John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising. Mitford Bertram

mirth was turned to downright hate. They had followed the retreating police as far as the brow of an eminence some little distance from the kraal, and now a sight met their view which turned every heart black with pent up hostility. Away over the plain a dust cloud was moving, and behind it the multicoloured hides of a considerable herd of cattle. These were travelling at a swift pace, propelled by the shouts of a number of running figures. The bulk, if not the whole, of Madúla’s cattle were being swept away by the Government emissaries.

      No further time had Madúla’s people to devote to this handful of police, whom hitherto they had busied themselves with annoying. With long-drawn whoops of wrath and rally, they surged forward, intent only on retaking their cherished, and, in fact, their only possessions. Assegai blades flashed suddenly aloft, drawn forth from their places of concealment, and the plain was alive with the dark forms of bounding savages. There would be a collision and bloodshed, and the country was in no state for the heaping of fuel upon a smouldering fire.

      But Nanzicele’s native astuteness had not been caught napping. He had been prepared for some such move, for his quick glance had not been slow to note that many of those who had followed him from the kraal were arrayed in skin karosses or other nondescript articles of attire, whereas, only just before, except for their mútyas, they had been naked. This could mean nothing but concealed weapons, and when such were produced he was ready for the contingency. With hurried, muttered commands to his men to hold their rifles in readiness, he pressed them forward at the double, and arrived on the scene of turmoil not much later than Madúla’s excited tribesmen.

      These, for their part, had rushed the situation on all sides, and things were already tolerably lively. The scared and maddened cattle, frenzied by the dark forms surging around them front and rear, halted, bunched, “milled” around for a moment in blind unreasoning fear, then broke up and streamed forth over the plain in a dozen different directions, bellowing wildly, and pursued by the whooping, bounding figures in their rear and on their flanks; and in a few moments, save for long lines of lingering dust-clouds, not one remained in sight. Nanzicele’s plan had miscarried entirely. In a fury the latter turned upon his corporal.

      “Fool – dog – jackal!” he snarled. “Is this how my orders are obeyed? Instead of carrying them out promptly, were ye all asleep or drinking beer with the women? Yonder cattle should have been halfway to Jonemi’s by this time, and lo now, Madúla and his herd of Amaholi are laughing at us. Thou, Singisa – I will have thee flogged out of the ranks with raw-hide whips. Was I to keep Madúla talking for a moon instead of a very small piece of a day, to give thee time to rest thy lazy carcase and go to sleep? Ye shall all suffer for this, and dearly.”

      But the corporal was not much perturbed by this threat. He merely shrugged his shoulders.

      “I know not,” he said. “But this I know, Nanzicele. Seven men cannot move quicker than two hundred, and as many were yonder” – pointing in the direction of the retreating dust-clouds. “And we were under no orders to fire upon Madúla’s people, nor indeed do I think we were under orders to take his cattle at all.”

      “Thou art a fool, Singisa,” retorted Nanzicele, with a savage scowl.

      But whether Singisa was a fool or not, the fact remained with them that Nanzicele’s plan had miscarried. All he had effected by his attempted coup de main was to render the name of the Matabele police a trifle more putrescent in the nostrils of the Matabele than it already was, and in the mean time Madúla’s cattle were still in Madúla’s possession. And, after all, that possession is nine points of the law – meaning presumably nine-tenths – still remains a good old English axiom.

      Chapter Two.

      John Ames

      John Ames was Native Commissioner for the district of Sikumbutana.

      Now, the area of the said district contained about as many square miles as did one half of England. It likewise contained some thousands of its original inhabitants, a considerable percentage of which were Matabele, and the residue Makalaka, the bulk of whom had, prior to the war of occupation, been incorporated into the ranks of Lo Bengula’s fighting-men. Indeed, they reckoned themselves as integral with the nation – as much so as the original Abezantzi, even then fast dwindling numerically – and by no means welcomed their so-called emancipation at the hands of the British with the acclaim our theoretically humane civilisation had striven to persuade itself they would. They were settled upon reservations there as in other districts under the charge of Native Commissioners appointed by the Government of the Chartered Company.

      Now the duties of these Native Commissioners were multifarious, if ill-defined. They involved the collection of hut tax; the keeping of a vigilant eye upon the people at large; the carrying out of the disarmament programme; the settlement of all local disputes that were potient of settlement; and of about half a hundred other questions that might arise from day to day. These officials were expected to act the part of benevolent uncle all round, to the natives under their charge; and in order to effect this thoroughly, they had to be continually on the move, keeping up a constant system of patrol in order to become acquainted with every nook and corner of their somewhat vast area, and see that things were going on all right in general; and bearing in mind the extent of that area, it will be seen that this alone constituted a very laborious and responsible side of their duties. For it was no case of progressing in a fairly comfortable conveyance: neither the natural formation of the country nor the not very munificent travelling allowance granted by their government would admit of that. It meant real downright roughing it. Day after day of long rides on horseback, over mountain and plain and low-lying fever belt in all weathers, and a camp under rock or tree at night; and when it is remembered that such peregrinations amounted in the aggregate to about half the year, it follows that the faculties both physical and mental, of these useful public servants were not likely to stagnate for lack of use.

      There was one other duty which devolved upon them at the time of our story; the collecting of the cattle which the Chartered Company exacted as a war indemnity from the not thoroughly conquered Matabele; and remembering that cattle constitutes the whole worldly wealth of a native, it may be imagined what a thankless and uningratiating task was thrown upon their hands.

      John Ames was an excellent specimen of this class of public official. Born on a Natal farm, he could speak the native languages fluently, and had all the idiosyncrasies of the native character at his fingers’ ends, a phase of useful knowledge which a few years spent at an English public school had failed to obliterate, and which, on his return to the land of his birth, he was able to turn to practical account. He had come to Rhodesia with the early Pioneers, and having served through the Matabele war of 1893, had elected to remain in the country. He was of goodly height and proportion, standing six feet in his socks, handsome withal, having regular features, and steadfast and penetrating grey eyes; and at the time we make his acquaintance had just turned thirty, but looked more.

      “Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,” he was saying, as he sat in his compound on the day following the events recorded in the last chapter. “This thing will have to be gone into, Inglefield, and that pretty thoroughly.”

      “Certainly, old chap, certainly. But what is the ‘thing’ when all’s said and done, and what sort of fish are in the kettle? You forget you’ve been pattering away to these chaps for the last half-hour, and except for a word or two, I haven’t caught any of it. Even now I don’t know what it’s all about.”

      “These police of yours seem to have been rather playing the fool,” was the direct answer.

      He addressed as Inglefield was the sub-inspector in charge of the Matabele Police, whose camp lay about a mile away. Inglefield was an English importation, an ex-subaltern in a line regiment, who having lived at the rate of about double his means for a few years, had, in common with not a few of his kind, found it necessary to migrate with the object of “picking up something;” and he had duly “picked up” a commission in the Matabele Police. Now Inglefield twirled his moustache and looked annoyed.

      “Oh, the police again!” he retorted, somewhat snappishly. “I say, Ames. Can they by any chance ever do anything right according to you fellows?”

      The two men were seated together outside the