by M. M. Kaye
But then Dan was that sort of upright fool, thought Rory, who had no sympathy with priggishness and heroics though he had always had a certain sympathy for Dan. Chasing slave traders in these waters, where every man’s hand was against you and even the slaves themselves accepted their fate as an immutable law of nature and were apt to regard their deliverer as mad, must be a thankless task—its only rewards heat, discomfort and exile, the abuse of all who owned slaves and the hatred of those who sold them, the dumb incomprehension of the freed and the loud imputations of base and selfish motives expressed by Christian nations who should have known better.
Dan’s job was no sinecure, and Rory smiled a little grimly at the thought of his own frequent contributions to Lieutenant Larrimore’s troubles. He hoped that Dan was enjoying a brief period of respite while conveying Miss Cressida Hollis and wives and families of the Western residents to the Cape.
The rain drove into his eyes and he cupped a hand about them and peered under it at the harbour and the few grey shapes that rocked at anchor…And there—unbelievably, impossibly—was the Virago!
Even at that range and seen through the slanting lines of rain there was no mistaking her. He would have recognized her at twice the distance and by almost any light She had not gone! Dan and the Colonel had cheated him! Or else—or else…
He would not even frame the thought, but he drove his heels into the flanks of the shivering horse, urging it to a gallop, and rode for that part of the shore that was nearest to the anchored schooner.
He had never known a day when the waterfront was not crowded or the beach free of an ugly litter of jetsam, among which the corpse of a slave flung overboard from a dhow was no uncommon sight. But today there were no crowds, and not one corpse but twenty: victims of the cholera thrown into the creek for disposal and carried out by the tide to be stranded on the sands of the harbour. The waterfront was silent and deserted, except for the crows and the seagulls and a number of pariah dogs, who between them were disposing of the dead.
There were no boats, either. Any that had been left drawn up on the beach had been stolen long ago by panic-stricken citizens fleeing from the infection, and Rory waded into the sea and making a trumpet of his hands hailed the schooner. But no one answered him. The Virago rocked and swung at her moorings, wraith-like in the grey sea and the falling rain, her decks deserted and her hatches battened down, and no one on watch.
Rory hailed her again, but the wind snatched his voice away and lost it among the voices of the rain and the surf and the mewing of the gulls, and he knew that he was wasting his breath. There was no one to hear him; and if he swam out to her he would not only be wasting time, but energy as well.
He returned to the horse, and mounting again, wrenched brutally on the wet rope that served for a bridle, and turning from the harbour and the road that would have taken him to Kivulimi, rode back in the direction he had come from: heading for The Dolphins’ House and riding with a reckless disregard for his own neck and die safety of any passing pedestrian.
35
It was on the day following Captain Frost’s incarceration in the Arab Fort that Dan brought the first news of the cholera to Mr Hollis.
The citizens of Zanzibar took a casual view of a disease that was always among them, and they had not at first been unduly disturbed at its appearance in the Malindi quarter, or taken the trouble to report it. Even Colonel Edwards’ normally efficient grape-vine had failed to recognize its importance and neglected to mention it: with the result that the Colonel as well as Lieutenant Larrimore was inclined to regard Rory Frost’s statements on that subject as deliberately alarmist, and almost certainly made with some ulterior motive in view—probably (as Larrimore had suggested) the acquiring of hostages. Nevertheless, he had made enquiries, and elicited the information that there had indeed been two cases of cholera in the Malindi quarter, though there was no reason to suppose that they indicated the beginning of a serious epidemic.
But twenty-four hours later the two cases had become nineteen, of whom eighteen had died, and there was no longer any doubt that Rory Frost’s dire predictions had been no more than the truth. This was no ordinary form of cholera, but the terrible epidemic that had made its first appearance many months ago on the shores of the Red Sea, and creeping slowly southward had already depopulated half Africa.
