登陆注册
5271100000008

第8章 Chapter I.(8)

"Oh, you do, do you?" said Peter. "Well, I'm pretty sick of them. I had bother enough with mine," he said genially, warming his hands by the fire, and then interlocking the fingers and turning the palms towards the blaze as one who prepares to enjoy a good talk. "One girl was only fifteen; I got her cheap from a policeman who was living with her, and she wasn't much. But the other, by Gad! I never saw another nigger like her; well set up, I tell you, and as straight as that--" said Peter, holding up his finger in the firelight. "She was thirty if she was a day. Fellows don't generally fancy women that age; they like slips of girls. But I set my heart on her the day I saw her. She belonged to the chap I was with. He got her up north. There was a devil of a row about his getting her, too; she'd got a nigger husband and two children; didn't want to leave them, or some nonsense of that sort: you know what these niggers are? Well, I tried to get the other fellow to let me have her, but the devil a bit he would.

I'd only got the other girl, and I didn't much fancy her; she was only a child. Well, I went down Umtali way and got a lot of liquor and stuff, and when I got back to camp I found them clean dried out. They hadn't had a drop of liquor in camp for ten days, and the rainy season coming on and no knowing when they'd get any. Well, I'd a vatje of Old Dop as high as that--," indicating with his hand an object about two feet high, "and the other fellow wanted to buy it from me. I knew two of that. I said I wanted it for myself. He offered me this, and he offered me that. At last I said, 'Well, just to oblige you, I give you the vatje and you give me the girl!'

And so he did. Most people wouldn't have fancied a nigger girl who'd had two nigger children, but I didn't mind; it's all the same to me. And I tell you she worked. She made a garden, and she and the other girl worked in it; I tell you I didn't need to buy a sixpence of food for them in six months, and I used to sell green mealies and pumpkins to all the fellows about. There weren't many flies on her, I tell you. She picked up English quicker than I picked up her lingo, and took to wearing a dress and shawl."

The stranger still sat motionless, looking into the fire.

Peter Halket reseated himself more comfortably before the fire. "Well, I came home to the huts one day, rather suddenly, you know, to fetch something; and what did I find? She, talking at the hut door with a nigger man. Now it was my strict orders they were neither to speak a word to a nigger man at all; so I asked what it was. And she answers, as cool as can be, that he was a stranger going past on the road, and asked her to give him a drink of water. Well, I just ordered him off. I didn't think anything more about it. But I remember now. I saw him hanging about the camp the day after. Well, she came to me the next day and asked me for a lot of cartridges. She'd never asked me for anything before. I asked her what the devil a woman wanted with cartridges, and she said the old nigger woman who helped carry in water to the garden said she couldn't stay and help her any more unless she got some cartridges to give her son who was going up north hunting elephants. The woman got over me to give her the cartridges because she was going to have a kid, and she said she couldn't do the watering without help. So I gave them her. I never put two and two together.

"Well, when I heard that the Company was going to have a row with the Matabele, I thought I'd volunteer. They said there was lots of loot to be got, and land to be given out, and that sort of thing, and I thought I'd only be gone about three months. So I went. I left those women there, and a lot of stuff in the garden and some sugar and rice, and I told them not to leave till I came back; and I asked the other man to keep an eye on them. Both those women were Mashonas. They always said the Mashonas didn't love the Matabele; but, by God, it turned out that they loved them better than they loved us. They've got the damned impertinence to say, that the Matabele oppressed them sometimes, but the white man oppresses them all the time!

"Well, I left those women there," said Peter, dropping his hands on his knees. "Mind you, I'd treated those women really well. I'd never given either of them one touch all the time I had them. I was the talk of all the fellows round, the way I treated them. Well, I hadn't been gone a month, when I got a letter from the man I worked with, the one who had the woman first--he's dead now, poor fellow; they found him at his hut door with his throat cut--and what do you think he said to me? Why, I hadn't been gone six hours when those two women skooted! It was all the big one.

What do you think she did? She took every ounce of ball and cartridge she could find in that hut, and my old Martini-Henry, and even the lid off the tea-box to melt into bullets for the old muzzle-loaders they have; and off she went, and took the young one too. The fellow wrote me they didn't touch another thing: they left the shawls and dresses I gave them kicking about the huts, and went off naked with only their blankets and the ammunition on their heads. A nigger man met them twenty miles off, and he said they were skooting up for Lo Magundi's country as fast as they could go.

