to order Halket to do it&mdash;and he will not do it!&rdquo;
+       said the Englishman slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?&rdquo; said the
+      Colonial, looking curiously at him. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t pay. I&rsquo;ve made up my mind
+      never to speak whatever happens. What&rsquo;s the good? Suppose one were to make
+      a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he&rsquo;s made to shoot the
+      nigger against his will; what would come of it? There&rsquo;d be half-a-dozen
+      fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted&mdash;not to speak of
+      a fellow like that&rdquo;&mdash;turning his thumb in the direction of the
+      sleeping trooper&mdash;&ldquo;who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on the
+      Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one&rsquo;s wires are edited before
+      they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through. There are
+      many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us are there, do
+      you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making anything in
+      Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he had a real row
+      with the Company? I&rsquo;ve a great liking for Halket myself, he&rsquo;s a real good
+      fellow, and he&rsquo;s done me many a good turn&mdash;took my watch only last
+      night, because I was off colour; I&rsquo;d do anything for him in reason. But, I
+      say this flatly, I couldn&rsquo;t and wouldn&rsquo;t fly in the face of the
+      authorities for him or anyone else. I&rsquo;ve my own girl waiting for me down
+      in the Colony, and she&rsquo;s been waiting for me these five years. And whether
+      I&rsquo;m able to marry her or not depends on how I stand with the Company: and
+      I say, flatly, I&rsquo;m not going to fall out with it. I came here to make
+      money, and I mean to make it! If other people like to run their heads
+      against stone walls, let them: but they mustn&rsquo;t expect me to follow them.
+      This isn&rsquo;t a country where a man can say what he thinks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. &ldquo;And the Union Jack is
+      supposed to be flying over us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company,&rdquo; laughed the Colonial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you ever have the nightmare?&rdquo; asked the Englishman suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? Oh yes, sometimes&rdquo;; he looked curiously at his companion; &ldquo;when I&rsquo;ve
+      eaten too much, I get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always have it since I came up here,&rdquo; said the Englishman. &ldquo;It is that
+      a vast world is resting on me&mdash;a whole globe: and I am a midge
+      beneath it. I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under it&mdash;and
+      let it crush me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s curious you should have the nightmare so up here,&rdquo; said the
+      Colonial; &ldquo;one gets so little to eat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the
+      bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind you,&rdquo; the Colonial said at last, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say that in this case the
+      Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He&rsquo;s never been
+      quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night out on the
+      kopje. When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of dead sleep; we
+      couldn&rsquo;t wake him; yet it wasn&rsquo;t cold enough for him to have been frozen.
+      He&rsquo;s never been the same man since; queer, you know; giving his rations
+      away to the coloured boys, and letting the other fellows have his dot of
+      brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of apart to himself, you know.
+      The other fellows think he&rsquo;s got a touch of fever on, caught wandering
+      about in the long grass that day. But I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s that; I think
+      it&rsquo;s being alone in the veld that&rsquo;s got hold of him. Man, have you ever
+      been out like that, alone in the veld, night and day, and not a soul to
+      speak to? I have; and I tell you, if I&rsquo;d been left there three days longer
+      I&rsquo;d have gone mad or turned religious. Man, it&rsquo;s the nights, with the
+      stars up above you, and the dead still all around. And you think, and
+      think, and think! You remember all kinds of things you&rsquo;ve never thought of
+      for years and years. I used to talk to myself at last, and make believe it
+      was another man. I was out seven days: and he was only out one night. But
+      I think it&rsquo;s the loneliness that got hold of him. Man, those stars are
+      awful; and that stillness that comes toward morning!&rdquo; He stood up. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a
+      great pity, because he&rsquo;s as good a fellow as ever was. But perhaps he&rsquo;ll
+      come all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand. When he had gone
+      the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm across
+      his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      High, high up, between the straggling branches of the tree, in the clear,
+      blue African sky above him, he could see the vultures flying southward.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      That evening the men sat eating their suppers round the fires. The large
+      troop had not come up; and the mules had been brought in; and they were to
+      make a start early the next morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a little
+      in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their
+      mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be
+      asked him; and the men, fearing the Colonial&rsquo;s size and the Englishman&rsquo;s
+      nerve, left him in peace. The men laughed and chatted round the fire,
+      while the big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates,
+      and passed them round to the men. Presently he passed one to Halket, who
+      lay half behind him leaning on his elbow. For a while Halket ate nothing,
+      then he took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are eating nothing, Halket,&rdquo; said the Englishman, cheerily, looking
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not hungry now,&rdquo; he said. After a while he took out his red
+      handkerchief, and emptied carefully into it the contents of the plate; and
+      tied it up into a bundle. He set it beside him on the ground, and again
+      lay on his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t come nearer to the fire, Halket?&rsquo; asked the Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you, the night is warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while Peter Halket took out from his belt a small hunting knife
+      with a rough wooden handle. A small flat stone lay near him, and he passed
+      the blade slowly up and down on it, now and then taking it up, and feeling
+      the edge with his finger. After a while he put it back in his belt, and
+      rose slowly, taking up his small bundle and walked away to the tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had a pretty stiff day,&rdquo; said the Colonial. &ldquo;I expect he&rsquo;s glad
+      enough to turn in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns. Would
+      the Captain stick to his word tomorrow? Was Halket going to do it? Had the
+      Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead of letting
+      them fire a volley? One man said he would do it gladly in Halket&rsquo;s place,
+      if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So they chatted till
+      nine o&rsquo;clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to turn in. They found
+      Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with his face turned to the
+      canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might not disturb him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At ten o&rsquo;clock all the camp was asleep, excepting the two men told off to
+      keep guard; who paced from one end of the camp to the other to keep
+      themselves awake; or stood chatting by the large fire, which still burnt
+      at one end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Captain&rsquo;s tent a light was kept burning all night, which shone
+      through the thin canvas sides, and shed light on the ground about; but,
+      for the rest, the camp was dead and still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By half-past one the moon had gone down, and there was left only a blaze
+      of stars in the great African sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter Halket rose up; softly he lifted the canvas and crept out. On
+      the side furthest from the camp he stood upright. On his arm was tied his
+      red handkerchief with its contents. For a moment he glanced up at the
+      galaxy of stars over him; then he stepped into the long grass, and made
+      his way in a direction opposite to that in which the camp lay. But after a
+      short while he turned, and made his way down into the river bed. He walked
+      in it for a while. Then after a time he sat down upon the bank and took
+      off his heavy boots and threw them into the grass at the side. Then
+      softly, on tip-toe, he followed the little footpath that the men had
+      trodden going down to the river for water. It led straight up to the
+      Captain&rsquo;s tent, and the little flat-topped tree, with its white stem, and
+      its two gnarled branches spread out on either side. When he was within
+      forty paces of it, he paused. Far over the other side of the camp the two
+      men who were on guard stood chatting by the fire. A dead stillness was
+      over the rest of the camp. The light through the walls of the Captain&rsquo;s
+      tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but there was no sound
+      of movement within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the tree.
+      The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to it that
+      they seemed one. His hands were tied to his sides, and his head drooped on
+      his breast. His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had once been those
+      of a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints stand out. The wool
+      on his head was wild and thick with neglect, and stood out roughly in long
+      strands; and his skin was rough with want and exposure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The riems had cut a little into his ankles; and a small flow of blood had
+      made the ground below his feet dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket looked up at him; the man seemed dead. He touched him softly
+      on the arm, then shook it slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at
+      Peter from under his weary eyebrows. Except that they moved they might
+      have been the eyes of a dead thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter put up his fingers to his own lips&mdash;&ldquo;Hus-h! hus-h!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly Peter Halket knelt down and took the knife from his belt. In an
+      instant the riems that bound the feet were cut through; in another he had
+      cut the riems from the waist and neck: the riems dropped to the ground
+      from the arms, and the man stood free. Like a dazed dumb creature, he
+      stood, with his head still down, eyeing Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly Peter slipped the red bundle from his arm into the man&rsquo;s passive
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ari-tsemaia! Hamba! Loop! Go!&rdquo; whispered Peter Halket; using a word from
+      each African language he knew. But the black man still stood motionless,
+      looking at him as one paralysed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamba! Sucka! Go!&rdquo; he whispered, motioning his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant a gleam of intelligence shot across the face; then a wild
+      transport. Without a word, without a sound, as the tiger leaps when the
+      wild dogs are on it, with one long, smooth spring, as though unwounded and
+      unhurt, he turned and disappeared into the grass. It closed behind him;
+      but as he went the twigs and leaves cracked under his tread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain threw back the door of his tent. &ldquo;Who is there?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter Halket stood below the tree with the knife in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise roused the whole camp: the men on guard came running; guns were
+      fired: and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their weapons.
+      There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry went round the
+      camp, &ldquo;The Mashonas are releasing the spy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the men got to the Captain&rsquo;s tent, they saw that the nigger was gone;
+      and Peter Halket was lying on his face at the foot of the tree; with his
+      head turned towards the Captain&rsquo;s door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a wild confusion of voices. &ldquo;How many were there?&rdquo; &ldquo;Where have
+      they gone to now?&rdquo; &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve shot Peter Halket!&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;The Captain saw
+      them do it&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Stand ready, they may come back any time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Englishman came, the other men, who knew he had been a medical
+      student, made way for him. He knelt down by Peter Halket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s dead,&rdquo; he said, quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had turned him over, the Colonial knelt down on the other side,
+      with a little hand-lamp in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you fellows fooling about here for?&rdquo; cried the Captain. &ldquo;Do you
+      suppose it&rsquo;s any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping! Go,
+      guard the camp on all sides!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will send four coloured boys,&rdquo; he said to the Englishman and the
+      Colonial, &ldquo;to dig the grave. You&rsquo;d better bury him at once; there&rsquo;s no use
+      waiting. We start first thing in the morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket&rsquo;s breast.
+      There was one small wound just under the left bosom; and one on the crown
+      of the head; which must have been made after he had fallen down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange, isn&rsquo;t it, what he can have been doing here?&rdquo; said the Colonial;
+      &ldquo;a small wound, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pistol shot,&rdquo; said the Englishman, closing the bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pistol&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you he would not kill that nigger.&mdash;See&mdash;here&mdash;&rdquo; He
+      took up the knife which had fallen from Peter Halket&rsquo;s grasp, and fitted
+      it into a piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t think&mdash;&rdquo; The Colonial stared at him with wide open
+      eyes; then he glanced round at the Captain&rsquo;s tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think that&mdash;Go and fetch his great-coat; we&rsquo;ll put him in it.
+      If it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he
+      is dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They brought his great-coat, and they looked in the pockets to see if
+      there was anything which might show where he had come from or who his
+      friends were. But there was nothing in the pockets except an empty flask,
+      and a leathern purse with two shillings in, and a little hand-made
+      two-pointed cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So they wrapped Peter Halket up in his great-coat, and put the little cap
+      on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, one hour after Peter Halket had stood outside the tent looking up, he
+      was lying under the little tree, with the red sand trodden down over him,
+      in which a black man and a white man&rsquo;s blood were mingled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the rest of the night the men sat up round the fires, discussing what
+      had happened, dreading an attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Englishman and the Colonial went to their tent, to lie down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think they will make any inquiries?&rdquo; asked the Colonial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should they? His time will be up tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to say anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the use?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They lay in the dark for an hour, and heard the men chatting outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in a God?&rdquo; said the Englishman, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonial started: &ldquo;Of course I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to,&rdquo; said the Englishman; &ldquo;I do not believe in your God; but I
+      believed in something greater than I could understand, which moved in this
+      earth, as your soul moves in your body. And I thought this worked in such
+      wise, that the law of cause and effect, which holds in the physical world,
+      held also in the moral: so, that the thing we call justice, ruled. I do
+      not believe it any more. There is no God in Mashonaland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t say that!&rdquo; cried the Colonial, much distressed. &ldquo;Are you going
+      off your head, like poor Halket?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but there is no God,&rdquo; said the Englishman. He turned round on his
+      shoulder, and said no more: and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before dawn the next morning the men had packed up the goods, and started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By five o&rsquo;clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before
+      and behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty
+      circle; save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones about
+      which the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only under the little stunted tree, the Colonial and the Englishman were
+      piling up stones. Their horses stood saddled close by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the large trooper came riding back. He had been sent by the
+      Captain to ask what they were fooling behind for, and to tell them to come
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned in
+      his saddle and looked back. The morning sun was lighting up the straggling
+      branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the camp; and fell on the
+      little stunted tree, with its white stem and outstretched arms; and on the
+      stones beneath it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all that night on the kopje!&rdquo; said the Colonial, sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Englishman looked back. &ldquo;I hardly know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;whether it is
+      not better for him now, than for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they rode on after the troop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by
+Olive Schreiner
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/1431.txt b/old/1431.txt
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index 0000000..0dfce31
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1431.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2842 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by Olive Schreiner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
+
+Author: Olive Schreiner
+
+Posting Date: September 15, 2008 [EBook #1431]
+Release Date: August, 1998
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROOPER PETER HALKET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+TROOPER PETER HALKET OF MASHONALAND
+
+by Olive Schreiner
+
+Author of "Dreams," "Dream Life and Real Life," "The Story of an African
+Farm," etc.
+
+Colonial Edition
+
+(A photographic plate at the front of the book shows three people
+hanging from a tree by their necks. Around them stand eight men, looking
+not at all troubled by their participation in the scene. Of this event
+all the survivors appear to be white, the victims black. The plate is
+titled "From a Photograph taken in Matabeleland." S.A.)
+
+
+To a Great Good Man, Sir George Grey,
+
+Once Governor of the Cape Colony, who, during his rule in South Africa,
+bound to himself the Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Natives he governed, by
+an uncorruptible justice and a broad humanity; and who is remembered
+among us today as representing the noblest attributes of an Imperial
+Rule.
+
+     "Our low life was the level's and the night's;
+      He's for the morning."
+
+Olive Schreiner.
+
+     19, Russell Road,
+     Kensington, W.,
+     February, 1897.
+
+
+     Aardvark - The great anteater.
+     Cape Smoke - A very inferior brandy made in Cape Colony.
+     Kopje - Little hillock.
+     Kraal - A Kaffir encampment.
+     Mealies - Maize (corn).
+     Riem - A thong of undressed leather universally used in South Africa.
+     Vatje of Old Dop - A little cask of Cape brandy.
+     Veld - Open Country.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+It was a dark night; a chill breath was coming from the east; not enough
+to disturb the blaze of Trooper Peter Halket's fire, yet enough to make
+it quiver. He sat alone beside it on the top of a kopje.
+
+All about was an impenetrable darkness; not a star was visible in the
+black curve over his head.
+
+He had been travelling with a dozen men who were taking provisions of
+mealies and rice to the next camp. He had been sent out to act as scout
+along a low range of hills, and had lost his way. Since eight in the
+morning he had wandered among long grasses, and ironstone kopjes, and
+stunted bush, and had come upon no sign of human habitation, but the
+remains of a burnt kraal, and a down-trampled and now uncultivated
+mealie field, where a month before the Chartered Company's forces had
+destroyed a native settlement.
+
+Three times in the day it had appeared to him that he had returned to
+the very spot from which he had started; nor was it his wish to travel
+very far, for he knew his comrades would come back to look for him, to
+the neighbourhood where he had last been seen, when it was found at the
+evening camping ground that he did not appear.
+
+Trooper Peter Halket was very weary. He had eaten nothing all day; and
+had touched little of the contents of a small flask of Cape brandy
+he carried in his breast pocket, not knowing when it would again be
+replenished.
+
+As night drew near he determined to make his resting place on the top of
+one of the kopjes, which stood somewhat alone and apart from the others.
+He could not easily be approached there, without his knowing it. He had
+not much fear of the natives; their kraals had been destroyed and their
+granaries burnt for thirty miles round, and they themselves had fled:
+but he feared, somewhat, the lions, which he had never seen, but of
+which he had heard, and which might be cowering in the long grasses and
+brushwood at the kopje's foot:--and he feared, vaguely, he hardly knew
+what, when he looked forward to his first long night alone in the veld.
+
+By the time the sun had set he had gathered a little pile of stumps and
+branches on the top of the kopje. He intended to keep a fire burning all
+night; and as the darkness began to settle down he lit it. It might
+be his friends would see it from far, and come for him early in the
+morning; and wild beasts would hardly approach him while he knelt beside
+it; and of the natives he felt there was little fear.
+
+He built up the fire; and determined if it were possible to keep awake
+the whole night beside it.
+
+He was a slight man of middle height, with a sloping forehead and pale
+blue eyes: but the jaws were hard set, and the thin lips of the large
+mouth were those of a man who could strongly desire the material good of
+life, and enjoy it when it came his way. Over the lower half of the face
+were scattered a few soft white hairs, the growth of early manhood.
+
+From time to time he listened intently for possible sounds from the
+distance where his friends might be encamped, and might fire off their
+guns at seeing his light; or he listened yet more intently for sounds
+nearer at hand: but all was still, except for the occasional cracking
+of the wood in his own fire, and the slight whistle of the breeze as it
+crept past the stones on the kopje. He doubled up his great hat and put
+it in the pocket of his overcoat, and put on a little two-pointed cap
+his mother had made for him, which fitted so close that only one lock
+of white hair hung out over his forehead. He turned up the collar of his
+coat to shield his neck and ears, and threw it open in front that the
+blaze of the fire might warm him. He had known many nights colder than
+this when he had sat around the camp fire with his comrades, talking of
+the niggers they had shot or the kraals they had destroyed, or grumbling
+over their rations; but tonight the chill seemed to creep into his very
+bones.
+
+The darkness of the night above him, and the silence of the veld about
+him, oppressed him. At times he even wished he might hear the cry of a
+jackal or of some larger beast of prey in the distance; and he wished
+that the wind would blow a little louder, instead of making that little
+wheezing sound as it passed the corners of the stones. He looked down
+at his gun, which lay cocked ready on the ground at his right side;
+and from time to time he raised his hand automatically and fingered the
+cartridges in his belt. Then he stretched out his small wiry hands to
+the fire and warmed them. It was only half past ten, and it seemed to
+him he had been sitting here ten hours at the least.
+
+After a while he threw two more large logs on the fire, and took the
+flask out of his pocket. He examined it carefully by the firelight to
+see how much it held: then he took a small draught, and examined it
+again to see how much it had fallen; and put it back in his breast
+pocket.
+
+Then Trooper Peter Halket fell to thinking.
+
+It was not often that he thought. On patrol and sitting round camp fires
+with the other men about him there was no time for it; and Peter Halket
+had never been given to much thinking. He had been a careless boy at the
+village school; and though, when he left, his mother paid the village
+apothecary to read learned books with him at night on history and
+science, he had not retained much of them. As a rule he lived in the
+world immediately about him, and let the things of the moment impinge
+on him, and fall off again as they would, without much reflection.
+But tonight on the kopje he fell to thinking, and his thoughts shaped
+themselves into connected chains.
+
+He wondered first whether his mother would ever get the letter he had
+posted the week before, and whether it would be brought to her cottage
+or she would go to the post office to fetch it. And then, he fell to
+thinking of the little English village where he had been born, and where
+he had grown up. He saw his mother's fat white ducklings creep in and
+out under the gate, and waddle down to the little pond at the back of
+the yard; he saw the school house that he had hated so much as a
+boy, and from which he had so often run away to go a-fishing, or
+a-bird's-nesting. He saw the prints on the school house wall on which
+the afternoon sun used to shine when he was kept in; Jesus of Judea
+blessing the children, and one picture just over the door where he hung
+with his arms stretched out and the blood dropping from his feet. Then
+Peter Halket thought of the tower at the ruins which he had climbed so
+often for birds' eggs; and he saw his mother standing at her cottage
+gate when he came home in the evening, and he felt her arms round his
+neck as she kissed him; but he felt her tears on his cheek, because he
+had run away from school all day; and he seemed to be making apologies
+to her, and promising he never would do it again if only she would not
+cry. He had often thought of her since he left her, on board ship, and
+when he was working with the prospectors, and since he had joined the
+troop; but it had been in a vague way; he had not distinctly seen and
+felt her. But tonight he wished for her as he used to when he was
+a small boy and lay in his bed in the next room, and saw her shadow
+through the door as she bent over her wash-tub earning the money which
+was to feed and clothe him. He remembered how he called her and she came
+and tucked him in and called him "Little Simon," which was his second
+name and had been his father's, and which she only called him when he
+was in bed at night, or when he was hurt.
+
+He sat there staring into the blaze. He resolved he would make a great
+deal of money, and she should live with him. He would build a large
+house in the West End of London, the biggest that had ever been seen,
+and another in the country, and they should never work any more.
+
+Peter Halket sat as one turned into stone, staring into the fire.
+
+All men made money when they came to South Africa,--Barney Barnato,
+Rhodes--they all made money out of the country, eight millions, twelve
+millions, twenty-six millions, forty millions; why should not he!
+
+Peter Halket started suddenly and listened. But it was only the wind
+coming up the kopje like a great wheezy beast creeping upwards; and he
+looked back into the fire.
+
+He considered his business prospects. When he had served his time
+as volunteer he would have a large piece of land given him, and the
+Mashonas and Matabeles would have all their land taken away from them in
+time, and the Chartered Company would pass a law that they had to work
+for the white men; and he, Peter Halket, would make them work for him.
+He would make money.
+
+Then he reflected on what he should do with the land if it were no good
+and he could not make anything out of it. Then, he should have to
+start a syndicate; called the Peter Halket Gold, or the Peter Halket
+Iron-mining, or some such name, Syndicate. Peter Halket was not very
+clear as to how it ought to be started; but he felt certain that he and
+some other men would have to take shares. They would not have to pay for
+them. And then they would get some big man in London to take shares. He
+need not pay for them; they would give them to him; and then the company
+would be floated. No one would have to pay anything; it was just the
+name--"The Peter Halket Gold Mining Company, Limited." It would float
+in London; and people there who didn't know the country would buy the
+shares; THEY would have to give ready money for them, of course; perhaps
+fifteen pounds a share when they were up!--Peter Halket's eyes blinked
+as he looked into the fire.--And then, when the market was up, he,
+Peter Halket, would sell out all his shares. If he gave himself only six
+thousand and sold them each for ten pounds, then he, Peter Halket, would
+have sixty thousand pounds! And then he would start another company, and
+another.
+
+Peter Halket struck his knee softly with his hand.
+
+That was the great thing--"Always sell out at the right time."
+That point Peter Halket was very clear on. He had heard it so often
+discussed. Give some shares to men with big names, and sell out: they
+can sell out too at the right time.
+
+Peter Halket stroked his knee thoughtfully.
+
+And then the other people, that bought the shares for cash! Well, they
+could sell out too; they could all sell out!
+
+Then Peter Halket's mind got a little hazy. The matter was getting too
+difficult for him, like a rule of three sum at school when he could not
+see the relation between the two first terms and the third. Well, if
+they didn't like to sell out at the right time, it was their own faults.
+Why didn't they? He, Peter Halket, did not feel responsible for them.
+Everyone knew that you had to sell out at the right time. If they didn't
+choose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn't. "It's the
+shares that you sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money."
+
+But if they couldn't sell them?
+
+Here Peter Halket hesitated.--Well, the British Government would have to
+buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
+lose. "The British Government can't let British share-holders suffer."
+He'd heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay for
+the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
+couldn't, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
+lords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn't they
+pay for his company? He would have a lord in it too!
+
+Peter Halket looked into the fire completely absorbed in his
+calculations.--Peter Halket, Esq., Director of the Peter Halket Gold
+Mining Company, Limited. Then, when he had got thousands, Peter
+Halket, Esq., M.P. Then, when he had millions, Sir Peter Halket, Privy
+Councillor!
+
+He reflected deeply, looking into the blaze. If you had five or six
+millions you could go where you liked and do what you liked. You could
+go to Sandringham. You could marry anyone. No one would ask what your
+mother had been; it wouldn't matter.
+
+A curious dull sinking sensation came over Peter Halket; and he drew in
+his broad leathern belt two holes tighter.
+
+Even if you had only two millions you could have a cook and a valet, to
+go with you when you went into the veld or to the wars; and you could
+have as much champagne and other things as you liked. At that moment
+that seemed to Peter more important than going to Sandringham.
+
+He took out his flask of Cape Smoke, and drew a tiny draught from it.
+
+Other men had come to South Africa with nothing, and had made
+everything! Why should not he?
+
+He stuck small branches under the two great logs, and a glorious flame
+burst out. Then he listened again intently. The wind was falling and the
+night was becoming very still. It was a quarter to twelve now. His back
+ached, and he would have liked to lie down; but he dared not, for fear
+he should drop asleep. He leaned forward with his hands between his
+crossed knees, and watched the blaze he had made.
+
+Then, after a while, Peter Halket's thoughts became less clear: they
+became at last, rather, a chain of disconnected pictures, painting
+themselves in irrelevant order on his brain, than a line of connected
+ideas. Now, as he looked into the crackling blaze, it seemed to be one
+of the fires they had make to burn the natives' grain by, and they were
+throwing in all they could not carry away: then, he seemed to see his
+mother's fat ducks waddling down the little path with the green grass
+on each side. Then, he seemed to see his huts where he lived with the
+prospectors, and the native women who used to live with him; and he
+wondered where the women were. Then--he saw the skull of an old Mashona
+blown off at the top, the hands still moving. He heard the loud cry of
+the native women and children as they turned the maxims on to the kraal;
+and then he heard the dynamite explode that blew up a cave. Then again
+he was working a maxim gun, but it seemed to him it was more like the
+reaping machine he used to work in England, and that what was going down
+before it was not yellow corn, but black men's heads; and he thought
+when he looked back they lay behind him in rows, like the corn in
+sheaves.
+
+The logs sent up a flame clear and high, and, where they split, showed
+a burning core inside: the cracking and spluttering sounded in his brain
+like the discharge of a battery of artillery. Then he thought suddenly
+of a black woman he and another man caught alone in the bush, her baby
+on her back, but young and pretty. Well, they didn't shoot her!--and a
+black woman wasn't white! His mother didn't understand these things;
+it was all so different in England from South Africa. You couldn't
+be expected to do the same sort of things here as there. He had an
+unpleasant feeling that he was justifying himself to his mother, and
+that he didn't know how to.
+
+He leaned further and further forward: so far at last, that the little
+white lock of his hair which hung out under his cap was almost singed by
+the fire. His eyes were still open, but the lids drooped over them, and
+his hands hung lower and lower between his knees. There was no picture
+left on his brain now, but simply an impress of the blazing logs before
+him.
+
+Then, Trooper Peter Halket started. He sat up and listened. The wind had
+gone; there was not a sound: but he listened intently. The fire burnt up
+into the still air, two clear red tongues of flame.
+
+Then, on the other side of the kopje he heard the sound of footsteps
+ascending; the slow even tread of bare feet coming up.
+
+The hair on Trooper Peter Halket's forehead slowly stiffened itself. He
+had no thought of escaping; he was paralyzed with dread. He took up his
+gun. A deadly coldness crept from his feet to his head. He had worked a
+maxim gun in a fight when some hundred natives fell and only one white
+man had been wounded; and he had never known fear; but tonight his
+fingers were stiff on the lock of his gun. He knelt low, tending
+a little to one side of the fire, with his gun ready. A stone half
+sheltered him from anyone coming up from the other side of the kopje,
+and the instant the figure appeared over the edge he intended to fire.
