CHAPTER XX
THE GREAT MAN
Completely overcome by this last remark, Hans collapsed like ajelly-fish out of water, and reflected in his worthless old heartthat Frank Muller was indeed "a devil of a man." By this time theyhad reached the door of the little house, and were dismounting, and inanother minute Hans found himself in the presence of one of the leadersof the rebellion.
He was a short, ugly person of about fifty-five, with a big nose, smalleyes, straight hair, and a stoop. The forehead, however, was good, andthe whole face betrayed a keenness and ability far beyond the average.The great man was seated at a plain deal table, writing something withevident difficulty upon a dirty sheet of paper, and smoking a very largepipe.
"Sit, _Heeren_, sit," he said, when they entered, waving the stem ofhis pipe towards a deal bench. Accordingly they sat down without evenremoving their hats, and, pulling out their pipes, proceeded to lightthem.
"How, in the name of God, do you spell 'Excellency'?" asked the Generalpresently. "I have spelt it in four different ways, and each one looksworse than the last."
Frank Muller gave the required information. Hans in his heart thought hespelt it wrong, but he did not dare to say so. Then came another pause,only interrupted by the slow scratching of a quill across the dirtypaper, during which Hans nearly went to sleep; for the weather was veryhot, and he was tired with his ride.
"There!" said the writer presently, gazing at his handwriting with analmost childish air of satisfaction, "that is done. A curse on the manwho invented writing! Our fathers did very well without it; why shouldnot we? Though, to be sure, it is useful for treaties with the Kafirs.I don't believe you have told me right now about that 'Excellency,'nephew. Well, it will have to serve. When a man writes such a letteras that to the representative of the English Queen he needn't mind hisspelling; it will be swallowed with the rest," and he leaned back in hischair and laughed softly.
"Now, _Meinheer_ Coetzee, what is it? Ah, I know; the prisoners. Well,what did you do?"
Hans told his story, and was rambling on when the General cut him short.
"So, cousin, so! You talk like an ox-waggon--rumble and creak and jolt,a devil of a noise and turning of wheels, but very little progress. Theywill give up their twelve prisoners for our four, will they? That isabout a fair proportion. No, it is not, though: four Boers are betterthan twelve Englishmen any day--ay, better than forty!" and he laughedagain. "Well, the men shall be sent in as you arranged; they will helpto eat up their last biscuits. Good-day, cousin. Stop, though; one wordbefore you go. I have heard about you at times, cousin. I have heardit said that you cannot be trusted. Now, I don't know if that is so.I don't believe it myself. Only, listen; if it should be true, andI should find you out, by God! I will have you cut into rimpis withafterox _sjambocks_, and then shoot you and send in your carcase as apresent to the English." As he spoke thus he leaned forward, broughtdown his fist upon the deal table with a bang that produced a mostunpleasant effect upon poor Hans's nerves, and a cold gleam of suddenferocity flickered in the small eyes, very discomforting for a timid manto behold, however innocent he knew himself to be.
"I swear----" he began to babble.
"Swear not at all, cousin; you are an elder of the church. There is noneed for it, besides. I told you I did not believe it of you; only Ihave had one or two cases of this sort of thing lately. No, never mindwho they were. You will not meet them about again. Good-day, cousin,good-day. Forget not to thank the Almighty God for our gloriousvictories. He will expect it from an elder of the church."
Poor Hans departed crestfallen, feeling that the days of him who tries,however skilfully and impartially, to sit upon two stools at once arenot happy days, and sometimes threaten to be short ones. And supposingthat the Englishmen should win after all--as in his heart he hopedthey might--how should he then prove that he had hoped it? The Generalwatched him waddle through the door from under his pent brows, ahalf-humourous, half-menacing expression on his face.
"A windbag; a coward; a man without a heart for good or for evil. Bah!nephew, that is Hans Coetzee. I have known him for years. Well, let himgo. He would sell us if he could, but I have frightened him now, and,what is more, if I see reason, he shall find I never bark unless I meanto bite. Well, enough of him. Let me see, have I thanked you yet foryour share in Majuba? Ah! that was a glorious victory! How many werethere of you when you started up the mountain?"
"Eighty men."
"And how many at the end?"
"One hundred and seventy--perhaps a few more."
"And how many of you were hit?"
"Three--one killed, two wounded, and a few scratches."
"Wonderful, wonderful! It was a brave deed, and because it was so braveit was successful. He must have been mad, that English general. Who shothim?"
