A Secret of the Lebombo Part 23

Warren took it, in a firm sympathetic grasp. He himself was looking rather f.a.gged--in fact, decidedly not himself--which was little to be wondered at. What he himself wondered was that he was there at all.

"All's well that ends well, Miss Lalante," he said, cheerily, "which, if not original, about sums up the situation. We're all about equally wet for that matter, but as long as we keep moving we shan't take any harm, and the way back to the house, if not long, is rough enough to keep up our circulation."

"What can I say to you, Mr Warren?" went on Lalante. "You were just telling me the strongest swimmer would stand no chance in that flood, and then you deliberately went in yourself."

"Not deliberately, Miss Lalante," smiled Warren. "I a.s.sure you it was all on the spur of the moment. Charlie, it's lucky you had the foresight to tumble in above us. If it had been down stream I could never have got near you."

As a matter of fact the feat had been one of great daring and skill, and having accomplished it Warren felt secretly elated as they took their way home. He realised the warm admiration and grat.i.tude which it had aroused in the girl, and, now that it had ended well, he looked upon the whole affair as a gigantic stroke of luck, and, in fact, as the very best thing that could have happened to him. Bye and bye, when Wyvern's memory should begin to dim, then this appreciation would turn to something stronger. Curses on Wyvern! Why should he have this priceless possession, and how confoundedly calmly he seemed to accept it, as if it were only his due? He, Warren, would have moved heaven and earth to obtain it, yet why should that other gain it with no effort at all? He himself had all the advantages that Wyvern had. He was a clean-run, strong, healthy man, whom more than one girl of his acquaintance would think herself surpa.s.sing lucky to capture. Moreover he had made money, and knew how to go on making it, which was a thing Wyvern never had done and never would. Why the deuce then should Wyvern be where he ought to be? he thought bitterly as he walked dripping beside Lalante, in the gloom of the now fast-darkening night. Well, at any rate, in all probability Wyvern by that time was nowhere at all, thought this man who had just risked his life when the chances were a hundred to one against him, to save that of a helpless child. Yes.

Nowhere at all. There was a wholeheartedness about Bully Rawson and his doings which left no room for doubt. He could be trusted to "take care"

of anybody.

And yet, through it all there was a certain modic.u.m of compunction; compunction, but no relenting. Had circ.u.mstances compelled Wyvern to give up Lalante, he would have had no more sincere well-wisher than Warren. As it was he stood in Warren's way; therefore--out he must go.

Then Warren became alive to the fact that Lalante's bright eyes were fixed upon him in some concern.

"You didn't hurt yourself--in the river, did you?" she said anxiously.

"Oh no, no. I'm a dull dog, I'm afraid," he answered, with a laugh.

"Perhaps I am a bit tired."

"Are you sure you're not hurt?" she persisted, anxiously.

"Very sure indeed. I got a rap on the s.h.i.+n from that confounded tree that did its best to hold me under water, but that was nothing to what I used to get in a football match when I was a nipper."

The drizzle had merged into a steady downpour as they reached the house.

In the framing of the lighted doorway Le Sage came out to meet them, smoking a pipe.

"Hullo. You've prolonged a pretty wet walk," he said. "_Magtig_! but you look like four jolly drowned rats."

"And that's what two of us jolly near were, father," said Lalante, in clear ringing tones. And then she explained what had happened. Le Sage stared at her as if he were listening to something altogether incredible.

"Good G.o.d! Lalante. And you can hear the river from here, a mile and a half away, bellowing as if it was at the very door. Why, it hasn't been down like this since the big flood of '74. And you went in it, Warren, and--got out of it! Well, well. They give Victoria Crosses and so on, but--oh d.a.m.n it! you deserve a couple of dozen of 'em."

His voice had a tremble in it as he gripped the other's hand. The whole thing was more eloquent than a mere speech would have been. He was deeply moved--moved to the core, but Le Sage was not a man of words.

"Oh, that's all right, Le Sage," said Warren. "Only as I was telling Charlie, it's lucky he had the discretion to go in above stream instead of down, or the devil himself would hardly have managed to get him out.

Come now, let's have something warming and then I'll go and change, though I'll have to borrow some of your togs for that same purpose."

"Right. Here you are, and mix it stiff," said Le Sage, diving into a sideboard and extracting a decanter. "Good Lord! And you got into the Kunaga in a flood like this, and got out again! Why, it's a record."

This was Le Sage's recognition of the fact that this man had saved his child's life at enormous risk to his own. But Warren thoroughly understood and appreciated it; and was more elate than ever, inwardly.