+
+Then, the thought flashed on him; what, and if it were one of his own
+comrades come in search of him, and no bare-footed enemy! The anguish of
+suspense wrung his heart; for an instant he hesitated. Then, in a cold
+agony of terror, he cried out, "Who is there?"
+
+And a voice replied in clear, slow English, "A friend."
+
+Peter Halket almost let his gun drop, in the revulsion of feeling. The
+cold sweat which anguish had restrained burst out in large drops on his
+forehead; but he still knelt holding his gun.
+
+"What do you want?" he cried out quiveringly.
+
+From the darkness at the edge of the kopje a figure stepped out into the
+full blaze of the firelight.
+
+Trooper Peter Halket looked up at it.
+
+It was the tall figure of a man, clad in one loose linen garment,
+reaching lower than his knees, and which clung close about him. His
+head, arms, and feet were bare. He carried no weapon of any kind; and on
+his shoulders hung heavy locks of dark hair.
+
+Peter Halket looked up at him with astonishment. "Are you alone?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, I am alone."
+
+Peter Halket lowered his gun and knelt up.
+
+"Lost your way, I suppose?" he said, still holding his weapon loosely.
+
+"No; I have come to ask whether I may sit beside your fire for a while."
+
+"Certainly, certainly!" said Peter, eyeing the stranger's dress
+carefully, still holding his gun, but with the hand off the lock. "I'm
+confoundedly glad of any company. It's a beastly night for anyone to be
+out alone. Wonder you find your way. Sit down! sit down!" Peter looked
+intently at the stranger; then he put his gun down at his side.
+
+The stranger sat down on the opposite side of the fire. His complexion
+was dark; his arms and feet were bronzed; but his aquiline features, and
+the domed forehead, were not of any South African race.
+
+"One of the Soudanese Rhodes brought with him from the north, I
+suppose?" said Peter, still eyeing him curiously.
+
+"No; Cecil Rhodes has had nothing to do with my coming here," said the
+stranger.
+
+"Oh--" said Peter. "You didn't perhaps happen to come across a company
+of men today, twelve white men and seven coloured, with three cart loads
+of provisions? We were taking them to the big camp, and I got parted
+from my troop this morning. I've not been able to find them, though I've
+been seeking for them ever since."
+
+The stranger warmed his hands slowly at the fire; then he raised his
+head:--"They are camped at the foot of those hills tonight," he said,
+pointing with his hand into the darkness at the left. "Tomorrow early
+they will be here, before the sun has risen."
+
+"Oh, you've met them, have you!" said Peter joyfully; "that's why you
+weren't surprised at finding me here. Take a drop!" He took the small
+flask from his pocket and held it out. "I'm sorry there's so little, but
+a drop will keep the cold out."
+
+The stranger bowed his head; but thanked and declined.
+
+Peter raised the flask to his lips and took a small draught; then
+returned it to his pocket. The stranger folded his arms about his knees,
+and looked into the fire.
+
+"Are you a Jew?" asked Peter, suddenly; as the firelight fell full on
+the stranger's face.
+
+"Yes; I am a Jew."
+
+"Ah," said Peter, "that's why I wasn't able to make out at first what
+nation you could be of; your dress, you know--" Then he stopped, and
+said, "Trading here, I suppose? Which country do you come from; are you
+a Spanish Jew?"
+
+"I am a Jew of Palestine."
+
+"Ah!" said Peter; "I haven't seen many from that part yet. I came out
+with a lot on board ship; and I've seen Barnato and Beit; but they're
+not very much like you. I suppose it's coming from Palestine makes the
+difference."
+
+All fear of the stranger had now left Peter Halket. "Come a little
+nearer the fire," he said, "you must be cold, you haven't too much
+wraps. I'm chill in this big coat." Peter Halket pushed his gun a little
+further away from him; and threw another large log on the fire. "I'm
+sorry I haven't anything to eat to offer you; but I haven't had anything
+myself since last night. It's beastly sickening, being out like this
+with nothing to eat. Wouldn't have thought a fellow'd feel so bad after
+only a day of it. Have you ever been out without grub?" said Peter
+cheerfully, warming his hands at the blaze.
+
+"Forty days and nights," said the stranger.
+
+"Forty days! Ph--e--ew!" said Peter. "You must have have had a lot to
+drink, or you wouldn't have stood it. I was feeling blue enough when you
+turned up, but I'm better now, warmer."
+
+Peter Halket re-arranged the logs on the fire.
+
+"In the employ of the Chartered Company, I suppose?" said Peter, looking
+into the fire he had made.
+
+"No," said the stranger; "I have nothing to do with the Chartered
+Company."
+
+"Oh," said Peter, "I don't wonder, then, that things aren't looking very
+smart with you! There's not too much cakes and ale up here for those
+that do belong to it, if they're not big-wigs, and none at all for those
+who don't. I tried it when I first came up here. I was with a prospector
+who was hooked on to the Company somehow, but I worked on my own account
+for the prospector by the day. I tell you what, it's not the men
+who work up here who make the money; it's the big-wigs who get the
+concessions!"
+
+Peter felt exhilarated by the presence of the stranger. That one unarmed
+man had robbed him of all fear.
+
+Seeing that the stranger did not take up the thread of conversation, he
+went on after a time: "It wasn't such a bad life, though. I only wish I
+was back there again. I had two huts to myself, and a couple of nigger
+girls. It's better fun," said Peter, after a while, "having these black
+women than whites. The whites you've got to support, but the niggers
+support you! And when you've done with them you can just get rid of
+them. I'm all for the nigger gals." Peter laughed. But the stranger sat
+motionless with his arms about his knees.
+
+"You got any girls?" said Peter. "Care for niggers?"
+
+"I love all women," said the stranger, refolding his arms about his
+knees.
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" said Peter. "Well, I'm pretty sick of them. I had
+bother enough with mine," he said genially, warming his hands by the
+fire, and then interlocking the fingers and turning the palms towards
+the blaze as one who prepares to enjoy a good talk. "One girl was only
+fifteen; I got her cheap from a policeman who was living with her, and
+she wasn't much. But the other, by Gad! I never saw another nigger like
+her; well set up, I tell you, and as straight as that--" said Peter,
+holding up his finger in the firelight. "She was thirty if she was a
+day. Fellows don't generally fancy women that age; they like slips of
+girls. But I set my heart on her the day I saw her. She belonged to the
+chap I was with. He got her up north. There was a devil of a row about
+his getting her, too; she'd got a nigger husband and two children;
+didn't want to leave them, or some nonsense of that sort: you know what
+these niggers are? Well, I tried to get the other fellow to let me have
+her, but the devil a bit he would. I'd only got the other girl, and I
+didn't much fancy her; she was only a child. Well, I went down Umtali
+way and got a lot of liquor and stuff, and when I got back to camp I
+found them clean dried out. They hadn't had a drop of liquor in camp for
+ten days, and the rainy season coming on and no knowing when they'd get
+any. Well, I'd a vatje of Old Dop as high as that--," indicating with
+his hand an object about two feet high, "and the other fellow wanted to
+buy it from me. I knew two of that. I said I wanted it for myself. He
+offered me this, and he offered me that. At last I said, 'Well, just to
+oblige you, I give you the vatje and you give me the girl!' And so
+he did. Most people wouldn't have fancied a nigger girl who'd had two
+nigger children, but I didn't mind; it's all the same to me. And I tell
+you she worked. She made a garden, and she and the other girl worked in
+it; I tell you I didn't need to buy a sixpence of food for them in six
+months, and I used to sell green mealies and pumpkins to all the fellows
+about. There weren't many flies on her, I tell you. She picked up
+English quicker than I picked up her lingo, and took to wearing a dress
+and shawl."
+
+The stranger still sat motionless, looking into the fire.
+
+Peter Halket reseated himself more comfortably before the fire. "Well,
+I came home to the huts one day, rather suddenly, you know, to fetch
+something; and what did I find? She, talking at the hut door with a
+nigger man. Now it was my strict orders they were neither to speak a
+word to a nigger man at all; so I asked what it was. And she answers, as
+cool as can be, that he was a stranger going past on the road, and asked
+her to give him a drink of water. Well, I just ordered him off. I didn't
+think anything more about it. But I remember now. I saw him hanging
+about the camp the day after. Well, she came to me the next day and
+asked me for a lot of cartridges. She'd never asked me for anything
+before. I asked her what the devil a woman wanted with cartridges, and
+she said the old nigger woman who helped carry in water to the garden
+said she couldn't stay and help her any more unless she got some
+cartridges to give her son who was going up north hunting elephants. The
+woman got over me to give her the cartridges because she was going to
+have a kid, and she said she couldn't do the watering without help. So I
+gave them her. I never put two and two together.
+
+"Well, when I heard that the Company was going to have a row with the
+Matabele, I thought I'd volunteer. They said there was lots of loot to
+be got, and land to be given out, and that sort of thing, and I thought
+I'd only be gone about three months. So I went. I left those women
+there, and a lot of stuff in the garden and some sugar and rice, and I
+told them not to leave till I came back; and I asked the other man to
+keep an eye on them. Both those women were Mashonas. They always said
+the Mashonas didn't love the Matabele; but, by God, it turned out
+that they loved them better than they loved us. They've got the damned
+impertinence to say, that the Matabele oppressed them sometimes, but the
+white man oppresses them all the time!
+
+"Well, I left those women there," said Peter, dropping his hands on his
+knees. "Mind you, I'd treated those women really well. I'd never given
+either of them one touch all the time I had them. I was the talk of all
+the fellows round, the way I treated them. Well, I hadn't been gone a
+month, when I got a letter from the man I worked with, the one who had
+the woman first--he's dead now, poor fellow; they found him at his hut
+door with his throat cut--and what do you think he said to me? Why, I
+hadn't been gone six hours when those two women skooted! It was all the
+big one. What do you think she did? She took every ounce of ball and
+cartridge she could find in that hut, and my old Martini-Henry, and even
+the lid off the tea-box to melt into bullets for the old muzzle-loaders
+they have; and off she went, and took the young one too. The fellow
+wrote me they didn't touch another thing: they left the shawls and
+dresses I gave them kicking about the huts, and went off naked with only
+their blankets and the ammunition on their heads. A nigger man met them
+twenty miles off, and he said they were skooting up for Lo Magundi's
+country as fast as they could go.
+
+"And do you know," said Peter, striking his knee, and looking
+impressively across the fire at the stranger; "what I'm as sure of as
+that I'm sitting here? It's that that nigger I caught at my hut, that
+day, was her nigger husband! He'd come to fetch her that time; and when
+she saw she couldn't get away without our catching her, she got the
+cartridges for him!" Peter paused impressively between the words. "And
+now she's gone back to him. It's for him she's taken that ammunition!"
+
+Peter looked across the fire at the stranger, to see what impression his
+story was making.
+
+"I tell you what," said Peter, "if I'd had any idea that day who that
+bloody nigger was, the day I saw him standing at my door, I'd have given
+him one cartridge in the back of his head more than ever he reckoned
+for!" Peter looked triumphantly at the stranger. This was his only
+story; and he had told it a score of times round the camp fire for the
+benefit of some new-comer. When this point was reached, a low murmur
+of applause and sympathy always ran round the group: tonight there was
+quiet; the stranger's large dark eyes watched the fire almost as though
+he heard nothing.
+
+"I shouldn't have minded so much," said Peter after a while, "though no
+man likes to have his woman taken away from him; but she was going to
+have a kid in a month or two--and so was the little one for anything I
+know; she looked like it! I expect they did away with it before it came;
+they've no hearts, these niggers; they'd think nothing of doing that
+with a white man's child. They've no hearts; they'd rather go back to a
+black man, however well you've treated them. It's all right if you get
+them quite young and keep them away from their own people; but if once
+a nigger woman's had a nigger man and had children by him, you might as
+well try to hold a she-devil! they'll always go back. If ever I'm shot,
+it's as likely as not it'll be by my own gun, with my own cartridges.
+And she'd stand by and watch it, and cheer them on; though I never gave
+her a blow all the time she was with me. But I tell you what--if ever I
+come across that bloody nigger, I'll take it out of him. He won't count
+many days to his year, after I've spotted him!" Peter Halket paused.
+It seemed to him that the eyes under their heavy, curled lashes, were
+looking at something beyond him with an infinite sadness, almost as of
+eyes that wept.
+
+"You look awfully tired," said Peter; "wouldn't you like to lie down and
+sleep? You could put your head down on that stone, and I'd keep watch."
+
+"I have no need of sleep," the stranger said; "I will watch with you."
+
+"You've been in the wars, too, I see," said Peter, bending forward a
+little, and looking at the stranger's feet. "By God! Both of them!--And
+right through! You must have had a bad time of it?"
+
+"It was very long ago," said the stranger.
+
+Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire. "Do you know," he said,
+"I've been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of.
+It's my mother! You're not like her in the face, but when your eyes look
+at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me. Curious, isn't it?
+I don't know you from Adam, and you've hardly spoken a word since you
+came; and yet I seem as if I'd known you all my life." Peter moved a
+little nearer him. "I was awfully afraid of you when you first came;
+even when I first saw you;--you aren't dressed as most of us dress,
+you know. But the minute the fire shone on your face I said, 'It's all
+right.' Curious, isn't it?" said Peter. "I don't know you from Adam, but
+if you were to take up my gun and point it at me, I wouldn't move! I'd
+lie down here and go to sleep with my head at your feet; curious, isn't
+it, when I don't know you from Adam? My name's Peter Halket. What's
+yours?"
+
+But the stranger was arranging the logs on the fire. The flames shot up
+bright and high, and almost hid him from Peter Halket's view.
+
+"By gad! how they burn when you arrange them!" said Peter.
+
+They sat quiet in the blaze for a while.
+
+Then Peter said, "Did you see any niggers about yesterday? I haven't
+come across any in this part."
+
+"There is," said the stranger, raising himself, "an old woman in a cave
+over yonder, and there is one man in the bush, ten miles from this spot.
+He has lived there six weeks, since you destroyed the kraal, living on
+roots or herbs. He was wounded in the thigh, and left for dead. He is
+waiting till you have all left this part of the country that he may set
+out to follow his own people. His leg is not yet so strong that he may
+walk fast."
+
+"Did you speak to him?" said Peter.
+
+"I took him down to the water where a large pool was. The bank was too
+high for the man to descend alone."
+
+"It's a lucky thing for you our fellows didn't catch you," said Peter.
+"Our captain's a regular little martinet. He'd shoot you as soon as look
+at you, if he saw you fooling round with a wounded nigger. It's lucky
+you kept out of his way."
+
+"The young ravens have meat given to them," said the stranger, lifting
+himself up; "and the lions go down to the streams to drink."
+
+"Ah--yes--" said Peter; "but that's because we can't help it!"
+
+They were silent again for a little while. Then Peter, seeing that the
+stranger showed no inclination to speak, said, "Did you hear of the
+spree they had up Bulawayo way, hanging those three niggers for spies? I
+wasn't there myself, but a fellow who was told me they made the niggers
+jump down from the tree and hang themselves; one fellow wouldn't bally
+jump, till they gave him a charge of buckshot in the back: and then he
+caught hold of a branch with his hands and they had to shoot 'em loose.
+He didn't like hanging. I don't know if it's true, of course; I wasn't
+there myself, but a fellow who was told me. Another fellow who was at
+Bulawayo, but who wasn't there when they were hung, said they fired at
+them just after they jumped, to kill 'em. I--"
+
+"I was there," said the stranger.
+
+"Oh, you were?" said Peter. "I saw a photograph of the niggers hanging,
+and our fellows standing round smoking; but I didn't see you in it. I
+suppose you'd just gone away?"
+
+"I was beside the men when they were hung," said the stranger.
+
+"Oh, you were, were you?" said Peter. "I don't much care about seeing
+that sort of thing myself. Some fellows think it's the best fun out to
+see the niggers kick; but I can't stand it: it turns my stomach. It's
+not liver-heartedness," said Peter, quickly, anxious to remove any
+adverse impression as to his courage which the stranger might form; "if
+it's shooting or fighting, I'm there. I've potted as many niggers as any
+man in our troop, I bet. It's floggings and hangings I'm off. It's the
+way one's brought up, you know. My mother never even would kill our
+ducks; she let them die of old age, and we had the feathers and the
+eggs: and she was always drumming into me;--don't hit a fellow smaller
+than yourself; don't hit a fellow weaker than yourself; don't hit a
+fellow unless he can hit you back as good again. When you've always had
+that sort of thing drummed into you, you can't get rid of it, somehow.
+Now there was that other nigger they shot. They say he sat as still as
+if he was cut out of stone, with his arms round his legs; and some of
+the fellows gave him blows about the head and face before they took him
+off to shoot him. Now, that's the sort of thing I can't do. It makes me
+sick here, somehow." Peter put his hand rather low down over the pit of
+his stomach. "I'll shoot as many as you like if they'll run, but they
+mustn't be tied up."
+
+"I was there when that man was shot," said the stranger.
+
+"Why, you seem to have been everywhere," said Peter. "Have you seen
+Cecil Rhodes?"
+
+"Yes, I have seen him," said the stranger.
+
+"Now he's death on niggers," said Peter Halket, warming his hands by the
+fire; "they say when he was Prime Minister down in the Colony he tried
+to pass a law that would give their masters and mistresses the right to
+have their servants flogged whenever they did anything they didn't like;
+but the other Englishmen wouldn't let him pass it. But here he can do
+what he likes. That's the reason some fellows don't want him to be
+sent away. They say, 'If we get the British Government here, they'll be
+giving the niggers land to live on; and let them have the vote, and get
+civilised and educated, and all that sort of thing; but Cecil Rhodes,
+he'll keep their noses to the grindstone.' 'I prefer land to niggers,'
+he says. They say he's going to parcel them out, and make them work on
+our lands whether they like it or not--just as good as having slaves,
+you know: and you haven't the bother of looking after them when they're
+old. Now, there I'm with Rhodes; I think it's an awfully good move. We
+don't come out here to work; it's all very well in England; but we've
+come here to make money, and how are we to make it, unless you get
+niggers to work for you, or start a syndicate? He's death on niggers,
+is Rhodes!" said Peter, meditating; "they say if we had the British
+Government here and you were thrashing a nigger and something happened,
+there'd be an investigation, and all that sort of thing. But, with
+Cecil, it's all right, you can do what you like with the niggers,
+provided you don't get HIM into trouble."
+
+The stranger watched the clear flame as it burnt up high in the still
+night air; then suddenly he started.
+
+"What is it?" said Peter; "do you hear anything?"
+
+"I hear far off," said the stranger, "the sound of weeping, and the
+sound of blows. And I hear the voices of men and women calling to me."
+
+Peter listened intently. "I don't hear anything!" he said. "It must be
+in your head. I sometimes get a noise in mine." He listened intently.
+"No, there's nothing. It's all so deadly still."
+
+They sat silent for a while.
+
+"Peter Simon Halket," said the stranger suddenly--Peter started; he had
+not told him his second name--"if it should come to pass that you should
+obtain those lands you have desired, and you should obtain black men to
+labour on them and make to yourself great wealth; or should you create
+that company"--Peter started--"and fools should buy from you, so that
+you became the richest man in the land; and if you should take to
+yourself wide lands, and raise to yourself great palaces, so that
+princes and great men of earth crept up to you and laid their hands
+against yours, so that you might slip gold into them--what would it
+profit you?"
+
+"Profit!" Peter Halket stared: "Why, it would profit everything.
+What makes Beit and Rhodes and Barnato so great? If you've got eight
+millions--"
+
+"Peter Simon Halket, which of those souls you have seen on earth is to
+you greatest?" said the stranger, "Which soul is to you fairest?"
+
+"Ah," said Peter, "but we weren't talking of souls at all; we were
+talking of money. Of course if it comes to souls, my mother's the best
+person I've ever seen. But what does it help her? She's got to stand
+washing clothes for those stuck-up nincompoops of fine ladies! Wait till
+I've got money! It'll be somebody else then, who--"
+
+"Peter Halket," said the stranger, "who is the greatest; he who serves
+or he who is served?" Peter looked at the stranger: then it flashed on
+him that he was mad.
+
+"Oh," he said, "if it comes to that, what's anything! You might as well
+say, sitting there in your old linen shirt, that you were as great as
+Rhodes or Beit or Barnato, or a king. Of course a man's just the same
+whatever he's got on or whatever he has; but he isn't the same to other
+people."
+
+"There have kings been born in stables," said the stranger.
+
+Then Peter saw that he was joking, and laughed. "It must have been a
+long time ago; they don't get born there now," he said. "Why, if God
+Almighty came to this country, and hadn't half-a-million in shares, they
+wouldn't think much of Him."
+
+Peter built up his fire. Suddenly he felt the stranger's eyes were fixed
+on him.
+
+"Who gave you your land?" the stranger asked.
+
+"Mine! Why, the Chartered Company," said Peter.
+
+The stranger looked back into the fire. "And who gave it to them?" he
+asked softly.
+
+"Why, England, of course. She gave them the land to far beyond the
+Zambezi to do what they liked with, and make as much money out of as
+they could, and she'd back 'em."
+
+"Who gave the land to the men and women of England?" asked the stranger
+softly.
+
+"Why, the devil! They said it was theirs, and of course it was," said
+Peter.
+
+"And the people of the land: did England give you the people also?"
+
+Peter looked a little doubtfully at the stranger. "Yes, of course, she
+gave us the people; what use would the land have been to us otherwise?"
+
+"And who gave her the people, the living flesh and blood, that she might
+give them away, into the hands of others?" asked the stranger, raising
+himself.
+
+Peter looked at him and was half afeared. "Well, what could she do with
+a lot of miserable niggers, if she didn't give them to us? A lot of
+good-for-nothing rebels they are, too," said Peter.
+
+"What is a rebel?" asked the stranger.
+
+"My Gawd!" said Peter, "you must have lived out of the world if you
+don't know what a rebel is! A rebel is a man who fights against his king
+and his country. These bloody niggers here are rebels because they are
+fighting against us. They don't want the Chartered Company to have them.
+But they'll have to. We'll teach them a lesson," said Peter Halket, the
+pugilistic spirit rising, firmly reseating himself on the South African
+earth, which two years before he had never heard of, and eighteen months
+before he had never seen, as if it had been his mother earth, and the
+land in which he first saw light.
+
+The stranger watched the fire; then he said musingly, "I have seen a
+land far from here. In that land are men of two kinds who live side by
+side. Well nigh a thousand years ago one conquered the other; they have
+lived together since. Today the one people seeks to drive forth the
+other who conquered them. Are these men rebels, too?"
+
+"Well," said Peter, pleased at being deferred to, "that all depends who
+they are, you know!"
+
+"They call the one nation Turks, and the other Armenians," said the
+stranger.
+
+"Oh, the Armenians aren't rebels," said Peter; "they are on our
+side! The papers are all full of it," said Peter, pleased to show his
+knowledge. "Those bloody Turks! What right had they to conquer the
+Armenians? Who gave them their land? I'd like to have a shot at them
+myself!"
+
+"WHY are Armenians not rebels?" asked the stranger, gently.
+
+"Oh, you do ask such curious questions," said Peter. "If they don't
+like the Turks, why should they have 'em? If the French came now and
+conquered us, and we tried to drive them out first chance we had; you
+wouldn't call us rebels! Why shouldn't they try to turn those bloody
+Turks out? Besides," said Peter, bending over and talking in the manner
+of one who imparts secret and important information; "you see, if
+we don't help the Armenians the Russians would; and we," said Peter,
+looking exceedingly knowing, "we've got to prevent that: they'd get
+the land; and it's on the road to India. And we don't mean them to. I
+suppose you don't know much about politics in Palestine?" said Peter,
+looking kindly and patronisingly at the stranger.
+
+"If these men," said the stranger, "would rather be free, or be under
+the British Government, than under the Chartered Company, why, when they
+resist the Chartered Company, are they more rebels than the Armenians
+when they resist the Turk? Is the Chartered Company God, that every knee
+should bow before it, and before it every head be bent? Would you, the
+white men of England, submit to its rule for one day?"
+
+"Ah," said Peter, "no, of course we shouldn't, but we are white men, and
+so are the Armenians--almost--" Then he glanced at the stranger's dark
+face, and added quickly, "At least, it's not the colour that matters,
+you know. I rather like a dark face, my mother's eyes are brown--but the
+Armenians, you know, they've got long hair like us."
+
+"Oh, it is the hair, then, that matters," said the stranger softly.
+
+"Oh, well," said Peter, "it's not altogether, of course. But it's quite
+a different thing, the Armenians wanting to get rid of the Turks,
+and these bloody niggers wanting to get rid of the Chartered Company.
+Besides, the Armenians are Christians, like us!"
+
+"Are YOU Christians?" A strange storm broke across the stranger's
+features; he rose to his feet.
+
+"Why, of course, we are!" said Peter. "We're all Christians, we English.
+Perhaps you don't like Christians, though? Some Jews don't, I know,"
+said Peter, looking up soothingly at him.
+
+"I neither love nor hate any man for that which he is called," said the
+stranger; "the name boots nothing."
+
+The stranger sat down again beside the fire, and folded his hands.
+
+"Is the Chartered Company Christian also?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, oh yes," said Peter.
+
+"What is a Christian?" asked the stranger.
+
+"Well, now, you really do ask such curious questions. A Christian is a
+man who believes in Heaven and Hell, and God and the Bible, and in Jesus
+Christ, that he'll save him from going to Hell, and if he believes he'll
+be saved, he will be saved."
+
+"But here, in this world, what is a Christian?"
+
+"Why," said Peter, "I'm a Christian--we're all Christians."
+
+The stranger looked into the fire; and Peter thought he would change the
+subject. "It's curious how like my mother you are; I mean, your ways.
+She was always saying to me, 'Don't be too anxious to make money, Peter.
+Too much wealth is as bad as too much poverty.' You're very like her."
+
+After a while Peter said, bending over a little towards the stranger,
+"If you don't want to make money, what did you come to this land for? No
+one comes here for anything else. Are you in with the Portuguese?"
+
+"I am not more with one people than with another," said the stranger.
+"The Frenchman is not more to me than the Englishman, the Englishman
+than the Kaffir, the Kaffir than the Chinaman. I have heard," said the
+stranger, "the black infant cry as it crept on its mother's body and
+sought for her breast as she lay dead in the roadway. I have heard also
+the rich man's child wail in the palace. I hear all cries."
+
+Peter looked intently at him. "Why, who are you?" he said; then, bending
+nearer to the stranger and looking up, he added, "What is it that you
+are doing here?"
+
+"I belong," said the stranger, "to the strongest company on earth."
+
+"Oh," said Peter, sitting up, the look of wonder passing from his face.
+"So that's it, is it? Is it diamonds, or gold, or lands?"
+
+"We are the most vast of all companies on the earth," said the stranger;
+"and we are always growing. We have among us men of every race and from
+every land; the Esquimo, the Chinaman, the Turk, and the Englishman, we
+have of them all. We have men of every religion, Buddhists, Mahomedans,
+Confucians, Freethinkers, Atheists, Christians, Jews. It matters to us
+nothing by what name the man is named, so he be one of us."
