Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the black sky of Mashonaland over his head.
The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire. Peter Halket half clasped his arms about his knees.
"My master," he cried, "how can I take this message? The Dutchmen of South Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman. And the Englishmen will say: 'Who is this fellow who comes preaching peace, peace, peace? Has he not been a year in the country and he has not a share in a single company? Can anything he says be worth hearing? If he were a man of any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at least.' And they will not listen to me. Give me another labour!"
And the stranger said: "Take a message to one man. Find him, whether he sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him: 'Where are the souls of the men that you have bought?'
"And if he shall answer you and say: 'I bought no men's souls! The souls that I bought were the souls of dogs?' Then ask him this question, say to him, 'Where are the--'
"And if he cry out, 'You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say.
What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government? It is all a lie!' Then question him no further. But say: 'There was a rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went out--and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.
"'And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse, that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might see its steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
"'And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way and it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, 'We are safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.' And on dark nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the midnight they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
"'What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight; in that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted it?
Shall it not be put out?'
"And if he shall answer, saying, 'What are men to me? they are fools, all fools! Let them die!'--tell him again this story: 'There was a streamlet once: it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain's crown; and the snow made a cove over it. It ran on pure and blue and clear as the sky above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle. Then it came to a spot where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by which it might journey; one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and stones, and down long sunlit slopes to the sea; and the other, down a chasm. And the stream hesitated: it twirled and purled, and went this way and went that. It MIGHT have been, that it would have forced its way past rocks and ridges and along mountain slopes, and made a path for itself where no path had been; the banks would have grown green, and the mountain daisy would have grown beside it; and all night the stars would have looked at their faces in it; and down the long sunny slopes the sun would have played on it by day; and the wood dove would have built her nest in the trees beside it; and singing, singing, always singing, it would have made its way at last to the great sea, whose far-off call all waters hear.
"'But it hesitated.--It might have been, that, had but some hand been there to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way past rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea--it might have been!
But no hand was there. The streamlet gathered itself together, and (it might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the sea!)--it made one leap into the abyss.
"'The rocks closed over it. Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark pool it lay. The green lichen hung from the rocks. No sunlight came there, and the stars could not look down at night. The pool lay still and silent. Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered its strength together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed its way silently on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains closed it around. And the streamlet laughed to itself, 'Ha, ha! I shall make a great lake here; a sea!' And it oozed, and it oozed, and it filled half the plain. But no lake came--only a great marsh--because there was no way outwards, and the water rotted. The grass died out along its edges; and the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the water; and the wood dove who had built her nest there flew up to the mountains, because her young ones died. And the toads sat on the stones and dropped their spittle in the water; and the reeds were yellow that grew along the edge. And at night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the water, so that the stars could not see through it; and by day a fine white mist hung over it, and the sunbeams could not play on it. And no man knew that once the marsh had leapt forth clear and blue from under a hood of snow on the mountain's top: aye, and that the turning of one stone might have caused that it had run on and on, and mingled its song with the sea's song for ever.'"
The stranger was silent for a while.
