Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1919 — WHITE MAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHITE MAN

By George Agnew Chamberlain

Awdber of “Home.” “Throuab Stained Claaa.” “Jahn Boyardua.” ate.

SYNOPSIS.

CHAPTER I.—Andree, Pallor, handsome daughter of Lord Pellor, Impecunious aristocrat, is doomed to marry an illiterate but wealthy middle-aged diamond mine owner. She disconsolately wanders from her hotel in South Africa and discovers an aviator about to fly from the beach. Impulsively, of course imagining that the trip will be merely a pleasant excursion, and a welcome relief from thoughts of her impending loveless marriage, she begs to be taken for a flight, although she does not know him. He somewhat unwillingly agrees, and they start. CHAPTER ll.—When she realises her unknown aviator is not going back Andrea in desperation tries to choke him with one of her stockings. He thwarts her and they sail on into the very heart of Africa. Landing in an immense craal, Andrea finds the natives all bow in worship to her mysterious companion. She is given a slave boy, "Bathtub,” and the White Man sets about building a hut for her. CHAPTER Ilk—Andrea is given a glimpse of the home which is to be hers, and wonders at its completeness. White Man invites her to dinner that evening, and in spite of the fact that he has refused to take her back to civilisation Andrea accepts his invitation, but he continues deaf to her pleading that he restore her to her friends. “But I wish cold Water," said Androa. “Cold water plenty no good for white Missis,” reaffirmed Bathtub and withdrew, carefully closing the door behind him. Andrea enjoyed the bath and learned in ten minutes the soundness of the tropical rule that it had taken some old-timer ten years to evolve: The hotter the day the hotter the water. Feeling refreshed, almost cool, she started back to her room, but stopped on the veranda, her eyes held by sundry things on the table, a man’s soft shirt, freshly ironed, a roll of khaki cloth, scissors, a thimble and one of those pepper-pot tins of assorted needles. She stared at them long and helplessly, her lower lip trembling; then she went in, put on her things except her frock and covered Its lack with her cloak. Shedid her hair last of all, by way of change, and Just as she finished heard Bathtub’s call to breakfast. Neither white man nor black was in evidence, but even so the day passed swiftly, so many were the new features >of the kraal’s changing scene. She chose a book at random; had her ham-moCk-chalr dragged into the shade of the dining tree and stretched out to her first lesson in lazy content. Gradually she grew drowsy with the heat, but not so sleepy that she failed to hear from away off the far-carrying report, six times repeated, of a highpowered rifle. Bathtub, squatted near by, looked up with a beatific smile. “Master,” he stated. It was two hours later when the Incident was repeated in every detail save that the shots came from still farther away; and about three hours After, once more the thing happened. Bathtub rolled his eyes and hugged himself in gormandizing anticipation as he breathed the word, “Master I” Andrea was vaguely interested until the sequel to those eighteen shots began to arrive and then she was stunned with horror. Amid the shouts of men and the shrill ulululoolng of the women they began to come in, beast after beast, each trussed to a pole and borne by six, sometimes “eight, naked and straining blacks. First to arrive were five sable antelope, beautiful even In death, the proud sweep of their glorious horns inverted, thick tongues dragging In the dust. The bearers did not stop within the kraal, but passed through it, chanting wildly as though they were engaged in a perverted Bacchanalian pageant of blood. Women and children streamed after them, and even Bathtub looked longingly-in the/direction they had gone. Scarcely had the hullabaloo of their passing died into the distance when a new contingent arrived. “M’sungo, M’sungo,” the one word she knew, cropped out from their Jabber with the steady recurrence of a haunting fugue. What they bore were six wlldebeestO, male and buffoons of the plains, still pitifully grotesque, their horse-Hke tails trailing like discouraged funeral plumes. “Oh, White Man,” gasped Andrea, covering her eyes, “oh, M’sungo!" . And then it came again, four loads this time,} but every one as big as a horse. Bight men strained under each carcass of eland, largest and gentlest of all the hundred varieties of antelope that swarm over the length and breadth of Africa. Andrea arose, but her knees trembled so that she quickly sat down in one of the wicker chairs, clutching its arms with hands gone white as though all the blood in her body had hidden In shame. Then came the white man, ’ followed by gunbearers, water-boy and trackers. His face and his bare arms were streaked with sweat and dust. His shirt and trousers dune to him in

great dark blots of moisture. He nodded to Andrea as he made straight for his hut Suddenly her strength camd back to her. She sprang up and rushed to