+
+And Peter said, "It must be hard for you all to understand one another,
+if you are of so many different kinds?"
+
+The stranger answered, "There is a sign by which we all know one
+another, and by which all the world may know us." (By this shall all men
+know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.)
+
+And Peter said, "What is that sign?"
+
+But the stranger was silent.
+
+"Oh, a kind of freemasonry!" said Peter, leaning on his elbow towards
+the stranger, and looking up at him from under his pointed cap. "Are
+there any more of you here in this country?"
+
+"There are," said the stranger. Then he pointed with his hand into the
+darkness. "There in a cave were two women. When you blew the cave up
+they were left unhurt behind a fallen rock. When you took away all the
+grain, and burnt what you could not carry, there was one basketful that
+you knew nothing of. The women stayed there, for one was eighty, and one
+near the time of her giving birth; and they dared not set out to follow
+the remnant of their tribe because you were in the plains below. Every
+day the old woman doled grain from the basket; and at night they cooked
+it in their cave where you could not see their smoke; and every day
+the old woman gave the young one two handfuls and kept one for herself,
+saying, 'Because of the child within you.' And when the child was born
+and the young woman strong, the old woman took a cloth and filled it
+with all the grain that was in the basket; and she put the grain on
+the young woman's head and tied the child on her back, and said, 'Go,
+keeping always along the bank of the river, till you come north to the
+land where our people are gone; and some day you can send and fetch me.'
+And the young woman said, 'Have you corn in the basket to last till they
+come?' And she said, 'I have enough.' And she sat at the broken door of
+the cave and watched the young woman go down the hill and up the river
+bank till she was hidden by the bush; and she looked down at the plain
+below, and she saw the spot where the kraal had been and where she had
+planted mealies when she was a young girl--"
+
+"I met a woman with corn on her head and a child on her back!" said
+Peter under his breath.
+
+"--And tonight I saw her sit again at the door of the cave; and when the
+sun had set she grew cold; and she crept in and lay down by the basket.
+Tonight, at half-past three, she will die. I have known her since she
+was a little child and played about the huts, while her mother worked in
+the mealie fields. She was one of our company."
+
+"Oh," said Peter.
+
+"Other members we have here," said the stranger. "There was a
+prospector"--he pointed north; "he was a man who drank and swore when it
+listed him; but he had many servants, and they knew where to find him in
+need. When they were ill, he tended them with his own hands; when they
+were in trouble, they came to him for help. When this war began, and all
+black men's hearts were bitter, because certain white men had lied
+to them, and their envoys had been killed when they would have asked
+England to put her hand out over them; at that time certain of the
+men who fought the white men came to the prospector's hut. And the
+prospector fired at them from a hole he had cut in his door; but they
+fired back at him with an old elephant gun, and the bullet pierced
+his side and he fell on the floor:--because the innocent man suffers
+oftentimes for the guilty, and the merciful man falls while the
+oppressor flourishes. Then his black servant who was with him took him
+quickly in his arms, and carried him out at the back of the hut, and
+down into the river bed where the water flowed and no man could trace
+his footsteps, and hid him in a hole in the river wall. And when the men
+broke into the hut they could find no white man, and no traces of his
+feet. But at evening, when the black servant returned to the hut to get
+food and medicine for his master, the men who were fighting caught him,
+and they said, 'Oh, you betrayer of your people, white man's dog,
+who are on the side of those who take our lands and our wives and our
+daughters before our eyes; tell us where you have hidden him?' And when
+he would not answer them, they killed him before the door of the hut.
+And when the night came, the white man crept up on his hands and knees,
+and came to his hut to look for food. All the other men were gone, but
+his servant lay dead before the door; and the white man knew how it must
+have happened. He could not creep further, and he lay down before
+the door, and that night the white man and the black lay there dead
+together, side by side. Both those men were of my friends."
+
+"It was damned plucky of the nigger," said Peter; "but I've heard of
+their doing that sort of thing before. Even of a girl who wouldn't tell
+where her mistress was, and getting killed. But," he added doubtfully,
+"all your company seem to be niggers or to get killed?"
+
+"They are of all races," said the stranger. "In a city in the old Colony
+is one of us, small of stature and small of voice. It came to pass on a
+certain Sunday morning, when the men and women were gathered before him,
+that he mounted his pulpit: and he said when the time for the sermon
+came, 'In place that I should speak to you, I will read you a history.'
+And he opened an old book more than two thousand years old: and he read:
+'Now it came to pass that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which
+was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
+
+"'And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may
+have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I
+will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seemeth good
+to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.
+
+"'And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the
+inheritance of my father unto thee.
+
+"'And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word
+which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken unto him; for he had said, I will
+not give thee the inheritance of my fathers.'
+
+"The man read the whole story until it was ended. Then he closed the
+book, and he said, 'My friends, Naboth has a vineyard in this land;
+and in it there is much gold; and Ahab has desired to have it that the
+wealth may be his.'
+
+"And he put the old book aside, and he took up another which was written
+yesterday. And the men and women whispered one to another, even in the
+church, 'Is not that the Blue Book Report of the Select Committee of the
+Cape Parliament on the Jameson raid?'
+
+"And the man said, 'Friends, the first story I have read you is one of
+the oldest stories of the world: the story I am about to read you is
+one of the newest. Truth is not more truth because it is three thousand
+years old, nor is it less truth because it is of yesterday. All books
+which throw light on truth are God's books, therefore I shall read to
+you from the pages before me. Shall the story of Ahab king of Samaria
+profit us when we know not the story of the Ahabs of our day; and the
+Naboths of our land be stoned while we sit at east?' And he read to them
+portions of that book. And certain rich men and women rose up and went
+out even while he spoke, and his wife also went out.
+
+"And when the service was ended and the man returned to his home, his
+wife came to him weeping; and she said, 'Did you see how some of the
+most wealthy and important people got up and went out this morning? Why
+did you preach such a sermon, when we were just going to have the new
+wing added to our house, and you thought they were going to raise your
+salary? You have not a single Boer in your congregation! Why need you
+say the Chartered Company raid on Johannesburg was wrong?'
+
+"He said, 'My wife, if I believe that certain men whom we have raised on
+high, and to whom we have given power, have done a cowardly wrong, shall
+I not say it?'
+
+"And she said, 'Yes, and only a little while ago, when Rhodes was
+licking the dust off the Boers' feet that he might keep them from
+suspecting while he got ready this affair, then you attacked both Rhodes
+and the Bond (The Afrikander Bond, the organised Dutch political party,
+through whom Mr. Rhodes worked, and by whom he was backed.) for trying
+to pass a Bill for flogging the niggers, and we lost fifty pounds we
+might have got for the church?' And he said, 'My wife, cannot God be
+worshipped as well under the dome of the heaven He made as in a golden
+palace? Shall a man keep silence, when he sees oppression, to earn money
+for God? If I have defended the black man when I believed him to be
+wronged, shall I not also defend the white man, my flesh-brother? Shall
+we speak when one man is wronged and not when it is another?'
+
+"And she said, 'Yes, but you have your family and yourself to think of!
+Why are you always in opposition to the people who could do something
+for us? You are only loved by the poor. If it is necessary for you to
+attack some one, why don't you attack the Jews for killing Christ, or
+Herod, or Pontius Pilate; why don't you leave alone the men who are in
+power today, and who with their money can crush you!'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, those Jews, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate are
+long dead. If I should preach of them now, would it help them? Would it
+save one living thing from their clutches? The past is dead, it lives
+only for us to learn from. The present, the present only, is ours to
+work in, and the future ours to create. Is all the gold of Johannesburg
+or are all the diamonds in Kimberley worth, that one Christian man
+should fall by the hand of his fellows--aye, or one heathen brother?'
+
+"And she answered, 'Oh, that is all very well. If you were a really
+eloquent preacher, and could draw hundreds of men about you, and in time
+form a great party with you at its head, I shouldn't mind what you said.
+But you, with your little figure and your little voice, who will ever
+follow you? You will be left all alone; that is all the good that will
+ever come to you through it.'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped that
+they who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would lift
+up their voices and speak--and there is only a deadly silence? Here
+and there one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the
+hand; one says, 'My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud';
+and another says, 'I have a promise of land'; and another, 'I am
+socially intimate with these men, and should lose my social standing if
+I let my voice be heard.' Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which
+we had hoped would be free and strong among the peoples of earth, is
+rotten and honeycombed with the tyranny of gold! We who had hoped to
+stand first in the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, are
+not even fit to stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak is
+my voice; and that that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remain
+silent? Shall the glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is not
+a star set up on high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warm
+one frozen man's hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming across
+the earth? Ever a voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me--'Why
+break your head against a stone wall? Leave this work to the greater and
+larger men of your people; they who will do it better than you can do
+it! Why break your heart when life could be so fair to you?' But, oh my
+wife, the strong men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know my
+power is as nothing?'
+
+"He laid his head upon his hands.
+
+"And she said, 'I cannot understand you. When I come home and tell
+you that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you
+always answer me, 'Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we
+cannot help them?' A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to
+visit people and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would
+not go. Yet when the richest and strongest men in the land, who could
+crush you with their money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger
+and thumb, take a certain course, you stand and oppose them.'
+
+"And he said, 'My wife, with the sins of the private man, what have I to
+do, if so be I have not led him into them? Am I guilty? I have enough to
+do looking after my own sins. The sin that a man sins against himself is
+his alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is his
+and theirs, not mine: but the sins that a man sins, in that he is taken
+up by the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they have
+armed with their sword, whose power to strike is their power--his sins
+are theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he dares
+say, 'I have no responsibility for this man's action.' We armed him, we
+raised him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is more
+ours than his. If this man's end in South Africa should be accomplished,
+and the day should come when, from the Zambezi to the sea, white man
+should fly at white man's throat, and every man's heart burn with
+bitterness against his fellow, and the land be bathed with blood as
+rain--shall I then dare to pray, who have now feared to speak? Do not
+think I wish for punishment upon these men. Let them take the millions
+they have wrung out of this land, and go to the lands of their birth,
+and live in wealth, luxury, and joy; but let them leave this land they
+have tortured and ruined. Let them keep the money they have made here;
+we may be the poorer for it; but they cannot then crush our freedom with
+it. Shall I ask my God Sunday by Sunday to brood across the land, and
+bind all its children's hearts in a close-knit fellowship;--yet, when I
+see its people betrayed, and their jawbone broken by a stroke from the
+hand of gold; when I see freedom passing from us, and the whole land
+being grasped by the golden claw, so that the generation after us shall
+be born without freedom, to labour for the men who have grasped all,
+shall I hold my peace? The Boer and the Englishman who have been in this
+land, have not always loved mercy, nor have they always sought after
+justice; but the little finger of the speculator and monopolist who are
+devouring this land will be thicker on the backs of the children of this
+land, black and white, than the loins of the Dutchmen and Englishmen who
+have been.'
+
+"And she said, 'I have heard it said that it was our duty to sacrifice
+ourselves for the men and women living in the world at the same time as
+ourselves; but I never before heard that we had to sacrifice ourselves
+for people that are not born. What are they to you? You will be dust,
+and lying in your grave, before that time comes. If you believe in God,'
+she said, 'why cannot you leave it to Him to bring good out of all this
+evil? Does He need YOU to be made a martyr of? or will the world be lost
+without YOU?'
+
+"He said, 'Wife, if my right hand be in a fire, shall I not pull it out?
+Shall I say, 'God may bring good out of this evil,' and let it burn?
+That Unknown that lies beyond us we know of no otherwise than through
+its manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sons
+of men than through man. And shall I feel no bond binding me to the men
+to come, and desire no good or beauty for them--I, who am what I am,
+and enjoy what I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have
+lived and laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no
+costs? Would the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be
+accomplished, if men counted the cost and created for their own lives
+alone? And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. You
+cannot tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice
+within me, I know not what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for your
+own children.' When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, and
+I despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something nobler
+and fairer may spring up in the spot where I now stand.'
+
+"And she said, 'You want to put everyone against us! The other women
+will not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor
+people. Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know
+you would be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to
+niggers. If they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to
+help white men. You will never be on the side of the people who can do
+anything for us! You know the offer we had from--'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the
+Turk to me; am I responsible for their action? It is my own nation,
+mine, which I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me. I
+would that wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples
+of earth might gather under it, saying, 'Under this banner is freedom
+and justice which knows no race or colour.' I wish that on our banner
+were blazoned in large letters "Justice and Mercy", and that in every
+new land which our feet touch, every son among us might see ever
+blazoned above his head that banner, and below it the great order:--"By
+this sign, Conquer!"--and that the pirate flag which some men now wave
+in its place, may be torn down and furled for ever! Shall I condone the
+action of some, simply because they happen to be of my own race, when in
+Bushman or Hottentot I would condemn it? Shall men belonging to one of
+the mightiest races of earth, creep softly on their bellies, to attack
+an unwarned neighbour; when even the Kaffir has again and again given
+notice of war, saying, 'Be ready, on such and such a day I come to fight
+you?' Is England's power so broken, and our race so enfeebled, that we
+dare no longer to proclaim war; but must creep silently upon our bellies
+in the dark to stab, like a subject people to whom no other course is
+open? These men are English; but not English-MEN. When the men of our
+race fight, they go to war with a blazoned flag and the loud trumpet
+before them. It is because I am an Englishman that these things crush
+me. Better that ten thousand of us should lie dead and defeated on one
+battlefield, fighting for some great cause, and my own sons among
+them, than that those twelve poor boys should have fallen at Doornkop,
+fighting to fill up the pockets of those already oe'r-heavy with gold.'
+
+"And she said, 'YOU, what does it matter what you feel or think; YOU
+will never be able to do anything!'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, stand by me; do not crush me. For me in this
+matter there is no path but one on which light shines.'
+
+"And she said, 'You are very unkind; you don't care what the people say
+about us!' and she wept bitterly, and went out of the room. But as soon
+as the door was shut, she dried her tears; and she said to herself, 'Now
+he will never dare to preach such a sermon again. He dares never oppose
+me when once I have set down my foot.'
+
+"And the man spoke to no one, and went out alone in the veld. All the
+afternoon he walked up and down among the sand and low bushes; and I
+walked there beside him.
+
+"And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel. Many were
+absent, but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there.
+And the light shone on the empty benches. And when the time came he
+opened the old book of the Jews; and he turned the leaves and read:--'If
+thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that
+are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, 'Behold we knew it not!' Doth not
+he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul,
+doth he not know it?'
+
+"And he said, 'This morning we considered the evils this land is
+suffering under at the hands of men whose aim is the attainment of
+wealth and power. Tonight we shall look at our own share in the matter.
+I think we shall realise that with us, and not with the men we have
+lifted up on high, lies the condemnation.' Then his wife rose and went
+out, and others followed her; and the little man's voice rolled among
+the empty benches; but he spoke on.
+
+"And when the service was over he went out. No elder came to the porch
+to greet him; but as he stood there one, he saw not whom, slipped a
+leaflet into his hand. He held it up, and read in the lamplight what was
+written on it in pencil. He crushed it up in his hand, as a man crushes
+that which has run a poisonous sting into him; then he dropped it on
+the earth as a man drops that he would forget. A fine drizzly rain was
+falling, and he walked up the street with his arms folded behind him,
+and his head bent. The people walked up the other side; and it seemed to
+him he was alone. But I walked behind him."
+
+"And then," asked Peter, seeing that the stranger was silent, "what
+happened to him after that?"
+
+"That was only last Sunday," said the stranger.
+
+There was silence again for some seconds.
+
+Then Peter said, "Well, anyhow, at least he didn't die!"
+
+The stranger crossed his hands upon his knees. "Peter Simon Halket,"
+he said, "it is easier for a man to die than to stand alone. He who can
+stand alone can, also, when the need be, die."
+
+Peter looked up wistfully into the stranger's face. "I should not like
+to die myself," he said, "not yet. I shall not be twenty-one till next
+birthday. I should like to see life first."
+
+The stranger made no answer.
+
+Presently Peter said, "Are all the men of your company poor men?"
+
+The stranger waited a while before he answered; then he said,--"There
+have been rich men who have desired to join us. There was a young man
+once; and when he heard the conditions, he went away sorrowful, for he
+had great possessions."
+
+There was silence again for a while.
+
+"Is it long since your company was started?" asked Peter.
+
+"There is no man living who can conceive of its age," said the stranger.
+"Even here on this earth it began, when these hills were young, and
+these lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man
+still raised himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his
+thighs were weak. In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when
+he hungered, fed on the flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet. Yet
+even in those days it came to pass that there was one whose head was
+higher than her fellows and her thought keener, and, as she picked the
+flesh from a human skull, she pondered. And so it came to pass the next
+night, when men were gathered around the fire ready to eat, that she
+stole away, and when they went to the tree where the victim was bound,
+they found him gone. And they cried one to another, 'She, only she, has
+done this, who has always said, 'I like not the taste of man-flesh; men
+are too like me; I cannot eat them.' 'She is mad,' they cried; 'let us
+kill her!' So, in those dim, misty times that men reck not of now, that
+they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in the heads of certain men
+and women a new thought had taken root; they said, 'We also will not eat
+of her. There is something evil in the taste of human flesh.' And ever
+after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-flesh, these stood aside,
+and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not; then, as the years
+passed, none ate.
+
+"Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily
+open their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you
+would learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the
+dicynodont bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you
+find now nowhere on earth's surface, save buried in stone, called with
+love to his mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew
+in the sunshine calling joyfully to one another--even in those days when
+man was not, the fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And
+still as the sun rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow
+and grow."
+
+The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and
+behind him, the darkness stood out.
+
+"All earth is ours. And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down
+on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark
+with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the
+East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe;
+and nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows. And they shall
+beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks:
+nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
+war any more. And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree;
+and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and man shall
+nowhere crush man on all the holy earth. Tomorrow's sun shall rise,"
+said the stranger, "and it shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and
+the rocks shall glint in it. Not more certain is that rising than the
+coming of that day. And I say to you that even here, in the land where
+now we stand, where today the cries of the wounded and the curses of
+revenge ring in the air; even here, in this land where man creeps on
+his belly to wound his fellow in the dark, and where an acre of gold
+is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining dirt is worth half a
+people, and the vultures are heavy with man's flesh--even here that day
+shall come. I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here on the spot where
+now we stand shall be raised a temple. Man shall not gather in it to
+worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it shoulder to
+shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the inhabitant of
+the land; and the place shall be holy; for men shall say, 'Are we not
+brethren and the sons of one Father?'"
+
+Peter Halket looked upward silently. And the stranger said: "Certain
+men slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark. And, as they
+slept, at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred. Far off to the
+eastward, through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint
+line, thin as a hair's width, that edged the hill tops. And he whispered
+in the darkness to his fellows: 'The dawn is coming.' But they, with
+fast-closed eyelids murmured, 'He lies, there is no dawn.'
+
+"Nevertheless, day broke."
+
+The stranger was silent. The fire burnt up in red tongues of flame that
+neither flickered nor flared in the still night air. Peter Halket crept
+near to the stranger.
+
+"When will that time be?" he whispered; "in a thousand years' time?"
+
+And the stranger answered, "A thousand years are but as our yesterday's
+journey, or as our watch tonight, which draws already to its close. See,
+piled, these rocks on which we now stand? The ages have been young and
+they have grown old since they have lain here. Half that time shall
+not pass before that time comes; I have seen its dawning already in the
+hearts of men."
+
+Peter moved nearer, so that he almost knelt at the stranger's feet: his
+gun lay on the ground at the other side of the fire.
+
+"I would like to be one of your men," he said. "I am tired of belonging
+to the Chartered Company."
+
+The stranger looked down gently. "Peter Simon Halket," he said, "can you
+bear the weight?"
+
+And Peter said, "Give me work, that I may try."
+
+There was silence for a time; then the stranger said, "Peter Simon
+Halket, take a message to England"--Peter Halket started--"Go to that
+great people and cry aloud to it: 'Where is the sword was given into
+your hand, that with it you might enforce justice and deal out mercy?
+How came you to give it up into the hands of men whose search is gold,
+whose thirst is wealth, to whom men's souls and bodies are counters in a
+game? How came you to give up the folk that were given into your hands,
+into the hand of the speculator and the gamester; as though they were
+dumb beasts who might be bought or sold?
+
+"'Take back your sword, Great People--but wipe it first, lest some of
+the gold and blood stick to your hand.
+
+"'What is this, I see!--the sword of the Great People, transformed to
+burrow earth for gold, as the snouts of swine for earth nuts! Have you
+no other use for it, Great Folk?
+
+"'Take back your sword; and, when you have thoroughly cleansed it and
+wiped it of the blood and mire, then raise it to set free the oppressed
+of other climes.
+
+"'Great Prince's Daughter, take heed! You put your sword into the hands
+of recreant knights; they will dull its edge and mar its brightness,
+and, when your hour of need comes and you would put it into other hands,
+you will find its edge chipped and its point broken. Take heed! Take
+heed!'
+
+"Cry to the wise men of England: 'You, who in peace and calm in
+shaded chambers ponder on all things in heaven and earth, and take all
+knowledge for your province, have you no time to think of this? To whom
+has England given her power? How do the men wield it who have filched it
+from her? Say not, What have we to do with folk across the waters; have
+we not matter enough for thought in our own land? Where the brain of
+a nation has no time to go, there should its hands never be sent to
+labour: where the power of a people goes, there must its intellect and
+knowledge go, to guide it. Oh, you who sit at ease, studying past and
+future--and forget the present--you have no right to sit at ease knowing
+nothing of the working of the powers you have armed and sent to work on
+men afar. Where is your nation's sword--you men of thought?'
+
+"Cry to the women of England: 'You, who repose in sumptuous houses, with
+children on your knees; think not it is only the rustling of the soft
+draped curtains, or the whistling of the wind, you hear. Listen! May it
+not be the far off cry of those your sword governs, creeping towards
+you across wide oceans till it pierces even into your inmost sanctuary?
+Listen!
+
+"For the womanhood of a dominant people has not accomplished all its
+labour when it has borne its children and fed them at its breast: there
+cries to it also from over seas and across continents the voice of the
+child-peoples--'Mother-heart, stand for us!' It would be better for you
+that your wombs should be barren and that your race should die out; than
+that you should listen, and give no answer.'"
+
+The stranger lifted his hands upwards as he spoke, and Peter saw there
+were the marks of old wounds in both.
+
+"Cry aloud to the working men and women of England: 'You, who for ages
+cried out because the heel of your masters was heavy on you; and who
+have said, 'We curse the kings that sit at ease, and care not who
+oppresses the folk, so their coffers be full and their bellies
+satisfied, and they be not troubled with the trouble of rule'; you, who
+have taken the king's rule from him and sit enthroned within his seat;
+is his sin not yours today? If men should add but one hour to your day's
+labour, or make but one fraction dearer the bread you eat, would you not
+rise up as one man? Yet, what is dealt out to men beyond seas whom you
+rule wounds you not. Nay, have you not sometimes said, as kings of old:
+'It matters not who holds out our sword, marauder or speculator, so he
+calls it ours, we must cloak up the evil it has done!' Think you, no
+other curses rise to heaven but yours? Where is your sword? Into whose
+hand has it fallen? Take it quickly and cleanse it!'"
+
+Peter Halket crouched, looking upwards; then he cried: "Master, I cannot
+give that message, I am a poor unlearn'd man. And if I should go to
+England and cry aloud, they would say, 'Who is this, who comes preaching
+to a great people? Is not his mother with us, and a washerwoman; and was
+not his father a day labourer at two shillings a day?' and they would
+laugh me to scorn. And, in truth, the message is so long I could not
+well remember it; give me other work to do."
+
+And the stranger said, "Take a message to the men and women of this
+land. Go, from the Zambezi to the sea, and cry to its white men and
+women, and say: 'I saw a wide field, and in it were two fair beasts.
+Wide was the field about them and rich was the earth with sweet scented
+herbs, and so abundant was the pasturage that hardly might they consume
+all that grew about them: and the two were like one to another, for
+they were the sons of one mother. And as I looked, I saw, far off to the
+northward, a speck within the sky, so small it was, and so high it was,
+that the eye scarce might mark it. Then it came nearer and hovered over
+the spot where the two beasts fed:--and its neck was bare, and its
+beak was hooked, and its talons were long, and its wings strong. And it
+hovered over the field where the two beasts were; and I saw it settle
+down upon a great white stone; and it waited. And I saw more specks to
+the northward, and more and more came onward to join him who sat upon
+the stone. And some hovered over the beasts, and some sharpened their
+beaks on the stones; and some walked in and out between the beasts'
+legs. And I saw that they were waiting for something.
+
+"'Then he who first came flew from one of the beasts to the other, and
+sat upon their necks, and put his beak within their ears. And he flew
+from one to the other and flapped his wings in their faces till the
+beasts were blinded, and each believed it was his fellow who attacked
+him. And they fell to, and fought; they gored one another's sides till
+the field was red with blood and the ground shook beneath them. The
+birds sat by and watched; and when the blood flowed they walked round
+and round. And when the strength of the two beasts was exhausted they
+fell to earth. Then the birds settled down upon them, and feasted; till
+their maws were full, and their long bare necks were wet; and they stood
+with their beaks deep in the entrails of the two dead beasts; and looked
+out with their keen bright eyes from above them. And he who was king of
+all plucked out the eyes, and fed on the hearts of the dead beasts. And
+when his maw was full, so that he could eat no more, he sat on his stone
+hard by and flapped his great wings.'
+
+"Peter Simon Halket, cry to the white men and women of South Africa:
+'You have a goodly land; you and your children's children shall scarce
+fill it; though you should stretch out your arms to welcome each
+stranger who comes to live and labour with you. You are the twin
+branches of one tree; you are the sons of one mother. Is this goodly
+land not wide enough for you, that you should rend each other's flesh
+at the bidding of those who will wet their beaks within both your
+vitals?--Look up, see, they circle in the air above you!'"
+
+Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the
+black sky of Mashonaland over his head.
+
+The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire. Peter Halket
+half clasped his arms about his knees.
+
+"My master," he cried, "how can I take this message? The Dutchmen of
+South Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman.
+And the Englishmen will say: 'Who is this fellow who comes preaching
+peace, peace, peace? Has he not been a year in the country and he has
+not a share in a single company? Can anything he says be worth hearing?
+If he were a man of any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at
+least.' And they will not listen to me. Give me another labour!"
+
+And the stranger said: "Take a message to one man. Find him, whether he
+sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him: 'Where are the
+souls of the men that you have bought?'
+
+"And if he shall answer you and say: 'I bought no men's souls! The souls
+that I bought were the souls of dogs?' Then ask him this question, say
+to him, 'Where are the--'
+
+"And if he cry out, 'You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say.
+What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government?
+It is all a lie!' Then question him no further. But say: 'There was a
+rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went
+out--and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.
+
+"'And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse,
+that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might
+see its steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
+
+"'And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way
+and it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared
+altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept
+their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, 'We are
+safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.' And on
+dark nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the
+midnight they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
+
+"'What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight;
+in that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted
+it? Shall it not be put out?'
