Chapter 7 No.7

In course of time, Miss Blake went away to spend her Christmas holidays at a distant town, her native place. The Reverend Robley Wilson took a holiday shortly afterwards, and followed her. He asked her to be a helpmeet unto him, and she agreed. Whatever love existed between them was mainly on his side. She came back to the mission engaged, but by agreement the fact was to be kept secret for a time, even from the Missionary and his wife.

During the holidays, Samuel had continued his course of feverish study. His face had become thin and drawn, and his eyes looked unnaturally bright and prominent. Martha was more ill-tempered and sulky than ever, and repeated disobedience had led to talk of her expulsion. During the holidays she had volunteered to stay at the mission rather than go back to her mother's kraal. She was allowed to stay on condition that she did the house-work, helping the old domestic, who was far from well. She thus had many opportunities of cultivating Samuel's acquaintance, and it was not long before her suspicions as to his passion for Miss Blake were fully confirmed. Samuel allowed her to talk to him, but he said very little in reply.

About a week after Miss Blake's return, Mr. Wilson managed to get an invitation to preach at the mission on the following Sunday. He arrived on Friday, and then, for the first time, Samuel began to suspect the true state of affairs. On Saturday evening Miss Blake and her lover were sitting together in a little summer-house in the garden, Samuel had watched them enter and then, stealthily as a cat, had crept up to the trellis, and taken a position where he could hear every word spoken. What he heard left no room for any doubt as to the true state of affairs. At first he felt as if stunned by the shock, the very force of the blow precluding suffering for the time being. The mention of his own name brought him to himself, and every word of the conversation that followed burned itself into his brain.

"What a strange character that Samuel Gozani is," said Mr. Wilson; "I have sometimes thought him slightly mad."

"So have I," replied the girl, and she then gave a rapid sketch of

Samuel's career at the mission.

"Has it never struck you that he may have presumed to fall in love with you?"

"I do not like to speak about such a thing, but it has; and for some time back I have hardly been able to bear his presence. I shudder whenever he comes near me."

"I think it is such a mistake to let these fellows think they can be on an equality with us," said Mr. Wilson, after a pause; "it always leads to unpleasantness. The idea of his presuming even to think of you in that way."

"I often recall his asking me such a strange question one night last year. He asked if I thought all men, black and white, were equal, It was not so much the question, as his manner of putting it, that struck me as being strange."

"And what did you say in reply?"

"Oh, I said that before God all men were equal. He then asked whether I thought one who was white could ever look on a black man as really his equal. I did not like to say what I truly thought, and felt, so I made an evasive answer."

"I know old Schultz and his school teach a lot of nonsense on that point," said Mr. Wilson, scornfully, "although none of them truly believe what they say. The equality idea is quite an exploded one, and the black savage, superficially civilised, is no more the equal of the European, than a Basuto pony is equal to a thoroughbred horse. But I hope you will keep that fellow in his place!"

"Yes, of course I will. But I pity him nevertheless."

"Do you? I cannot say that I do. But after all, he is not so much to blame as is the system which filled his head with nonsense. These old missionaries have done a lot of harm in giving the natives false notions as to equality, and making them generally conceited."

Samuel had heard enough. He crept away as noiselessly as he came.

Next day the Rev. Robley Wilson preached one of his very best sermons. His preaching was ex tempore, and full of vigour. He discoursed of righteousness, of temperance, and of judgment to come on the unrighteous and the intemperate. He waxed more and more didactic. He called upon his hearers to thank the Lord that such men as he, the Reverend Robley Wilson, had thought fit to devote their lives to the service of the children of Ham, instead of shining in metropolitan pulpits and pouring vials of saving grace over the heads of the elect of the children of Shem. He dwelt on the inconveniences of mission life in South Africa, and drew a moving picture of the contrast between such, and existence in a civilised, European city-comforted by the appliances of Science and cheered by the achievements of Art. He again called upon the children of Ham to thank their common Maker for the blessings bestowed on them by the children of Shem, and he wound up with a prayer so audaciously comprehensive, that had all thereby asked for been granted, the members of the congregation, and all their friends and relations-to say nothing of the whole human race which was included in a general clause-would have had nothing more to hope for, and must have succumbed to sheer repletion. It was a rousing sermon, but it contained not a single reference to the fundamental axiom.

Whilst the blessings conferred upon the natives by the Europeans were being enumerated, Miss Blake (quite involuntarily) thought of the canteens in the village close at hand, coming from which, drunken men and women often staggered past; the mission, and during the fascinating description of life in a European city, she could not help recalling certain accounts she had recently read of the experiences of venturesome persons who explored regions called slums, said to exist to a considerable extent in most large British cities. But it was a rousing sermon; and well delivered.