Dan had had little time to spare for his Love in the weeks that followed upon the abduction of Hero Hollis and the rioting and violence that had accompanied it. He had been kept fully occupied with restoring tranquillity and order to the city, patrolling the coasts to ensure that the pirate dhows did not return, and prosecuting the search for Captain Frost and the Virago, But Cressy had never been far from his thoughts, and word that there were eighteen dead in the Malindi quarter wiped everything else from his mind.
The fate of Rory Frost, the dhows, the slave ships, HMS Daffodil and the citizens of Zanzibar became of no more account than a handful of dead leaves and dry grass, and only Cressy was important. The Hollises must remove from the city immediately, and put up in some house in the country until such time as a ship could be found to take them out of danger:
“I wish it might be possible to offer my own services, sir,” said Dan, his blue gaze intent and anxious: “But Colonel Edwards considers that in view of the late disturbances and the fact that there is no saying that the dhows may not return while the northeast Trades are blowing, it would be advisable to have at least one foreign ship in harbour. So I cannot for the moment offer to convey Mrs Hollis and—and the ladies of your family from the Island. But they would be safer outside the city, and there are a number of houses in the countryside or on the coast where they would be comfortable enough until arrangements could be made to take them out of Zanzibar.”
Mr Hollis had read of such things as cholera epidemics in the East, but he had no real conception of what they entailed or the terrible speed with which the disease could strike. Dan’s information disturbed him, but he was unwilling to send his family into the country unless he could accompany them himself. And this was something that he could not agree to do, since his duty lay here, and it seemed to him that to retire precipitately from the city would convey an undignified and an unnecessary impression of panic, and might well lead to unkind comment among his fellow Consuls and the court officials He thanked Lieutenant Larrimore for his information and advice, and being under no illusion as to the reasons that had prompted the young man to offer them, promised to give the matter his serious consideration, and was kind enough to add that Cressy might be found in the morning-room…
Nathaniel Hollis was by no means reconciled to the prospect of seeing his beloved daughter married to an English naval officer, even though that officer’s father was, it transpired, an Admiral who had deserved well enough of his country to be rewarded with a baronetcy—which meant that Dan would one day be ‘Sir Daniel’ and his wife Lady Larrimore. That sort of thing might serve in some small way to console Abigail, but then women—even Republican ones—were always intrigued by titles. And Abby still had Clay, her son and her first-born, but Cressy was Nathaniel’s only child. Nothing could compensate him for losing her to a man who would expect her to live in his country instead of her own—and her father’s. It was his own fault, for if he had not let her wheedle him into allowing her to accompany him to Zanzibar, he would not now have been forced to countenance her betrothal to this stubborn young Englishman. But after that scene in the hall on the day following Hero’s abduction there had been very little he could do about it, for it had resolved all his daughter’s doubts and put an end to all her hesitations.
Clinging wildly to Dan and returning his kisses with passionate intensity, Cressy was sure at last that this was love! she would never love anyone else, and if she could not marry Dan she would die! Counsels of prudence and the merest hint of parental opposition had been met with floods of tears, hysterical accusations that her parents cared nothing for her happiness, and frantic pleading. Even Hero�
�s appalling predicament had been almost forgotten in the agitating scenes that had followed, and of course Cressy had won. Dan having been reluctantly given permission to pay his addresses to her had instantly proposed and been as instantly accepted. And even Clayton, in the light of her subsequent behaviour, was no longer able to hope that his half-sister was suffering from a temporary infatuation and would be bound to think better of it before long.
I suppose she’ll be able to come home for long visits, thought Mr Hollis, consoling himself Now that there were these new-fangled steamships, travel was becoming easier and quicker and the world was getting smaller every day. England was not so far away, and already there were men on both sides of die Atlantic who had taken to referring to that ocean with careless familiarity as ‘The Duckpond’. Maybe it would not be as bad as he supposed. But it would never be the same as if she had married some nice American boy and lived in the same town—or at least the same country!—as her doting father.
