Empire of Ivory Page 0,61
a school nor a church building, yet, only a mortally plain little house, graced by a few depressed and straggling trees, and a bare plot of land around it meant for a vegetable-garden, where Mrs. Erasmus was presently laboring in the company of her daughters and several of the young native women, who were being shown how to stake tomato plants.
She stood up when Laurence and Grey came into view, and with a quiet word left the girls at work while she led the two of them inside the house: built in the Dutch style, the walls made of thick clay, with broad wooden beams exposed above supporting the thatched roof. The windows and door all stood open to let air the smell of fresh whitewash; inside the house was only a single long room, divided into three, and Erasmus was seated in the midst of a dozen native boys scattered around on the floor, showing them the letters of the alphabet upon a slate.
He rose to greet them and sent the boys outside to play, an eruption of gleeful yelling drifting in directly they had gone spilling out into the street, and Mrs. Erasmus disappeared into the kitchen, with a clatter of kettle and pot.
"You are very advanced, sir, for three-days' residence," Grey said, looking after the horde of boys in some dismay.
"There is a great thirst for learning, and for the Gospel, too," Erasmus said, with pardonable satisfaction. "Their parents come at night, after they have finished working in the fields, and we have already had our first service."
He invited them to sit: but as there were only two chairs, it would have made an awkward division, and they remained standing. "I will come at once to the point," Grey said. "There have been, I am afraid, certain complaints made." He paused, and repeated, "Certain complaints" uneasily, though Erasmus had said nothing. "You understand, sir, we have but lately taken the colony, and the settlers here are a difficult lot. They have made their own farms, and estates, and with some justice consider themselves entitled to be masters of their own fate. There is some sentiment - in short," he said abruptly, "you would do very well to moderate your activity. You need not perhaps have so many students - take three or four, most promising; let the rest return to work. I am informed the labor of the students is by no means easily spared," he added weakly.
Erasmus listened, saying nothing, until Grey had done; then he said, "Sir, I appreciate your position: it is a difficult one. I am very sorry I cannot oblige you."
Grey waited, but Erasmus said nothing more whatsoever, offering no ground for negotiation. Grey looked at Laurence, a little helplessly, then turning back said, "Sir, I will be frank; I am by no means confident of your continued safety, if you persist. I cannot assure it."
"I did not come to be safe, but to bring the word of God," Erasmus said, smiling and immovable, and his wife brought in the tea-tray.
"Madam," Grey said to her, as she poured the cups at the table, "I entreat you to use your influence; I beg you to consider the safety of your children." She raised her head abruptly; the kerchief which she had been wearing outside to work had slipped, and by pulling her hair back away from her face revealed a dull scarred brand upon her forehead, the initials of a former owner blurred but legible still, and superimposed on an older tattooed marking, of abstract pattern.
She looked at her husband; he said gently, "We will trust in God, Hannah, and in His will." She nodded and made Grey no direct answer, but went silently back outside to the garden.
There was of course nothing more to be said; Grey sighed, when they had taken their leave, and said dismally, "I suppose I must put a guard upon the house."
A heavy moist wind was blowing from the south-east, draping the Table Mount in a blanket of clouds; but it abated that evening, and the Allegiance was sighted the next afternoon by the castle lookout, heralded by the fire of the signal-guns. The atmosphere of suspicion and hostility was a settled thing by then, throughout the town; although sentiments less bitter would have sufficed to make her arrival unsettling for the inhabitants.
Laurence watched her come in, by Grey's invitation, from a pleasant cool antechamber set atop the castle, and seeing her from this unfamiliar and reversed