Part 20

So Brentham shipped himself and his indispensable retinue of Goanese cook, Swahili butler, and a nucleus of fifteen always dependable gunmen-porters of the stalwart Unyamwezi breed over to Medinat-al-barkah--the "Town of Blessings," on the Zangian coast: formerly the chief shipping port of slaves and now the head-quarters of the German Chartered Company which had succeeded to the authority of the Sultan of Unguja.

A few months afterwards, when he had organized a Consulate and an Indian clerical staff in an adapted, cleansed, and tidied Arab house, he received an urgent and confidential communication from Sir Godfrey:

"The F.O. is much perturbed by the reports of Arab risings against the German Company. Mvita seems to be quiet under Mackenzie. The various missionary societies are clamouring for information and some indication that H.M.G. realizes the seriousness of the situation. I have been instructed semi-officially by H. and M. that you should at once proceed inland with a sufficiently strong caravan and visit the missionary stations within a radius of--say--three hundred miles of Medina, assisting the white people to repair to safe positions on the coast, especial care being taken to bring away their women and children. You know far better what to do than I, who am a new comer to East Africa. So, carte blanche. Do your best. Good luck and chin-chin.

"Lady Dewburn, who has just come out, is dying to put her feet on a maned lion skin when she gets out of bed. So if you've any luck shooting, 'Then you'll remember me!'

"Yours, "GODFREY DEWBURN."

In consequence of these instructions you can picture such events as these occurring at the end of September, 1888.

Lucy Baines, attended by Josiah Briggs's wife Halima, was taking the air on the outskirts of Hangodi. She had had a baby in the previous July, and was still weak and anaemic. The confinement had been a difficult one, as it was a little premature, owing to Lucy having been frightened by a hyena. A medical missionary had been in hurried attendance, and kind Mrs. Stott had come fifty miles to act as an amateur midwife. But the child died soon after its birth, and Lucy, for the first fortnight, had been delirious. If her child had lived her whole outlook might have changed and brightened. As it was----

John had rigged up a kind of machila--I can't explain a second time what a machila is--a compromise between a palanquin and a hammock--and this could be taken out on short journeys by two strong porters. With this and her pupil-teacher, Halima, in attendance, Lucy was wont to make little afternoon pilgrimages along the red paths on the outskirts of the Hangodi plateau.

At this and that shady spot she would leave her machila languidly, sit on a camp stool and pick flowers and examine them: or she would practise her Swahili and Kagulu with Halima and question this woman--greatly devoted to her--on native manners and customs, or native legends. The two porters would squat at a respectful distance, or if told they would not be wanted for half an hour, would stroll off to the nearest native village.

On this particular day in September they came running back in great excitement to say a white man's safari was approaching. It could be seen in the plain below ... quite a small army of black men headed by one white man, coming in single file over the burnt grass.

Rumour had flown ahead of it ... as it did in Africa, in pre-telegraph days. The white man was a great English consul coming to make a treaty with Ulunga, or coming to fight the Arabs, or to turn the Wa-dachi out of the country and to place Nguru under the Woman chief of the English. Mbogo the chief had already run up his English flag....

Lucy's heart stood still and she sat on her camp stool too much overcome to remain standing. Could it ... be ... Roger?

Halima fumbled in her basket and produced a restorative. Presently Lucy rose to her feet and said in a decisive tone:

"Take me to meet the white man...."

They met about three miles from the Mission Station. Seeing the machila approaching, heralded by the boastful singing of its carriers, anxious to do their mistress honour, Brentham had got off his riding donkey and handed it to a follower carrying his sporting rifle.. He walked to meet the unknown person swaying in the jaunty advance of the delighted porters. The machila stopped. Lucy emerged from it, then overcome with dizziness sank down by the wayside. Quickly he had raised her, unthinkingly and instinctively their arms were round each other.... "My dearest girl! You are safe then? Your station has not been attacked?"

"My darling Roger! you have come for me ... take, oh, take me away!"

Thus they spoke instinctively in continuation of thoughts long sanctioned by their inner consciousness, but never outwardly expressed. There were no listeners who could understand what the avowals meant. Nevertheless they hastened to resume a correct parlance as between old acquaintances and nothing more.