Samuel led the choir, and his voice had, if possible, a more exultant and triumphant ring than usual.

At evening service, the old missionary preached-or rather read his sermon. His was a much humbler effort than that of his locum tenens of the forenoon, but it left a more salutary and peaceful impression. None of the ideas were original, the illustrations were commonplace, and what passed for argument was rather threadbare. The fundamental axiom was there, but was not aggressively flaunted: it was rather implied than expressed. But in spite of all this, the hearers, or most of them, were the better of the discourse, for the simple loving kindness and faith of the old man permeated the congregation as a gentle and soothing influence.

It was noticed that Samuel withdrew quietly from the church just at the close of the last hymn, and before the final prayer and blessing. When the junior teacher assembled the girls a few minutes later, in the dormitory, Martha Kawa was missing.

The Reverend Robley Wilson and Miss Blake lingered in the church for a few minutes after the congregation had left, and strolled together across the grass plot to the Mission House. At the door, Mr. Wilson excused himself, and walked down through the shrubbery towards the visitors's house-a little one-roomed building, set apart for guests. He meant just to leave his Bible and hymnbook on the table, brush his hair, and then rejoin Miss Blake and the others in the dining-room, where supper awaited them. He softly whistled the tune of a hymn as he went along the path, thinking how very inconvenient it was that he had to return home on the following day. It had been agreed that the engagement was to be announced that evening to the kind old missionary and his wife. He also thought of the inevitable opposition to a short engagement, as he knew how difficult it would be to find a suitable successor to Miss Blake. He had just begun to compare the sermon he had just been listening to with his own of the morning-much to the disadvantage of the former, through which he could perceive the fundamental axiom protruding like a cloven foot, when he suddenly ceased thinking for ever, for a blow from the heavy knob of a strong stick crushed his skull in on his brain like an egg-shell, and he sank, a limp mass, to the ground.

Then Samuel Gozani, for it was his arm that had struck the blow, sprang from the footpath into the thickest part of the shrubbery, and there came into violent physical contact with Martha Kawa, who had been a witness of his murderous deed.

They waited in the dining-room, expecting the arrival of the guest, and wondering at his long absence. Suddenly a loud shriek was heard coming from the direction of the shrubbery, and the missionary left the dining-room and walked quickly down the passage to the front door, which Stood wide open. There he met Martha Kawa, whose demeanour showed signs of the most frantic terror. Her face was of a dull, ash colour; her mouth hung open and her eyes were dilated. She gasped for breath, pointed towards the visitors' house, and then sank senseless to the ground. The missionary returned to the dining-room, seized a candle, and walked quickly down the shrubbery path, the flame of the candle hardly flickering in the breathless night air. There was the body, a huddled mass, lying on its face, with the arms stretched out at right angles, and the palms of the bands turned upwards. A trickle of blood ran down the slope for a few inches, and then formed a pool. The poor old man stood for a few moments transfixed with horror, and then staggered back to the house.

Shortly afterwards the shrubbery was full of blanched faces, rendered doubly ghastly by the faint glimmer of the lanterns and candles. Samuel was there, taciturn as usual, and the most self-possessed person present. He came direct from his room when the alarm was given. Miss Blake was led by Mrs. Schultz into the house. Then hands, tremulous with terror and pity, lifted tenderly what had so recently been a human being brimming with youthful, healthy life, and exalted with anticipation of the crown of happy love, and laid it on the little white bed. Later, when the officials came to view the body, they opened the door softly and shrinkingly, and the drip, drip, drip on the clay floor sounded on their tense brains like strokes from the hammer of doom.

When Martha Kawa had sufficiently recovered to be capable of answering questions, she told a strange story. She had heard, so she said, a voice raised as though in anger, but had been unable to distinguish the words, and just afterwards a dull thud. She then walked quickly towards where these sounds had come from, and was just able to distinguish two men running away. This was all that could be elicited from her.

Suspicion at once fell upon Samuel. In his room was found a large knobbed stick, such as might have caused the wound, with the knob still damp, apparently from recent washing. Foot-marks corresponding with his were found in suspicious localities in the shrubbery. He was arrested and tried for the crime, but was acquitted on the evidence of Martha Kawa. When, shortly after the trial, Samuel and Martha disappeared simultaneously, every one felt that Samuel was surely guilty, and that his acquittal, which was irrevocable, had involved a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Miss Blake left the mission and returned to her family. Mr. Schultz shortly afterwards retired from active work, and went to live in one of the larger colonial towns. He drew a small pension which, with the interest upon the scanty savings of his charitable life, was sufficient for his moderate needs. He still holds by the fundamental axiom.