+
+"And if he shall answer, saying, 'What are men to me? they are fools,
+all fools! Let them die!'--tell him again this story: 'There was a
+streamlet once: it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain's
+crown; and the snow made a cove over it. It ran on pure and blue and
+clear as the sky above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle. Then
+it came to a spot where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by
+which it might journey; one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and
+stones, and down long sunlit slopes to the sea; and the other, down a
+chasm. And the stream hesitated: it twirled and purled, and went this
+way and went that. It MIGHT have been, that it would have forced its
+way past rocks and ridges and along mountain slopes, and made a path for
+itself where no path had been; the banks would have grown green, and the
+mountain daisy would have grown beside it; and all night the stars would
+have looked at their faces in it; and down the long sunny slopes the sun
+would have played on it by day; and the wood dove would have built her
+nest in the trees beside it; and singing, singing, always singing, it
+would have made its way at last to the great sea, whose far-off call all
+waters hear.
+
+"'But it hesitated.--It might have been, that, had but some hand been
+there to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way
+past rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea--it might have
+been! But no hand was there. The streamlet gathered itself together,
+and (it might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the
+sea!)--it made one leap into the abyss.
+
+"'The rocks closed over it. Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark
+pool it lay. The green lichen hung from the rocks. No sunlight came
+there, and the stars could not look down at night. The pool lay still
+and silent. Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered
+its strength together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed
+its way silently on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains
+closed it around. And the streamlet laughed to itself, 'Ha, ha! I shall
+make a great lake here; a sea!' And it oozed, and it oozed, and it
+filled half the plain. But no lake came--only a great marsh--because
+there was no way outwards, and the water rotted. The grass died out
+along its edges; and the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the
+water; and the wood dove who had built her nest there flew up to the
+mountains, because her young ones died. And the toads sat on the stones
+and dropped their spittle in the water; and the reeds were yellow that
+grew along the edge. And at night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the
+water, so that the stars could not see through it; and by day a fine
+white mist hung over it, and the sunbeams could not play on it. And no
+man knew that once the marsh had leapt forth clear and blue from under
+a hood of snow on the mountain's top: aye, and that the turning of one
+stone might have caused that it had run on and on, and mingled its song
+with the sea's song for ever.'"
+
+The stranger was silent for a while.
+
+Then he said, "Should he answer you and say, 'What do I care! What are
+coves and mountain tops to me? Gold is real, and the power to crush men
+within my hand'; tell him no further.
+
+"But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to
+him, clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it: 'The morning
+may break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the
+evening's sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning's
+dullness, and the darkness of the noon. So that all men shall say, 'Ah,
+for the beauty of that day!'--For the stream that has once descended
+there is no path upwards.--It is never too late for the soul of a man.'
+
+"And if he should laugh, and say: 'You fool, a man may remake himself
+entirely before twenty; he may reshape himself before thirty; but after
+forty he is fixed. Shall I, who for forty-three years have sought money
+and power, seek for anything else now? You want me to be Jesus Christ, I
+suppose! How can I be myself and another man?' Then answer him: 'Deep in
+the heart of every son of man lies an angel; but some have their wings
+folded. Wake yours! He is larger and stronger than another man's; mount
+up with him!'
+
+"But if he curses you, and says, 'I have eight millions of money, and I
+care neither for God nor man!'--then make no answer, but stoop and write
+before him." The stranger bent down and wrote with his finger in the
+white ashes of the fire. Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two
+words the stranger had written.
+
+The stranger said: "Say to him: 'Though you should seek to make that
+name immortal in this land; and should write it in gold dust, and set it
+with diamonds, and cement it with human blood, shed from the Zambezi
+to the sea, yet--." The stranger passed his foot over the words; Peter
+Halket looked down, and he saw only a bed of smooth white ashes where
+the name had been.
+
+The stranger said: "And if he should curse yet further, and say, 'There
+is not one man nor woman in South Africa I cannot buy with my money!
+When I have the Transvaal, I shall buy God Almighty Himself, if I care
+to!'
+
+"Then say to him this one thing only, 'Thy money perish with thee!' and
+leave him."
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment. Then the stranger stretched forth
+his hand. "Yet in that leaving him, remember;--It is not the act, but
+the will, which marks the soul of the man. He who has crushed a nation
+sins no more than he who rejoices in the death throe of the meanest
+creature. The stagnant pool is not less poisonous drop for drop than the
+mighty swamp, though its reach be smaller. He who has desired to be
+and accomplish what this man has been and accomplished, is as this man;
+though he have lacked the power to perform. Nay, remember this one thing
+more:--Certain sons of God are born on earth, named by men Children
+of Genius. In early youth each stands at the parting of the way and
+chooses; he bears his gift for others or for himself. But forget this
+never, whatever his choice may be; that there is laid on him a burden
+that is laid not on others--all space is open to him, and his choice is
+infinite--and if he falls beneath it, let men weep rather than curse,
+for he was born a Son of God."
+
+There was silence again. Then Peter Halket clasped his arms about the
+stranger's feet. "My master," he cried, "I dare not take that message.
+It is not that men may say, 'Here is Trooper Peter Halket, whom we all
+know, a man who kept women and shot niggers, turned prophet.' But it is,
+that it is true. Have I not wished--" and Peter Halket would have poured
+out all his soul; but the stranger prevented him.
+
+"Peter Simon Halket," he said, "is it the trumpet which gives forth
+the call to battle, whether it be battered tin or gilded silver, which
+boots? Is it not the call? What and if I should send my message by
+a woman or a child: shall truth be less truth because the bearer is
+despised? Is it the mouth that speaks or the word that is spoken which
+is eternal? Nevertheless, if you will have it so, go, and say, 'I, Peter
+Halket, sinner among you all, who have desired women and gold, who have
+loved myself and hated my fellow, I--'" The stranger looked down at him,
+and placed his hand gently on his head. "Peter Simon Halket," he said,
+"a harder task I give you than any which has been laid upon you. In that
+small spot where alone on earth your will rules, bring there into being
+the kingdom today. Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you.
+Walk ever forward, looking not to the right hand or the left. Heed not
+what men shall say of you. Succour the oppressed; deliver the captive.
+If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he is athirst give him drink."
+
+A curious warmth and gladness stole over Peter Halket as he knelt;
+it was as, when a little child, his mother folded him to her: he saw
+nothing more about him but a soft bright light. Yet in it he heard a
+voice cry, "Because thou hast loved mercy--and hated oppression--"
+
+When Trooper Peter Halket raised himself, he saw the figure of the
+stranger passing from him. He cried, "My Master, let me go with you."
+But the figure did not turn. And, as it passed into the darkness, it
+seemed to Peter Halket that the form grew larger and larger: and as it
+descended the further side of the kopje it seemed that for one instant
+he still saw the head with a pale, white light upon it: then it
+vanished.
+
+And Trooper Peter Halket sat alone upon the kopje.
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+It was a hot day. The sun poured down its rays over the scattered trees,
+and stunted bush, and long grass, and over the dried up river beds. Far
+in the blue, so high the eye could scarcely mark them, vultures were
+flying southward, where forty miles off kraals had been destroyed and
+two hundred black carcasses were lying in the sun.
+
+Under a group of tall straggling trees among the grass and low scrub,
+on the banks of an almost dried up river bed, a small camp had been
+pitched.
+
+The party had lost their mules, and pending their recovery had already
+been there seven days. The three cart loads of provisions they were
+conveying to the large camp were drawn up under the trees and had a sail
+thrown across them to form a shelter for some of the men; while on the
+other side of the cleared and open space that formed the camp, a smaller
+sail was thrown across two poles forming a rough tent; and away to the
+left, a little cut off from the rest of the camp by some low bushes,
+was the bell-shaped tent of the captain, under a tall tree. Before
+the bell-shaped tent stood a short stunted tree; its thick white stem
+gnarled and knotted; while two stunted misshapen branches, like arms,
+stretched out on either side.
+
+Before this tree, up and down, with his gun upon his arm, his head
+bent and his eyes fixed on the ground, while the hot sun blazed on his
+shoulders, walked a man.
+
+Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts,
+three cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men,
+their stock of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth,
+which was watched by a native boy, contained the more appetising meal of
+the Captain.
+
+Most of the men were out of camp; the coloured boys having gone to fetch
+the mules, which had been discovered in the hills a few miles off, and
+were expected to arrive in the evening; and the white men had gone out
+to see what game they could bring down with their guns to flavour
+the mealie pots, or to reconnoitre the country; though all native
+habitations had been destroyed within a radius of thirty miles, and the
+land was as bare of black men as a child's hand of hair; and even the
+beasts seemed to have vanished.
+
+In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay
+three white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp.
+They were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their
+stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation,
+or taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for
+tobacco was precious in the camp.
+
+Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality
+was uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British
+Isles, and who had travelled round the world. He was currently reported
+to have done three years' labour for attempted rape in Australia, but
+nothing certain was known regarding his antecedents. He had been up on
+guard half the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with
+his arm thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in
+his jaw as he slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when
+he turned it round the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken
+yellow stumps set in very red gums.
+
+The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him. Two, who were
+slowly smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose
+set about the shoulders, which is common among Colonial Europeans of the
+third generation, whether Dutch or English, and had the placidity and
+general good temper of expression which commonly marks the Colonial
+European who grows up beyond the range of the cities. The third was
+smaller and more wiry and of an unusually nervous type, with aquiline
+nose, and sallow hatchet face, with a somewhat discontented expression.
+He was holding forth, while his companions smoked and listened.
+
+"Now what I say is this," he brought his hand down on the red sand;
+"here we are with about one half teaspoon of Dop given us at night,
+while he has ten empty champagne bottles lying behind his tent. And we
+have to live on the mealies we're convoying for the horses, while he
+has pati and beef, and lives like a lord! It's all very well for the
+regulars; they know what they're in for, and they've got gentlemen over
+them anyhow, and one can stomach anything if you know what kind of a
+fellow you've got over you. English officers are gentlemen, anyhow; or
+if one was under Selous now--"
+
+"Oh, Selous's a MAN!" broke out the other two, taking their pipes from
+their mouths.
+
+"Yes, well, that's what I say. But these fellows, who couldn't do as
+farmers, and couldn't do as shopkeepers, and God knows what else; and
+their friends in England didn't want to have them; they're sent out here
+to boss it over us! It's a damned shame! Why, I want to know, amn't I as
+good as any of these fellows, who come swelling it about here? Friends
+got money, I suppose!" He cast his sharp glance over towards the bell
+tent. "If they gave us real English officers now--"
+
+"Ah!" said the biggest of his companions, who, in spite of his huge
+form, had something of the simplicity and good nature of a child in his
+handsome face; "it's because you're not a big enough swell, you know!
+He'll be a colonel, or a general, before we've done with him. I call
+them all generals or colonels up here; it's safest, you know; if they're
+not that today they will be tomorrow!"
+
+This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull
+world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but
+the first speaker remained serious.
+
+"I only know this," he said, "I'd teach these fellows a lesson, if any
+one belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered
+here, while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. If my mother or
+sister had been killed here, I'd have taken a pistol and blown out the
+brains of the great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him. Fine
+administration of a country, this, to invite people to come in and live
+here, and then take every fighting man out of the country on a gold
+hunting marauding expedition to the Transvaal, and leave us to face
+the bitter end. I look upon every man and woman who was killed here as
+murdered by the Chartered Company."
+
+"Well, Jameson only did what he was told. He had to obey orders, like
+the rest of us. He didn't make the plan, and he's got the punishment."
+
+"What business had he to listen? What's all this fine administration
+they talk of? It's six years since I came to this country, and I've
+worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men
+who've worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in
+the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water
+or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow,
+what would she find?--everything of value in the land given over to
+private concessionaires--they'll line their pockets if the whole land
+goes to pot! It'll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse's
+bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones."
+
+"Oh, you wait a bit and you'll be squared," said the handsome man. "I've
+been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven't got
+anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
+shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"--he
+nodded towards the bell tent--"never got drunk or didn't know how to
+swear, I'd sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after
+it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it
+would only come my way."
+
+The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had
+not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his
+mouth.
+
+"I tell you what," said the keen man, "those of us up here who have got
+a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting
+pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we'd had a few men like the
+Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this
+would never have happened. And there's no knowing when a reason won't
+turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a
+time, to break out just when one's settled down to work. It's a damned
+convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off."
+
+Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: "Let
+resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow," he said,
+sententiously.
+
+A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though
+his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth
+relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
+
+"I'm always expecting," said the big handsome man, "to have a paper come
+round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the
+B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and
+how awfully good he is to them; and they're going to subscribe to the
+brazen statue. There's nothing a man can't be squared to do."
+
+The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he
+held above his face. "What's that in the Bible," he said, slowly, "about
+the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?"
+
+"I don't know much about the Bible," said the keen man, "I'm going to
+see if my pot isn't boiling over. Won't yours burn?"
+
+"No, I asked the Captain's boy to keep an eye on it--but I expect he
+won't. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?"
+
+"Got to; I've got no other pot. And the fellows don't object. It's a
+tasty variety, you know!"
+
+The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire
+burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his
+own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left
+alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and
+he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and
+watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand,
+just under his nose.
+
+A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick
+cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems;
+but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little
+flat-topped tree in front of the captain's tent, not a creature stirred
+in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might
+be heard half across the camp.
+
+The intense midday heat had settled down.
+
+At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass
+and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp,
+and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the
+other a bird which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not
+long from Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in
+spite of the superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with
+heat; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their
+sensitive refinement.
+
+He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. "That is
+all I've got," he said.
+
+He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the
+loose flap of the tent.
+
+The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the
+ground took up the bird. "I'll put it into the pot; it'll give it the
+flavour of something except weevily mealies"; he said, and fell to
+plucking it.
+
+The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his
+forehead.
+
+"Knocked up, eh?" said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. "I've a
+few drops in my flask still."
+
+"Oh, no, I can stand it well enough. It's only a little warm." He gave
+a slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm. His eyes
+watched mechanically the Colonial's manipulation of the bird. He had
+left England to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because
+it was a place where he could earn an open-air living, and save his
+parents from the burden of his support.
+
+"What's Halket doing over there?" he asked suddenly, raising his head.
+
+"Weren't you here this morning?" asked the Colonial. "Didn't you know
+they'd had a devil of a row?"
+
+"Who?" asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.
+
+"Halket and the Captain." The Colonial paused in the plucking. "My God,
+you never saw anything like it!"
+
+The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where
+Halket's bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.
+
+"What's he doing out there in this blazing sun?"
+
+"He's on guard," said the Colonial. "I thought you were here when it
+happened. It's the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!"
+He rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance. "You
+see, some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools
+of water, and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank,
+not five hundred yards from here! They found the bloody rascal by a
+little path he tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a
+porcupine's walk. They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush
+over the mouth, so you couldn't see it. He'd evidently been there a long
+time, the floor was full of bones of fish he'd caught in the pool, and
+there was a bit of root like a stick half gnawed through. He'd been
+potted, and got two bullet wounds in the thigh; but he could walk
+already. It's evident he was just waiting till we were gone, to clear
+off after his people. He'd got that beastly scurvy look a nigger gets
+when he hasn't had anything to eat for a long time.
+
+"Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew
+and swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow;
+he'd hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this
+evening, so he'd wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn't
+come he'd hang him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as
+sure as the sun rose. He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree
+before his tent, with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist,
+and a riem round his neck."
+
+"What did the native say?" asked the Englishman.
+
+"Oh, he didn't say anything. There wasn't a soul in the camp could have
+understood him if he had. The coloured boys don't know his language. I
+expect he's one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the
+bush out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state
+it must have been, I don't know. He didn't try to fight when they caught
+him; just stared in front of him--fright, I suppose. He must have been a
+big strapping devil before he was taken down.
+
+"Well, I tell you, we'd just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just
+going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing
+round, when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his
+front lock--you know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could
+have seen it! I'll never forget it to my dying day!" The Colonial seemed
+bursting with internal laughter. "He begins, 'Sir, may I speak to you?'
+in a formal kind of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and
+then all of a sudden he starts off--oh, my God, you never heard such a
+thing! It was like a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture
+he's learnt off by heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he's not
+going to be stopped till he gets to the end of it."
+
+"What did he say," asked the Englishman.
+
+"Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would
+be a terrible thing to kill him if we weren't quite sure; perhaps he was
+hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after
+all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight
+against the French if they came and took England from us; and the
+niggers were brave men, 'please sir'--(every five minutes he'd pull his
+forelock, and say, 'please sir!')--'and if we have to fight against them
+we ought to remember they're fighting for freedom; we shouldn't shoot
+wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn't shoot them if they
+were white!' And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You
+never heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a
+black man as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant
+folk, and we had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we
+ought to let this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and
+tell him to go back to his people, and tell them we hadn't come to take
+their land but to teach them and love them. 'It's hard to love a nigger,
+Captain, but we must try it; we must try it!'--And every five minutes
+he'd break out with, 'And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I'm
+not sure, but I think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!'--as if any born
+devil cared whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere
+else! I'm sure he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, 'I don't
+mean that I'm better than you or anybody else, Captain; I'm as bad a man
+as any in camp, and I know it.' And off he started, telling us all the
+sins he'd ever committed; and he kept on, 'I'm an unlearned, ignorant
+man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he's got no one else!'
+And then he says--'If you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I'm
+not afraid; and I'll tell the people there that it's not their land and
+their women that we want, it's them to be our brothers and love us. If
+you'll only let me go, sir, I'll go and make peace; give the man to me,
+sir!'" The Colonial shook with laughter.
+
+"What did the Captain say?" asked the Englishman.
+
+"The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing
+all round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down
+at each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder
+and redder: and all he could say was, 'My Gawd! my Gawd!' I thought
+he'd burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as
+though he didn't see a soul of us all there."
+
+"What did the Captain do?"
+
+"Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the
+tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good
+as Halket himself. And when he'd finished and got sane a bit, he said
+Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the
+nigger. And he gave orders that if the big troop didn't come up tonight,
+that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was
+to shoot him."
+
+The Englishman started: "What did Halket say?"
+
+"Nothing. He's been walking there with his gun all day."
+
+The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket's head
+appeared and disappeared.
+
+"Is the nigger hanging there now?"
+
+"Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything
+to eat or drink all day: but--" The Colonial glanced round where the
+trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, "This
+morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain's coloured boy
+to ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and
+the poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the
+water out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had
+become of my mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the
+Captain's tent, before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody
+nigger drink out of my mug. The riem was so tight round his neck he
+couldn't drink but slowly, and there was Halket holding it up to him! If
+the Captain had looked out! W-h-e-w! I wouldn't have been Halket!"
+
+"Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?" asked the Englishman.
+
+"Of course he will. He's the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a
+fuss about it, or it'll be the worse for him."
+
+"His time's up tomorrow evening!"
+
+"Yes, but not tomorrow morning. And I wouldn't make a row about it if I
+was Halket. It doesn't do to fall out with the authorities here. What's
+one nigger more or less? He'll get shot some other way, or die of
+hunger, if we don't do it."
+
+"It's hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs," said the
+Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a
+little.
+
+"Oh, they don't feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I've
+seen a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling
+like that!--without a sound. They've no feeling, these niggers; I don't
+suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you
+know."
+
+The Englishman's eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which
+Halket's head appeared and disappeared.
+
+"They have no right to order Halket to do it--and he will not do it!"
+said the Englishman slowly.
+
+"You're not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?" said the
+Colonial, looking curiously at him. "It doesn't pay. I've made up my
+mind never to speak whatever happens. What's the good? Suppose one were
+to make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he's made to
+shoot the nigger against his will; what would come of it? There'd be
+half-a-dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted--not
+to speak of a fellow like that"--turning his thumb in the direction of
+the sleeping trooper--"who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on
+the Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one's wires are edited
+before they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through.
+There are many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us
+are there, do you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making
+anything in Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he
+had a real row with the Company? I've a great liking for Halket myself,
+he's a real good fellow, and he's done me many a good turn--took my
+watch only last night, because I was off colour; I'd do anything for him
+in reason. But, I say this flatly, I couldn't and wouldn't fly in the
+face of the authorities for him or anyone else. I've my own girl waiting
+for me down in the Colony, and she's been waiting for me these five
+years. And whether I'm able to marry her or not depends on how I stand
+with the Company: and I say, flatly, I'm not going to fall out with it.
+I came here to make money, and I mean to make it! If other people like
+to run their heads against stone walls, let them: but they mustn't
+expect me to follow them. This isn't a country where a man can say what
+he thinks."
+
+The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. "And the Union Jack is
+supposed to be flying over us."
+
+"Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company," laughed the Colonial.
+
+"Do you ever have the nightmare?" asked the Englishman suddenly.
+
+"I? Oh yes, sometimes"; he looked curiously at his companion; "when I've
+eaten too much, I get it."
+
+"I always have it since I came up here," said the Englishman. "It is
+that a vast world is resting on me--a whole globe: and I am a midge
+beneath it. I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under
+it--and let it crush me!"
+
+"It's curious you should have the nightmare so up here," said the
+Colonial; "one gets so little to eat."
+
+There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the
+bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
+
+"Mind you," the Colonial said at last, "I don't say that in this case
+the Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He's
+never been quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night
+out on the kopje. When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of
+dead sleep; we couldn't wake him; yet it wasn't cold enough for him to
+have been frozen. He's never been the same man since; queer, you know;
+giving his rations away to the coloured boys, and letting the other
+fellows have his dot of brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of
+apart to himself, you know. The other fellows think he's got a touch of
+fever on, caught wandering about in the long grass that day. But I don't
+think it's that; I think it's being alone in the veld that's got hold of
+him. Man, have you ever been out like that, alone in the veld, night
+and day, and not a soul to speak to? I have; and I tell you, if I'd been
+left there three days longer I'd have gone mad or turned religious. Man,
+it's the nights, with the stars up above you, and the dead still all
+around. And you think, and think, and think! You remember all kinds of
+things you've never thought of for years and years. I used to talk to
+myself at last, and make believe it was another man. I was out seven
+days: and he was only out one night. But I think it's the loneliness
+that got hold of him. Man, those stars are awful; and that stillness
+that comes toward morning!" He stood up. "It's a great pity, because
+he's as good a fellow as ever was. But perhaps he'll come all right."
+
+He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand. When he had
+gone the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm
+across his forehead.
+
+High, high up, between the straggling branches of the tree, in the
+clear, blue African sky above him, he could see the vultures flying
+southward.
+
+*****
+
+That evening the men sat eating their suppers round the fires. The large
+troop had not come up; and the mules had been brought in; and they were
+to make a start early the next morning.
+
+Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a
+little in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.
+
+The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their
+mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be
+asked him; and the men, fearing the Colonial's size and the Englishman's
+nerve, left him in peace. The men laughed and chatted round the fire,
+while the big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates,
+and passed them round to the men. Presently he passed one to Halket,
+who lay half behind him leaning on his elbow. For a while Halket ate
+nothing, then he took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.
+
+"You are eating nothing, Halket," said the Englishman, cheerily, looking
+back.
+
+"I am not hungry now," he said. After a while he took out his red
+handkerchief, and emptied carefully into it the contents of the plate;
+and tied it up into a bundle. He set it beside him on the ground, and
+again lay on his elbow.
+
+"You won't come nearer to the fire, Halket?' asked the Englishman.
+
+"No, thank you, the night is warm."
+
+After a while Peter Halket took out from his belt a small hunting knife
+with a rough wooden handle. A small flat stone lay near him, and he
+passed the blade slowly up and down on it, now and then taking it up,
+and feeling the edge with his finger. After a while he put it back in
+his belt, and rose slowly, taking up his small bundle and walked away to
+the tent.
+
+"He's had a pretty stiff day," said the Colonial. "I expect he's glad
+enough to turn in."
+
+Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns. Would
+the Captain stick to his word tomorrow? Was Halket going to do it?
+Had the Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead
+of letting them fire a volley? One man said he would do it gladly in
+Halket's place, if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So
+they chatted till nine o'clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to
+turn in. They found Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with
+his face turned to the canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might
+not disturb him.
+
+At ten o'clock all the camp was asleep, excepting the two men told off
+to keep guard; who paced from one end of the camp to the other to keep
+themselves awake; or stood chatting by the large fire, which still burnt
+at one end.
+
+In the Captain's tent a light was kept burning all night, which shone
+through the thin canvas sides, and shed light on the ground about; but,
+for the rest, the camp was dead and still.
+
+By half-past one the moon had gone down, and there was left only a blaze
+of stars in the great African sky.
+
+Then Peter Halket rose up; softly he lifted the canvas and crept out.
+On the side furthest from the camp he stood upright. On his arm was tied
+his red handkerchief with its contents. For a moment he glanced up at
+the galaxy of stars over him; then he stepped into the long grass, and
+made his way in a direction opposite to that in which the camp lay. But
+after a short while he turned, and made his way down into the river bed.
+He walked in it for a while. Then after a time he sat down upon the bank
+and took off his heavy boots and threw them into the grass at the side.
+Then softly, on tip-toe, he followed the little footpath that the men
+had trodden going down to the river for water. It led straight up to the
+Captain's tent, and the little flat-topped tree, with its white stem,
+and its two gnarled branches spread out on either side. When he was
+within forty paces of it, he paused. Far over the other side of the
+camp the two men who were on guard stood chatting by the fire. A dead
+stillness was over the rest of the camp. The light through the walls of
+the Captain's tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but
+there was no sound of movement within.
+
+For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the
+tree. The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to
+it that they seemed one. His hands were tied to his sides, and his head
+drooped on his breast. His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had
+once been those of a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints
+stand out. The wool on his head was wild and thick with neglect, and
+stood out roughly in long strands; and his skin was rough with want and
+exposure.
+
+The riems had cut a little into his ankles; and a small flow of blood
+had made the ground below his feet dark.
+
+Peter Halket looked up at him; the man seemed dead. He touched him
+softly on the arm, then shook it slightly.
+
+The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at
+Peter from under his weary eyebrows. Except that they moved they might
+have been the eyes of a dead thing.
+
+Peter put up his fingers to his own lips--"Hus-h! hus-h!" he said.
+
+The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.
+
+Quickly Peter Halket knelt down and took the knife from his belt. In an
+instant the riems that bound the feet were cut through; in another he
+had cut the riems from the waist and neck: the riems dropped to
+the ground from the arms, and the man stood free. Like a dazed dumb
+creature, he stood, with his head still down, eyeing Peter.
+
+Instantly Peter slipped the red bundle from his arm into the man's
+passive hand.
+
+"Ari-tsemaia! Hamba! Loop! Go!" whispered Peter Halket; using a word
+from each African language he knew. But the black man still stood
+motionless, looking at him as one paralysed.
+
+"Hamba! Sucka! Go!" he whispered, motioning his hand.
+
+In an instant a gleam of intelligence shot across the face; then a wild
+transport. Without a word, without a sound, as the tiger leaps when the
+wild dogs are on it, with one long, smooth spring, as though unwounded
+and unhurt, he turned and disappeared into the grass. It closed behind
+him; but as he went the twigs and leaves cracked under his tread.
+
+The Captain threw back the door of his tent. "Who is there?" he cried.
+
+Peter Halket stood below the tree with the knife in his hand.