"I think," said Lucy, "you had better send one or two spare men on ahead with a brief note to my husband saying you will be arriving at our station in about an hour, that you met me on the road and will bring me on with you. This will give our people time to--to--plan where to put you all. There won't be room for everybody inside the stockade. Then when you've sent off the note we can rest for half an hour or so in that piece of shade, where there are the euphorbias and the fig trees, and I shan't feel quite so shaky. I've been rather ill--I'll tell you all about it when you've sent off the note."

Roger scribbled the message on a leaf out of his road-book.

"There is our station," said Lucy, "about two miles off, on that great spur that comes out from the mountain. You can see the white houses and the red brick chapel and the glint of the corrugated iron. And away to the--well, I s'pose it's the south--is the chief Mbogo's principal village--all those little brown huts...."

The two impatient messengers scarcely waited for this information but bounded off to deliver their message and find some resting-place for the caravan, extenuated as it was with the long, hot march.

Lucy took Roger's arm--how it thrilled her, how like an impossible dream come true!--and followed by Halima and the machila reached the patch of blue shade made by a group of candelabra euphorbias and fig trees with thick glossy leaves and pendent branches. The ground underneath was absolutely clear of any cover for snakes and was whitish with the ashes of many a cooking fire, lit here by caravans arriving at evening and preferring to postpone their interviews with Chief Mbogo--sometimes a rapacious gentleman over his dues--till the morning light.

Whilst Brentham's cook was preparing a cup of tea, Lucy poured forth tumultuously her story of the chief happenings of the past six months. Brentham said in reply that she must have gone through a beastly time; but she might now take heart. He had come with definite instructions to take her away to the coast and her husband too, if the men-folk agreed. "Any other English woman at the station?" he inquired.

Lucy told him there was Ann Jamblin, but did not think the present moment the right one in which to expatiate on the irritating side of Ann's disposition. Moreover now that she was going back to England, why run down Ann? If Ann stayed behind, as she was convinced she would do, she might be a great comfort to John. "Don't think it odd of me," finished Lucy, "if when we reach the station I go straight to my house and to bed. I feel really too much shaken to take part in any discussion. I would much sooner you settled everything with John. I'm sure he won't oppose my going."

When Brentham reached Hangodi he was introduced to Ann, who listened to his polite phrases rather impatiently and seemed a little incredulous about any danger from Arab attacks. What exercised her mind, she said frankly, was how to keep the hundred men of his caravan from too close contact with her twenty or thirty maidens who lived in--what it was hoped was--"maiden meditation, fancy free," within the stockaded boundaries of the Mission Station. The local young manhood of the near-by Ulunga villages was supposed to stand too much in awe of Ann and to obey too strictly their chief's prohibition of interference with the young women of the Mission to annoy them with any amorous advances; but already Ann thought she had seen bold glances cast at her pupils--whom she was training to be Christian wives of Christian husbands--by the love-famished stalwarts of the caravan; and a coy recognition of this admiration on the part of the plump "Big-geru." To ease her apprehensions the men were soon all drafted off to billets in the native villages a mile away. To Brentham and his personal servants were alotted the Boys' School and the Chapel for their accommodation, the Consul being told that under all the circumstances of his visit there could be no thought of sacrilege in his using the House of God as a dwelling-place.

Brentham had told them as soon as he arrived that he was charged with instructions to escort all the white personnel of Hangodi to some safe place on the coast whilst this war between Arabs and Germans was going on. He had started from Medinat-al-barkah and had with great difficulty and by making the utmost use of the British flag and of the presence of British war vessels off the coast, pushed his way past the insurgent Arabs and Waswahili that were attacking the German strongholds.

By forced marches he had reached the mission stations of Uluguru and Usagara, and had advised the retreat of the older men and all the white women towards the Kilwa coast, not at present in revolt. He left them still undecided whether or not to take his advice, but he had furnished them with a reinforcement of porters and arms.

There was no time to lose, so he was now hurrying on to Ulunga and Ugogo to put the same proposition before the members of the East African Mission, except that the safest route to the coast must now be a great detour towards Kilimanjaro.