A Secret of the Lebombo Part 20

Here Mtezani interrupted. He had been away on a private prowl of his own, and had come back in a hurry.

"_Nkose_, there are people coming," he said. "_Impela_, they are not very far behind me, and one of them is a white man."

"A white man! What is he like?" said Fleetwood. "Did you see him?"

"_Eh-hi_!" And the young Zulu gave a rapid and graphic description.

"That is Inxele," p.r.o.nounced Hlabulana, who was squatted near.

Fleetwood turned upon his companion a whimsical look.

"Talk of the devil!" he quoted. "Inxele is their name for Bully Rawson."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

ENTERING THE TOILS.

"Hi--Yup, friends. Glad to see another white man or two in this sooty, flame of fire sort of hole," sung out the new arrival in rough geniality, as he slid from his pony. "Why, if it isn't Joe Fleetwood!

Hullo, Joe, but I'm glad to see you again; that I am."

Fleetwood tried to appear as though that sentiment were reciprocated, as they shook hands. Then he introduced Wyvern.

"Glad to meet you, Mister," extending a great gnarled paw. In taking it an intense and unconquerable aversion came upon Wyvern, an aversion which he believed would have been there in any case, and apart from the doubtful character Fleetwood had just given. Rawson, for his part, was appraising Wyvern. So this was the man he had been instructed to "take care of"; and sizing him up he thought the job would not be a difficult one. True, the object of such attention was tall and broad and strong-- for the matter of that, Bully himself was no weakling. But he had a confiding, unsuspicious look which seemed to relieve the undertaking of nine tenths of its difficulties.

"Going through to Swaziland, I suppose, Joe? You'll not trade a knife to skin a dog with round here, and, if there was any trade--well, you see, old man--this is my pitch."

For all the boisterous geniality of the tone, there was a distinct note of "warning off" underlying.

"Don't be anxious, Bully," said Fleetwood, easily. "I wouldn't overlap your trade to the tune of a string of beads."

"d.a.m.ned if you would! Ha-ha, don't I know that?" was the boisterous reply. "Joe Fleetwood's only another name for straight--all the world knows that. Don't you agree with me, Mister?"

"Absolutely," answered Wyvern.

"Known him long?"

"Rather," answered Fleetwood for him. "We fought together in the war up here, and that's equivalent to knowing a man all his life. Why, I shouldn't be here now if it hadn't been for him."

"Oh, shut off that, Joe," said Wyvern, hastily. "Besides, it's not quite accurate."

"I shall cotton to you. Mister," cried Rawson, "I do like pluck, and you've got it, I can see." He was thinking, however, that the piece of information just obtained brought back all the difficulties. Clearly the attachment existing between these two men was no ordinary one. In dealing with Wyvern, he had also to reckon with Fleetwood, and Fleetwood had the reputation of being an uncommonly useful man to have at one's back in a crisis, otherwise an awkward customer if taken the wrong way.

Wyvern in no wise felt like reciprocating the compliment. It was all he could do to conceal his disgust for this blatant, loud-mouthed, blasphemous ruffian--the actual text of whose speech has perforce undergone material deletion here. But he laughed good-naturedly and then Fleetwood suggested drinks, a proposal uproariously acclaimed by their visitor.

"Don't you hurry on, Joe," said the latter, after a couple had been disposed of, and both fairly stiff. "Trek on and outspan at my place.

We can have some roaring games of cards--eh? Had no one to play against for months. Fond of cards, Mister?"

"Hate 'em," answered Wyvern pleasantly.

"Been skinned too much, maybe?"

"Never gave anyone the chance."

Rawson stared. This to him was something of a phenomenon.

"Well--well, Joe and I must go at it then. Talking of being skinned, the last fellow I served that way was a half-Dutchman, half-Jew sort of devil. When he'd lost he wouldn't part--swore I'd cheated. Oh--I went for him, but he flashed off a pistol at me--darned fool couldn't have hit a haystack. He didn't get another chance of trying though. I was on him. Lord--Lord--the way I pounded that chap. He couldn't stand on his legs for ten days after, and as soon as he could I kicked him off the place. Bully Rawson cheated!"

The righteous indignation of this last utterance was so inexpressibly comical to anybody with the most rudimentary knowledge of its utterer's character, that the effort not to roar out laughing cost Fleetwood physical pain.

"Have another drink, Bully," he said, by way of sparing himself the necessity of comment.

