第11章 Chapter I.(11)

"Why, the devil! They said it was theirs, and of course it was," said Peter.

"And the people of the land: did England give you the people also?"

Peter looked a little doubtfully at the stranger. "Yes, of course, she gave us the people; what use would the land have been to us otherwise?"

"And who gave her the people, the living flesh and blood, that she might give them away, into the hands of others?" asked the stranger, raising himself.

Peter looked at him and was half afeared. "Well, what could she do with a lot of miserable niggers, if she didn't give them to us? A lot of good-for-nothing rebels they are, too," said Peter.

"What is a rebel?" asked the stranger.

"My Gawd!" said Peter, "you must have lived out of the world if you don't know what a rebel is! A rebel is a man who fights against his king and his country. These bloody niggers here are rebels because they are fighting against us. They don't want the Chartered Company to have them. But they'll have to. We'll teach them a lesson," said Peter Halket, the pugilistic spirit rising, firmly reseating himself on the South African earth, which two years before he had never heard of, and eighteen months before he had never seen, as if it had been his mother earth, and the land in which he first saw light.

The stranger watched the fire; then he said musingly, "I have seen a land far from here. In that land are men of two kinds who live side by side.

Well nigh a thousand years ago one conquered the other; they have lived together since. Today the one people seeks to drive forth the other who conquered them. Are these men rebels, too?"

"Well," said Peter, pleased at being deferred to, "that all depends who they are, you know!"

"They call the one nation Turks, and the other Armenians," said the stranger.

"Oh, the Armenians aren't rebels," said Peter; "they are on our side! The papers are all full of it," said Peter, pleased to show his knowledge.

"Those bloody Turks! What right had they to conquer the Armenians? Who gave them their land? I'd like to have a shot at them myself!"

"WHY are Armenians not rebels?" asked the stranger, gently.

"Oh, you do ask such curious questions," said Peter. "If they don't like the Turks, why should they have 'em?" If the French came now and conquered us, and we tried to drive them out first chance we had; you wouldn't call us rebels! Why shouldn't they try to turn those bloody Turks out?

Besides," said Peter, bending over and talking in the manner of one who imparts secret and important information; "you see, if we don't help the Armenians the Russians would; and we," said Peter, looking exceedingly knowing, "we've got to prevent that: they'd get the land; and it's on the road to India. And we don't mean them to. I suppose you don't know much about politics in Palestine?" said Peter, looking kindly and patronisingly at the stranger.

"If these men," said the stranger, "would rather be free, or be under the British Government, than under the Chartered Company, why, when they resist the Chartered Company, are they more rebels than the Armenians when they resist the Turk? Is the Chartered Company God, that every knee should bow before it, and before it every head be bent? Would you, the white men of England, submit to its rule for one day?"

"Ah," said Peter, "no, of course we shouldn't, but we are white men, and so are the Armenians--almost--" Then he glanced at the stranger's dark face, and added quickly, "At least, it's not the colour that matters, you know.

I rather like a dark face, my mother's eyes are brown--but the Armenians, you know, they've got long hair like us."

"Oh, it is the hair, then, that matters," said the stranger softly.

"Oh, well," said Peter, "it's not altogether, of course. But it's quite a different thing, the Armenians wanting to get rid of the Turks, and these bloody niggers wanting to get rid of the Chartered Company. Besides, the Armenians are Christians, like us!"

"Are YOU Christians?" A strange storm broke across the stranger's features; he rose to his feet.

"Why, of course, we are!" said Peter. "We're all Christians, we English.

Perhaps you don't like Christians, though? Some Jews don't, I know," said Peter, looking up soothingly at him.

"I neither love nor hate any man for that which he is called," said the stranger; "the name boots nothing."

The stranger sat down again beside the fire, and folded his hands.

"Is the Chartered Company Christian also?" he asked.

"Yes, oh yes," said Peter.

"What is a Christian?" asked the stranger.

"Well, now, you really do ask such curious questions. A Christian is a man who believes in Heaven and Hell, and God and the Bible, and in Jesus Christ, that he'll save him from going to Hell, and if he believes he'll be saved, he will be saved."

"But here, in this world, what is a Christian?"

"Why," said Peter, "I'm a Christian--we're all Christians."

The stranger looked into the fire; and Peter thought he would change the subject. "It's curious how like my mother you are; I mean, your ways. She was always saying to me, 'Don't be too anxious to make money, Peter. Too much wealth is as bad as too much poverty.' You're very like her."

After a while Peter said, bending over a little towards the stranger, "If you don't want to make money, what did you come to this land for? No one comes here for anything else. Are you in with the Portuguese?"

"I am not more with one people than with another," said the stranger. "The Frenchman is not more to me than the Englishman, the Englishman than the Kaffir, the Kaffir than the Chinaman. I have heard," said the stranger, "the black infant cry as it crept on its mother's body and sought for her breast as she lay dead in the roadway. I have heard also the rich man's child wail in the palace. I hear all cries."

Peter looked intently at him. "Why, who are you?" he said; then, bending nearer to the stranger and looking up, he added, "What is it that you are doing here?"

"I belong," said the stranger, "to the strongest company on earth."

"Oh," said Peter, sitting up, the look of wonder passing from his face.