Cressy had been arranging spider lilies and oleander in a tall Moorish vase when the door of the morning-room opened and Dan came in quickly and took her in his arms, flowers and all, and kissed her with a satisfactory fervour that prevented her from saying anything at all for at least five minutes.
Released at last, blushing and breathless, she looked up at him with a little shiver of pure happiness, and was suddenly sobered by the expression on his face. The blood left her cheeks and her eyes mirrored the tenderness and fear and tension that was plain in his own: “What is it, Dan? What’s happened?”
“Nothing, darling,” said Dan quickly. Too quickly. He would have given a great deal to have been able to protect her from even knowing what would happen (what was already happening!) in Zanzibar city. Yet how could he avoid it? If only he could take her away now—at once! Before the sickness spread. Before there was any real danger. It was terrible to him that he should be tied here by duty when it would have been so simple to take Cressy and her mother and her cousin out of danger. But he could not do it: and in the meantime ignorance would not serve her as well as knowledge would; for she must be careful. They must all be careful. Dr Kealey would be able to tell them what precautions they should take, and if Cressy kept indoors and had no contact with the outside world, surely But there were the servants…
A faint draught of warm air fluttered the muslin flounces of Cressy’s dress and her small hands came up to grip the lapels of his uniform coat She said urgently: “There is something the matter. I know there is. Is it Captain Frost?”
“Frost?” He was relieved at finding something else to think about, and it was a measure of his anxiety that the thought of Rory Frost could be a relief instead of an active irritant: “Why should you think that?”
“Because you wanted to arrest him and now you have. Papa says he has been imprisoned in the Arab Fort and that his crew were ordered to leave the Island within a day and not come back. But I know they haven’t gone yet. The ship is still in the harbour. Bofabi told me. Is that why you are worried? Do you suppose they have stayed because they mean to try and rescue him? or—or to make more trouble in the city?”
Her voice quavered on the last words, for the ugly sight and the uglier sound of that threatening mob of yelling, dark-faced men who had besieged the Consulate for two terrifying days was still all too vivid in her memory, and she could neither forget it nor prevent her nerves from leaping apprehensively at every unexplained noise from the direction of the city.
Dan felt the shiver that ran through her slight body, and he put his hands over hers, holding them tightly against him: “They couldn’t do it, my darling, even if they wanted to. For one thing there aren’t enough of them, and it wasn’t they who were responsible for the rioting. It was the men off the dhows.”
“Then why hasn’t the Virago gone? What are they staying for? Why are they still here?” Once again there was a note of panic in her voice, and Dan said reassuringly: “It’s only because a child who was to have gone with them is sick and cannot be moved, and they won’t go without her. That’s all.”
What Mid?” The question came from behind them, and Dan released Cressy’s hands and turned quickly. He had not heard the door open, for he had closed it so hastily behind him that the latch had not caught and the draught had drawn it open: and now Hero Hollis was standing on the threshold, staring at him with wide, startled eyes.
She said again, and with an odd suggestion of urgency: “What child? Whose child is sick?”
“Frost’s,” said Dan curtly.
Hero took a step into the room. “Are you sure? Who told you? Couldn’t it just be an excuse for not leaving—for staying here?”
It almost sounded as though she were pleading with him to agree with her, and Dan was puzzled by the urgency in her voice until it occurred to him that she must have heard of the cholera and was afraid of it; as Cressy was afraid of further riots.
He said quickly: “It’s only some fever. I went to the house myself when I saw that the Virago had not sailed, and saw Potter and Ralub. The child is not well and Potter refuses to move her, and since neither the crew nor Ralub will leave without them, they have all stayed. I suppose we could have insisted on the rest of them going, but we’d have had to escort them out, and as soon as we were out of sight they’d only have put back and turned up in the city inside two days. So they may as well stay where we can watch them.”
“Have they sent for a doctor?” demanded Hero urgently.
