Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland Read online

country, eight millions, twelvemillions, twenty-six millions, forty millions; why should not he!

  Peter Halket started suddenly and listened. But it was only the windcoming up the kopje like a great wheezy beast creeping upwards; and helooked back into the fire.

  He considered his business prospects. When he had served his timeas volunteer he would have a large piece of land given him, and theMashonas and Matabeles would have all their land taken away from them intime, and the Chartered Company would pass a law that they had to workfor 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 goodand he could not make anything out of it. Then, he should have tostart a syndicate; called the Peter Halket Gold, or the Peter HalketIron-mining, or some such name, Syndicate. Peter Halket was not veryclear as to how it ought to be started; but he felt certain that he andsome other men would have to take shares. They would not have to pay forthem. And then they would get some big man in London to take shares. Heneed not pay for them; they would give them to him; and then the companywould be floated. No one would have to pay anything; it was just thename--"The Peter Halket Gold Mining Company, Limited." It would floatin London; and people there who didn't know the country would buy theshares; THEY would have to give ready money for them, of course; perhapsfifteen pounds a share when they were up!--Peter Halket's eyes blinkedas 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 sixthousand and sold them each for ten pounds, then he, Peter Halket, wouldhave sixty thousand pounds! And then he would start another company, andanother.

  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 oftendiscussed. Give some shares to men with big names, and sell out: theycan 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, theycould sell out too; they could all sell out!

  Then Peter Halket's mind got a little hazy. The matter was getting toodifficult for him, like a rule of three sum at school when he could notsee the relation between the two first terms and the third. Well, ifthey 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'tchoose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn't. "It's theshares 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 tobuy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one wouldlose. "The British Government can't let British share-holders suffer."He'd heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay forthe Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if ITcouldn't, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there werelords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn't theypay for his company? He would have a lord in it too!

  Peter Halket looked into the fire completely absorbed in hiscalculations.--Peter Halket, Esq., Director of the Peter Halket GoldMining Company, Limited. Then, when he had got thousands, PeterHalket, Esq., M.P. Then, when he had millions, Sir Peter Halket, PrivyCouncillor!

  He reflected deeply, looking into the blaze. If you had five or sixmillions you could go where you liked and do what you liked. You couldgo to Sandringham. You could marry anyone. No one would ask what yourmother had been; it wouldn't matter.

  A curious dull sinking sensation came over Peter Halket; and he drew inhis broad leathern belt two holes tighter.

  Even if you had only two millions you could have a cook and a valet, togo with you when you went into the veld or to the wars; and you couldhave as much champagne and other things as you liked. At that momentthat 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 madeeverything! Why should not he?

  He stuck small branches under the two great logs, and a glorious flameburst out. Then he listened again intently. The wind was falling and thenight was becoming very still. It was a quarter to twelve now. His backached, and he would have liked to lie down; but he dared not, for fearhe should drop asleep. He leaned forward with his hands between hiscrossed knees, and watched the blaze he had made.

  Then, after a while, Peter Halket's thoughts became less clear: theybecame at last, rather, a chain of disconnected pictures, paintingthemselves in irrelevant order on his brain, than a line of connectedideas. Now, as he looked into the crackling blaze, it seemed to be oneof the fires they had make to burn the natives' grain by, and they werethrowing in all they could not carry away: then, he seemed to see hismother's fat ducks waddling down the little path with the green grasson each side. Then, he seemed to see his huts where he lived with theprospectors, and the native women who used to live with him; and hewondered where the women were. Then--he saw the skull of an old Mashonablown off at the top, the hands still moving. He heard the loud cry ofthe 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 againhe was working a maxim gun, but it seemed to him it was more like thereaping machine he used to work in England, and that what was going downbefore it was not yellow corn, but black men's heads; and he thoughtwhen he looked back they lay behind him in rows, like the corn insheaves.

  The logs sent up a flame clear and high, and, where they split, showeda burning core inside: the cracking and spluttering sounded in his brainlike the discharge of a battery of artillery. Then he thought suddenlyof a black woman he and another man caught alone in the bush, her babyon her back, but young and pretty. Well, they didn't shoot her!--and ablack woman wasn't white! His mother didn't understand these things;it was all so different in England from South Africa. You couldn'tbe expected to do the same sort of things here as there. He had anunpleasant feeling that he was justifying himself to his mother, andthat he didn't know how to.

  He leaned further and further forward: so far at last, that the littlewhite lock of his hair which hung out under his cap was almost singed bythe fire. His eyes were still open, but the lids drooped over them, andhis hands hung lower and lower between his knees. There was no pictureleft on his brain now, but simply an impress of the blazing logs beforehim.

  Then, Trooper Peter Halket started. He sat up and listened. The wind hadgone; there was not a sound: but he listened intently. The fire burnt upinto the still air, two clear red tongues of flame.

  Then, on the other side of the kopje he heard the sound of footstepsascending; the slow even tread of bare feet coming up.

  The hair on Trooper Peter Halket's forehead slowly stiffened itself. Hehad no thought of escaping; he was paralyzed with dread. He took up hisgun. A deadly coldness crept from his feet to his head. He had worked amaxim gun in a fight when some hundred natives fell and only one whiteman had been wounded; and he had never known fear; but tonight hisfingers were stiff on the lock of his gun. He knelt low, tendinga little to one side of the fire, with his gun ready. A stone halfsheltered 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 owncomrades come in search of him, and no bare-footed enemy! The anguish ofsuspense wrung his heart; for an instant he hesitated. Then, in a coldagony 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. Thecold sweat which anguish had restrained burst out in large drops on hisforehead; but he still knelt holding his gun.
r />   "What do you want?" he cried out quiveringly.

  From the darkness at the edge of the kopje a figure stepped out into thefull 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. Hishead, arms, and feet were bare. He carried no weapon of any kind; and onhis shoulders hung heavy locks of dark hair.

  Peter Halket looked up at him with astonishment. "Are you alone?" heasked.

  "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 dresscarefully,