NO WOMAN'S LAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 June 1938, Page 10

NO WOMAN'S LAND

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

COPYRIGH’

BY

JANE ENGLAND

CHAPTER ll.—Continued. He stopped then and took her by the shoulders, and said in a low, angry voice, “Do you know what you’re saying? Nella, do you know?” “I wish I didn’t,” she sobbed. “Go away . . . please go away . . . quickly, before they come. I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. Go away!” “You don’t realize what you are saying . . you don’t realize what you’ve done,” said Archie. “You must . . ” He stopped speaking. The mule-cart had turned down the last few yards of their track that led towards the homestead, and had pulled up. He left Nella on.her knees, and walked to meet it. A faint radiance on the horizon showed that the moon was about to rise. CHAPTER 111. Dolly got out of the mule-cart and went over to where Nella knelt on the ground. She felt sick and shocked. Of course, it was obvious what had happened. The old man had got fuddled, upset a lamp or put a candle too near the dry thatch or something, and everything had gone up in a roar of flames., And now what? she asked herself inwardly. David and Fellowes were talking together over by the mule-cart. David looked over and pointed towards the distant kraal, and said something. Dolly made a determined effort and bent down over Nella Howard. “Look here,” she said firmly, “it’s ghastly, but you can’t stay here. We can’t do anything, my dear. Better leave it to my husband and Archie Fellowes, and come home with me.” But the girl only went on sobbing huskily as if she hadn’t heard. Dolly Hastings felt rather lost and helpless. She closed hei’ eyes, and put a hand on Nella’s shoulder. “We can do nothing here,” she said. “Come home with me.” She tried to imagine what she would have done herself if she had ridden home to Bloots and found that what once had been David lay in a heap of red ember?. Would she haYe listened to any outsider and gone away and left him? Would she? Probably not. Nella suddenly stopped sobbing, and said in a hoarse, driven voice “The cattle piccanin . . the cattle piccanin.” Then she began to sob again. “What about the cattle piccanin?” asked Dolly, who held strong theories about it being a good thing to introduce practical matters when the emotions were becoming too overpowering. But the result appalled her. Nella gave a queer gasp, and screamed, “He’s ’ there too—burnt up. Poor little boy—burnt up!” Archie Fellowes heard, and he turn- , ed away from David and came’ over to

“Nella,” he said sternly, “you don’t know that. You’ve no right to say it. Go with Mrs Hastings, and Mr Hastings and I will look after everything.” “Why didn’t you go when I told you?” said Nella. She stared at him, her face blotched and swollen. Archie Fellowes stared back at her. His face was deeply lined, Dolly noticed, and his eyes dull. She liked Archie. He came over now and again to Bloots to tell them absurd stories about his farm, but she had never known that he was friendly with the Howards. There was no reason why I should go,” he said. “Mrs Hastings, can you get her away. There’s nothing that she can do here. Your husband says he will stay here until I get help.” “I’m not going,” muttered Nella. Dolly made a slight, resigned movement of her shoulders.

“Then we’ll stay,” she said simply. “There's no need,” muttered Nella, and she looked up at Dolly with a distraught, and yet unfriendly start. “I can stay alone.” “What nonsense!” said Dolly. She looked at Fellowes, and then down at the girl who crouched on the

ground. “I want to speak to David for a moment,” she said, “you stay here with her.”

She went across the ground, past the embers, to where David still stood by the mule cart.

“Look here,” she said abruptly, “She won’t leave. She’s babbling about the cattle piccanin; seems to think that he’s there too. Doesn’t sound likely to me. “But I suppose we'd better camp here until the morning, then I suppose the police, or someone, will turn up.” “Fellowes is going to get them,” said David. “But it'ud be much better Dolly if you took the mule-cart and got that girl away.”

“I expect you’re very right,” said Dolly, “but she won’t come.” David scowled at the darkness that encircled the sinister glow from the embers.

“I can’t think,” he said, “why some of those natives from the kraal didn’t come here when they saw the fire.” Dolly shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve always heard that they keep out of anything like that if they can. I mean they’re perennially scared of getting mixed up in anything.”

“Don’t be an ass!” said David in a tone of controlled violence, “this isn't a crime . . . it’s just, well, I suppose the old boy got tight and put a candle to the thatch, or something.” Dolly started to say something, and then stopped. Coming through the night was the thud of hoofs; someone else had seen that blaze, then. She gave a queer little sigh. At least it would take the responsibility off David and herself. She glanced over her shoulder to where Nella and Archie were. The girl was standing up now, holding her hands over her eyes. She had her back to Fellowes. The sound of hoofs was nearer. Two horses, Dolly thought. She touched David’s hand.