"And do you know," said Peter, striking his knee, and looking impressively across the fire at the stranger; "what I'm as sure of as that I'm sitting here? It's that that nigger I caught at my hut, that day, was her nigger husband! He'd come to fetch her that time; and when she saw she couldn't get away without our catching her, she got the cartridges for him!" Peter paused impressively between the words. "And now she's gone back to him.

It's for him she's taken that ammunition!"

Peter looked across the fire at the stranger, to see what impression his story was making.

"I tell you what," said Peter, "if I'd had any idea that day who that bloody nigger was, the day I saw him standing at my door, I'd have given him one cartridge in the back of his head more than ever he reckoned for!"

同类推荐
  • 徐氏珞琭子赋注

    徐氏珞琭子赋注

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 丧服小记

    丧服小记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 释迦如来涅槃礼赞文

    释迦如来涅槃礼赞文

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

    A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 明季遗闻

    明季遗闻

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 嫁给小爱情

    嫁给小爱情

    爱与被照顾,救赎与被救赎。沈乐央最庆幸的事情,大概就是顾默晗的出现吧。时间和身份的跨越,两颗心的靠近,最后成就了他们的爱情。生活富足的沈乐央家中突逢巨变,父亲意外身亡,母亲不告而别。曾经的家教老师顾默晗却突然出现,说是受其母亲所托来照顾她。在顾默晗的照顾之下,沈乐央对他渐生好感。顾默晗发现了沈乐央的感情,却因为彼此的年龄而选择了回避。沈乐央悲伤之余,意外发现母亲不告而别的真相。然而谁也没想到,这背后牵扯着陈年的爱恨痴缠……
  • 时间色

    时间色

    午后阳光正好,许你风华正茂。依靠柳树背腰,携手白头到老。
  • 这是一本修仙文

    这是一本修仙文

    五彩光华环绕着林青引导者他缓缓向前,且看林青和世界的姻缘
  • 内炼金丹心法

    内炼金丹心法

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 孤胆少年行

    孤胆少年行

    一本奇书,几经风雨,误入平凡少年手,一段人生,历经坎坷,终至康庄大道旁。亲情,爱情,友情,当我们无奈的失去它们时,我们又该何去何从?是在痛苦的仇恨中走向灭亡,还是在繁华的名城中迷失自我........
  • 弥勒经游意

    弥勒经游意

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 世界经典童话故事全集:女人儿童的故事

    世界经典童话故事全集:女人儿童的故事

    本套丛书包括《国王皇后的故事》、《王子少年的故事》、《公主千金的故事》、《官员商人的故事》、《庶民百姓的故事》、《能工巧匠的故事》、《女人儿童的故事》、《魔鬼妖怪的故事》、《动物植物的故事》和《生灵怪象的故事》等10册童话故事,其中包括安徒生、格林、豪夫和王尔德的作品,也包括了世界各国许多民间童话故事, 很具有代表性和普遍性。相信这套《世界经典童话故事全集》丛书,能够启迪儿童的心灵、陶冶儿童的情操、培养儿童的情趣、丰富儿童的知识、发展儿童的智力,成为广大父母和少年儿童们的良好读物和收藏品。
  • 想你却不懂如何诉说

    想你却不懂如何诉说

    初来乍到的她,遇上了风云人物的他让整个世界为她倾倒……而她却在两人正深深的相爱着彼此时选择了离开,让他生不如死。但她又在三年后回来了,开始重新追求他。她说:“以前我让你如此痛苦,如今你如何对我,我都不会再次离开你了!”而他只是冷笑:“你让我苦苦等了三年,这三年已经足以改变一个人的心了。”......
  • Hey,考神君

    Hey,考神君

    每个人念书那会儿肯定都碰到过一个或那么几个考神君。“小爷来地球是为了拯救你们的智商。”“小爷只是不想被这个世界磨去所有的棱角。”……向来自信张扬、“让人看了就想捏捏”的苏子莫,遇到比她还彪悍还嚣张的考神君,到底会发生什么样的爆笑故事?“比学霸更高一级的存在”是怎样炼成的?考神君最本真的学习和生活是什么样的?当“学霸”遭遇“花痴”,当“学渣”遇上“考神”,年少美好的一切都被装进这个学生党精致的故事玻璃罐里。在最美的年华,遇到那个轻狂不羁的少年,是人生一大幸事。
  • 一本书读完发现自然的历史

    一本书读完发现自然的历史

    纵观人类的文明进步史,就是一部活生生的自然探索史,对自然地理的探索推动了人类文明的发展。本书讲述了对动物世界、植物世界、微生物世界以及宇宙的探索发现故事,着重介绍了自然世界的一个个科学谜题,充满了趣味性和知识性。