“Why should they want? Oh, you mean for the child? I imagine they will have called in some local quack, but I do not suppose—”
A local quack! You mean a hakim? But all he would prescribe would be something like draughts of water in which charms have been boiled. You know that! Why did you not send at once for Dr Kealey? He would know what to do. You must send word to him immediately!”
The alarm in her voice irritated Dan, for he had not previously supposed her to be lacking in courage, and to find her losing her head because she suspected that cholera might have broken out in a quarter of the city nearer to the Consulate was profoundly disturbing. He had been counting upon her to be a support and encouragement to Cressy in the trying days ahead, for he had always considered her to be a remarkably strong-minded young woman: an opinion that had been confirmed by her extraordinary behaviour following upon her rape by Rory Frost. And although the fortitude and obstinacy that she had displayed on that occasion had seemed to him misplaced (Dan preferred women to be delicate and sensitive, and would have had far more sympathy with tears, hysteria and the vapours), it had at least encouraged him to think that she could be relied upon to keep a level head in die present crisis, and provide a rock to which his gentle, sensitive Cressy, and her over-emotional Mama, could cling. Yet here she was, going to pieces at the first mention of an epidemic and showing no consideration whatsoever for his Cressida’s nerves.
Dan could only presume that disease and the fear of infection was the indomitable Miss Hollis’s Achilles heel and he found it difficult to keep the irritation out of his voice. Making the effort, he said in a calm and encouraging tone:
“I assure you there is not the least necessity to call upon Dr Kealey for a diagnosis, as the symptoms of cholera are clearly recognizable and this is merely some sort of fever. Even if it were typhoid there is no reason for you to suppose that it will spread, while as for the cholera, if you keep to the house and the garden and take a few simple precautions, you should have nothing to—”
“Typhoid!” said Hero in a whisper. “But that is as bad as cholera…” Her eyes lost their frozen intentness and became bright with anger: “And you have done nothing! Even though you know that Batty and Ralub may not dare to go to Dr Kealey, and that Captain Frost cannot because he is in jail! Why, if they would not sail on Thursday night she must have been taken sick before then: nearly two days ago! And all you can do is to talk about cholera!”
She whirled round in a swish of petticoats and starched poplin and they heard her runnin
g down the hall, and then the slam of the front door as it swung to behind her.
“I don’t understand,” said Cressy helplessly. “Where has she gone to? What did she mean? Is there really cholera in Malindi, Dan? Is it dangerous? She’s gone out without even a hat, and she’ll only get sunstroke and if there’s cholera in the city…Oh, Dan, we ought to fetch her back at once! Run!”
But Dan had no intention of making a spectacle of himself chasing through the streets after Miss Hero Hollis. He felt confident that she would not go further than the Kealeys’ house, which was no great distance from the Consulate, and that Dr Kealey’s admirable good sense could not fail to restore her to a calmer frame of mind.
In the first of these assumptions he was correct, because Hero had indeed gone to the Kealeys’ house: hurrying hatless and unattended through the streets, to the shocked horror of the Consulate porter, who had feebly attempted to prevent her departure. She had found the doctor just returned from a prolonged conference with Colonel Edwards (the subject under discussion had been what measures, if any, could be taken to prevent or control the epidemic that was threatening the city), and in the circumstances he might have been excused had he shown small sympathy with Hero’s anxiety, and even less for its cause. But he was a kindly man with a fondness for children and a strong liking for Hero Hollis, whom he considered a sensible woman with very little nonsense about her, and he had listened to her attentively and agreed to accompany her at once to The Dolphins’ House; having first provided her with one of his wife’s sun-hats and a parasol.
Batty and Ralub, and indeed every member of the household, had been inexpressibly relieved to see her, and in some curious way it had seemed a home-coming: as though she were returning to people she was familiar with and a house she had always known. It was difficult to believe that she had only been there twice before.