And Bennet had put down his name for a vacancy in the East African Consular service. And having thus taken him under his wing, was prepared to stand by him through thick and thin ... even deluded himself into thinking he was a damned good sort, and his golden-haired wife--"bit of the devil in her, no doubt"--a fit person for Mrs. Molyneux to know--in the country, at any rate.
Perhaps she was. Why should one sneer at a woman for trying to improve her position and looks and wriggle into a less sordid sphere than that in which she was brought up? Emilia Standish--christened Emily, of course, but wrote her name "Emilia" from the time she was seventeen--was, as Captain Brentham ill-naturedly guessed, the daughter of a Bayswater widow who kept a Bayswater boarding-house (few districts of London have such a power for moulding human beings to its guise). Emilia Standish--or was it Stapleton?--I really forget--had tried life as a governess with ill success. She confided to her mother, and her mother only, that she might have succeeded here or there had not her pupil's father made improper advances from which she had to flee. She had studied for the stage, but like her predestined fate, Spencer Bazzard, she, at thirty-two, was somewhat at a loose end and living at home when Spencer came to lodge at her mother's boarding-house. He was down on his luck, almost in hiding, nearly cast off by his highly respectable, much older brother. He fell ill. Emilia took pity on him, nursed him, and defied her mother over the financial question. Out of gratitude he proposed. She accepted him and took stock of the situation, called on the elder brother in Staple Inn, secured his advocacy for a "colonial" appointment--and--you know the rest.
Spencer can't have been wholly bad, because though they had many a private tiff and unheard wrangle, this woman stuck by him and made a career for him. Brentham, in writing to his sister, gave too unfair a description of Spencer. He omitted to notice that though his knowledge of law was so imperfect as to throw doubt on the efficacy of the examinations which then admitted to the Bar, he had at any rate acquired some knowledge of shorthand, and certain of the qualities necessary to playing private secretary to an important personage. So that Sir Godfrey preferred greatly the retention of Bazzard as his lieutenant at Unguja, rather than the slightly gloomy and excessively well-informed Brentham.
There came at this time rumour after rumour that the Arabs of the Zangian coast were preparing to rise in force not only against the Germans but against all white men. They were concerting measures in common with the Arabs of Mombasa, of Tanganyika, Nyasa and the Upper Congo to expel all white men from East Africa and found a great Slave-holding empire which might link up with the victoriously anti-European Mahdi of the Sudan. Sir Godfrey Dewburn did not clothe his Memorandum of instructions to Brentham in exactly these comprehensive and grandiloquent terms, derived from a contemporaneous essay of my own, but he said:
"Look here, dear old chap. You know you are a bit of the fifth wheel to the coach here, on this potty little island. You've put me up to all the ropes, I'm well in the saddle. Now suppose you cut along to your own show? The mainland, hey? Go and round up those blasted Germans, don't you know? Of course, steer clear of quarrels--that'd never do. Be coldly polite, but see what they're up to and report to me--fully. Strikes me it's blowing up for a storm...."
So Brentham shipped himself and his indispensable retinue of Goanese cook, Swahili butler, and a nucleus of fifteen always dependable gunmen-porters of the stalwart Unyamwezi breed over to Medinat-al-barkah--the "Town of Blessings," on the Zangian coast: formerly the chief shipping port of slaves and now the head-quarters of the German Chartered Company which had succeeded to the authority of the Sultan of Unguja.
A few months afterwards, when he had organized a Consulate and an Indian clerical staff in an adapted, cleansed, and tidied Arab house, he received an urgent and confidential communication from Sir Godfrey:
"The F.O. is much perturbed by the reports of Arab risings against the German Company. Mvita seems to be quiet under Mackenzie. The various missionary societies are clamouring for information and some indication that H.M.G. realizes the seriousness of the situation. I have been instructed semi-officially by H. and M. that you should at once proceed inland with a sufficiently strong caravan and visit the missionary stations within a radius of--say--three hundred miles of Medina, assisting the white people to repair to safe positions on the coast, especial care being taken to bring away their women and children. You know far better what to do than I, who am a new comer to East Africa. So, _carte blanche_. Do your best. Good luck and chin-chin.
"Lady Dewburn, who has just come out, is dying to put her feet on a maned lion skin when she gets out of bed. So if you've any luck shooting, 'Then you'll remember me!'
"Yours, "GODFREY DEWBURN."
In consequence of these instructions you can picture such events as these occurring at the end of September, 1888.
Lucy Baines, attended by Josiah Briggs's wife Halima, was taking the air on the outskirts of Hangodi. She had had a baby in the previous July, and was still weak and anaemic. The confinement had been a difficult one, as it was a little premature, owing to Lucy having been frightened by a hyena. A medical missionary had been in hurried attendance, and kind Mrs. Stott had come fifty miles to act as an amateur midwife. But the child died soon after its birth, and Lucy, for the first fortnight, had been delirious. If her child had lived her whole outlook might have changed and brightened. As it was----
John had rigged up a kind of machila--I can't explain a second time what a machila is--a compromise between a palanquin and a hammock--and this could be taken out on short journeys by two strong porters. With this and her pupil-teacher, Halima, in attendance, Lucy was wont to make little afternoon pilgrimages along the red paths on the outskirts of the Hangodi plateau.
At this and that shady spot she would leave her machila languidly, sit on a camp stool and pick flowers and examine them: or she would practise her Swahili and Kagulu with Halima and question this woman--greatly devoted to her--on native manners and customs, or native legends. The two porters would squat at a respectful distance, or if told they would not be wanted for half an hour, would stroll off to the nearest native village.
On this particular day in September they came running back in great excitement to say a white man's _safari_ was approaching. It could be seen in the plain below ... quite a small army of black men headed by one white man, coming in single file over the burnt grass.
Rumour had flown ahead of it ... as it did in Africa, in pre-telegraph days. The white man was a great English consul coming to make a treaty with Ulunga, or coming to fight the Arabs, or to turn the Wa-dachi out of the country and to place Nguru under the Woman chief of the English. Mbogo the chief had already run up his English flag....
Lucy's heart stood still and she sat on her camp stool too much overcome to remain standing. Could it ... be ... Roger?
Halima fumbled in her basket and produced a restorative. Presently Lucy rose to her feet and said in a decisive tone:
"Take me to meet the white man...."
They met about three miles from the Mission Station. Seeing the machila approaching, heralded by the boastful singing of its carriers, anxious to do their mistress honour, Brentham had got off his riding donkey and handed it to a follower carrying his sporting rifle.. He walked to meet the unknown person swaying in the jaunty advance of the delighted porters. The machila stopped. Lucy emerged from it, then overcome with dizziness sank down by the wayside. Quickly he had raised her, unthinkingly and instinctively their arms were round each other.... "My dearest girl! You are safe then? Your station has not been attacked?"
"My darling _Roger_! you have come for me ... take, oh, _take_ me away!"
Thus they spoke instinctively in continuation of thoughts long sanctioned by their inner consciousness, but never outwardly expressed. There were no listeners who could understand what the avowals meant. Nevertheless they hastened to resume a correct parlance as between old acquaintances and nothing more.
"I think," said Lucy, "you had better send one or two spare men on ahead with a brief note to my husband saying you will be arriving at our station in about an hour, that you met me on the road and will bring me on with you. This will give our people time to--to--plan where to put you all. There won't be room for everybody inside the stockade. Then when you've sent off the note we can rest for half an hour or so in that piece of shade, where there are the euphorbias and the fig trees, and I shan't feel quite so shaky. I've been rather ill--I'll tell you all about it when you've sent off the note."