"Breytenbach. Colley held up a white handkerchief in his hand, andBreytenbach fired, and down went the general of a heap, and then theyall ran helter-skelter down the hill. Yes, it was a wonderful thing!They could have beat us back with their left hand. That is what comes ofhaving a righteous cause, uncle."
The general smiled grimly. "That is what comes of having men who canshoot, and who understand the country, and are not afraid. Well, itis done, and well done. The stars in their courses have fought for us,Frank Muller, and so far we have conquered. But how is it to end? Youare no fool; tell me, how will it end?"
Frank Muller rose and walked twice up and down the room before heanswered. "Shall I tell you?" he asked, and then, without waiting fora reply, went on: "It will end in our getting the country back. That iswhat this armistice means. There are thousands of _rooibaatjes_ there atthe Nek; they cannot therefore be waiting for soldiers. They are waitingfor an opportunity to yield, uncle. We shall get the country back, andyou will be President of the Republic."
The old man took a pull at his pipe. "You have a long head, Frank, andit has not run away with you. The English Government is going to givein. The stars in their courses continue to fight for us. The EnglishGovernment is as mad as its officers. They will give in. But it meansmore than that, Frank; I will tell you what it means. It means"--andagain he let his heavy hand fall upon the deal table--"the triumph ofthe Boer throughout South Africa. Bah! Burgers was not such a fool afterall when he talked of his great Dutch Republic. I have been twice toEngland now and I know the Englishman. I could measure him for his_veldtschoens_ (shoes). He knows nothing--nothing. He understands hisshop; he is buried in his shop, and can think of nothing else. Sometimeshe goes away and starts a shop in other places, and buries himself init, and makes it a big shop, because he understands shops. But it is alla question of shops, and if the shops abroad interfere with the shops athome, or if it is thought that they do, which comes to the same thing,then the shops at home put an end to the shops abroad. Bah! they talk agreat deal there in England, but, at the bottom of it, it is shop, shop,shop. They talk of honour, and patriotism too, but they both give wayto the shop. And I tell you this, Frank Muller: it is the shop that hasmade the English, and it is the shop that will destroy them. Well, so beit. We shall have our slice: Africa for the Africanders. The Transvaalfor the Transvaalers first, then the rest. Shepstone was a clever man;he would have made it all into an English shop, with the black men forshop-boys. We have changed all that, but we ought to be grateful toShepstone. The English have paid our debts, they have eaten up theZulus, who would otherwise have destroyed us, and they have let us beatthem, and now we are going to have our turn again, and, as you say, Ishall be the first President."
"Yes, uncle," replied the younger man calmly, "and I shall be thesecond."
The General looked at him. "You are a bold man," he said; "but boldnessmakes the man and the country. I dare say you will. You have the head;and one clear head can turn many fools, as the rudder does the ship, andguide them when they are turned. I dare say that you will be Presidentone day."
"Yes, I shall be President, and when I am I will drive the Englishmenout of South Africa. This
I will do with the help of the Natal Zulus.Then I will destroy the natives, as T'Chaka destroyed, keeping onlyenough for slaves. That is my plan, uncle; it is a good one."
"It is a big one; I am not certain that it is a good one. But good orbad, who shall say? You may carry it out, nephew, if you live. A manwith brains and wealth may carry out anything if he lives. But there isa God. I believe, Frank Muller, that there is a God, and I believe thatGod sets a limit to a man's doings. If he is going too far, God killshim. _If you live_, Frank Muller, you will do these things, but perhapsGod will kill you. Who can say? You will do what God wills, not what_you_ will."
The elder man was speaking seriously now. Muller felt that this wasnone of the whining cant people in authority among the Boers find itdesirable to adopt. It was what he thought, and it chilled Mullerin spite of his pretended scepticism, as the sincere belief of anintellectual man, however opposite to our own, is apt to chill usinto doubt of ourselves and our opinions. For a moment his slumberingsuperstition awoke, and he felt half afraid. Between him and that brightfuture of blood and power lay a dark gulf. Suppose that gulf should bedeath, and the future nothing but a dream--or worse! His face fell asthe idea occurred to him, and the General noticed it.
"Well," he went on, "he who lives will see. Meanwhile you have done goodservice to the State, and you shall have your reward, cousin. If I amPresident"--he laid emphasis on this, the meaning of which his listenerdid not miss--"if by the support of my followers I become President, Iwill not forget you. And now I must up-saddle and ride back. I want tobe at Laing's Nek in sixty hours, to wait for General Wood's answer. Youwill see about the sending in of those prisoners;" and he knocked outhis pipe and rose.