+
+The noise roused the whole camp: the men on guard came running; guns
+were fired: and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their
+weapons. There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry
+went round the camp, "The Mashonas are releasing the spy!"
+
+When the men got to the Captain's tent, they saw that the nigger was
+gone; and Peter Halket was lying on his face at the foot of the tree;
+with his head turned towards the Captain's door.
+
+There was a wild confusion of voices. "How many were there?" "Where have
+they gone to now?" "They've shot Peter Halket!"--"The Captain saw them
+do it"--"Stand ready, they may come back any time!"
+
+When the Englishman came, the other men, who knew he had been a medical
+student, made way for him. He knelt down by Peter Halket.
+
+"He's dead," he said, quietly.
+
+When they had turned him over, the Colonial knelt down on the other
+side, with a little hand-lamp in his hand.
+
+"What are you fellows fooling about here for?" cried the Captain. "Do
+you suppose it's any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping!
+Go, guard the camp on all sides!"
+
+"I will send four coloured boys," he said to the Englishman and the
+Colonial, "to dig the grave. You'd better bury him at once; there's no
+use waiting. We start first thing in the morning."
+
+When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket's breast.
+There was one small wound just under the left bosom; and one on the
+crown of the head; which must have been made after he had fallen down.
+
+"Strange, isn't it, what he can have been doing here?" said the
+Colonial; "a small wound, isn't it?"
+
+"A pistol shot," said the Englishman, closing the bosom.
+
+"A pistol--"
+
+The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
+
+"I told you he would not kill that nigger.--See--here--" He took up the
+knife which had fallen from Peter Halket's grasp, and fitted it into a
+piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.
+
+"But you don't think--" The Colonial stared at him with wide open eyes;
+then he glanced round at the Captain's tent.
+
+"Yes, I think that--Go and fetch his great-coat; we'll put him in it. If
+it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he
+is dead!"
+
+They brought his great-coat, and they looked in the pockets to see if
+there was anything which might show where he had come from or who his
+friends were. But there was nothing in the pockets except an empty
+flask, and a leathern purse with two shillings in, and a little
+hand-made two-pointed cap.
+
+So they wrapped Peter Halket up in his great-coat, and put the little
+cap on his head.
+
+And, one hour after Peter Halket had stood outside the tent looking up,
+he was lying under the little tree, with the red sand trodden down over
+him, in which a black man and a white man's blood were mingled.
+
+All the rest of the night the men sat up round the fires, discussing
+what had happened, dreading an attack.
+
+But the Englishman and the Colonial went to their tent, to lie down.
+
+"Do you think they will make any inquiries?" asked the Colonial.
+
+"Why should they? His time will be up tomorrow."
+
+"Are you going to say anything?"
+
+"What is the use?"
+
+They lay in the dark for an hour, and heard the men chatting outside.
+
+"Do you believe in a God?" said the Englishman, suddenly.
+
+The Colonial started: "Of course I do!"
+
+"I used to," said the Englishman; "I do not believe in your God; but I
+believed in something greater than I could understand, which moved in
+this earth, as your soul moves in your body. And I thought this worked
+in such wise, that the law of cause and effect, which holds in the
+physical world, held also in the moral: so, that the thing we call
+justice, ruled. I do not believe it any more. There is no God in
+Mashonaland."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" cried the Colonial, much distressed. "Are you
+going off your head, like poor Halket?"
+
+"No; but there is no God," said the Englishman. He turned round on his
+shoulder, and said no more: and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.
+
+Before dawn the next morning the men had packed up the goods, and
+started.
+
+By five o'clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before
+and behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty
+circle; save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones
+about which the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.
+
+Only under the little stunted tree, the Colonial and the Englishman were
+piling up stones. Their horses stood saddled close by.
+
+Presently the large trooper came riding back. He had been sent by the
+Captain to ask what they were fooling behind for, and to tell them to
+come on.
+
+The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned
+in his saddle and looked back. The morning sun was lighting up the
+straggling branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the
+camp; and fell on the little stunted tree, with its white stem and
+outstretched arms; and on the stones beneath it.
+
+"It's all that night on the kopje!" said the Colonial, sadly.
+
+But the Englishman looked back. "I hardly know," he said, "whether it is
+not better for him now, than for us."
+
+Then they rode on after the troop.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by 
+Olive Schreiner
+
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+*Project Gutenberg Etext of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland*
+by Olive Schreiner
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
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+Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
+
+by Olive Schreiner
+
+August, 1998 [Etext #1431]
+
+
+*Project Gutenberg Etext of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland*
+******This file should be named trptr10.txt or trptr10.zip*****
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, trptr11.txt
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+This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher <asschers@aia.net.au>
+
+
+
+
+
+Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
+
+by
+
+Olive Schreiner
+
+Author of "Dreams," "Dream Life and Real Life," "The Story of an African
+Farm," etc.
+
+Colonial Edition
+
+(A photographic plate at the front of the book shows three people hanging
+from a tree by their necks.  Around them stand eight men, looking not at
+all troubled by their participation in the scene.  Of this event all the
+survivors appear to be white, the victims black.  The plate is titled "From
+a Photograph taken in Matabeleland."  S.A.)
+
+
+To a Great Good Man, Sir George Grey,
+
+Once Governor of the Cape Colony, who, during his rule in South Africa,
+bound to himself the Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Natives he governed, by an
+uncorruptible justice and a broad humanity; and who is remembered among us
+today as representing the noblest attributes of an Imperial Rule.
+
+"Our low life was the level's and the night's;
+ He's for the morning."
+
+Olive Schreiner.
+
+19, Russell Road,
+Kensington, W.,
+February, 1897.
+
+
+Aardvark - The great anteater.
+Cape Smoke - A very inferior brandy made in Cape Colony.
+Kopje - Little hillock.
+Kraal - A Kaffir encampment.
+Mealies - Maize (corn).
+Riem - A thong of undressed leather universally used in South Africa.
+Vatje of Old Dop - A little cask of Cape brandy.
+Veld - Open Country.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+It was a dark night; a chill breath was coming from the east; not enough to
+disturb the blaze of Trooper Peter Halket's fire, yet enough to make it
+quiver.  He sat alone beside it on the top of a kopje.
+
+All about was an impenetrable darkness; not a star was visible in the black
+curve over his head.
+
+He had been travelling with a dozen men who were taking provisions of
+mealies and rice to the next camp.  He had been sent out to act as scout
+along a low range of hills, and had lost his way.  Since eight in the
+morning he had wandered among long grasses, and ironstone kopjes, and
+stunted bush, and had come upon no sign of human habitation, but the
+remains of a burnt kraal, and a down-trampled and now uncultivated mealie
+field, where a month before the Chartered Company's forces had destroyed a
+native settlement.
+
+Three times in the day it had appeared to him that he had returned to the
+very spot from which he had started; nor was it his wish to travel very
+far, for he knew his comrades would come back to look for him, to the
+neighbourhood where he had last been seen, when it was found at the evening
+camping ground that he did not appear.
+
+Trooper Peter Halket was very weary.  He had eaten nothing all day; and had
+touched little of the contents of a small flask of Cape brandy he carried
+in his breast pocket, not knowing when it would again be replenished.
+
+As night drew near he determined to make his resting place on the top of
+one of the kopjes, which stood somewhat alone and apart from the others. 
+He could not easily be approached there, without his knowing it.  He had
+not much fear of the natives; their kraals had been destroyed and their
+granaries burnt for thirty miles round, and they themselves had fled:  but
+he feared, somewhat, the lions, which he had never seen, but of which he
+had heard, and which might be cowering in the long grasses and brushwood at
+the kopje's foot:--and he feared, vaguely, he hardly knew what, when he
+looked forward to his first long night alone in the veld.
+
+By the time the sun had set he had gathered a little pile of stumps and
+branches on the top of the kopje.  He intended to keep a fire burning all
+night; and as the darkness began to settle down he lit it.  It might be his
+friends would see it from far, and come for him early in the morning; and
+wild beasts would hardly approach him while he knelt beside it; and of the
+natives he felt there was little fear.
+
+He built up the fire; and determined if it were possible to keep awake the
+whole night beside it.
+
+He was a slight man of middle height, with a sloping forehead and pale blue
+eyes:  but the jaws were hard set, and the thin lips of the large mouth
+were those of a man who could strongly desire the material good of life,
+and enjoy it when it came his way.  Over the lower half of the face were
+scattered a few soft white hairs, the growth of early manhood.
+
+From time to time he listened intently for possible sounds from the
+distance where his friends might be encamped, and might fire off their guns
+at seeing his light; or he listened yet more intently for sounds nearer at
+hand:  but all was still, except for the occasional cracking of the wood in
+his own fire, and the slight whistle of the breeze as it crept past the
+stones on the kopje.  He doubled up his great hat and put it in the pocket
+of his overcoat, and put on a little two-pointed cap his mother had made
+for him, which fitted so close that only one lock of white hair hung out
+over his forehead.  He turned up the collar of his coat to shield his neck
+and ears, and threw it open in front that the blaze of the fire might warm
+him.  He had known many nights colder than this when he had sat around the
+camp fire with his comrades, talking of the niggers they had shot or the
+kraals they had destroyed, or grumbling over their rations; but tonight the
+chill seemed to creep into his very bones.
+
+The darkness of the night above him, and the silence of the veld about him,
+oppressed him.  At times he even wished he might hear the cry of a jackal
+or of some larger beast of prey in the distance; and he wished that the
+wind would blow a little louder, instead of making that little wheezing
+sound as it passed the corners of the stones.  He looked down at his gun,
+which lay cocked ready on the ground at his right side; and from time to
+time he raised his hand automatically and fingered the cartridges in his
+belt.  Then he stretched out his small wiry hands to the fire and warmed
+them.  It was only half past ten, and it seemed to him he had been sitting
+here ten hours at the least.
+
+After a while he threw two more large logs on the fire, and took the flask
+out of his pocket.  He examined it carefully by the firelight to see how
+much it held:  then he took a small draught, and examined it again to see
+how much it had fallen; and put it back in his breast pocket.
+
+Then Trooper Peter Halket fell to thinking.
+
+It was not often that he thought.  On patrol and sitting round camp fires
+with the other men about him there was no time for it; and Peter Halket had
+never been given to much thinking.  He had been a careless boy at the
+village school; and though, when he left, his mother paid the village
+apothecary to read learned books with him at night on history and science,
+he had not retained much of them.  As a rule he lived in the world
+immediately about him, and let the things of the moment impinge on him, and
+fall off again as they would, without much reflection.  But tonight on the
+kopje he fell to thinking, and his thoughts shaped themselves into
+connected chains.
+
+He wondered first whether his mother would ever get the letter he had
+posted the week before, and whether it would be brought to her cottage or
+she would go to the post office to fetch it.  And then, he fell to thinking
+of the little English village where he had been born, and where he had
+grown up.  He saw his mother's fat white ducklings creep in and out under
+the gate, and waddle down to the little pond at the back of the yard; he
+saw the school house that he had hated so much as a boy, and from which he
+had so often run away to go a-fishing, or a-bird's-nesting.  He saw the
+prints on the school house wall on which the afternoon sun used to shine
+when he was kept in; Jesus of Judea blessing the children, and one picture
+just over the door where he hung with his arms stretched out and the blood
+dropping from his feet.  Then Peter Halket thought of the tower at the
+ruins which he had climbed so often for birds' eggs; and he saw his mother
+standing at her cottage gate when he came home in the evening, and he felt
+her arms round his neck as she kissed him; but he felt her tears on his
+cheek, because he had run away from school all day; and he seemed to be
+making apologies to her, and promising he never would do it again if only
+she would not cry.  He had often thought of her since he left her, on board
+ship, and when he was working with the prospectors, and since he had joined
+the troop; but it had been in a vague way; he had not distinctly seen and
+felt her.  But tonight he wished for her as he used to when he was a small
+boy and lay in his bed in the next room, and saw her shadow through the
+door as she bent over her wash-tub earning the money which was to feed and
+clothe him.  He remembered how he called her and she came and tucked him in
+and called him "Little Simon," which was his second name and had been his
+father's, and which she only called him when he was in bed at night, or
+when he was hurt.
+
+He sat there staring into the blaze.  He resolved he would make a great
+deal of money, and she should live with him.  He would build a large house
+in the West End of London, the biggest that had ever been seen, and another
+in the country, and they should never work any more.
+
+Peter Halket sat as one turned into stone, staring into the fire.
+
+All men made money when they came to South Africa,--Barney Barnato, Rhodes-
+-they all made money out of the country, eight millions, twelve millions,
+twenty-six millions, forty millions; why should not he!
+
+Peter Halket started suddenly and listened.  But it was only the wind
+coming up the kopje like a great wheezy beast creeping upwards; and he
+looked back into the fire.
+
+He considered his business prospects.  When he had served his time as
+volunteer he would have a large piece of land given him, and the Mashonas
+and Matabeles would have all their land taken away from them in time, and
+the Chartered Company would pass a law that they had to work for the white
+men; and he, Peter Halket, would make them work for him.  He would make
+money.
+
+Then he reflected on what he should do with the land if it were no good and
+he could not make anything out of it.  Then, he should have to start a
+syndicate; called the Peter Halket Gold, or the Peter Halket Iron-mining,
+or some such name, Syndicate.  Peter Halket was not very clear as to how it
+ought to be started; but he felt certain that he and some other men would
+have to take shares.  They would not have to pay for them.  And then they
+would get some big man in London to take shares.  He need not pay for them;
+they would give them to him; and then the company would be floated.  No one
+would have to pay anything; it was just the name--"The Peter Halket Gold
+Mining Company, Limited."  It would float in London; and people there who
+didn't know the country would buy the shares; THEY would have to give ready
+money for them, of course; perhaps fifteen pounds a share when they were
+up!--Peter Halket's eyes blinked as he looked into the fire.--And then,
+when the market was up, he, Peter Halket, would sell out all his shares. 
+If he gave himself only six thousand and sold them each for ten pounds,
+then he, Peter Halket, would have sixty thousand pounds!  And then he would
+start another company, and another.
+
+Peter Halket struck his knee softly with his hand.
+
+That was the great thing--"Always sell out at the right time."  That point
+Peter Halket was very clear on.  He had heard it so often discussed.  Give
+some shares to men with big names, and sell out:  they can sell out too at
+the right time.
+
+Peter Halket stroked his knee thoughtfully.
+
+And then the other people, that bought the shares for cash!  Well, they
+could sell out too; they could all sell out!
+
+Then Peter Halket's mind got a little hazy.  The matter was getting too
+difficult for him, like a rule of three sum at school when he could not see
+the relation between the two first terms and the third.  Well, if they
+didn't like to sell out at the right time, it was their own faults.  Why
+didn't they?  He, Peter Halket, did not feel responsible for them. 
+Everyone knew that you had to sell out at the right time.  If they didn't
+choose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn't.  "It's the shares
+that you sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money."
+
+But if they couldn't sell them?
+
+Here Peter Halket hesitated.--Well, the British Government would have to
+buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
+lose.  "The British Government can't let British share-holders suffer." 
+He'd heard that often enough.  The British taxpayer would have to pay for
+the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
+couldn't, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
+lords and dukes and princes connected with it.  And why shouldn't they pay
+for his company?  He would have a lord in it too!
+
+Peter Halket looked into the fire completely absorbed in his calculations.-
+-Peter Halket, Esq., Director of the Peter Halket Gold Mining Company,
+Limited.  Then, when he had got thousands, Peter Halket, Esq., M.P.  Then,
+when he had millions, Sir Peter Halket, Privy Councillor!
+
+He reflected deeply, looking into the blaze.  If you had five or six
+millions you could go where you liked and do what you liked.  You could go
+to Sandringham.  You could marry anyone.  No one would ask what your mother
+had been; it wouldn't matter.
+
+A curious dull sinking sensation came over Peter Halket; and he drew in his
+broad leathern belt two holes tighter.
+
+Even if you had only two millions you could have a cook and a valet, to go
+with you when you went into the veld or to the wars; and you could have as
+much champagne and other things as you liked.  At that moment that seemed
+to Peter more important than going to Sandringham.
+
+He took out his flask of Cape Smoke, and drew a tiny draught from it.
+
+Other men had come to South Africa with nothing, and had made everything! 
+Why should not he?
+
+He stuck small branches under the two great logs, and a glorious flame
+burst out.  Then he listened again intently.  The wind was falling and the
+night was becoming very still.  It was a quarter to twelve now.  His back
+ached, and he would have liked to lie down; but he dared not, for fear he
+should drop asleep.  He leaned forward with his hands between his crossed
+knees, and watched the blaze he had made.
+
+Then, after a while, Peter Halket's thoughts became less clear:  they
+became at last, rather, a chain of disconnected pictures, painting
+themselves in irrelevant order on his brain, than a line of connected
+ideas.  Now, as he looked into the crackling blaze, it seemed to be one of
+the fires they had make to burn the natives' grain by, and they were
+throwing in all they could not carry away:  then, he seemed to see his
+mother's fat ducks waddling down the little path with the green grass on
+each side.  Then, he seemed to see his huts where he lived with the
+prospectors, and the native women who used to live with him; and he
+wondered where the women were.  Then--he saw the skull of an old Mashona
+blown off at the top, the hands still moving.  He heard the loud cry of the
+native women and children as they turned the maxims on to the kraal; and
+then he heard the dynamite explode that blew up a cave.  Then again he was
+working a maxim gun, but it seemed to him it was more like the reaping
+machine he used to work in England, and that what was going down before it
+was not yellow corn, but black men's heads; and he thought when he looked
+back they lay behind him in rows, like the corn in sheaves.
+
+The logs sent up a flame clear and high, and, where they split, showed a
+burning core inside:  the cracking and spluttering sounded in his brain
+like the discharge of a battery of artillery.  Then he thought suddenly of
+a black woman he and another man caught alone in the bush, her baby on her
+back, but young and pretty.  Well, they didn't shoot her!--and a black
+woman wasn't white!  His mother didn't understand these things; it was all
+so different in England from South Africa.  You couldn't be expected to do
+the same sort of things here as there.  He had an unpleasant feeling that
+he was justifying himself to his mother, and that he didn't know how to.
+
+He leaned further and further forward:  so far at last, that the little
+white lock of his hair which hung out under his cap was almost singed by
+the fire.  His eyes were still open, but the lids drooped over them, and
+his hands hung lower and lower between his knees.  There was no picture
+left on his brain now, but simply an impress of the blazing logs before
+him.
+
+Then, Trooper Peter Halket started.  He sat up and listened.  The wind had
+gone; there was not a sound:  but he listened intently.  The fire burnt up
+into the still air, two clear red tongues of flame.
+
+Then, on the other side of the kopje he heard the sound of footsteps
+ascending; the slow even tread of bare feet coming up.
+
+The hair on Trooper Peter Halket's forehead slowly stiffened itself.  He
+had no thought of escaping; he was paralyzed with dread.  He took up his
+gun.  A deadly coldness crept from his feet to his head.  He had worked a
+maxim gun in a fight when some hundred natives fell and only one white man
+had been wounded; and he had never known fear; but tonight his fingers were
+stiff on the lock of his gun.  He knelt low, tending a little to one side
+of the fire, with his gun ready.  A stone half sheltered him from anyone
+coming up from the other side of the kopje, and the instant the figure
+appeared over the edge he intended to fire.
+
+Then, the thought flashed on him; what, and if it were one of his own
+comrades come in search of him, and no bare-footed enemy!  The anguish of
+suspense wrung his heart; for an instant he hesitated.  Then, in a cold
+agony of terror, he cried out, "Who is there?"
+
+And a voice replied in clear, slow English, "A friend."
+
+Peter Halket almost let his gun drop, in the revulsion of feeling.  The
+cold sweat which anguish had restrained burst out in large drops on his
+forehead; but he still knelt holding his gun.
+
+"What do you want?" he cried out quiveringly.
+
+From the darkness at the edge of the kopje a figure stepped out into the
+full blaze of the firelight.
+
+Trooper Peter Halket looked up at it.
+
+It was the tall figure of a man, clad in one loose linen garment, reaching
+lower than his knees, and which clung close about him.  His head, arms, and
+feet were bare.  He carried no weapon of any kind; and on his shoulders
+hung heavy locks of dark hair.
+
+Peter Halket looked up at him with astonishment.  "Are you alone?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, I am alone."
+
+Peter Halket lowered his gun and knelt up.
+
+"Lost your way, I suppose?" he said, still holding his weapon loosely.
+
+"No; I have come to ask whether I may sit beside your fire for a while."
+
+"Certainly, certainly!" said Peter, eyeing the stranger's dress carefully,
+still holding his gun, but with the hand off the lock.  "I'm confoundedly
+glad of any company.  It's a beastly night for anyone to be out alone. 
+Wonder you find your way.  Sit down! sit down!"  Peter looked intently at
+the stranger; then he put his gun down at his side.
+
+The stranger sat down on the opposite side of the fire.  His complexion was
+dark; his arms and feet were bronzed; but his aquiline features, and the
+domed forehead, were not of any South African race.
+
+"One of the Soudanese Rhodes brought with him from the north, I suppose?"
+said Peter, still eyeing him curiously.
+
+No; Cecil Rhodes has had nothing to do with my coming here," said the
+stranger.
+
+"Oh--" said Peter.  "You didn't perhaps happen to come across a company of
+men today, twelve white men and seven coloured, with three cart loads of
+provisions?  We were taking them to the big camp, and I got parted from my
+troop this morning.  I've not been able to find them, though I've been
+seeking for them ever since."
+
+The stranger warmed his hands slowly at the fire; then he raised his head:-
+-"They are camped at the foot of those hills tonight," he said, pointing
+with his hand into the darkness at the left.  "Tomorrow early they will be
+here, before the sun has risen."
+
+"Oh, you've met them, have you!" said Peter joyfully; "that's why you
+weren't surprised at finding me here.  Take a drop!"  He took the small
+flask from his pocket and held it out.  "I'm sorry there's so little, but a
+drop will keep the cold out."
+
+The stranger bowed his head; but thanked and declined.
+
+Peter raised the flask to his lips and took a small draught; then returned
+it to his pocket.  The stranger folded his arms about his knees, and looked
+into the fire.
+
+"Are you a Jew?" asked Peter, suddenly; as the firelight fell full on the
+stranger's face.
+
+"Yes; I am a Jew."
+
+"Ah," said Peter, "that's why I wasn't able to make out at first what
+nation you could be of; your dress, you know--"  Then he stopped, and said,
+"Trading here, I suppose?  Which country do you come from; are you a
+Spanish Jew?"
+
+"I am a Jew of Palestine."
+
+"Ah!" said Peter; "I haven't seen many from that part yet.  I came out with
+a lot on board ship; and I've seen Barnato and Beit; but they're not very
+much like you.  I suppose it's coming from Palestine makes the difference."
+
+All fear of the stranger had now left Peter Halket.  "Come a little nearer
+the fire," he said, "you must be cold, you haven't too much wraps.  I'm
+chill in this big coat."  Peter Halket pushed his gun a little further away
+from him; and threw another large log on the fire.  "I'm sorry I haven't
+anything to eat to offer you; but I haven't had anything myself since last
+night.  It's beastly sickening, being out like this with nothing to eat. 
+Wouldn't have thought a fellow'd feel so bad after only a day of it.  Have
+you ever been out without grub?" said Peter cheerfully, warming his hands
+at the blaze.
+
+"Forty days and nights," said the stranger.
+
+"Forty days!  Ph--e--ew!" said Peter.  "You must have have had a lot to
+drink, or you wouldn't have stood it.  I was feeling blue enough when you
+turned up, but I'm better now, warmer."
+
+Peter Halket re-arranged the logs on the fire.
+
+"In the employ of the Chartered Company, I suppose?" said Peter, looking
+into the fire he had made.
+
+"No," said the stranger; "I have nothing to do with the Chartered Company."
+
+"Oh," said Peter, "I don't wonder, then, that things aren't looking very
+smart with you!  There's not too much cakes and ale up here for those that
+do belong to it, if they're not big-wigs, and none at all for those who
+don't.  I tried it when I first came up here.  I was with a prospector who
+was hooked on to the Company somehow, but I worked on my own account for
+the prospector by the day.  I tell you what, it's not the men who work up
+here who make the money; it's the big-wigs who get the concessions!"
+
+Peter felt exhilarated by the presence of the stranger.  That one unarmed
+man had robbed him of all fear.
+
+Seeing that the stranger did not take up the thread of conversation, he
+went on after a time:  "It wasn't such a bad life, though.  I only wish I
+was back there again.  I had two huts to myself, and a couple of nigger
+girls.  It's better fun," said Peter, after a while, "having these black
+women than whites.  The whites you've got to support, but the niggers
+support you!  And when you've done with them you can just get rid of them.
+I'm all for the nigger gals."  Peter laughed.  But the stranger sat
+motionless with his arms about his knees.
+
+"You got any girls?" said Peter.  "Care for niggers?"
+
+"I love all women," said the stranger, refolding his arms about his knees.
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" said Peter.  "Well, I'm pretty sick of them.  I had
+bother enough with mine," he said genially, warming his hands by the fire,
+and then interlocking the fingers and turning the palms towards the blaze
+as one who prepares to enjoy a good talk.  "One girl was only fifteen; I
+got her cheap from a policeman who was living with her, and she wasn't
+much.  But the other, by Gad!  I never saw another nigger like her; well
+set up, I tell you, and as straight as that--" said Peter, holding up his
+finger in the firelight.  "She was thirty if she was a day.  Fellows don't
+generally fancy women that age; they like slips of girls.  But I set my
+heart on her the day I saw her.  She belonged to the chap I was with.  He
+got her up north.  There was a devil of a row about his getting her, too;
+she'd got a nigger husband and two children; didn't want to leave them, or
+some nonsense of that sort: you know what these niggers are?  Well, I tried
+to get the other fellow to let me have her, but the devil a bit he would. 
+I'd only got the other girl, and I didn't much fancy her; she was only a
+child.  Well, I went down Umtali way and got a lot of liquor and stuff, and
+when I got back to camp I found them clean dried out.  They hadn't had a
+drop of liquor in camp for ten days, and the rainy season coming on and no
+knowing when they'd get any.  Well, I'd a vatje of Old Dop as high as that-
+-," indicating with his hand an object about two feet high, "and the other
+fellow wanted to buy it from me.  I knew two of that.  I said I wanted it
+for myself.  He offered me this, and he offered me that.  At last I said,
+'Well, just to oblige you, I give you the vatje and you give me the girl!' 
+And so he did.  Most people wouldn't have fancied a nigger girl who'd had
+two nigger children, but I didn't mind; it's all the same to me.  And I
+tell you she worked.  She made a garden, and she and the other girl worked
+in it; I tell you I didn't need to buy a sixpence of food for them in six
+months, and I used to sell green mealies and pumpkins to all the fellows
+about.  There weren't many flies on her, I tell you.  She picked up English
+quicker than I picked up her lingo, and took to wearing a dress and shawl."
+
+The stranger still sat motionless, looking into the fire.