"Go along, you children, and change at once," p.r.o.nounced Lalante with decision. "And be quick about it, and give yourselves a glowing rub down with a rough towel I don't know that we two who haven't been in the river are much drier than the other two who have," she added with a laugh, as she disappeared.

Half an hour afterwards they all foregathered at table, and it seemed, in the snug, warm, lighted room, as though the ghastly peril of the afternoon were but a pa.s.sing adventure, calculated to give an additional feeling of snugness and security to the wind-up of the day. But the dull roaring of the flood was borne in to them through it all upon the dripping stillness of the rainy night.

And Warren, listening to it, and knowing that others heard it, felt more elate than ever. He began to see the goal of his hopes more than near.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"TAKE CARE OF HIM."

Wyvern found some difficulty in concealing the growing disgust that was upon him as he entered Rawson's kraal. He had by this time been in several native kraals and felt quite at home there: but this--well, somehow it was out of keeping. That unqualified ruffian, his present entertainer, was repulsive enough in all conscience, but he seemed to become ten times more so, when viewed in the light of his domestic arrangements: under which circ.u.mstances the fact that he was a white man seemed to have sunk him immeasurably below the level of the savage.

The two women, who were seated together on the ground, looked up quickly as the new arrivals entered. The better favoured of the two, Nkombazana, the Zulu girl, smiled approvingly as her glance rested on Wyvern, and then said something to her companion in a low tone. He, of the two, was clearly the one that aroused their interest Bully Rawson emitted a loud guffaw, true to his programme of keeping up a certain boisterous geniality.

"There you are, Wyvern. Women are the same all the world over, you see.

Now these are agreeing that they don't see a thundering fine chap like you every day of the week."

"Which is the one related to the boy you just kicked so unmercifully?"

said Wyvern.

"That one, Nompai. She ain't much to look at, but I'll swear she ain't the worst of the two. That other one, Nkombazana, she's a regular vixen--a spitfire I can tell you. I often wish I could clear her out I'd let her go cheap. Oh, see here Wyvern--" as a bright idea struck him, and then he stopped short. Bully Rawson, with all his faults, had the saving grace of perceptiveness, wherefore the bright idea remained unpropounded.

"Well what?"

"Oh nothing. I forget now what I was going to say," with a furtive wink at Fleetwood.

"But why can't you clear her out?" asked Wyvern. "I thought among savages they did what they liked with their womenkind."

There was a dry irony about the tone, that the other may have remarked, but for his own purposes preferred not to notice or resent. He guffawed good-humouredly instead.

"Did you? Well then Wyvern, you've got a lot to learn about the manners and customs of this country yet. Nkombazana's father's a pretty strong chief, and Joe there'll tell you what a hornet's nest I should bring about my ears if I bunked her back to her people." Fleetwood nodded.

"Oh well, d.a.m.n the women," went on Bully. "I think we've yarned enough about them. So we'll get into the store hut where it's cool and have a drink."

The hut wherein Rawson kept his trade goods was a larger one than the rest, and differed from them in that it had a door through which you need only stoop slightly in entering, instead of crawling on all fours.

It also boasted a small glazed window. Unlocking the huge padlock that secured it, their host led the way inside.

"You haven't got much stuff on hand, Bully," said Fleetwood, looking round upon the blankets and beads and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and other "notions"

stowed about.

"Oh well no, I do next to no blanket trade these days, and what I do is a darn sight more paying than this truck. Oh, I've got an iron or two in the fire, m'yes, but a lot of trade stuff comes in handy as a firescreen, as _we_ know. Eh Joe?" with a knowing wink which made that worthy just a little uneasy. The other had exactly stated their own case: was it accidental, and was he merely referring to the pretty widespread practice of gun-running, or had he, by any means whatever, obtained some inkling as to the real object of the expedition? He nodded carelessly.

"_Ja_. That's so," he replied.

There are three European products which you shall invariably find--even if you find no other--on the confines of civilisation and beyond the same: "square face" gin, a pack of cards, and a bottle of Worcester sauce. The first of these Bully now produced, together with some enamelled metal mugs.

"Here's luck all round," he said. "Eh? What's that? Water? Man-- Wyvern, but you're a bit of a Johnny Raw in these parts. Why we don't water our stuff here. Eh, Joe?"

"Matter of taste. For my part I don't care either way," was the answer--while the host put his head out and bellowed to the women to fetch some.

Now Joe Fleetwood, though one of the shrewdest and most practical of men, had "instincts"--and these were somehow unaccountably aroused.

There was a something which warned him that their uproariously effusive host meant mischief, and that at no distant time. Therefore he resolved to keep more than one eye upon him.