A Secret of the Lebombo Part 21

"One of your what?" said Wyvern.

"Wives," shouted Bully, with an evil grin, enjoying the other's look of disgust. "Wives. I've only two of 'em at present--I've had lots in my time--and I shall have to lick one of 'em for this, too."

"You seemed rather--well, rough on your brother-in-law," answered Wyvern, with a sneer he could no longer repress.

"You've got to be. Look here, Wyvern," waxing familiar, "I take it you're one of them raw, out from home Britishers who think the way to _baas_ n.i.g.g.e.rs is to soft sawder them. You may take it from me then that it ain't. Oh, Joe there'll tell you exactly the same for that matter."

"Is he a Zulu?" with a jerk of the hand in the direction of the vanishment of the licked one.

"Zulu? Not much. He's a Swazi."

"I wonder you're not afraid of them poisoning you."

"Look here. What the devil d'you mean?"

The man's face had gone a sort of dirty ash colour. He sat glowering at Wyvern with evil eyes. The latter thought he saw the gnarled dirty hand which held the bridle-rein shake--and it may have done so, for it may have been that a refrain was sounding in this ruffian's ears: "The Snake-doctor--_whau_! his _muti_ is great and subtle!"

"What I said. And now look here," went on Wyvern very stern and decisive, "I suppose I can't interfere in your domestic affairs, if only that it would make things worse for the poor wretches afterwards. But I don't choose to be present at any woman-thras.h.i.+ng performance--black or white. So I'll wish you good-bye."

The sudden fury that came into the man's forbidding face was rather terrific. Then as suddenly it faded out.

"Hang it, Wyvern, couldn't you see that I was only humbugging. That young rip had to be taught a lesson, but you didn't suppose I was really going to whack a girl, did you? Bully Rawson has his faults, but no one can say he ain't soft-hearted at bottom. Why, I wouldn't do such a thing for the world."

Wyvern did not exactly believe this; still he felt sure that the threatened chastis.e.m.e.nt would not now take place. And Fleetwood had made no move towards actively supporting him, and his rule of being guided by Fleetwood still held.

"I should hope not," he answered, but rather shortly, riding on with them again.

"Why, of course not Man alive, but you mustn't take everything we say up here as serious. Eh, Joe?" returned Rawson, with huge geniality. "Now we'll go inside and have another drink and then I want to show you my wood-cutting place."

If it be imagined for a moment that the speaker had been shamed into relenting, either by Wyvern's words or demeanour, why the notion may immediately be cla.s.sed among popular delusions. What was behind it was this. It had suddenly been borne in upon him, that to have Wyvern for a friend would render the allotted task of "taking care" of him infinitely easier than if he should sheer off, and hold himself in a state of suspicious and therefore watchful aloofness. Under his own eyes his opportunities would be greater: whereas his intended victim away, and thoroughly on his guard--why, then the matter was not so easy. And, even then, there flashed through his evil brain a h.e.l.l-sent idea. The wood-cutting place. There would be a royal opportunity there; and with the hideous thought he had blossomed forth into a rugged geniality again. He could not afford to scare away his bird.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

WARREN'S OPPORTUNITY.

The Kunaga river was "down"; which is to say that the heavy rains of the last three days, especially among the foot-hills wherein it took its source, had converted it into a red, rolling, turbid torrent, of inconceivable swiftness and power. A comparative trickle at ordinary times, now the great raging flood surged within a few feet of overlapping its ample bed, submerging the lower of the trees fringing its banks well-nigh to their tops. A grand spectacle those seething red waves, hissing and rearing as they encountered some obstacle, then the crash as this gave way, and the mighty current, unchecked, poured onward with a savage roar. Great tree-trunks rolled over and over in the flood, and now and then, bodies of drowned animals, sheep, cattle, horses, swept helplessly down.

"Someone's the poorer for the loss of his whole span," remarked Warren, as a number of drowned oxen were whirled by. "Likely the river first came down in a wall--it does sometimes--and caught the whole lot bang in the middle of a drift."

