Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 236: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AN AFRICAN SECRET. The same order of march was main- tained, Pan ever keeping at the side of the Marotse woman, with whom he kept up an incessant conversation, partly in spoken words and partly by signs. He told Bradshaw that he was learning her language. “What is your friend’s name, Pan,” inquired Bradshaw, “ if you’ve got that far?” ‘““ Mtema,’”’ Pan replied. Bradshaw puckered his lips in a vain attempt to pronounce the first two let- ters satisfactorily together. “T give it up,” he said, with the first approach to a laugh he had known for days; “tell her not to be offended if I make it plain Tema.” “She is very grateful to you, Mr. Bradshaw,” said Pan. Struck by a new thought, Bradshaw took the first opportunity to speak to Pan out of Murdock’s hearing. “Has she given you any reason,” he asked, “ for Murdock’s savage hostility to her?” “No. We do not mention him, fot he is constantly listening to us, and ot course he understands all she says.” “Try to dodge him, then, and ask her.” “When I[ can understand her well enough,” Pan replied. Murdock, indeed, seemed to keep Mtema under constant surveillance. He had not spoken to her after Brad- shaw’s threat to make him a prisoner, but he remained persistently near her except when a halt was made for meals. At such times Pan was occupied with various duties, and Mtema sat by her- self. Murdock then hung around the campfire, seeming to take great interest in the cooking, and offering from time to time to help. This puzzled Bradshaw and aroused the gravest apprehensions. He had one expérience with cooking on the Mur- dock plan, and he wanted no other. It was natural enough that a white man should feel the need of something to do, but why he should not be content 227 to throw himself down and rest after a toilsome march and let the blacks attend to the menial work, was not clear. -It was a horrible thought that this man’s long familiarity with the African wilderness might have enabled him to pluck poison from the rank vegetation along the way and mix it unseen with the food that was being prepared. “Mr. Murdock,” Bradshaw said at the end of the second day, “ I’d much rather you let the men look after the cooking. They’re used to it, and I find it doesn’t do to get them in the way of thinking that they can have assistance for every little thing.”’ “Very well, Elmer,” Murdock re- sponded in a tone that was repellently subservient, “it shall be as you say.” He sat down, with a long sigh, and presently asked: “ How much farther is it to the mine, Elmer? ” 3 Bradshaw could have told him, but prudence vaguely warned him not to do so. “It’s a long journey,” he replied; “ Pil tell you when we get there.” “By watching the movements of Dirik and his partners,’ Murdock went on, ‘* I had become satisfied that it was about a week’s journey, but they may have taken a roundabout way for the purpose of concealing the place more effectually. I had also come to the con- clusion that the mine lay to the south of the town, and we are going north- ward.” “We are on the way to it,” was all Bradshaw would say. With each day after this Murdock had some similar question to ask, and once he tried to draw Bradshaw into a discussion of plans for working the mine. Bradshaw, however, fought shv of the subject, dismissing it so curtly that Murdock did not refer to it again. He was more and more restless as time passed, showing in many ways an excitement that he had great difficulty in repressing. EOMRIC OOOkKS CO