cut him off. "You are a murderer," she gasped as she faced him. The man stopped in his tracks and stared at her. Gradually he took in her meaning. “You think I do it for —for fun?" he exclaimed. “Murderer," she repeated tensely. The man glanced at his hut and turned his back on it with a sigh. “Come with me,” he said. “I shall never go anywhere with you,” replied Andrea. The man faced her quickly. "You will come with me or be carried. Take your choice.” Their eyes met and held tn one of those struggles that measure not so much the contending characters as the strength of the opposing purposes. The mtn’s purpose won out. Andrea dropped her eyes and followed him. He passed swiftly through the kraal and along a well-known path that led to the fringe- of the forest. Under an enormous malbta tree the butchers were at work, four to each carcass, skinning, cutting, hacking with practiced hands. The'meat was being piled In heaps, and at each heap was stationed a black captain. Under his direction a host of helpers were cutting the flesh into minute portions. Beyond the limits of the tree’s farflung branches squatted a black army —men with assegais in their hands; women and children with queer conical baskets Iff their laps. Physically these people were, without exception, a Joy to the eye, but beyond them, grouped together under another tree and hopelessly staring, was a small band that brought sudden tears to Andrea's eyes. Never before had she seen human bones and skin without flesh, live eyes staring from the skeleton emblem of death.

At last the division of the sanguinary spoil was completed. The wellfed army lined up, each and every man accompanied by woman or child as beast for the small burden. These men were also provided with individual brass checks, which they cast into the baskets at the feet of the captain upon receipt of their portion of meat. At the end, to Andrea’s amazement, the tally was exact except that it left thd starving group out of the count. Through it all the white man had stood grimly by, uttering not a word and leaving her to the assistance nf .her own Intelligence. She to understand; the possessors of the brass checks had worked for them. \But her eyes lingered pitifully on the starving. Rh*> turned to the man with a gesture of pleading—pleading for pardon for herself, the silent suffering. “What about these?” she asked. “They will receive a ration of millet" he answered. “Tomorrow the men will crawl to the forests, twice a week they will get meat checks. In a month they and their families will be fat and sleek. We refuse no one who wishes to work.” He turned to lead the way back to the kraal and, once there, promptly disappeared into his hut. Half an hour later Andrea was nervously moving about her room, wondering whether to put on her frock or not, when Bathtub arrived with a message. Did she wish to dine alone or with M’sungo? “Tell your master," she answered, “that I will dine with him with pleasure.” During the meal, the white man talked, giving her listlessly certain explanatory Information. "Eight months ago," he said, “I struck this country. It was desolation. In spite of the big river, which Is quite near by, the whole district was in famine. I passed through ripped kraal* after ruined kraal, and In some of them dead bodies lay about, too dried out in life even to roL The game swarmed as it does only in dry seasons, and thrived." Andrea held both hands out toward him as though to stop him. “Don’t-—,” । she cried, "don’t think I haven’t unj derstood I” . I “Upon my word,” remarked the man dryly, “you’re getting sincere!” I She sank back in her chair with a

look of reproacn, out ne cuu not notice IL “I’m telling you," he continued, “I came to hunt and recover —” Ho paused. Andrea could not keep her eyes from glancing toward the airplane. It wao as though she had followed his hidden thought He flushed slightly, changed his sentence and finished, “And for another purpose. But almost on the day of arrival I made a discovery in the forest Out of It has grown an Industry that employs hundreds of natives and never refuses a new recruit I am working absolutely without title and should you return to civilization, my ruin would be quite within your jrasp." “And that is why I must stay," said Andrea. “No," said the man reading her face. Ts I could drop you back tomorrow :here on the beach where I found you, [ would do it” She felt a definite surge of >ut of all proportion to the occasion. ‘Thank you,” she whispered, and then lushed at a sudden wonder as to the ‘xuet nature of a feeling of gladness >ver the fact that she was not called ipon then and there to decide whether n her heart she wished to go or stay. “But I can’t,” continued the man. ‘I can't leave my people or my work tor two weeks;’ I dare m t trust you :o a native escort” He drew away rom the table that he might cross his cnees, took a cigar and lit it. “You've eaten nothing,” said Andrea. 'Tm too tired to eat Just now," ho tnswered. Presently she arose. “I'm tired, too, A’hite Man,” she lied. “May I leave ’OU?” He gave her an almost grateful {lance, arose and lifted one side of :he net for her to pass. She went to jer room to read, but an hour later, vhen she glanced out, surprised to tee the lights burning under the tree, '.he white man was still there, hands iropped upon his knees, head fallen forward, sound asleep In his chair. Andrea clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. “Oh, why doesn’t ho jo to bed?” she said to herself. “Ho can’t get any comfort out of that sort of thing." Finally she stole out and found Bathtub. "Wake your master," she commanded. “Tell him to go to bed." The darkey grinned up at her sleepily until he grasped her request, then his face took on a look of mixed fear and mischief. "Bathtub wake M’sungo one time plenty long ago and never forgeL Missis try it" She looked at the lax figure, bonetired, plunged miles deep in slumber,, but even from those depths exuding a sense of compelling latent power, and hesitated. Getting up her courage she coughed twice quite loudly, but ineffectually, and then, feeling almost relieved that nothing happened, stole away on tiptoe. CTO BE CONTINUED)

She Sprang Up and Rushed to Cut Him Off.