+
+Peter Halket reseated himself more comfortably before the fire.  "Well, I
+came home to the huts one day, rather suddenly, you know, to fetch
+something; and what did I find?  She, talking at the hut door with a nigger
+man.  Now it was my strict orders they were neither to speak a word to a
+nigger man at all; so I asked what it was.  And she answers, as cool as can
+be, that he was a stranger going past on the road, and asked her to give
+him a drink of water.  Well, I just ordered him off.  I didn't think
+anything more about it.  But I remember now.  I saw him hanging about the
+camp the day after.  Well, she came to me the next day and asked me for a
+lot of cartridges.  She'd never asked me for anything before.  I asked her
+what the devil a woman wanted with cartridges, and she said the old nigger
+woman who helped carry in water to the garden said she couldn't stay and
+help her any more unless she got some cartridges to give her son who was
+going up north hunting elephants.  The woman got over me to give her the
+cartridges because she was going to have a kid, and she said she couldn't
+do the watering without help.  So I gave them her.  I never put two and two
+together.
+
+"Well, when I heard that the Company was going to have a row with the
+Matabele, I thought I'd volunteer.  They said there was lots of loot to be
+got, and land to be given out, and that sort of thing, and I thought I'd
+only be gone about three months.  So I went.  I left those women there, and
+a lot of stuff in the garden and some sugar and rice, and I told them not
+to leave till I came back; and I asked the other man to keep an eye on
+them.  Both those women were Mashonas.  They always said the Mashonas
+didn't love the Matabele; but, by God, it turned out that they loved them
+better than they loved us.  They've got the damned impertinence to say,
+that the Matabele oppressed them sometimes, but the white man oppresses
+them all the time!
+
+"Well, I left those women there," said Peter, dropping his hands on his
+knees.  "Mind you, I'd treated those women really well.  I'd never given
+either of them one touch all the time I had them.  I was the talk of all
+the fellows round, the way I treated them.  Well, I hadn't been gone a
+month, when I got a letter from the man I worked with, the one who had the
+woman first--he's dead now, poor fellow; they found him at his hut door
+with his throat cut--and what do you think he said to me?  Why, I hadn't
+been gone six hours when those two women skooted!  It was all the big one.
+What do you think she did?  She took every ounce of ball and cartridge she
+could find in that hut, and my old Martini-Henry, and even the lid off the
+tea-box to melt into bullets for the old muzzle-loaders they have; and off
+she went, and took the young one too.  The fellow wrote me they didn't
+touch another thing:  they left the shawls and dresses I gave them kicking
+about the huts, and went off naked with only their blankets and the
+ammunition on their heads.  A nigger man met them twenty miles off, and he
+said they were skooting up for Lo Magundi's country as fast as they could
+go.
+
+"And do you know," said Peter, striking his knee, and looking impressively
+across the fire at the stranger; "what I'm as sure of as that I'm sitting
+here?  It's that that nigger I caught at my hut, that day, was her nigger
+husband!  He'd come to fetch her that time; and when she saw she couldn't
+get away without our catching her, she got the cartridges for him!"  Peter
+paused impressively between the words.  "And now she's gone back to him. 
+It's for him she's taken that ammunition!"
+
+Peter looked across the fire at the stranger, to see what impression his
+story was making.
+
+"I tell you what," said Peter, "if I'd had any idea that day who that
+bloody nigger was, the day I saw him standing at my door, I'd have given
+him one cartridge in the back of his head more than ever he reckoned for!" 
+Peter looked triumphantly at the stranger.  This was his only story; and he
+had told it a score of times round the camp fire for the benefit of some
+new-comer.  When this point was reached, a low murmur of applause and
+sympathy always ran round the group:  tonight there was quiet; the
+stranger's large dark eyes watched the fire almost as though he heard
+nothing.
+
+"I shouldn't have minded so much," said Peter after a while, "though no man
+likes to have his woman taken away from him; but she was going to have a
+kid in a month or two--and so was the little one for anything I know; she
+looked like it!  I expect they did away with it before it came; they've no
+hearts, these niggers; they'd think nothing of doing that with a white
+man's child.  They've no hearts; they'd rather go back to a black man,
+however well you've treated them.  It's all right if you get them quite
+young and keep them away from their own people; but if once a nigger
+woman's had a nigger man and had children by him, you might as well try to
+hold a she-devil! they'll always go back.  If ever I'm shot, it's as likely
+as not it'll be by my own gun, with my own cartridges.  And she'd stand by
+and watch it, and cheer them on; though I never gave her a blow all the
+time she was with me.  But I tell you what--if ever I come across that
+bloody nigger, I'll take it out of him.  He won't count many days to his
+year, after I've spotted him!"  Peter Halket paused.  It seemed to him that
+the eyes under their heavy, curled lashes, were looking at something beyond
+him with an infinite sadness, almost as of eyes that wept.
+
+"You look awfully tired," said Peter; "wouldn't you like to lie down and
+sleep?  You could put your head down on that stone, and I'd keep watch."
+
+"I have no need of sleep," the stranger said; "I will watch with you."
+
+"You've been in the wars, too, I see," said Peter, bending forward a
+little, and looking at the stranger's feet.  "By God!  Both of them!--And
+right through!  You must have had a bad time of it?"
+
+"It was very long ago," said the stranger.
+
+Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire.  "Do you know," he said,
+"I've been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of. 
+It's my mother!  You're not like her in the face, but when your eyes look
+at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me.  Curious, isn't it?  I
+don't know you from Adam, and you've hardly spoken a word since you came;
+and yet I seem as if I'd known you all my life."  Peter moved a little
+nearer him.  "I was awfully afraid of you when you first came; even when I
+first saw you;--you aren't dressed as most of us dress, you know.  But the
+minute the fire shone on your face I said, 'It's all right.'  Curious,
+isn't it?" said Peter.  "I don't know you from Adam, but if you were to
+take up my gun and point it at me, I wouldn't move!  I'd lie down here and
+go to sleep with my head at your feet; curious, isn't it, when I don't know
+you from Adam?  My name's Peter Halket.  What's yours?"
+
+But the stranger was arranging the logs on the fire.  The flames shot up
+bright and high, and almost hid him from Peter Halket's view.
+
+"By gad! how they burn when you arrange them!" said Peter.
+
+They sat quiet in the blaze for a while.
+
+Then Peter said, "Did you see any niggers about yesterday?  I haven't come
+across any in this part."
+
+"There is," said the stranger, raising himself, "an old woman in a cave
+over yonder, and there is one man in the bush, ten miles from this spot. 
+He has lived there six weeks, since you destroyed the kraal, living on
+roots or herbs.  He was wounded in the thigh, and left for dead.  He is
+waiting till you have all left this part of the country that he may set out
+to follow his own people.  His leg is not yet so strong that he may walk
+fast."
+
+"Did you speak to him?" said Peter.
+
+"I took him down to the water where a large pool was.  The bank was too
+high for the man to descend alone."
+
+"It's a lucky thing for you our fellows didn't catch you," said Peter. 
+"Our captain's a regular little martinet.  He'd shoot you as soon as look
+at you, if he saw you fooling round with a wounded nigger.  It's lucky you
+kept out of his way."
+
+"The young ravens have meat given to them," said the stranger, lifting
+himself up; "and the lions go down to the streams to drink."
+
+"Ah--yes--" said Peter; "but that's because we can't help it!"
+
+They were silent again for a little while.  Then Peter, seeing that the
+stranger showed no inclination to speak, said, "Did you hear of the spree
+they had up Bulawayo way, hanging those three niggers for spies?  I wasn't
+there myself, but a fellow who was told me they made the niggers jump down
+from the tree and hang themselves; one fellow wouldn't bally jump, till
+they gave him a charge of buckshot in the back:  and then he caught hold of
+a branch with his hands and they had to shoot 'em loose.  He didn't like
+hanging.  I don't know if it's true, of course; I wasn't there myself, but
+a fellow who was told me.  Another fellow who was at Bulawayo, but who
+wasn't there when they were hung, said they fired at them just after they
+jumped, to kill 'em.  I--"
+
+"I was there," said the stranger.
+
+"Oh, you were?" said Peter.  "I saw a photograph of the niggers hanging,
+and our fellows standing round smoking; but I didn't see you in it.  I
+suppose you'd just gone away?"
+
+"I was beside the men when they were hung," said the stranger.
+
+"Oh, you were, were you?" said Peter.  "I don't much care about seeing that
+sort of thing myself.  Some fellows think it's the best fun out to see the
+niggers kick; but I can't stand it:  it turns my stomach.  It's not liver-
+heartedness," said Peter, quickly, anxious to remove any adverse impression
+as to his courage which the stranger might form; "if it's shooting or
+fighting, I'm there.  I've potted as many niggers as any man in our troop,
+I bet.  It's floggings and hangings I'm off.  It's the way one's brought
+up, you know.  My mother never even would kill our ducks; she let them die
+of old age, and we had the feathers and the eggs:  and she was always
+drumming into me;--don't hit a fellow smaller than yourself; don't hit a
+fellow weaker than yourself; don't hit a fellow unless he can hit you back
+as good again.  When you've always had that sort of thing drummed into you,
+you can't get rid of it, somehow.  Now there was that other nigger they
+shot.  They say he sat as still as if he was cut out of stone, with his
+arms round his legs; and some of the fellows gave him blows about the head
+and face before they took him off to shoot him.  Now, that's the sort of
+thing I can't do.  It makes me sick here, somehow."  Peter put his hand
+rather low down over the pit of his stomach.  "I'll shoot as many as you
+like if they'll run, but they mustn't be tied up."
+
+"I was there when that man was shot," said the stranger.
+
+"Why, you seem to have been everywhere," said Peter.  "Have you seen Cecil
+Rhodes?"
+
+"Yes, I have seen him," said the stranger.
+
+"Now he's death on niggers," said Peter Halket, warming his hands by the
+fire; "they say when he was Prime Minister down in the Colony he tried to
+pass a law that would give their masters and mistresses the right to have
+their servants flogged whenever they did anything they didn't like; but the
+other Englishmen wouldn't let him pass it.  But here he can do what he
+likes.  That's the reason some fellows don't want him to be sent away. 
+They say, 'If we get the British Government here, they'll be giving the
+niggers land to live on; and let them have the vote, and get civilised and
+educated, and all that sort of thing; but Cecil Rhodes, he'll keep their
+noses to the grindstone.'  'I prefer land to niggers,' he says.  They say
+he's going to parcel them out, and make them work on our lands whether they
+like it or not--just as good as having slaves, you know:  and you haven't
+the bother of looking after them when they're old.  Now, there I'm with
+Rhodes; I think it's an awfully good move.  We don't come out here to work;
+it's all very well in England; but we've come here to make money, and how
+are we to make it, unless you get niggers to work for you, or start a
+syndicate?  He's death on niggers, is Rhodes!" said Peter, meditating;
+"they say if we had the British Government here and you were thrashing a
+nigger and something happened, there'd be an investigation, and all that
+sort of thing.  But, with Cecil, it's all right, you can do what you like
+with the niggers, provided you don't get HIM into trouble."
+
+The stranger watched the clear flame as it burnt up high in the still night
+air; then suddenly he started.
+
+"What is it?" said Peter; "do you hear anything?"
+
+"I hear far off," said the stranger, "the sound of weeping, and the sound
+of blows.  And I hear the voices of men and women calling to me."
+
+Peter listened intently.  "I don't hear anything!" he said.  "It must be in
+your head.  I sometimes get a noise in mine."  He listened intently.  "No,
+there's nothing.  It's all so deadly still."
+
+They sat silent for a while.
+
+"Peter Simon Halket," said the stranger suddenly--Peter started; he had not
+told him his second name--"if it should come to pass that you should obtain
+those lands you have desired, and you should obtain black men to labour on
+them and make to yourself great wealth; or should you create that company"-
+-Peter started--"and fools should buy from you, so that you became the
+richest man in the land; and if you should take to yourself wide lands, and
+raise to yourself great palaces, so that princes and great men of earth
+crept up to you and laid their hands against yours, so that you might slip
+gold into them--what would it profit you?"
+
+"Profit!" Peter Halket stared:  "Why, it would profit everything.  What
+makes Beit and Rhodes and Barnato so great?  If you've got eight
+millions--"
+
+"Peter Simon Halket, which of those souls you have seen on earth is to you
+greatest?" said the stranger, "Which soul is to you fairest?"
+
+"Ah," said Peter, "but we weren't talking of souls at all; we were talking
+of money.  Of course if it comes to souls, my mother's the best person I've
+ever seen.  But what does it help her?  She's got to stand washing clothes
+for those stuck-up nincompoops of fine ladies!  Wait till I've got money! 
+It'll be somebody else then, who--"
+
+"Peter Halket," said the stranger, "who is the greatest; he who serves or
+he who is served?"  Peter looked at the stranger:  then it flashed on him
+that he was mad.
+
+"Oh," he said, "if it comes to that, what's anything!  You might as well
+say, sitting there in your old linen shirt, that you were as great as
+Rhodes or Beit or Barnato, or a king.  Of course a man's just the same
+whatever he's got on or whatever he has; but he isn't the same to other
+people."
+
+"There have kings been born in stables," said the stranger.
+
+Then Peter saw that he was joking, and laughed.  "It must have been a long
+time ago; they don't get born there now," he said.  "Why, if God Almighty
+came to this country, and hadn't half-a-million in shares, they wouldn't
+think much of Him."
+
+Peter built up his fire.  Suddenly he felt the stranger's eyes were fixed
+on him.
+
+"Who gave you your land?" the stranger asked.
+
+"Mine!  Why, the Chartered Company," said Peter.
+
+The stranger looked back into the fire.  "And who gave it to them?" he
+asked softly.
+
+"Why, England, of course.  She gave them the land to far beyond the Zambezi
+to do what they liked with, and make as much money out of as they could,
+and she'd back 'em."
+
+"Who gave the land to the men and women of England?" asked the stranger
+softly.
+
+"Why, the devil!  They said it was theirs, and of course it was," said
+Peter.
+
+"And the people of the land:  did England give you the people also?"
+
+Peter looked a little doubtfully at the stranger.  "Yes, of course, she
+gave us the people; what use would the land have been to us otherwise?"
+
+"And who gave her the people, the living flesh and blood, that she might
+give them away, into the hands of others?" asked the stranger, raising
+himself.
+
+Peter looked at him and was half afeared.  "Well, what could she do with a
+lot of miserable niggers, if she didn't give them to us?  A lot of good-
+for-nothing rebels they are, too," said Peter.
+
+"What is a rebel?" asked the stranger.
+
+"My Gawd!" said Peter, "you must have lived out of the world if you don't
+know what a rebel is!  A rebel is a man who fights against his king and his
+country.  These bloody niggers here are rebels because they are fighting
+against us.  They don't want the Chartered Company to have them.  But
+they'll have to.  We'll teach them a lesson," said Peter Halket, the
+pugilistic spirit rising, firmly reseating himself on the South African
+earth, which two years before he had never heard of, and eighteen months
+before he had never seen, as if it had been his mother earth, and the land
+in which he first saw light.
+
+The stranger watched the fire; then he said musingly, "I have seen a land
+far from here.  In that land are men of two kinds who live side by side. 
+Well nigh a thousand years ago one conquered the other; they have lived
+together since.  Today the one people seeks to drive forth the other who
+conquered them.  Are these men rebels, too?"
+
+"Well," said Peter, pleased at being deferred to, "that all depends who
+they are, you know!"
+
+"They call the one nation Turks, and the other Armenians," said the
+stranger.
+
+"Oh, the Armenians aren't rebels," said Peter; "they are on our side!  The
+papers are all full of it," said Peter, pleased to show his knowledge.
+"Those bloody Turks!  What right had they to conquer the Armenians?  Who
+gave them their land?  I'd like to have a shot at them myself!"
+
+"WHY are Armenians not rebels?" asked the stranger, gently.
+
+"Oh, you do ask such curious questions," said Peter.  "If they don't like
+the Turks, why should they have 'em?"  If the French came now and conquered
+us, and we tried to drive them out first chance we had; you wouldn't call
+us rebels!  Why shouldn't they try to turn those bloody Turks out? 
+Besides," said Peter, bending over and talking in the manner of one who
+imparts secret and important information; "you see, if we don't help the
+Armenians the Russians would; and we," said Peter, looking exceedingly
+knowing, "we've got to prevent that:  they'd get the land; and it's on the
+road to India.  And we don't mean them to.  I suppose you don't know much
+about politics in Palestine?" said Peter, looking kindly and patronisingly
+at the stranger.
+
+"If these men," said the stranger, "would rather be free, or be under the
+British Government, than under the Chartered Company, why, when they resist
+the Chartered Company, are they more rebels than the Armenians when they
+resist the Turk?  Is the Chartered Company God, that every knee should bow
+before it, and before it every head be bent?  Would you, the white men of
+England, submit to its rule for one day?"
+
+"Ah," said Peter, "no, of course we shouldn't, but we are white men, and so
+are the Armenians--almost--"  Then he glanced at the stranger's dark face,
+and added quickly, "At least, it's not the colour that matters, you know. 
+I rather like a dark face, my mother's eyes are brown--but the Armenians,
+you know, they've got long hair like us."
+
+"Oh, it is the hair, then, that matters," said the stranger softly.
+
+"Oh, well," said Peter, "it's not altogether, of course.  But it's quite a
+different thing, the Armenians wanting to get rid of the Turks, and these
+bloody niggers wanting to get rid of the Chartered Company.  Besides, the
+Armenians are Christians, like us!"
+
+"Are YOU Christians?"  A strange storm broke across the stranger's
+features; he rose to his feet.
+
+"Why, of course, we are!" said Peter.  "We're all Christians, we English. 
+Perhaps you don't like Christians, though?  Some Jews don't, I know," said
+Peter, looking up soothingly at him.
+
+"I neither love nor hate any man for that which he is called," said the
+stranger; "the name boots nothing."
+
+The stranger sat down again beside the fire, and folded his hands.
+
+"Is the Chartered Company Christian also?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, oh yes," said Peter.
+
+"What is a Christian?" asked the stranger.
+
+"Well, now, you really do ask such curious questions.  A Christian is a man
+who believes in Heaven and Hell, and God and the Bible, and in Jesus
+Christ, that he'll save him from going to Hell, and if he believes he'll be
+saved, he will be saved."
+
+"But here, in this world, what is a Christian?"
+
+"Why," said Peter, "I'm a Christian--we're all Christians."
+
+The stranger looked into the fire; and Peter thought he would change the
+subject.  "It's curious how like my mother you are; I mean, your ways.  She
+was always saying to me, 'Don't be too anxious to make money, Peter.  Too
+much wealth is as bad as too much poverty.'  You're very like her."
+
+After a while Peter said, bending over a little towards the stranger, "If
+you don't want to make money, what did you come to this land for?  No one
+comes here for anything else.  Are you in with the Portuguese?"
+
+"I am not more with one people than with another," said the stranger.  "The
+Frenchman is not more to me than the Englishman, the Englishman than the
+Kaffir, the Kaffir than the Chinaman.  I have heard," said the stranger,
+"the black infant cry as it crept on its mother's body and sought for her
+breast as she lay dead in the roadway.  I have heard also the rich man's
+child wail in the palace.  I hear all cries."
+
+Peter looked intently at him.  "Why, who are you?" he said; then, bending
+nearer to the stranger and looking up, he added, "What is it that you are
+doing here?"
+
+"I belong," said the stranger, "to the strongest company on earth."
+
+"Oh," said Peter, sitting up, the look of wonder passing from his face. 
+"So that's it, is it?  Is it diamonds, or gold, or lands?"
+
+"We are the most vast of all companies on the earth," said the stranger;
+"and we are always growing.  We have among us men of every race and from
+every land; the Esquimo, the Chinaman, the Turk, and the Englishman, we
+have of them all.  We have men of every religion, Buddhists, Mahomedans,
+Confucians, Freethinkers, Atheists, Christians, Jews.  It matters to us
+nothing by what name the man is named, so he be one of us."
+
+And Peter said, "It must be hard for you all to understand one another, if
+you are of so many different kinds?"
+
+The stranger answered, "There is a sign by which we all know one another,
+and by which all the world may know us."  (By this shall all men know that
+ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.) 
+
+And Peter said, "What is that sign?"
+
+But the stranger was silent.
+
+"Oh, a kind of freemasonry!" said Peter, leaning on his elbow towards the
+stranger, and looking up at him from under his pointed cap.  "Are there any
+more of you here in this country?"
+
+"There are," said the stranger.  Then he pointed with his hand into the
+darkness.  "There in a cave were two women.  When you blew the cave up they
+were left unhurt behind a fallen rock.  When you took away all the grain,
+and burnt what you could not carry, there was one basketful that you knew
+nothing of.  The women stayed there, for one was eighty, and one near the
+time of her giving birth; and they dared not set out to follow the remnant
+of their tribe because you were in the plains below.  Every day the old
+woman doled grain from the basket; and at night they cooked it in their
+cave where you could not see their smoke; and every day the old woman gave
+the young one two handfuls and kept one for herself, saying, 'Because of
+the child within you.'  And when the child was born and the young woman
+strong, the old woman took a cloth and filled it with all the grain that
+was in the basket; and she put the grain on the young woman's head and tied
+the child on her back, and said, 'Go, keeping always along the bank of the
+river, till you come north to the land where our people are gone; and some
+day you can send and fetch me.'  And the young woman said, 'Have you corn
+in the basket to last till they come?'  And she said, 'I have enough.'  And
+she sat at the broken door of the cave and watched the young woman go down
+the hill and up the river bank till she was hidden by the bush; and she
+looked down at the plain below, and she saw the spot where the kraal had
+been and where she had planted mealies when she was a young girl--"
+
+"I met a woman with corn on her head and a child on her back!" said Peter
+under his breath.
+
+"--And tonight I saw her sit again at the door of the cave; and when the
+sun had set she grew cold; and she crept in and lay down by the basket. 
+Tonight, at half-past three, she will die.  I have known her since she was
+a little child and played about the huts, while her mother worked in the
+mealie fields.  She was one of our company."
+
+"Oh," said Peter.
+
+"Other members we have here," said the stranger.  "There was a prospector"-
+-he pointed north; "he was a man who drank and swore when it listed him;
+but he had many servants, and they knew where to find him in need.  When
+they were ill, he tended them with his own hands; when they were in
+trouble, they came to him for help.  When this war began, and all black
+men's hearts were bitter, because certain white men had lied to them, and
+their envoys had been killed when they would have asked England to put her
+hand out over them; at that time certain of the men who fought the white
+men came to the prospector's hut.  And the prospector fired at them from a
+hole he had cut in his door; but they fired back at him with an old
+elephant gun, and the bullet pierced his side and he fell on the floor:--
+because the innocent man suffers oftentimes for the guilty, and the
+merciful man falls while the oppressor flourishes.  Then his black servant
+who was with him took him quickly in his arms, and carried him out at the
+back of the hut, and down into the river bed where the water flowed and no
+man could trace his footsteps, and hid him in a hole in the river wall. 
+And when the men broke into the hut they could find no white man, and no
+traces of his feet.  But at evening, when the black servant returned to the
+hut to get food and medicine for his master, the men who were fighting
+caught him, and they said, 'Oh, you betrayer of your people, white man's
+dog, who are on the side of those who take our lands and our wives and our
+daughters before our eyes; tell us where you have hidden him?'  And when he
+would not answer them, they killed him before the door of the hut.  And
+when the night came, the white man crept up on his hands and knees, and
+came to his hut to look for food.  All the other men were gone, but his
+servant lay dead before the door; and the white man knew how it must have
+happened.  He could not creep further, and he lay down before the door, and
+that night the white man and the black lay there dead together, side by
+side.  Both those men were of my friends."
+
+"It was damned plucky of the nigger," said Peter; "but I've heard of their
+doing that sort of thing before.  Even of a girl who wouldn't tell where
+her mistress was, and getting killed.  But," he added doubtfully, "all your
+company seem to be niggers or to get killed?"
+
+"They are of all races," said the stranger.  "In a city in the old Colony
+is one of us, small of stature and small of voice.  It came to pass on a
+certain Sunday morning, when the men and women were gathered before him,
+that he mounted his pulpit:  and he said when the time for the sermon came,
+'In place that I should speak to you, I will read you a history.'  And he
+opened an old book more than two thousand years old:  and he read:  'Now it
+came to pass that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in
+Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
+
+"'And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have
+it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house:  and I will
+give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seemeth good to thee,
+I will give thee the worth of it in money.
+
+"'And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the
+inheritance of my father unto thee.
+
+"'And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word
+which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken unto him; for he had said, I will
+not give thee the inheritance of my fathers.'
+
+"The man read the whole story until it was ended.  Then he closed the book,
+and he said, 'My friends, Naboth has a vineyard in this land; and in it
+there is much gold; and Ahab has desired to have it that the wealth may be
+his.'
+
+"And he put the old book aside, and he took up another which was written
+yesterday.  And the men and women whispered one to another, even in the
+church, 'Is not that the Blue Book Report of the Select Committee of the
+Cape Parliament on the Jameson raid?'
+
+"And the man said, 'Friends, the first story I have read you is one of the
+oldest stories of the world:  the story I am about to read you is one of
+the newest.  Truth is not more truth because it is three thousand years
+old, nor is it less truth because it is of yesterday.  All books which
+throw light on truth are God's books, therefore I shall read to you from
+the pages before me.  Shall the story of Ahab king of Samaria profit us
+when we know not the story of the Ahabs of our day; and the Naboths of our
+land be stoned while we sit at east?'  And he read to them portions of that
+book.  And certain rich men and women rose up and went out even while he
+spoke, and his wife also went out.
+
+"And when the service was ended and the man returned to his home, his wife
+came to him weeping; and she said, 'Did you see how some of the most
+wealthy and important people got up and went out this morning?  Why did you
+preach such a sermon, when we were just going to have the new wing added to
+our house, and you thought they were going to raise your salary?  You have
+not a single Boer in your congregation!  Why need you say the Chartered
+Company raid on Johannesburg was wrong?'
+
+"He said, 'My wife, if I believe that certain men whom we have raised on
+high, and to whom we have given power, have done a cowardly wrong, shall I
+not say it?'
+
+"And she said, 'Yes, and only a little while ago, when Rhodes was licking
+the dust off the Boers' feet that he might keep them from suspecting while
+he got ready this affair, then you attacked both Rhodes and the Bond (The
+Afrikander Bond, the organised Dutch political party, through whom Mr.
+Rhodes worked, and by whom he was backed.) for trying to pass a Bill for
+flogging the niggers, and we lost fifty pounds we might have got for the
+church?'  And he said, 'My wife, cannot God be worshipped as well under the
+dome of the heaven He made as in a golden palace?  Shall a man keep
+silence, when he sees oppression, to earn money for God?  If I have
+defended the black man when I believed him to be wronged, shall I not also
+defend the white man, my flesh-brother?  Shall we speak when one man is
+wronged and not when it is another?'
+
+"And she said, 'Yes, but you have your family and yourself to think of! 
+Why are you always in opposition to the people who could do something for
+us?  You are only loved by the poor.  If it is necessary for you to attack
+some one, why don't you attack the Jews for killing Christ, or Herod, or
+Pontius Pilate; why don't you leave alone the men who are in power today,
+and who with their money can crush you!'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, those Jews, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate are
+long dead.  If I should preach of them now, would it help them?  Would it
+save one living thing from their clutches?  The past is dead, it lives only
+for us to learn from.  The present, the present only, is ours to work in,
+and the future ours to create.  Is all the gold of Johannesburg or are all
+the diamonds in Kimberley worth, that one Christian man should fall by the
+hand of his fellows--aye, or one heathen brother?'
