by John Buchan
I can’t say that I enjoyed the hour we had to wait. I saw no chance for us, short of a miracle, and the best we could hope for was a good scrap and a quick death. You may ask why we didn’t parley with our enemies to gain time. The answer is that we were convinced that they meant black murder if we gave them half a chance; at least they meant to do in Haraldsen, and we couldn’t allow that. Haraldsen himself had wanted to be let out and to go down and face them alone, but Peter and I told him not to be a fool.
The crisis came, as such things do, when I wasn’t expecting it. Suddenly I saw a red glow in the night, apparently on the other side of the hill. The glow spread, which must mean that other fires had been started. There was a rifle shot, which I assumed to be Peter’s, and then Lombard stumbled down with the news that the scherm was burning in four places. The next thing I knew was that there was a big burst of flame about five yards from me, and at the same moment faces appeared in the gate. I fired at one, there was an answering crackle of shots, and I felt a raw pain in my left shoulder. Then I saw the gate in a sheet of flame, for the wattles had been fired.
After that there was a wild confusion. I found an ugly face close to me, fired at it, and saw it go blind. That was the man from Lydenburg, for we found the body later. I saw other figures in the gap, and then I saw an extraordinary sight. Haraldsen, looking like a giant in the hellish glow, had leaped forward and was swinging his axe and shouting like a madman. The spectacle must have confounded the attackers, for they made wild shooting. He had a bullet through one pocket and another through his hair, but he got none in his body. I saw him jump the blazing remnant of the gate and bring his axe down on somebody’s head. And then he was through them and careering out into the dark.
I was pretty dazed and wild, and I decided that it was all up now, when suddenly the whole business took a new turn. Above the crackle and the roar of the flames I heard a sound which I had not heard since the Matabele Rising, the deep throaty howl of Kaffirs on the war-path. It rose to heaven like a great wind, and I clutched at my wits and realized what had happened. Mafudi’s men were up. They had been like driven cattle all day, but this outrage on their sacred place had awakened their manhood. Once they had been a famous fighting clan and the old fury had revived. They were swarming like bees round the scherm, and making short work of our assailants. The Kaffir sees better in the dark than a white man, and a knobkerrie or an axe is a better weapon in a blind scrap than a gun. Also there were scores of them, the better part of a hundred lusty savages, mad with fury at the violation of their shrine.
There was nothing I could do except join Peter and Lombard on the top. But there was no sign of them there, for they had each made for one of the burning gaps to do what they could to hold the fort. As a matter of fact the fires at no place had gone far enough to make an opening, so none of our assailants had got inside the scherm. Pandemonium was in full blast around it, where some of Mafudi’s men were rounding up Troth’s lot and the rest were beating out the flames. This latter wasn’t an easy job and the moon was up before it was over. I simply sat on the bald crest beside the sacred stone and waited. This was no work for me. Peter and Lombard were somewhere on the hill, but it was impossible to find them in that dark maze. The noise of native shouting soon died away, so I realized that they had finished their business. The fires were all mastered except one that kept breaking out afresh. Then over the rim of the horizon rose the moon, and the world was bright again. I was just starting out to look for the others when I heard the jingle of bridles and the clatter of hoofs and knew that Arcoll’s police had arrived at last.
Arcoll made a fine bag of miscreants – five, to be accurate, who were firm in the grip of Mafudi’s people. Three were dead – the man from Lydenburg whom I shot, one of the new fellows whose skull Haraldsen split with the axe, and, as the fates would have it, Troth himself. Peter had got Troth at the very start, when he showed up for a second in the gleam of the first fire. There he lay with his neat London outfit punctured by Peter’s bullet, a homebred hound among jackals, but the worst jackal of the pack.
*
‘That’s a pleasant yarn,’ said Sandy. ‘Old Haraldsen told me a good many of his adventures, but not that one. It had the right sort of ending.’
