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

of all this was that when the two sat down to dinner they gave John Ames the “Good evening” with just as much geniality as the frigidity of English manners would allow to be manifested when outside England towards the only other occupant of the same table. It sufficed for its purposes, and soon the three were in converse.

      “We passed each other on the road this evening,” said John Ames. “It was some way out, and I wonder you got back in time. Are you fond of bicycling?”

      “We simply live on our bikes when the weather is decent,” replied Nidia. “This seems a good locality for it. The roads are splendid, aren’t they?”

      “Yes. I generally wheel down to Muizenberg or Kalk Bay for a puff of sea air. It’s refreshing after the up-country heat.”

      “Sea air? But can you get to the sea so soon?” said Mrs Bateman, surprised.

      “Oh yes. In less than an hour.”

      Both then began to enthuse about the sea, after the British method, which was the more inexplicable considering they had just had three weeks of it, and that viewed from its very worst standpoint —upon it, to wit. They must go there to-morrow. Was it easy to find the way? And so forth. What could John Ames do but volunteer to show it them? – which offer was duly accepted. Things were now upon a good understanding.

      “Do they ride bikes much up-country – I think you said you were from up-country, did you not?” said Nidia, artlessly, with that quick lift of the eyelids.

      “Oh yes, a good deal. But it’s more for the hard practical purpose of getting from one place to another than just riding about for fun. It strikes one though, if one has any imagination, as a sample of the way in which this aggressive civilisation of ours wedges itself in everywhere. You are right away in the veldt, perhaps only just scared away a clump of sable or roan antelope, or struck the fresh spoor of a brace of business-like lions, when you look up, and there are two fellows whirring by on up-to-date bikes. You give each other a passing shout and they are gone.”

      “Yes. It is a contrast, if one has an imagination,” said Nidia. “But not everybody has. Don’t you think so?”

      “Certainly. But when a man lives a good deal alone, and sees comparatively little of his kind, it is apt to stimulate that faculty.”

      Nidia looked interested. The firm, quiet face before her, the straight glance of the grey eyes, represented a character entirely to her liking, she decided. “Is it long since you came out?” she asked.

      “Well, in the sense you mean I can’t be said to have come out at all, for I was born and bred out here – in Natal, at least. But I have been in England.”

      “Really? I thought you were perhaps one of the many who had come out during the last few years.”

      “Am I not colonial enough?” said John Ames, with a quiet laugh.

      “N-no. At least, I don’t mean that – in fact, I don’t know what I do mean,” broke off Nidia, with a perfectly disarming frankness.

      “Do you know Bulawayo at all?”

      The diversion came from the third of the trio.

      “Oh yes; I have just come from up that way.”

      “Really. I wonder if you ever met my husband. He is a mining engineer. Bateman our name is.”

      John Ames thought.

      “The name doesn’t seem altogether unknown to me,” he said. “The fact is I am very seldom in Bulawayo. My district lies away out in the wilds, and very wild indeed it is.”

      “What sort of a place is Bulawayo?”

      “Oh, a creditable township enough, considering that barely three years ago it was a vast savage kraal, and, barring a few traders, there wasn’t a white man in the country.”

      “But isn’t it full of savages now?” struck in Nidia.

      “Yes; there are a good few – not right around Bulawayo, though. Are you likely to be going up there?”

      “We are, a little later,” replied Mrs Bateman. “This is fortunate. You will be able to tell us all about it.”

      “With pleasure. I shall be too happy to give you any information I can.”

      “Is it safe up there?” said Nidia. “Is there no fear of those dreadful savages rising some night and killing us all?”

      Unconsciously the official reserve came over John Ames. He had more than once predicted to himself and one or two confidential friends such a contingency as by no means outside the bounds of practical politics, almost invariably to be laughed at for his pains. Now he replied:

      “Everything that precaution can do is against it. They are carefully supervised; in fact, it is my own particular business to supervise a considerable section of them.”

      “Really? But how do you talk, to them? Can they talk English?”

      John Ames smiled. “You forget I mentioned that I was raised in Natal.”

      “Of course. How stupid I am!” declared Nidia. “And so you know their language and have to look after them? Isn’t it very exciting?”

      “No; deplorably prosaic. There are points of interest about the work, though.”

      “And you keep them in order, and know all that’s going on?”

      “We try to; and I think on the whole we succeed fairly well.”

      But at that very moment Shiminya the sorcerer was dooming to death two persons, and filling with seditious venom the minds of three chiefs of importance within the speaker’s district.

      Chapter Six.

      About some Dallying

      John Ames was beginning to enjoy his leave, and that actively.

      At first he had done so in a negative kind of way. It was pleasant to have nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in, to rise in the morning and know that until bedtime at night he had only to please himself and take no thought for anything whatever. He had a few acquaintance in the neighbourhood, more or less busy people whose avocations kept them in Cape Town throughout the working day, and so was mostly thrown upon his own resources. This, however, was not without its advantages, for the change had hardly benefited him much as yet, and he was conscious of a sort of mental languor which rendered him rather disinclined than otherwise for the society of his fellows. He liked to mount his bicycle and spin for miles along the smooth level roads, beneath the oak and fir shade, the towering wall of mountain glimpsed ever and anon athwart the trees; or, gaining the nearest point of sea shore, lie on the beach for hours, watching the rollers come tumbling in, and the revels of bathers skipping amid the surf. Hitherto he had been content to do all this alone, now he was not; and the name of the agency which had effected this change was Nidia Commerell.

      Nearly a fortnight has gone by since we introduced that entrancing personality to the reader’s notice; and whatever effects the same had had upon John Ames, one at any rate was certain, viz. a conviction that it was not good to be alone.

      They had seen a good deal of each other within that time. Nidia had carried out to the full her expressed intention of using him as an escort, and he, for his part, had gladly welcomed the rôle, and efficiently discharged it; and whether it was along bicycle ride, or a more remote expedition by rail, or a scramble up the Devil’s Peak, that commended itself to the two ladies for the day’s programme, there was John Ames in sure and faithful attendance. It did him good, too. There was an ingredient in the tonic which was stimulating, life-giving indeed, and now in this daily companionship he felt that life was worth living. Decidedly he had begun to enjoy his leave.

      “Well, Susie, wasn’t I justified in my prediction?” said Nidia to her friend, as they were dressing for dinner after one of these expeditions.

      “Which prediction? You make so many.”

      “Concerning John Ames,” – for so they had got into the way of designating him when alone together.

      “I