"Most likely," a.s.sented Lalante. "But I've never seen the river as full as this. Isn't it grand?"

The two were standing on a high, scaur-like bank where the Kunaga swept round one side of Le Sage's farm, and just below the krantz above which its owner and Wyvern had held their somewhat inharmonious discussion.

They had strolled down to look at the river. The two youngsters had accompanied them, but now had wandered away on their own account.

The rain had ceased but the sky was veiled in an opaque curtain; the high _rand_ beyond the Kunaga river valley being completely hidden by a grey and lowering murk. The unwonted gloom seemed to add to the terror of the forces of the bellowing flood. The scene on the whole was dreary and depressing to the last degree. Yet no depression did it convey to the hearts of the dwellers on this _veldt_, for after it the land would smile forth a rich and tender green, and flocks and herds grow fat, and game be plentiful--and, not least, it meant an ample storage of water in dams and tanks against months, it might be, wherein not another drop should fall.

Warren had taken to coming over to Le Sage's of late, and would generally stay the night there, or even two. From Lalante he would meet with a frank and cordial welcome. She liked him for his own sake--and in addition was he not a friend of the absent one; upon whom and upon whose good qualities he had the tact to lose no opportunity of dwelling.

"I can't, for the life of me, get at the secret of poor old Wyvern's ill-luck," he would say, for instance. "He's one of the finest fellows I've ever known, and yet--he can't get on. I own it stumps me."

"But it doesn't stump me," grunted Le Sage. "He's got no head-piece."

"You're wrong there, Le Sage, if you'll excuse my saying so. Head-piece is just what he has got. Too much of it perhaps."

And the speaker had his reward in Lalante's kindling face and grateful glance; and the friends.h.i.+p between them ripened apace.

Warren was playing his game boldly and with depth. He could afford to praise the absent one, being as firmly convinced that that fortunate individual would never return as that he himself was alive and prosperous. And he meant it too. There was no pretence in his tone.

He had no personal animus against Wyvern for occupying the place with regard to Lalante which should have been his. Wyvern stood in his way, that was all, and--he must be got out of it. That he would be got out of it Warren, as we have said, had no doubt whatever, and then--after an interval, a time-healing interval, to whom would Lalante listen and turn more readily than to Wyvern's best friend? Herein Warren was true to himself--i.e. Number 1.

Now, on their stroll down to the river the topic of the absent one had come up; his coolness and courage upon one or two occasions when call had arisen for the exercise of those valuable attributes--and here on the bank, after the first comments upon the scene before them, the topic was revived.

"I wonder why women are always such blind wors.h.i.+ppers of mere pluck,"

Warren remarked.

"But you wouldn't have us hold cowardice in respect, would you?"

"You can't respect a negative--and cowardice is a negative."

"Well then, a man who is a coward?"

"Why not? I know at least two men who are that, and I happen to hold them in some considerable respect. That astonishes you, does it?"

"Well, yes, naturally," said Lalante, with a laugh, and wondering whether he was serious.

"Naturally, but illogically. That blind, instinctive shrinking from risk which we call cowardice is const.i.tutional, and its subject can no more help it than he could have helped being born with a club foot, for instance."

"You do put things well," said Lalante. "All the same you'll never persuade the world in general that a coward is anything but a pitiable object."

"If by that you mean deserving of pity, why then I agree with you--if of contempt, then I don't. I'll tell you another who doesn't."

"Who's that?"

"Wyvern."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've seen him give practical proof of it."

The girl's face softened and her eyes filled.

"Him? Oh, he's goodness itself," she murmured. "He hasn't a fault, except that of being unfortunate."

"Which isn't a fault. The fact is we are all cowards on some point or other, and a good many of us all round, though we succeed in hiding it.

Look at that river now, that swirling, roaring monster against which the strongest swimmer would have that much chance," with a snap of the finger and thumb. "I should be uncommonly sorry to be put to the test of having to jump in there after some other fellow who had tumbled in.

That would be something of a test wouldn't it; and I'm perfectly certain I should funk it?"