‘That wasn’t quite the end,’ I said. ‘Haraldsen had burst through the ring into the arms of Mafudi’s men, who knew him well and recognized him and kept him out of danger. But as soon as Arcoll arrived and took charge the old man got busy. He had been berserk at the gate, and now he seemed to be “fey”. He said there was something still to do, and he insisted on Peter and Lombard and me accompanying him to the top of the Hill of the Blue Leopard. There he made us a speech, looking more like an old Norseman than ever. He said that we were his blood-brothers, who had been ready to stand by him to the end. But the end hadn’t come, though Troth was dead and the others would soon be in quod. There was a legacy of ill will that would follow him to his last day, and the dead Troth would leave it as a bequest to his successors. So he wanted the three of us to swear that if he called for us we would come to his aid wherever in the world we might be. More, we must be ready to come to his son’s help, for he considered that this vendetta might not end with his own life, and we were to hand on the duty to our own sons. As none of us was married that didn’t greatly worry us.
‘It was like something out of one of his Sagas. There we stood above the silvered bush on rocks which were like snowdrifts in the strong moonlight. We took his right hand in turn in ours and put it to our foreheads, and then we raised our right arms and repeated a mad formula about dew and fire and running water… Lord, how it all comes back – that white world, and the smell of charred bush, and the pain in my shoulder, and Lombard, who had had about as much as he could stand, whimpering like a scared dog!’
‘Well, he’s dead now,’ said Sandy, ‘and your oath is finished, for it’s not likely that his son will trouble you. Heigh-ho! The old wild days have gone. Peter long ago entered Valhalla. What about the third – Lombard, I think you called him?’
‘Curiously enough,’ I said, ‘I met him last autumn. He’s not thinking about any Saga oath nowadays. He is bald and plump and something in big business.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Haraldsen’s Son
The Clanroydens went off to Laverlaw for a fortnight, Sandy to fish his Border burns, and Barbara to attend to her garden, and I was settling down to my farming, when I got a letter from Lombard. I had heard nothing of him since our meeting in the train the previous autumn. He had not invited me for a week-end as he had suggested – at which I rejoiced, for I would have had to invent some excuse for refusing; nor had he repeated his proposal to lunch together in London.
His letter began with apologies for this neglect; he had been very busy all winter and had had to make two trips abroad. But now he wanted to see me – wanted to see me urgently. Was there any chance of my being in town in the coming week, and if so, could we meet? He would keep any appointment, but he suggested luncheon and then going back to his office to talk. I couldn’t imagine what he had to say to me, and I had an unpleasant suspicion that he wanted me for one of his financial ventures, but, as I had to go to London on other business, I had no grounds for declining. So I wired asking him to lunch at my own club, a quiet place with a smoking-room on the top floor which we could have to ourselves.
Lombard was looking worried, and he had also a heavy cold. His ruddy face had gone white, his eyes watered, and his voice was like a cracked tin-can. He had been drenched golfing, he told me, and the east wind had done the rest. But his bodily ailment was the least of his troubles, and I had the impression that this plump, four-square personage had been badly shaken. At luncheon I made him drink hot whisky-and-water, but he only picked at his food, and had very little conversation. There was something on his mind, and I was glad when I got him to the upper smoking-room, settled him in an arm-chair, and told him to get on with it.
His first question startled me.
‘Do you remember a chap called Haraldsen?’ he asked. ‘Thirty years ago in Rhodesia? The time I went on trek with you when I was on my way home?’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘Oddly enough I was talking about him last week.’
‘Well, I’ve seen him.’
‘Then you’ve seen a ghost,’ I replied; ‘for he is dead.’
He opened his rheumy eyes.
‘I don’t mean the old man – I mean his son. But how do you know that Haraldsen is dead? The young one doesn’t know it.’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘It’s too long a story to tell you now, but it’s a fact. What about the young one? I knew there was a son, but I never heard anything about him. What sort of age?’
‘Over thirty. Perhaps nearer forty. He wrote to me and asked for an interview – found my name in the telephone-book – didn’t say what he wanted. I thought he might have something to do with a Swedish wood-pulp proposition, for I’ve been doing a little in that line lately, so I agreed to see him, though I was very busy. I had completely forgotten the name, and it never suggested Rhodesia.’