"By the way, _Meinheer_," said Muller, suddenly adopting a tone ofrespect, "I have a favour to ask."
"What is it, nephew?"
"I want a pass for two friends of mine--English people--in Pretoria togo down to their relations in Wakkerstroom district. They sent a messageto me by Hans Coetzee."
"I don't like giving passes," answered the General with some irritation."You know what it means, letting out messengers. I wonder you ask me."
"It is a small favour, _Meinheer_, and I do not think that it willmatter. Pretoria will not be besieged much longer; I am under anobligation to the people."
"Well, well, as you like; but if any harm comes of it, you will be heldresponsible. Write the pass; I will sign it."
Frank Muller sat down and wrote and dated the paper. Its contents weresimple: "Pass the bearers unharmed."
"That is big enough to drive a waggon along," said the General, when itwas handed to him to sign. "It might mean all Pretoria."
"I am not certain if there are two or three of them," answered Mullercarelessly.
"Well, well, you are responsible. Give me the pen," and he scrawled hisbig coarse signature on the paper.
"I propose, with your permission, to escort the cart down with two othermen. As you are aware, I go to take over the command of the Wakkerstroomdistrict to-morrow."
"Very good. It is your affair; you are responsible. I shall ask noquestions, provided your friends do no harm to the cause;" and he leftthe room without another word.
When the great man had gone, Frank Muller sat down again on the benchand looked at the pass, and communed with himself, for he was far toowise to commune with anybody else. "The Lord hath delivered mine enemyinto mine hand," he said with a smile, and stroked his golden beard."Well, well, I will not waste His merciful opportunities as I did thatday out buck-shooting. And then for Bessie. I suppose I shall haveto kill old Croft too. I am sorry for that, but it can't be helped;besides, if anything should happen to Jess, Bessie will takeMooifontein, and that is worth having. Not that I want more land; I haveenough. Yes, I will marry her. It would serve her right if I didn't;but, after all, marriage is more respectable; also one has more hold ofa wife. Nobody will interfere for her. Then, she will be of use tome by-and-by, for a beautiful woman is a power even among thesefellow-countrymen of mine, if only a man knows how to bait his lineswith her. Yes, I shall marry her. Bah! that is the way to win awoman--by capture; and, what is more, they like it. It makes her worthwinning too. It will be a courtship of blood. Well, the kisses will bethe sweeter, and in the end she will love me the more for what I havedared for her.
"So, Frank Muller, so! Ten years ago you said to yourself: 'There arethree things worth having in the world--first, wealth; secondly, women,if they take your fancy, or, better still, one woman, if you desire herabove all others; thirdly, power.' Now, you have got the wealth, for oneway or another you are the richest man in the Transvaal. In a week youwill have the woman you love, and who is sweeter to you than all theworld besides. In five years' time you will have the power--absolutepower. That old man is clever; he will be President. But I am cleverer.I shall soon take his seat, thus"--and he rose and seated himself in theGeneral's chair--"and he will go down a step and take mine. Ay, and thenI will reign. My tongue shall be honey and my hand iron. I will passover the land like a storm. I will drive these English out with the helpof the Kafirs, and then I will kill the Kafirs and take their country.Ah!"--and his eyes flashed and his nostrils dilated as he said it tohimself--"then life will be worth living! What a thing is power! Whata thing it is to be able to destroy! Take that Englishman, my rival:to-day he is well and strong; in three days he will be gone utterly, andI--I shall have sent him away. That is power. But when the timecomes that I have only to stretch out my hand to send thousands afterhim!--that will be absolute power; and then with Bessie I shall behappy."
And so he dreamed on for an hour or more, till at last the fumes ofhis untutored imagination actually drowned his reason in a spiritualdrunkenness. Picture after picture rose and unrolled itself before hismind's eye. He saw himself as President addressing the _Volksraad_,and compelling it to his will. He saw himself, the supreme general ofa great host, defeating the forces of England with awful carnage, anddriving them before him; ay, he even selected the battle-ground on theslopes of the Biggarsberg in Natal. Then he saw himself again, sweepingthe natives out of South Africa with the relentless besom of his might,and ruling unquestioned over a submissive people. And, last of all, hesaw something glittering at his feet--it was a crown!
This was the climax of his dream. Then there came an anticlimax. Therich imagination which had been leading him on as a gaudy butterfly doesa child, suddenly changed colour and dropped to earth; and there roseup in his mind the memory of the General's words: "God sets a limit to aman's doings. If he is going too far, _God kills him_."
The butterfly had settled on a coffin!
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