(Author of “Sjambok,” “Trader’s License,” &c.)

“I'm going back to the Howard girl,”, she said. “I somehow think she’ll need a restraining hand. She’s got strange ideas at the moment.” The men on horseback were Piet Groenwald, stolid and dark; and a short, tubby farmer called Hanslow. Hanslow was gobbling indistinctly when he arrived. “But what happened?" he kept on asking, “what happened?” ‘Nobody knows,” said Hastings curtly. “Fellowes was first on the spot. But when he arrived the huts were blazing.” “And the girl . . . what was she doing?” asked Hanslow. “Trying to get some . . some food in Klinter’s,” said Hastings drily. “But it’s amazing! I mean to say, why didn’t those fools of natives from the kraal come down?” Piet Groenwald put in a slow and heavy word. “They don’t kom . . . they don’t like ever to be mixed with the police.” “What has it got to do with the police?” said Hastings nervily. “It was an accident.” Fellowes said nothing. He stood there quite silently, hardly moving. Some distance away from the men Dolly sat on the ground by Nella’s side. Nella had stopped crying, and was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap, looking blankly in front of her. The pale light from the rising moon fell on her honey-coloured head and made deep shadows under her cheekbones; her mouth was curved into a child-like despair. Dolly looked at the group of men by the mule-cart. She thought, I’m hungry, beastly hungry. If Igo on feeling as hungry as all this I shall get a sick headache. Men—they just go on talking and standing about. She stopped thinking, because suddenly, as if they had materialized out of the void, a tall native and a piccanin appeared in the trodden circle round the burnt homestead. The man wore a roll of blue cotton like a short skirt, and the piccanin had a ragged singlet. They stood- as shadows on a still day, staring at the greying embers. Nella Howard saw them, too. She gave an odd little screech and tumbled forward in a dead faint. Dolly scrambled to her knees and picked the girl up, while Hanslow gave an aggrieved yelp. “Look' at ’em, the blighters,” he shouted, “they would turn up at this hour.” Dolly, who was vigorously rubbing Nella’s wrists thought with a faint, ironic fury “I wonder he didn’t add and that child ought to be in bed!’ ” Nella moaned and gasped. “It’s all right,” said Dolly briskly. ‘lt’s your picannin, I should think.” ! David, new to the country, and un-

sure of himself, left it to the other men to do something. Hanslow, never back- j! " ward, bawled at the native in Chis- . wina. “Why did you not come when ( you saw the fire? Why did you not do something?” I Nella sat upright again, and looked 1 at the piccanin. She gave yet another gasp and got to her feet. * “Tom,” she called, “Tom, where have you been?” The piccanin gazed at her solemnly, ® but did not answer. ’ The tall native said in a deep, soft voice “The child was frightened, Missie. j He heard the two Baas speaking in anger. He ran away and hid.” ’ Dolly didn’t understand a word, but Nella’s face became like a piece of carved ivory in the moonlight. “What two Baas?” said Hanslow sharply. The native shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know, Baas? The child was frightened. He did not see them. He hid. Only now has he told . us.” “Please,” said Nella urgently “please —oh, please take me away.” “All right,” said Dolly. “We’ll use the mule-cart. Somebody will look after your pony.” She took the girl by the arm, and walked across the clearing to the men. I ‘l’m taking Miss Howard over to Bloots,” she said briefly. David glanced at her and nodded. “I’ll be over as soon as I can,” he said. He helped Nella up into the cart, and Dolly climbed up the other side. She gathered up the reins and the whip, set her teeth, and chirruped to the mules.

CHAPTER IV Bloots homestead was an oblongshaped brick house, with a steeply pitched roof of thatch. In the moonlight it looked gaunt and delapidated; and all round it the ground was bare and well-trodden. A bottle-brush shrub stood at each end of the stoep with the scarlet flowers almost black in the light of the moon. A well stood some distance away on the right, with _ an overturned bucket lying by its side, and about fifty yards behind the house was the abandoned mine. Some wood- - en platforms, like gallows, stark and dark in the pale light, marked the old shafts; and a grim, depressing heap of ~ slag heaved itself up against the steely sky. There were no trees, and no garden. Near the slag-heap was a huddle of kias, originally used by natives working in the mine: now, like shabby, tumble-down beehives, they housed the three boys who were employed by the Hastings . . cookboy, houseboy, and general odd job boy. There was no sign of life as Dolly drove the mule-cart up to the house. | The fires in the natives’ huts were out; 9 and only Felix, the black, scraggy cat I who haunted the stoep, came out to I meet her. | <To be Continued.) |