He stopped, and then broke out quite fiercely: ‘Why on earth should it? It’s all more than thirty years ago, and I’ve long ago buried the callow boy who went vapouring about Africa. Hang it all, I’ve made a position for myself. Next year I hope to be a Director of the Bank of England. I’ve my reputation to consider. You see that, don’t you?’
I didn’t know what he was driving at, but it was plain that Lombard was no longer the sleek suburbanite. Something had jostled him out of his rut.
‘But there was nothing in the old Haraldsen business to hurt your credit,’ I said. ‘So far as I remember, you behaved well. There’s no skeleton in that cupboard.’
‘Wait till you hear,’ he replied dismally. ‘This chap came to my office, and he told me a dashed silly story. Oh, a regular blood-and-thunder yarn of how he was in an awful mess, with a lot of crooks out gunning for him. I didn’t follow him very clearly, for he was in a pitiable state of nerves, and now and then lost command of the English language altogether. But the gist of it was that he was in deadly danger, and that his enemies would get him unless he found the right kind of friends. I don’t know how much was true, but I could see that he believed it all. There must be some truth in it, for he didn’t look a fool, and I’ll swear that he’s honest.’
He stopped, and I waited, for I guessed what was coming.
‘He asked me to help him,’ Lombard continued, ‘though God knows what he thought I could do. I’m not a Cabinet Minister or a Chief of Police. Did you ever hear anything more preposterous?’
‘Never,’ I said heartily – and waited.
‘He had got it into his head that he had some claim on me. Said I once helped his father in a tight place, and that his father had sworn me to stand by him if called upon – or by his son. Apparently the old man had put it all down in writing, and this Haraldsen had the document.’
‘Well, it’s not the kind of thing you could sue on,’ I said cheerfully.
‘I know that… But, I say, Hannay, do you remember the occasion?’
‘Perfectly. We stood on the top of a kopje in the moonlight, and the old boy swore us by one of his Viking oaths. Oh, I remember it all right.’
‘So do I,’ said Lombard miserably. ‘Well, what the devil is to be done about it?’
‘Nothing,’ I said stoutly. I had sized up Lombard, and I realized that to expect this sedentary middle-aged fellow to take a hand in a wild business was beyond all reason. My old liking for him had returned, and I didn’t want him to have an uneasy conscience. But what puzzled me was why young Haraldsen had gone to him. ‘There were three of us in it,’ I said. ‘You and I and Peter Pienaar. Peter is in a better world, but I’m still to the fore. Why didn’t he tackle me? I had much more to do with his father than you had.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t think of you as a major-general with a title. He probably heard my name in the City. Anyhow, there we are, and an infernal worrying business it is.’
‘My dear chap, you needn’t worry,’ I said. ‘We have all been foolish in our young days, and we can’t be expected to go on living up to our folly. If I had made a pact with a man when I was twenty-one to climb Everest, and he turned up today and wanted to hold me to it, I should tell him to go to blazes. But I should like to hear more of young Haraldsen’s yarn.’
‘I didn’t get it quite straight,’ he replied, ‘for the fellow was too excited. Besides, I didn’t try to, for I could think of nothing except that ridiculous performance in Rhodesia. But I jotted down one or two names he mentioned, the names of the people he was afraid of.’ From his pocket he took a sheet of notepaper. ‘Troth,’ he read, ‘Lancelot Troth. And a name which may be Albius or Albion – I didn’t ask him to spell it. Oh, and Barralty – you know, the company-promoter that came down in the Lepcha goldfield business.’
This made me open my eyes. ‘God bless my soul, but Troth is dead. You know that yourself, for you saw old Peter Pienaar account for him. Your second name is probably Albinus – you must remember him too. If he’s still alive I can’t think what the Devil is waiting for. Barralty I know nothing about. I tell you what, Lombard, this all sounds to me like sheer hallucination. Young Haraldsen has come on Troth and Albinus in his father’s papers, and has let himself be hag-ridden by ghosts from the past. Most likely the man is crazy.’
