Chapter 8

THE EPISODE OF THE EUROPEAN WITH THE KAFFIR HEART

Unfashionable as it is to say so, I am a man of peace. I belong to a
profession whose province is to heal, not to destroy. Still there
ARE times which turn even the most peaceful of us perforce into
fighters--times when those we love, those we are bound to protect, stand
in danger of their lives; and at moments like that, no man can doubt
what is his plain duty. The Matabele revolt was one such moment. In a
conflict of race we MUST back our own colour. I do not know whether the
natives were justified in rising or not; most likely, yes; for we had
stolen their country; but when once they rose, when the security of
white women depended upon repelling them, I felt I had no alternative.
For Hilda's sake, for the sake of every woman and child in Salisbury,
and in all Rhodesia, I was bound to bear my part in restoring order.

For the immediate future, it is true, we were safe enough in the little
town; but we did not know how far the revolt might have spread; we could
not tell what had happened at Charter, at Buluwayo, at the outlying
stations. The Matabele, perhaps, had risen in force over the whole vast
area which was once Lo-Bengula's country; if so, their first object
would certainly be to cut us off from communication with the main body
of English settlers at Buluwayo.

"I trust to you, Hilda," I said, on the day after the massacre at
Klaas's, "to divine for us where these savages are next likely to attack
us."

She cooed at the motherless baby, raising one bent finger, and then
turned to me with a white smile. "Then you ask too much of me," she
answered. "Just think what a correct answer would imply! First, a
knowledge of these savages' character; next, a knowledge of their mode
of fighting. Can't you see that only a person who possessed my trick of
intuition, and who had also spent years in warfare among the Matabele,
would be really able to answer your question?"

"And yet such questions have been answered before now by people far less
intuitive than you," I went on. "Why, I've read somewhere how, when the
war between Napoleon the First and the Prussians broke out, in 1806,
Jomini predicted that the decisive battle of the campaign would be
fought near Jena; and near Jena it was fought. Are not YOU better than
many Jominis?"

Hilda tickled the baby's cheek. "Smile, then, baby, smile!" she said,
pouncing one soft finger on a gathering dimple. "And who WAS your friend
Jomini?"

"The greatest military critic and tactician of his age," I answered.
"One of Napoleon's generals. I fancy he wrote a book, don't you know--a
book on war--Des