"Right you are, Joe," reaching over for the square bottle. "You're a white man, you are, if ever there was one. Bully Rawson cheated!" he went on, returning to the subject. "Mister, you may not know much of me, but I'm honest Bully Rawson has his faults, but all the world'll tell you he's honest, d.a.m.n him! Eh, Joe?"

"Oh, we're all honest--as long as we've got enough dibs and the other fellow hasn't. It reminds me of a good joke I heard in the Durban Club the other day. There was a difference of opinion among a lot of the men at lunch as to the shadiness or not of some transaction. At last someone appealed to old Colonel Bowker, who hadn't taken any part in the general jaw, and began in this way--'Now, Colonel, as an honest man, what would you say--' 'Eh? as a what?' 'Why, an honest man.' 'But I don't know that I am an honest man,' says the old chap, in that dry, lack-l.u.s.tre way of his. Of course, there was a big grin all round, and the first fellow expostulates, 'Oh come--hang it all, Colonel. You don't know--' 'No, I don't. I've never been in want of a s.h.i.+lling or a breakfast in my life.' There was a bigger grin then, for it wasn't a bad way of putting the thing."

"Haw-haw! d.a.m.n good!" p.r.o.nounced Rawson, who had got into the benign stage of potation, preparatory to the quarrelsome one, wherein he was wont to become sometimes a dangerous animal, and at all times a completely objectionable one. "We'll see now, Joe. You two fellows come up and outspan at my place. We'll have a roaring, sparking time, by--" some dozen deities and demons--"we will! I don't see a white man every day, no by--" the same over again--"I don't! Tell your boys to in-span, and--come along."

"Not to-day, Bully. Can't move the oxen another inch till they've had a good long rest."

Wyvern could hardly conceal his relief--nor his overmastering disgust Fleetwood's definition of this n.o.ble specimen of civilised humanity recurred to him--"A thick-set, s.h.a.ggy, broken-nosed brute whom any jury would hang at sight without retiring from the box." Yes, there was nothing wanting from that definition. And he was doomed to see a great deal more of the subject before him, and knowing this the consciousness sickened him.

"Well, come up and see my place then," persisted the enemy. "The day's young yet, and it's only a matter of five mile; and you've got horses.

Tell your boys to saddle up, and we'll all go over together."

We have said that in anything to do with the expedition Wyvern followed his friend's lead absolutely; wherefore when the latter agreed to this proposition he made no objection by word or sign, taking for granted that their interests would be better served in the long run by such a course.

"Who's this?" said Bully Rawson, becoming suddenly alive to the presence of Hlabulana. "He doesn't belong in these parts. I know all them what does."

"Oh, he's an old friend of mine," answered Fleetwood carelessly. "He fell in with us further down, and seemed to want to come along--just for the fun of the thing apparently. So I let him."

"Sure he ain't a spy of those d.a.m.ned Usutus?" said Rawson suspiciously.

"Not he. He's no sort of a spy at all."

Even then Rawson eyed the man. Had he guessed the secret that lay within that smooth, shaven, ringed pate as Hlabulana sat, watching the white men with indifferent interest, there was no telling what dark and b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy might not have been the result. For the acquisition of such wealth as this there was no crime, however treacherous, at which that white savage would have stuck; no bloodshed, however wholesale.

But the copper-hued savage knew how to guard his secret, as well as he had known whom to entrust with it.

The first living object to meet them as they drew in sight of Rawson's kraal, was a young native, and to him the meeting seemed not palatable.

It seemed, in fact, a terror. He was coming along the path at a trot, and at sight of them pulled up short and looked wildly around as though about to take to headlong flight Rawson, spurring his horse, went for him like an arrow.

"Ho, Pakisa!" he roared, as he curled his whiplash round the boy's naked ribs. "So thou art skulking again, instead of being at the wood-cutting. Now I will flog thee back to it." And with every few words he flung out the cutting whiplash with painful effect. In vain the victim doubled. The horsemans.h.i.+p of his chastiser was perfect, and reckless with liquor and sheer l.u.s.t of cruelty the ruffian would turn as quickly as the belaboured one. At last the latter managed to wriggle into a patch of bush where the horse could not enter.

"Keep cool, Wyvern," Fleetwood took the opportunity of saying in an undertone. "We don't know, of course, what that young _schelm_ may have been up to."

"What a sickening sweep!" was Wyvern's reply, with a set face.

"Well, that young brute's got what he won't forget in a hurry," cried Rawson, rejoining them. "Skulked away from his job directly my back was turned, and slunk up here to cadge some _tywala_. One of my wives is his sister, you know."