He shook his head. ‘He didn’t impress me that way. Scared if you like, but quite sane. Anyhow, what do you advise me to do about it? He made an appeal to me – he was almost weeping and – I had to promise to give him an answer. My answer is due tomorrow.’
‘I think you had better turn the thing over to me,’ I said. ‘I’ve had some news lately about old Haraldsen, and I’d like to meet his son. Have you got his address?’
‘I know how to get on to him. He’s desperately secretive, but he gave me a telephone number which I could ring up and leave a message for a Mr Bosworth.’
‘Well, send the message. I must go home tomorrow, but tonight I’m free. Tell him to dine with me here tonight at eight. Give him my name, and mention that I was deeper in the old business than you were. If the thing’s genuine, he is bound to have some record of me. If it’s bogus, he’ll never turn up.’
‘What will you do with him?’ he asked.
‘I’ll cross-examine him and riddle out the business. I know enough about old Haraldsen to be able to cross-examine with some effect. I suspect that the whole thing’s a lunatic’s fancy, for there’s a good deal of lunacy in the Northern races. In that case, you and I will be able to go to bed in peace.’
‘But if it’s serious?’ he asked, and his face showed that he had not much doubt about that.
‘Oh, if there’s anything in it, I suppose I must take a hand. After all, I was a pretty close friend of his father, which you never were. You needn’t worry about the Moonlight Sonata stuff, for I put nothing on that. That was only old Haraldsen’s taste for melodrama. Consider yourself as clean out of the affair, like Peter Pienaar. You’ve been a responsible citizen for the better part of thirty years, with a big business to manage and a settled life and all the rest of it. No sane man would expect you to butt into a show of this kind. Besides, you’d be no sort of good at it. I’ve settled down, too, but I’ve led a different kind of life from you, and crime is a little bit more in my line. I’ve made several excursions into the under-world, and I know some of the ropes.’
There was an odd change in his face, which had hitherto registered only anxiety. I could have sworn that he was getting cross.
‘If you were in my position, would you take that advice?’ he asked in a flat voice.
‘Most certainly I should,’ I replied.
‘You’re a good fellow, Hannay,’ he said, ‘and you mean well. But you’re a damned liar. If you were in my position, you’d do nothing of the kind, and you’d have the blood of anybody who advised you to. I can see what you take me for – I could se
e it in your eyes when we foregathered in the train. You believe I’m a fatted calf that has made a success in the City, and thinks only of his bank balance and his snug house and his Saturday’s gold. You believe that I’m the sort of herring-gutted creature that would take any insult lying down, or at the best run round to my solicitors. Well, you’re wrong. I’ve had a soft life compared to you, but it hasn’t been all fur-lined. I’ve had to take plenty of risks, and some of them mighty big ones. I had no wish to see you again after we met last autumn, for I saw that you despised me, and I didn’t see how I could ever get you to change your mind. You’re right in some ways. I’m a bit flabby and out of training in body and mind. But by God you’re wrong about the main thing. I’ve never gone back on my word or funked a duty. And I’m not going to begin now. If there’s anything in Haraldsen’s story, my promise stands, and I’m in the business up to my neck, the same as you. If you don’t agree to that, then you’ll jolly well stand out, and I’ll take it on myself.’
I felt the blood surging to my cheeks. Lombard had got up from his chair, and I had done the same, and we stood staring at each other across the hearthrug. I saw in his face what I had missed altogether on the last occasion we met, a stubborn resolution and a shining honesty. In spite of his baldness and fleshiness and bleared eyes and snuffling, he looked twenty years younger. I recognized in him the boy I had known in Equatoria, and I felt as if I had suddenly recovered an old friend.
‘Never mind what I thought,’ I said. ‘If I thought as you say I did I made a howling mistake and I grovel in apologies. We’ve picked up our friendship where we left it at Mafudi’s kraal, and we’ll see this thing through together.’