+
+"And she answered, 'Oh, that is all very well.  If you were a really
+eloquent preacher, and could draw hundreds of men about you, and in time
+form a great party with you at its head, I shouldn't mind what you said. 
+But you, with your little figure and your little voice, who will ever
+follow you?  You will be left all alone; that is all the good that will
+ever come to you through it.'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped that
+they who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would lift up
+their voices and speak--and there is only a deadly silence?  Here and there
+one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the hand; one
+says, 'My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud'; and another
+says, 'I have a promise of land'; and another, 'I am socially intimate with
+these men, and should lose my social standing if I let my voice be heard.' 
+Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which we had hoped would be free and
+strong among the peoples of earth, is rotten and honeycombed with the
+tyranny of gold!  We who had hoped to stand first in the Anglo-Saxon
+sisterhood for justice and freedom, are not even fit to stand last.  Do I
+not know only too bitterly how weak is my voice; and that that which I can
+do is as nothing:  but shall I remain silent?  Shall the glow-worm refuse
+to give its light, because it is not a star set up on high; shall the
+broken stick refuse to burn and warm one frozen man's hands, because it is
+not a beacon-light flaming across the earth?  Ever a voice is behind my
+shoulder, that whispers to me--'Why break your head against a stone wall? 
+Leave this work to the greater and larger men of your people; they who will
+do it better than you can do it!  Why break your heart when life could be
+so fair to you?'  But, oh my wife, the strong men are silent! and shall I
+not speak, though I know my power is as nothing?'
+
+"He laid his head upon his hands.
+
+"And she said, 'I cannot understand you.  When I come home and tell you
+that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you always
+answer me, 'Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we cannot help
+them?'  A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to visit people
+and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would not go.  Yet when
+the richest and strongest men in the land, who could crush you with their
+money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger and thumb, take a certain
+course, you stand and oppose them.'
+
+"And he said, 'My wife, with the sins of the private man, what have I to
+do, if so be I have not led him into them?  Am I guilty?  I have enough to
+do looking after my own sins.  The sin that a man sins against himself is
+his alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is his and
+theirs, not mine:  but the sins that a man sins, in that he is taken up by
+the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they have armed
+with their sword, whose power to strike is their power--his sins are
+theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he dares say, 'I
+have no responsibility for this man's action.'  We armed him, we raised
+him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is more ours than
+his.  If this man's end in South Africa should be accomplished, and the day
+should come when, from the Zambezi to the sea, white man should fly at
+white man's throat, and every man's heart burn with bitterness against his
+fellow, and the land be bathed with blood as rain--shall I then dare to
+pray, who have now feared to speak?  Do not think I wish for punishment
+upon these men.  Let them take the millions they have wrung out of this
+land, and go to the lands of their birth, and live in wealth, luxury, and
+joy; but let them leave this land they have tortured and ruined.  Let them
+keep the money they have made here; we may be the poorer for it; but they
+cannot then crush our freedom with it.  Shall I ask my God Sunday by Sunday
+to brood across the land, and bind all its children's hearts in a close-
+knit fellowship;--yet, when I see its people betrayed, and their jawbone
+broken by a stroke from the hand of gold; when I see freedom passing from
+us, and the whole land being grasped by the golden claw, so that the
+generation after us shall be born without freedom, to labour for the men
+who have grasped all, shall I hold my peace?  The Boer and the Englishman
+who have been in this land, have not always loved mercy, nor have they
+always sought after justice; but the little finger of the speculator and
+monopolist who are devouring this land will be thicker on the backs of the
+children of this land, black and white, than the loins of the Dutchmen and
+Englishmen who have been.'
+
+"And she said, 'I have heard it said that it was our duty to sacrifice
+ourselves for the men and women living in the world at the same time as
+ourselves; but I never before heard that we had to sacrifice ourselves for
+people that are not born.  What are they to you?  You will be dust, and
+lying in your grave, before that time comes.  If you believe in God,' she
+said, 'why cannot you leave it to Him to bring good out of all this evil? 
+Does He need YOU to be made a martyr of? or will the world be lost without
+YOU?'
+
+"He said, 'Wife, if my right hand be in a fire, shall I not pull it out? 
+Shall I say, 'God may bring good out of this evil,' and let it burn?  That
+Unknown that lies beyond us we know of no otherwise than through its
+manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sons of men
+than through man.  And shall I feel no bond binding me to the men to come,
+and desire no good or beauty for them--I, who am what I am, and enjoy what
+I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have lived and
+laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no costs?  Would
+the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be accomplished, if
+men counted the cost and created for their own lives alone?  And no man
+liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.  You cannot tell me not to
+love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice within me, I know not
+what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for your own children.'  When in
+the circle of my own small life all is dark, and I despair, hope springs up
+in me when I remember that something nobler and fairer may spring up in the
+spot where I now stand.'
+
+"And she said, 'You want to put everyone against us!  The other women will
+not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor people. 
+Money holds by money.  If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know you would
+be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to niggers.  If
+they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to help white men.  You
+will never be on the side of the people who can do anything for us!  You
+know the offer we had from--'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the Turk
+to me; am I responsible for their action?  It is my own nation, mine, which
+I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me.  I would that
+wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples of earth
+might gather under it, saying, 'Under this banner is freedom and justice
+which knows no race or colour.'  I wish that on our banner were blazoned in
+large letters "Justice and Mercy", and that in every new land which our
+feet touch, every son among us might see ever blazoned above his head that
+banner, and below it the great order:--"By this sign, Conquer!"--and that
+the pirate flag which some men now wave in its place, may be torn down and
+furled for ever!  Shall I condone the action of some, simply because they
+happen to be of my own race, when in Bushman or Hottentot I would condemn
+it?  Shall men belonging to one of the mightiest races of earth, creep
+softly on their bellies, to attack an unwarned neighbour; when even the
+Kaffir has again and again given notice of war, saying, 'Be ready, on such
+and such a day I come to fight you?'  Is England's power so broken, and our
+race so enfeebled, that we dare no longer to proclaim war; but must creep
+silently upon our bellies in the dark to stab, like a subject people to
+whom no other course is open?  These men are English; but not English-MEN. 
+When the men of our race fight, they go to war with a blazoned flag and the
+loud trumpet before them.  It is because I am an Englishman that these
+things crush me.  Better that ten thousand of us should lie dead and
+defeated on one battlefield, fighting for some great cause, and my own sons
+among them, than that those twelve poor boys should have fallen at
+Doornkop, fighting to fill up the pockets of those already oe'r-heavy with
+gold.'
+
+"And she said, 'YOU, what does it matter what you feel or think; YOU will
+never be able to do anything!'
+
+"And he said, 'Oh my wife, stand by me; do not crush me.  For me in this
+matter there is no path but one on which light shines.'
+
+"And she said, 'You are very unkind; you don't care what the people say
+about us!' and she wept bitterly, and went out of the room.  But as soon as
+the door was shut, she dried her tears; and she said to herself, 'Now he
+will never dare to preach such a sermon again.  He dares never oppose me
+when once I have set down my foot.'
+
+"And the man spoke to no one, and went out alone in the veld.  All the
+afternoon he walked up and down among the sand and low bushes; and I walked
+there beside him.
+
+"And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel.  Many were absent,
+but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there.  And the
+light shone on the empty benches.  And when the time came he opened the old
+book of the Jews; and he turned the leaves and read:--'If thou forbear to
+deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be
+slain; if thou sayest, 'Behold we knew it not!'  Doth not he that pondereth
+the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it?'
+
+"And he said, 'This morning we considered the evils this land is suffering
+under at the hands of men whose aim is the attainment of wealth and power.
+Tonight we shall look at our own share in the matter.  I think we shall
+realise that with us, and not with the men we have lifted up on high, lies
+the condemnation.'  Then his wife rose and went out, and others followed
+her; and the little man's voice rolled among the empty benches; but he
+spoke on.
+
+"And when the service was over he went out.  No elder came to the porch to
+greet him; but as he stood there one, he saw not whom, slipped a leaflet
+into his hand.  He held it up, and read in the lamplight what was written
+on it in pencil.  He crushed it up in his hand, as a man crushes that which
+has run a poisonous sting into him; then he dropped it on the earth as a
+man drops that he would forget.  A fine drizzly rain was falling, and he
+walked up the street with his arms folded behind him, and his head bent. 
+The people walked up the other side; and it seemed to him he was alone. 
+But I walked behind him."
+
+"And then," asked Peter, seeing that the stranger was silent, "what
+happened to him after that?"
+
+"That was only last Sunday," said the stranger.
+
+There was silence again for some seconds.
+
+Then Peter said, "Well, anyhow, at least he didn't die!"
+
+The stranger crossed his hands upon his knees.  "Peter Simon Halket," he
+said, "it is easier for a man to die than to stand alone.  He who can stand
+alone can, also, when the need be, die."
+
+Peter looked up wistfully into the stranger's face.  "I should not like to
+die myself," he said, "not yet.  I shall not be twenty-one till next
+birthday.  I should like to see life first."
+
+The stranger made no answer.
+
+Presently Peter said, "Are all the men of your company poor men?"
+
+The stranger waited a while before he answered; then he said,--"There have
+been rich men who have desired to join us.  There was a young man once; and
+when he heard the conditions, he went away sorrowful, for he had great
+possessions."
+
+There was silence again for a while.
+
+"Is it long since your company was started?" asked Peter.
+
+"There is no man living who can conceive of its age," said the stranger. 
+"Even here on this earth it began, when these hills were young, and these
+lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man still raised
+himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his thighs were weak.
+In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when he hungered, fed on the
+flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet.  Yet even in those days it came
+to pass that there was one whose head was higher than her fellows and her
+thought keener, and, as she picked the flesh from a human skull, she
+pondered.  And so it came to pass the next night, when men were gathered
+around the fire ready to eat, that she stole away, and when they went to
+the tree where the victim was bound, they found him gone.  And they cried
+one to another, 'She, only she, has done this, who has always said, 'I like
+not the taste of man-flesh; men are too like me; I cannot eat them.'  'She
+is mad,' they cried; 'let us kill her!'  So, in those dim, misty times that
+men reck not of now, that they hardly believe in, that woman died.  But in
+the heads of certain men and women a new thought had taken root; they said,
+'We also will not eat of her.  There is something evil in the taste of
+human flesh.'  And ever after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-
+flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not;
+then, as the years passed, none ate.
+
+"Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily open
+their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth.  And, if you would
+learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the dicynodont
+bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you find now
+nowhere on earth's surface, save buried in stone, called with love to his
+mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew in the sunshine
+calling joyfully to one another--even in those days when man was not, the
+fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth.  And still as the sun
+rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow and grow."
+
+The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright:  around him, and behind
+him, the darkness stood out.
+
+"All earth is ours.  And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down
+on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark
+with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the
+East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe; and
+nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows.  And they shall beat their
+swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks:  nation shall
+not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 
+And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the
+brier shall come up the myrtle tree:  and man shall nowhere crush man on
+all the holy earth.  Tomorrow's sun shall rise," said the stranger, "and it
+shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and the rocks shall glint in it.
+Not more certain is that rising than the coming of that day.  And I say to
+you that even here, in the land where now we stand, where today the cries
+of the wounded and the curses of revenge ring in the air; even here, in
+this land where man creeps on his belly to wound his fellow in the dark,
+and where an acre of gold is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining
+dirt is worth half a people, and the vultures are heavy with man's flesh--
+even here that day shall come.  I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here
+on the spot where now we stand shall be raised a temple.  Man shall not
+gather in it to worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it
+shoulder to shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the
+inhabitant of the land; and the place shall be holy; for men shall say,
+'Are we not brethren and the sons of one Father?'"
+
+Peter Halket looked upward silently.  And the stranger said:  "Certain men
+slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark.  And, as they slept,
+at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred.  Far off to the eastward,
+through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint line, thin
+as a hair's width, that edged the hill tops.  And he whispered in the
+darkness to his fellows:  'The dawn is coming.'  But they, with fast-closed
+eyelids murmured, 'He lies, there is no dawn.'
+
+"Nevertheless, day broke."
+
+The stranger was silent.  The fire burnt up in red tongues of flame that
+neither flickered nor flared in the still night air.  Peter Halket crept
+near to the stranger.
+
+"When will that time be?" he whispered; "in a thousand years' time?"
+
+And the stranger answered, "A thousand years are but as our yesterday's
+journey, or as our watch tonight, which draws already to its close.  See,
+piled, these rocks on which we now stand?  The ages have been young and
+they have grown old since they have lain here.  Half that time shall not
+pass before that time comes; I have seen its dawning already in the hearts
+of men."
+
+Peter moved nearer, so that he almost knelt at the stranger's feet:  his
+gun lay on the ground at the other side of the fire.
+
+"I would like to be one of your men," he said.  "I am tired of belonging to
+the Chartered Company."
+
+The stranger looked down gently.  "Peter Simon Halket," he said, "can you
+bear the weight?"
+
+And Peter said, "Give me work, that I may try."
+
+There was silence for a time; then the stranger said, "Peter Simon Halket,
+take a message to England"--Peter Halket started--"Go to that great people
+and cry aloud to it:  'Where is the sword was given into your hand, that
+with it you might enforce justice and deal out mercy?  How came you to give
+it up into the hands of men whose search is gold, whose thirst is wealth,
+to whom men's souls and bodies are counters in a game?  How came you to
+give up the folk that were given into your hands, into the hand of the
+speculator and the gamester; as though they were dumb beasts who might be
+bought or sold?
+
+"'Take back your sword, Great People--but wipe it first, lest some of the
+gold and blood stick to your hand.
+
+"'What is this, I see!--the sword of the Great People, transformed to
+burrow earth for gold, as the snouts of swine for earth nuts!  Have you no
+other use for it, Great Folk?
+
+"'Take back your sword; and, when you have thoroughly cleansed it and wiped
+it of the blood and mire, then raise it to set free the oppressed of other
+climes.
+
+"'Great Prince's Daughter, take heed!  You put your sword into the hands of
+recreant knights; they will dull its edge and mar its brightness, and, when
+your hour of need comes and you would put it into other hands, you will
+find its edge chipped and its point broken.  Take heed!  Take heed!'
+
+"Cry to the wise men of England:  'You, who in peace and calm in shaded
+chambers ponder on all things in heaven and earth, and take all knowledge
+for your province, have you no time to think of this?  To whom has England
+given her power?  How do the men wield it who have filched it from her? 
+Say not, What have we to do with folk across the waters; have we not matter
+enough for thought in our own land?  Where the brain of a nation has no
+time to go, there should its hands never be sent to labour:  where the
+power of a people goes, there must its intellect and knowledge go, to guide
+it.  Oh, you who sit at ease, studying past and future--and forget the
+present--you have no right to sit at ease knowing nothing of the working of
+the powers you have armed and sent to work on men afar.  Where is your
+nation's sword--you men of thought?'
+
+"Cry to the women of England:  'You, who repose in sumptuous houses, with
+children on your knees; think not it is only the rustling of the soft
+draped curtains, or the whistling of the wind, you hear.  Listen!  May it
+not be the far off cry of those your sword governs, creeping towards you
+across wide oceans till it pierces even into your inmost sanctuary? 
+Listen!
+
+"For the womanhood of a dominant people has not accomplished all its labour
+when it has borne its children and fed them at its breast:  there cries to
+it also from over seas and across continents the voice of the child-
+peoples--'Mother-heart, stand for us!'  It would be better for you that
+your wombs should be barren and that your race should die out; than that
+you should listen, and give no answer.'"
+
+The stranger lifted his hands upwards as he spoke, and Peter saw there were
+the marks of old wounds in both.
+
+"Cry aloud to the working men and women of England:  'You, who for ages
+cried out because the heel of your masters was heavy on you; and who have
+said, 'We curse the kings that sit at ease, and care not who oppresses the
+folk, so their coffers be full and their bellies satisfied, and they be not
+troubled with the trouble of rule'; you, who have taken the king's rule
+from him and sit enthroned within his seat; is his sin not yours today?  If
+men should add but one hour to your day's labour, or make but one fraction
+dearer the bread you eat, would you not rise up as one man?  Yet, what is
+dealt out to men beyond seas whom you rule wounds you not.  Nay, have you
+not sometimes said, as kings of old:  'It matters not who holds out our
+sword, marauder or speculator, so he calls it ours, we must cloak up the
+evil it has done!'  Think you, no other curses rise to heaven but yours? 
+Where is your sword?  Into whose hand has it fallen?  Take it quickly and
+cleanse it!'"
+
+Peter Halket crouched, looking upwards; then he cried:  "Master, I cannot
+give that message, I am a poor unlearn'd man.  And if I should go to
+England and cry aloud, they would say, 'Who is this, who comes preaching to
+a great people?  Is not his mother with us, and a washerwoman; and was not
+his father a day labourer at two shillings a day?' and they would laugh me
+to scorn.  And, in truth, the message is so long I could not well remember
+it; give me other work to do."
+
+And the stranger said, "Take a message to the men and women of this land. 
+Go, from the Zambezi to the sea, and cry to its white men and women, and
+say:  'I saw a wide field, and in it were two fair beasts.  Wide was the
+field about them and rich was the earth with sweet scented herbs, and so
+abundant was the pasturage that hardly might they consume all that grew
+about them:  and the two were like one to another, for they were the sons
+of one mother.  And as I looked, I saw, far off to the northward, a speck
+within the sky, so small it was, and so high it was, that the eye scarce
+might mark it.  Then it came nearer and hovered over the spot where the two
+beasts fed:--and its neck was bare, and its beak was hooked, and its talons
+were long, and its wings strong.  And it hovered over the field where the
+two beasts were; and I saw it settle down upon a great white stone; and it
+waited.  And I saw more specks to the northward, and more and more came
+onward to join him who sat upon the stone.  And some hovered over the
+beasts, and some sharpened their beaks on the stones; and some walked in
+and out between the beasts' legs.  And I saw that they were waiting for
+something.
+
+"'Then he who first came flew from one of the beasts to the other, and sat
+upon their necks, and put his beak within their ears.  And he flew from one
+to the other and flapped his wings in their faces till the beasts were
+blinded, and each believed it was his fellow who attacked him.  And they
+fell to, and fought; they gored one another's sides till the field was red
+with blood and the ground shook beneath them.  The birds sat by and
+watched; and when the blood flowed they walked round and round.  And when
+the strength of the two beasts was exhausted they fell to earth.  Then the
+birds settled down upon them, and feasted; till their maws were full, and
+their long bare necks were wet; and they stood with their beaks deep in the
+entrails of the two dead beasts; and looked out with their keen bright eyes
+from above them.  And he who was king of all plucked out the eyes, and fed
+on the hearts of the dead beasts.  And when his maw was full, so that he
+could eat no more, he sat on his stone hard by and flapped his great
+wings.'
+
+"Peter Simon Halket, cry to the white men and women of South Africa:  'You
+have a goodly land; you and your children's children shall scarce fill it;
+though you should stretch out your arms to welcome each stranger who comes
+to live and labour with you.  You are the twin branches of one tree; you
+are the sons of one mother.  Is this goodly land not wide enough for you,
+that you should rend each other's flesh at the bidding of those who will
+wet their beaks within both your vitals?--Look up, see, they circle in the
+air above you!'"
+
+Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the black
+sky of Mashonaland over his head.
+
+The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire.  Peter Halket
+half clasped his arms about his knees.
+
+"My master," he cried, "how can I take this message?  The Dutchmen of South
+Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman.  And the
+Englishmen will say:  'Who is this fellow who comes preaching peace, peace,
+peace?  Has he not been a year in the country and he has not a share in a
+single company?  Can anything he says be worth hearing?  If he were a man
+of any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at least.'  And they
+will not listen to me.  Give me another labour!"
+
+And the stranger said:  "Take a message to one man.  Find him, whether he
+sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him:  'Where are the
+souls of the men that you have bought?'
+
+"And if he shall answer you and say:  'I bought no men's souls!  The souls
+that I bought were the souls of dogs?'  Then ask him this question, say to
+him, 'Where are the--'
+
+"And if he cry out, 'You lie, you lie!  I know what you are going to say. 
+What do I know of envoys?  Was I ever afraid of the British Government?  It
+is all a lie!'  Then question him no further.  But say:  'There was a
+rushlight once.  It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went
+out--and no man heeded it:  it was only a rushlight.
+
+"'And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse, that
+it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might see its
+steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
+
+"'And that light flickered and flared, as it listed.  It went this way and
+it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared
+altogether, and then it burnt up again.  And men, far out at sea, kept
+their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be:  saying, 'We are
+safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.'  And on dark
+nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the midnight
+they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
+
+"'What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight; in
+that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted it? 
+Shall it not be put out?'
+
+"And if he shall answer, saying, 'What are men to me? they are fools, all
+fools!  Let them die!'--tell him again this story:  'There was a streamlet
+once:  it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain's crown; and the
+snow made a cove over it.  It ran on pure and blue and clear as the sky
+above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle.  Then it came to a spot
+where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by which it might journey;
+one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and stones, and down long sunlit
+slopes to the sea; and the other, down a chasm.  And the stream hesitated: 
+it twirled and purled, and went this way and went that.  It MIGHT have
+been, that it would have forced its way past rocks and ridges and along
+mountain slopes, and made a path for itself where no path had been; the
+banks would have grown green, and the mountain daisy would have grown
+beside it; and all night the stars would have looked at their faces in it;
+and down the long sunny slopes the sun would have played on it by day; and
+the wood dove would have built her nest in the trees beside it; and
+singing, singing, always singing, it would have made its way at last to the
+great sea, whose far-off call all waters hear.
+
+"'But it hesitated.--It might have been, that, had but some hand been there
+to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way past
+rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea--it might have been! 
+But no hand was there.  The streamlet gathered itself together, and (it
+might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the sea!)--it
+made one leap into the abyss.
+
+"'The rocks closed over it.  Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark
+pool it lay.  The green lichen hung from the rocks.  No sunlight came
+there, and the stars could not look down at night.  The pool lay still and
+silent.  Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered its
+strength together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed its way
+silently on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains closed it
+around.  And the streamlet laughed to itself, 'Ha, ha!  I shall make a
+great lake here; a sea!'  And it oozed, and it oozed, and it filled half
+the plain.  But no lake came--only a great marsh--because there was no way
+outwards, and the water rotted.  The grass died out along its edges; and
+the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the water; and the wood dove
+who had built her nest there flew up to the mountains, because her young
+ones died.  And the toads sat on the stones and dropped their spittle in
+the water; and the reeds were yellow that grew along the edge.  And at
+night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the water, so that the stars could
+not see through it; and by day a fine white mist hung over it, and the
+sunbeams could not play on it.  And no man knew that once the marsh had
+leapt forth clear and blue from under a hood of snow on the mountain's top: 
+aye, and that the turning of one stone might have caused that it had run on
+and on, and mingled its song with the sea's song for ever.'"
+
+The stranger was silent for a while.
+
+Then he said, "Should he answer you and say, 'What do I care!  What are
+coves and mountain tops to me?  Gold is real, and the power to crush men
+within my hand'; tell him no further.
+
+"But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to him,
+clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it:  'The morning may
+break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the
+evening's sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning's
+dullness, and the darkness of the noon.  So that all men shall say, 'Ah,
+for the beauty of that day!'--For the stream that has once descended there
+is no path upwards.--It is never too late for the soul of a man.'
+
+"And if he should laugh, and say:  'You fool, a man may remake himself
+entirely before twenty; he may reshape himself before thirty; but after
+forty he is fixed.  Shall I, who for forty-three years have sought money
+and power, seek for anything else now?  You want me to be Jesus Christ, I
+suppose!  How can I be myself and another man?'  Then answer him:  'Deep in
+the heart of every son of man lies an angel; but some have their wings
+folded.  Wake yours!  He is larger and stronger than another man's; mount
+up with him!'
+
+"But if he curses you, and says, 'I have eight millions of money, and I
+care neither for God nor man!'--then make no answer, but stoop and write
+before him."  The stranger bent down and wrote with his finger in the white
+ashes of the fire.  Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two words the
+stranger had written.
+
+The stranger said:  "Say to him:  'Though you should seek to make that name
+immortal in this land; and should write it in gold dust, and set it with
+diamonds, and cement it with human blood, shed from the Zambezi to the sea,
+yet--."  The stranger passed his foot over the words; Peter Halket looked
+down, and he saw only a bed of smooth white ashes where the name had been.
+
+The stranger said:  "And if he should curse yet further, and say, 'There is
+not one man nor woman in South Africa I cannot buy with my money!  When I
+have the Transvaal, I shall buy God Almighty Himself, if I care to!'
+
+"Then say to him this one thing only, 'Thy money perish with thee!' and
+leave him."
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment.  Then the stranger stretched forth
+his hand.  'Yet in that leaving him, remember;--It is not the act, but the
+will, which marks the soul of the man.  He who has crushed a nation sins no
+more than he who rejoices in the death throe of the meanest creature.  The
+stagnant pool is not less poisonous drop for drop than the mighty swamp,
+though its reach be smaller.  He who has desired to be and accomplish what
+this man has been and accomplished, is as this man; though he have lacked
+the power to perform.  Nay, remember this one thing more:--Certain sons of
+God are born on earth, named by men Children of Genius.  In early youth
+each stands at the parting of the way and chooses; he bears his gift for
+others or for himself.  But forget this never, whatever his choice may be;
+that there is laid on him a burden that is laid not on others--all space is
+open to him, and his choice is infinite--and if he falls beneath it, let
+men weep rather than curse, for he was born a Son of God."
+
+There was silence again.  Then Peter Halket clasped his arms about the
+stranger's feet.  "My master," he cried, "I dare not take that message.  It
+is not that men may say, 'Here is Trooper Peter Halket, whom we all know, a
+man who kept women and shot niggers, turned prophet.'  But it is, that it
+is true.  Have I not wished--" and Peter Halket would have poured out all
+his soul; but the stranger prevented him.
+
+"Peter Simon Halket," he said, "is it the trumpet which gives forth the
+call to battle, whether it be battered tin or gilded silver, which boots? 
+Is it not the call?  What and if I should send my message by a woman or a
+child:  shall truth be less truth because the bearer is despised?  Is it
+the mouth that speaks or the word that is spoken which is eternal? 
+Nevertheless, if you will have it so, go, and say, 'I, Peter Halket, sinner
+among you all, who have desired women and gold, who have loved myself and
+hated my fellow, I--'"  The stranger looked down at him, and placed his
+hand gently on his head.  "Peter Simon Halket," he said, "a harder task I
+give you than any which has been laid upon you.  In that small spot where
+alone on earth your will rules, bring there into being the kingdom today. 
+Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you.  Walk ever forward,
+looking not to the right hand or the left.  Heed not what men shall say of
+you.  Succour the oppressed; deliver the captive.  If thine enemy hunger,
+feed him; if he is athirst give him drink."
+
+A curious warmth and gladness stole over Peter Halket as he knelt; it was
+as, when a little child, his mother folded him to her:  he saw nothing more
+about him but a soft bright light.  Yet in it he heard a voice cry,
+"Because thou hast loved mercy--and hated oppression--"
+
+When Trooper Peter Halket raised himself, he saw the figure of the stranger
+passing from him.  He cried, "My Master, let me go with you."  But the
+figure did not turn.  And, as it passed into the darkness, it seemed to
+Peter Halket that the form grew larger and larger:  and as it descended the
+further side of the kopje it seemed that for one instant he still saw the
+head with a pale, white light upon it:  then it vanished.
+
+And Trooper Peter Halket sat alone upon the kopje.
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+It was a hot day.  The sun poured down its rays over the scattered trees,
+and stunted bush, and long grass, and over the dried up river beds.  Far in
+the blue, so high the eye could scarcely mark them, vultures were flying
+southward, where forty miles off kraals had been destroyed and two hundred
+black carcasses were lying in the sun.
+
+Under a group of tall straggling trees among the grass and low scrub, on
+the banks of an almost dried up river bed, a small camp had been pitched.
+
+The party had lost their mules, and pending their recovery had already been
+there seven days.  The three cart loads of provisions they were conveying
+to the large camp were drawn up under the trees and had a sail thrown
+across them to form a shelter for some of the men; while on the other side
+of the cleared and open space that formed the camp, a smaller sail was
+thrown across two poles forming a rough tent; and away to the left, a
+little cut off from the rest of the camp by some low bushes, was the bell-
+shaped tent of the captain, under a tall tree.  Before the bell-shaped tent
+stood a short stunted tree; its thick white stem gnarled and knotted; while
+two stunted misshapen branches, like arms, stretched out on either side.
+
+Before this tree, up and down, with his gun upon his arm, his head bent and
+his eyes fixed on the ground, while the hot sun blazed on his shoulders,
+walked a man.
+
+Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts, three
+cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men, their stock
+of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth, which was watched
+by a native boy, contained the more appetising meal of the Captain.
+
+Most of the men were out of camp; the coloured boys having gone to fetch
+the mules, which had been discovered in the hills a few miles off, and were
+expected to arrive in the evening; and the white men had gone out to see
+what game they could bring down with their guns to flavour the mealie pots,
+or to reconnoitre the country; though all native habitations had been
+destroyed within a radius of thirty miles, and the land was as bare of
+black men as a child's hand of hair; and even the beasts seemed to have
+vanished.
+
+In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay three
+white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp.  They
+were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their
+stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation, or
+taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for tobacco
+was precious in the camp.
+
+Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality was
+uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British Isles,
+and who had travelled round the world.  He was currently reported to have
+done three years' labour for attempted rape in Australia, but nothing
+certain was known regarding his antecedents.  He had been up on guard half
+the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with his arm
+thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in his jaw as he
+slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when he turned it round
+the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken yellow stumps set in
+very red gums.
+
+The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him.  Two, who were slowly
+smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose set about
+the shoulders, which is common among Colonial Europeans of the third
+generation, whether Dutch or English, and had the placidity and general
+good temper of expression which commonly marks the Colonial European who
+grows up beyond the range of the cities.  The third was smaller and more
+wiry and of an unusually nervous type, with aquiline nose, and sallow
+hatchet face, with a somewhat discontented expression.  He was holding
+forth, while his companions smoked and listened.
+
+"Now what I say is this," he brought his hand down on the red sand; "here
+we are with about one half teaspoon of Dop given us at night, while he has
+ten empty champagne bottles lying behind his tent.  And we have to live on
+the mealies we're convoying for the horses, while he has pati and beef, and
+lives like a lord!  It's all very well for the regulars; they know what
+they're in for, and they've got gentlemen over them anyhow, and one can
+stomach anything if you know what kind of a fellow you've got over you. 
+English officers are gentlemen, anyhow; or if one was under Selous now--"
+
+"Oh, Selous's a MAN!" broke out the other two, taking their pipes from
+their mouths.
+
+"Yes, well, that's what I say.  But these fellows, who couldn't do as
+farmers, and couldn't do as shopkeepers, and God knows what else; and their
+friends in England didn't want to have them; they're sent out here to boss
+it over us!  It's a damned shame!  Why, I want to know, amn't I as good as
+any of these fellows, who come swelling it about here?  Friends got money,
+I suppose!"  He cast his sharp glance over towards the bell tent.  "If they
+gave us real English officers now--"
+
+"Ah!" said the biggest of his companions, who, in spite of his huge form,
+had something of the simplicity and good nature of a child in his handsome
+face; "it's because you're not a big enough swell, you know!  He'll be a
+colonel, or a general, before we've done with him.  I call them all
+generals or colonels up here; it's safest, you know; if they're not that
+today they will be tomorrow!"
+
+This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull
+world, anything was good enough to laugh at:  the third man smiled, but the
+first speaker remained serious.
+
+"I only know this," he said, "I'd teach these fellows a lesson, if any one
+belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered here,
+while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal.  If my mother or sister had
+been killed here, I'd have taken a pistol and blown out the brains of the
+great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him.  Fine administration of a
+country, this, to invite people to come in and live here, and then take
+every fighting man out of the country on a gold hunting marauding
+expedition to the Transvaal, and leave us to face the bitter end.  I look
+upon every man and woman who was killed here as murdered by the Chartered
+Company."
+
+"Well, Jameson only did what he was told.  He had to obey orders, like the
+rest of us.  He didn't make the plan, and he's got the punishment."
+
+"What business had he to listen?  What's all this fine administration they
+talk of?  It's six years since I came to this country, and I've worked like
+a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who've worked hard
+at real, honest farming, got for it?  Everything in the land is given away
+for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here.  If
+England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?--
+everything of value in the land given over to private concessionaires--
+they'll line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot!  It'll be the
+jackals eating all the flesh off the horse's bones, and calling the lion in
+to lick the bones."
+
+"Oh, you wait a bit and you'll be squared," said the handsome man.  "I've
+been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven't got
+anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
+shut!  If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"--he nodded
+towards the bell tent--"never got drunk or didn't know how to swear, I'd
+sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it.  I could
+stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it would only come my
+way."
+
+The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not
+spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.
+
+"I tell you what," said the keen man, "those of us up here who have got a
+bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty
+sick of this humbugging fighting.  If we'd had a few men like the Curries
+and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never
+have happened.  And there's no knowing when a reason won't turn up for
+keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out
+just when one's settled down to work.  It's a damned convenient thing to
+have a war like this to turn on and off."
+
+Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again:  "Let
+resignation wait.  We fight the Matabele again tomorrow," he said,
+sententiously.
+
+A low titter ran round the group.  Even the man under the bushes, though
+his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth relax
+a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
+
+"I'm always expecting," said the big handsome man, "to have a paper come
+round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the
+B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how
+awfully good he is to them; and they're going to subscribe to the brazen
+statue.  There's nothing a man can't be squared to do."
+
+The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he
+held above his face.  "What's that in the Bible," he said, slowly, "about
+the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?"
+
+"I don't know much about the Bible," said the keen man, "I'm going to see
+if my pot isn't boiling over.  Won't yours burn?"
+
+"No, I asked the Captain's boy to keep an eye on it--but I expect he won't.
+Do you put the rice in with the mealies?"
+
+"Got to; I've got no other pot.  And the fellows don't object.  It's a
+tasty variety, you know!"
+
+The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire burnt;
+and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his own pot or
+sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left alone.  His fire
+was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and he folded his arms on
+the ground and rested his forehead on them, and watched lazily the little
+black ants that ran about in the red sand, just under his nose.
+
+A great stillness settled down on the camp.  Now and again a stick cracked
+in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except
+where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in
+front of the captain's tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and
+the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the
+camp.
+
+The intense midday heat had settled down.
+
+At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and
+bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp, and the
+figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the other a bird
+which he had shot.  He was evidently an Englishman, and not long from
+Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in spite of the
+superficial tan.  His face was at the moment flushed with heat; but the
+clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive
+refinement.
+
+He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him.  "That is all
+I've got," he said.
+
+He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the loose
+flap of the tent.
+
+The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the ground
+took up the bird.  "I'll put it into the pot; it'll give it the flavour of
+something except weevily mealies"; he said, and fell to plucking it.
+
+The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his
+forehead.
+
+"Knocked up, eh?" said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him.  'I've a
+few drops in my flask still."
+
+"Oh, no, I can stand it well enough.  It's only a little warm."  He gave a
+slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm.  His eyes watched
+mechanically the Colonial's manipulation of the bird.  He had left England
+to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because it was a place
+where he could earn an open-air living, and save his parents from the
+burden of his support.
+
+"What's Halket doing over there?" he asked suddenly, raising his head.
+
+"Weren't you here this morning?" asked the Colonial.  "Didn't you know
+they'd had a devil of a row?"
+
+"Who?" asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.
+
+"Halket and the Captain."  The Colonial paused in the plucking.  "My God,
+you never saw anything like it!"
+
+The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where
+Halket's bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.
+
+"What's he doing out there in this blazing sun?"
+
+"He's on guard," said the Colonial.  "I thought you were here when it
+happened.  It's the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!" 
+He rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance.  "You see,
+some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools of water,
+and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank, not five
+hundred yards from here!  They found the bloody rascal by a little path he
+tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a porcupine's walk. 
+They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush over the mouth, so
+you couldn't see it.  He'd evidently been there a long time, the floor was
+full of bones of fish he'd caught in the pool, and there was a bit of root
+like a stick half gnawed through.  He'd been potted, and got two bullet
+wounds in the thigh; but he could walk already.  It's evident he was just
+waiting till we were gone, to clear off after his people.  He'd got that
+beastly scurvy look a nigger gets when he hasn't had anything to eat for a
+long time.
+
+"Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew and
+swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow; he'd
+hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this evening, so
+he'd wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn't come he'd hang
+him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as sure as the sun
+rose.  He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree before his tent,
+with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist, and a riem round his
+neck."
+
+"What did the native say?" asked the Englishman.
+
+"Oh, he didn't say anything.  There wasn't a soul in the camp could have
+understood him if he had.  The coloured boys don't know his language.  I
+expect he's one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the bush
+out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state it must
+have been, I don't know.  He didn't try to fight when they caught him; just
+stared in front of him--fright, I suppose.  He must have been a big
+strapping devil before he was taken down.
+
+"Well, I tell you, we'd just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just
+going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing round,
+when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his front lock--
+you know the way he has?  Oh, my God, my God, if you could have seen it! 
+I'll never forget it to my dying day!"  The Colonial seemed bursting with
+internal laughter.  "He begins, 'Sir, may I speak to you?' in a formal kind
+of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and then all of a sudden he
+starts off--oh, my God, you never heard such a thing!  It was like a boy in
+Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture he's learnt off by heart, and
+got all ready beforehand, and he's not going to be stopped till he gets to
+the end of it."
+
+"What did he say," asked the Englishman.
+
+"Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would be
+a terrible thing to kill him if we weren't quite sure; perhaps he was
+hiding there because he was wounded.  And then he broke out that, after
+all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight
+against the French if they came and took England from us; and the niggers
+were brave men, 'please sir'--(every five minutes he'd pull his forelock,
+and say, 'please sir!')--'and if we have to fight against them we ought to
+remember they're fighting for freedom; we shouldn't shoot wounded prisoners
+when they were black if we wouldn't shoot them if they were white!'  And
+then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall!  You never heard anything
+like it!  All men were brothers, and God loved a black man as well as a
+white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant folk, and we had to take
+care of them.  And then he started out, that we ought to let this man go;
+we ought to give him food for the road, and tell him to go back to his
+people, and tell them we hadn't come to take their land but to teach them
+and love them.  'It's hard to love a nigger, Captain, but we must try it;
+we must try it!'--And every five minutes he'd break out with, 'And I think
+this is a man I know, Captain; I'm not sure, but I think he comes from up
+Lo Magundis way!'--as if any born devil cared whether a bloody nigger came
+from Lo Magundis or anywhere else!  I'm sure he said it fifteen times.  And
+then he broke out, 'I don't mean that I'm better than you or anybody else,
+Captain; I'm as bad a man as any in camp, and I know it.'  And off he
+started, telling us all the sins he'd ever committed; and he kept on, 'I'm
+an unlearned, ignorant man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he's
+got no one else!'  And then he says--'If you let me take him up to Lo
+Magundis, sir, I'm not afraid; and I'll tell the people there that it's not
+their land and their women that we want, it's them to be our brothers and
+love us.  If you'll only let me go, sir, I'll go and make peace; give the
+man to me, sir!'"  The Colonial shook with laughter.
+
+"What did the Captain say?" asked the Englishman.
+
+"The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing all
+round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down at each
+side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder and redder: 
+and all he could say was, 'My Gawd! my Gawd!'  I thought he'd burst.  And
+Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as though he didn't
+see a soul of us all there."
+
+"What did the Captain do?"
+
+"Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the tail
+of one oath hooked on to the head of another.  It was nearly as good as
+Halket himself.  And when he'd finished and got sane a bit, he said Halket
+was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the nigger.  And he
+gave orders that if the big troop didn't come up tonight, that he was to be
+potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was to shoot him."
+
+The Englishman started:  "What did Halket say?"
+
+"Nothing.  He's been walking there with his gun all day."
+
+The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket's head
+appeared and disappeared.
+
+"Is the nigger hanging there now?"
+
+"Yes.  The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything to
+eat or drink all day:  but--"  The Colonial glanced round where the trooper
+lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, "This morning, a
+couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain's coloured boy to ask me for a
+drink of water.  I thought it was for Halket himself, and the poor devil
+must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the water out of my
+canvas bag.  I went along afterwards to see what had become of my mug; the
+boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the Captain's tent, before
+the very door, was Halket letting that bloody nigger drink out of my mug. 
+The riem was so tight round his neck he couldn't drink but slowly, and
+there was Halket holding it up to him!  If the Captain had looked out!
+W-h-e-w!  I wouldn't have been Halket!"
+
+"Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?" asked the Englishman.
+
+"Of course he will.  He's the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a
+fuss about it, or it'll be the worse for him."
+
+"His time's up tomorrow evening!"
+
+"Yes, but not tomorrow morning.  And I wouldn't make a row about it if I
+was Halket.  It doesn't do to fall out with the authorities here.  What's
+one nigger more or less?  He'll get shot some other way, or die of hunger,
+if we don't do it."
+
+"It's hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs," said the
+Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a little.
+
+"Oh, they don't feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know.  I've seen
+a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling like that!--
+without a sound.  They've no feeling, these niggers; I don't suppose they
+care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you know."
+
+The Englishman's eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which Halket's
+head appeared and disappeared.
+
+"They have no right to order Halket to do it--and he will not do it!" said
+the Englishman slowly.
+
+"You're not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?" said the
+Colonial, looking curiously at him.  "It doesn't pay.  I've made up my mind
+never to speak whatever happens.  What's the good?  Suppose one were to
+make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he's made to shoot
+the nigger against his will; what would come of it?  There'd be half-a-
+dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted--not to speak of
+a fellow like that"--turning his thumb in the direction of the sleeping
+trooper--"who are paid to watch.  I believe he reports on the Captain
+himself to the big headquarters.  All one's wires are edited before they go
+down; only what the Company wants to go, go through.  There are many
+downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us are there, do you
+think, who could throw away all chance of ever making anything in
+Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he had a real row
+with the Company?  I've a great liking for Halket myself, he's a real good
+fellow, and he's done me many a good turn--took my watch only last night,
+because I was off colour; I'd do anything for him in reason.  But, I say
+this flatly, I couldn't and wouldn't fly in the face of the authorities for
+him or anyone else.  I've my own girl waiting for me down in the Colony,
+and she's been waiting for me these five years.  And whether I'm able to
+marry her or not depends on how I stand with the Company:  and I say,
+flatly, I'm not going to fall out with it.  I came here to make money, and
+I mean to make it!  If other people like to run their heads against stone
+walls, let them:  but they mustn't expect me to follow them.  This isn't a
+country where a man can say what he thinks."
+
+The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground.  "And the Union Jack is
+supposed to be flying over us."
+
+"Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company," laughed the Colonial.
+
+"Do you ever have the nightmare?" asked the Englishman suddenly.
+
+"I?  Oh yes, sometimes"; he looked curiously at his companion; "when I've
+eaten too much, I get it."
+
+"I always have it since I came up here," said the Englishman.  "It is that
+a vast world is resting on me--a whole globe:  and I am a midge beneath it.
+I try to raise it, and I cannot.  So I lie still under it--and let it crush
+me!"
+
+"It's curious you should have the nightmare so up here," said the Colonial;
+"one gets so little to eat."
+
+There was a silence:  he was picking the little fine feathers from the
+bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
+
+"Mind you," the Colonial said at last, "I don't say that in this case the
+Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself.  He's never been
+quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night out on the
+kopje.  When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of dead sleep; we
+couldn't wake him; yet it wasn't cold enough for him to have been frozen. 
+He's never been the same man since; queer, you know; giving his rations
+away to the coloured boys, and letting the other fellows have his dot of
+brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of apart to himself, you know. 
+The other fellows think he's got a touch of fever on, caught wandering
+about in the long grass that day.  But I don't think it's that; I think
+it's being alone in the veld that's got hold of him.  Man, have you ever
+been out like that, alone in the veld, night and day, and not a soul to
+speak to?  I have; and I tell you, if I'd been left there three days longer
+I'd have gone mad or turned religious.  Man, it's the nights, with the
+stars up above you, and the dead still all around.  And you think, and
+think, and think!  You remember all kinds of things you've never thought of
+for years and years.  I used to talk to myself at last, and make believe it
+was another man.  I was out seven days:  and he was only out one night. 
+But I think it's the loneliness that got hold of him.  Man, those stars are
+awful; and that stillness that comes toward morning!"  He stood up.  "It's
+a great pity, because he's as good a fellow as ever was.  But perhaps he'll
+come all right."
+
+He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand.  When he had gone
+the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm across his
+forehead.
+
+High, high up, between the straggling branches of the tree, in the clear,
+blue African sky above him, he could see the vultures flying southward.
+
+...
+
+That evening the men sat eating their suppers round the fires.  The large
+troop had not come up; and the mules had been brought in; and they were to
+make a start early the next morning.
+
+Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a little
+in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.
+
+The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their
+mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be asked
+him; and the men, fearing the Colonial's size and the Englishman's nerve,
+left him in peace.  The men laughed and chatted round the fire, while the
+big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates, and passed
+them round to the men.  Presently he passed one to Halket, who lay half
+behind him leaning on his elbow.  For a while Halket ate nothing, then he
+took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.
+
+"You are eating nothing, Halket," said the Englishman, cheerily, looking
+back.
+
+"I am not hungry now," he said.  After a while he took out his red
+handkerchief, and emptied carefully into it the contents of the plate; and
+tied it up into a bundle.  He set it beside him on the ground, and again
+lay on his elbow.
+
+"You won't come nearer to the fire, Halket?' asked the Englishman.
+
+"No, thank you, the night is warm."
+
+After a while Peter Halket took out from his belt a small hunting knife
+with a rough wooden handle.  A small flat stone lay near him, and he passed
+the blade slowly up and down on it, now and then taking it up, and feeling
+the edge with his finger.  After a while he put it back in his belt, and
+rose slowly, taking up his small bundle and walked away to the tent.
+
+"He's had a pretty stiff day," said the Colonial.  "I expect he's glad
+enough to turn in."
+
+Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns.  Would
+the Captain stick to his word tomorrow?  Was Halket going to do it?  Had
+the Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead of letting
+them fire a volley?  One man said he would do it gladly in Halket's place,
+if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself?  So they chatted till
+nine o'clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to turn in.  They found
+Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with his face turned to the
+canvas.  And they lay down quietly that they might not disturb him.
+
+At ten o'clock all the camp was asleep, excepting the two men told off to
+keep guard; who paced from one end of the camp to the other to keep
+themselves awake; or stood chatting by the large fire, which still burnt at
+one end.
+
+In the Captain's tent a light was kept burning all night, which shone
+through the thin canvas sides, and shed light on the ground about; but, for
+the rest, the camp was dead and still.
+
+By half-past one the moon had gone down, and there was left only a blaze of
+stars in the great African sky.
+
+Then Peter Halket rose up; softly he lifted the canvas and crept out.  On
+the side furthest from the camp he stood upright.  On his arm was tied his
+red handkerchief with its contents.  For a moment he glanced up at the
+galaxy of stars over him; then he stepped into the long grass, and made his
+way in a direction opposite to that in which the camp lay.  But after a
+short while he turned, and made his way down into the river bed.  He walked
+in it for a while.  Then after a time he sat down upon the bank and took
+off his heavy boots and threw them into the grass at the side.  Then
+softly, on tip-toe, he followed the little footpath that the men had
+trodden going down to the river for water.  It led straight up to the
+Captain's tent, and the little flat-topped tree, with its white stem, and
+its two gnarled branches spread out on either side.  When he was within
+forty paces of it, he paused.  Far over the other side of the camp the two
+men who were on guard stood chatting by the fire.  A dead stillness was
+over the rest of the camp.  The light through the walls of the Captain's
+tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but there was no sound
+of movement within.
+
+For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the tree.
+The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to it that they
+seemed one.  His hands were tied to his sides, and his head drooped on his
+breast.  His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had once been those of
+a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints stand out.  The wool on
+his head was wild and thick with neglect, and stood out roughly in long
+strands; and his skin was rough with want and exposure.
+
+The riems had cut a little into his ankles; and a small flow of blood had
+made the ground below his feet dark.
+
+Peter Halket looked up at him; the man seemed dead.  He touched him softly
+on the arm, then shook it slightly.
+
+The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at
+Peter from under his weary eyebrows.  Except that they moved they might
+have been the eyes of a dead thing.
+
+Peter put up his fingers to his own lips--"Hus-h! hus-h!" he said.
+
+The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.
+
+Quickly Peter Halket knelt down and took the knife from his belt.  In an
+instant the riems that bound the feet were cut through; in another he had
+cut the riems from the waist and neck:  the riems dropped to the ground
+from the arms, and the man stood free.  Like a dazed dumb creature, he
+stood, with his head still down, eyeing Peter.
+
+Instantly Peter slipped the red bundle from his arm into the man's passive
+hand.
+
+"Ari-tsemaia!  Hamba!  Loop!  Go!" whispered Peter Halket; using a word
+from each African language he knew.  But the black man still stood
+motionless, looking at him as one paralysed.
+
+"Hamba!  Sucka!  Go!" he whispered, motioning his hand.
+
+In an instant a gleam of intelligence shot across the face; then a wild
+transport.  Without a word, without a sound, as the tiger leaps when the
+wild dogs are on it, with one long, smooth spring, as though unwounded and
+unhurt, he turned and disappeared into the grass.  It closed behind him;
+but as he went the twigs and leaves cracked under his tread.
+
+The Captain threw back the door of his tent.  "Who is there?" he cried.
+
+Peter Halket stood below the tree with the knife in his hand.
+
+The noise roused the whole camp:  the men on guard came running; guns were
+fired:  and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their weapons. 
+There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry went round the
+camp, "The Mashonas are releasing the spy!"
+
+When the men got to the Captain's tent, they saw that the nigger was gone;
+and Peter Halket was lying on his face at the foot of the tree; with his
+head turned towards the Captain's door.
+
+There was a wild confusion of voices.  "How many were there?"  "Where have
+they gone to now?"  "They've shot Peter Halket!"--"The Captain saw them do
+it"--"Stand ready, they may come back any time!"
+
+When the Englishman came, the other men, who knew he had been a medical
+student, made way for him.  He knelt down by Peter Halket.
+
+"He's dead," he said, quietly.
+
+When they had turned him over, the Colonial knelt down on the other side,
+with a little hand-lamp in his hand.
+
+"What are you fellows fooling about here for?" cried the Captain.  "Do you
+suppose it's any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping!  Go,
+guard the camp on all sides!"
+
+"I will send four coloured boys," he said to the Englishman and the
+Colonial, "to dig the grave.  You'd better bury him at once; there's no use
+waiting.  We start first thing in the morning."
+
+When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket's breast. 
+There was one small wound just under the left bosom; and one on the crown
+of the head; which must have been made after he had fallen down.
+
+"Strange, isn't it, what he can have been doing here?" said the Colonial;
+"a small wound, isn't it?"
+
+"A pistol shot," said the Englishman, closing the bosom.
+
+"A pistol--"
+
+The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
+
+"I told you he would not kill that nigger.--See--here--"  He took up the
+knife which had fallen from Peter Halket's grasp, and fitted it into a
+piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.
+
+"But you don't think--"  The Colonial stared at him with wide open eyes;
+then he glanced round at the Captain's tent.
+
+"Yes, I think that--  Go and fetch his great-coat; we'll put him in it.  If
+it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he is
+dead!"
+
+They brought his great-coat, and they looked in the pockets to see if there
+was anything which might show where he had come from or who his friends
+were.  But there was nothing in the pockets except an empty flask, and a
+leathern purse with two shillings in, and a little hand-made two-pointed
+cap.
+
+So they wrapped Peter Halket up in his great-coat, and put the little cap
+on his head.
+
+And, one hour after Peter Halket had stood outside the tent looking up, he
+was lying under the little tree, with the red sand trodden down over him,
+in which a black man and a white man's blood were mingled.
+
+All the rest of the night the men sat up round the fires, discussing what
+had happened, dreading an attack.
+
+But the Englishman and the Colonial went to their tent, to lie down.
+
+"Do you think they will make any inquiries?" asked the Colonial.
+
+"Why should they?  His time will be up tomorrow."
+
+"Are you going to say anything?"
+
+"What is the use?"
+
+They lay in the dark for an hour, and heard the men chatting outside.
+
+"Do you believe in a God?" said the Englishman, suddenly.
+
+The Colonial started:  "Of course I do!"
+
+"I used to," said the Englishman; "I do not believe in your God; but I
+believed in something greater than I could understand, which moved in this
+earth, as your soul moves in your body.  And I thought this worked in such
+wise, that the law of cause and effect, which holds in the physical world,
+held also in the moral:  so, that the thing we call justice, ruled.  I do
+not believe it any more.  There is no God in Mashonaland."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" cried the Colonial, much distressed.  "Are you going
+off your head, like poor Halket?"
+
+"No; but there is no God," said the Englishman.  He turned round on his
+shoulder, and said no more:  and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.
+
+Before dawn the next morning the men had packed up the goods, and started.
+
+By five o'clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before and
+behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty circle;
+save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones about which
+the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.
+
+Only under the little stunted tree, the Colonial and the Englishman were
+piling up stones.  Their horses stood saddled close by.
+
+Presently the large trooper came riding back.  He had been sent by the
+Captain to ask what they were fooling behind for, and to tell them to come
+on.
+
+The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned in
+his saddle and looked back.  The morning sun was lighting up the straggling
+branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the camp; and fell on the
+little stunted tree, with its white stem and outstretched arms; and on the
+stones beneath it.
+
+"It's all that night on the kopje!" said the Colonial, sadly.
+
+But the Englishman looked back.  "I hardly know," he said, "whether it is
+not better for him now, than for us."
+
+Then they rode on after the troop.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
+
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