A Secret of the Lebombo Part 5

The said objects were only some cattle, a most ordinary everyday sight, and the cattle were not even his. Yet a frown came over his face. The cattle were poor, and one or two, to his experienced eyes, showed signs of disease.

"Wyvern's, of course!" he p.r.o.nounced to himself wrathfully. "Every case of redwater or _brand-ziekte_ in the whole country-side is sure to be traceable to Wyvern's cattle or sheep. What the devil could have put into such a fellow's head that he was any good in the world at fanning?

He'd better stick to his fusty books and become a d.a.m.ned professor.

That's about all he's good for. I doubt if he's even good for that I doubt if he's even good for anything."

These wrathful reflections were due to the fact that he had just met with a reminder--one of many--that he had at any rate made one bad bargain, for Wyvern was engaged to his daughter; and now it was a question only of months perhaps, when Wyvern should be sold up.

Then and there he made up his mind again that the engagement should be broken off, and yet while so making it up--we said "again"--the same misgiving that had haunted him on former occasions did so duly and once more, that the said breaking off would be a matter of no little difficulty even were it ever achieved at all. Wyvern might be a bad fanner, a hopeless one in fact, but he would be a hard nut to crack in a matter of this kind, and Lalante--well, here was a hard and fast alliance for the offensive and defensive, which would require a breaking power such as he could not but realise to himself he scarcely possessed.

On rode Vincent Sage, mile after mile, still frowning. The good bargain he had made at yesterday's ale had well-nigh faded from his thoughts now, and as he drew near to his home his private worries seemed to oust his professional satisfaction over his own acuteness and the steady but sure acc.u.mulation of the goods of this world. He had liked Wyvern well enough during the earlier period of their acquaintance--in fact more than well enough; but he had all the invariably successful man's impatience of--even contempt for--the chronically unsuccessful; and in this particular instance his oft repeated dictum to himself--and sometimes to others--was "Wyvern will never do any good for himself or for anybody else either."

Suddenly he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and emitted a whistle. He was scanning the road, scanning it intently.

"Oh-ho! So that's how the cat jumps!" he exclaimed to himself, grimly.

He had reached the point where the track to Wyvern's farm joined the wider road leading to his own. The frown became more of a set one than ever.

"One horse spoor coming this way alone," he p.r.o.nounced, "and I know what horse made that spoor. Two horse spoors going back--and the same horse made one of these spoors. That's the game, is it, directly my back is turned? Well, it's a game that must be stopped, and, d.a.m.n it--it shall be."

In spite of which vehemence, however, that same little cold water misgiving returned to render Vincent Le Sage's mind uncomfortable.

He rode on, slowly now, keeping his horse at a walk; he was near home and there was no occasion for hurry. But as he went, he read that road like the pages of a book. He would find Wyvern at his place? Not a bit of it. For he had marked the returning spoors of the other horse.

Then again he reined in, suddenly and shortly, for the horse-hoofs had ceased and with them mingled the print of boots--and the said boots spelt one of each s.e.x. From that point the spoor of one horse continued alone. The other was a returning one. This, then, was where they had parted.

Vincent Le Sage had every sign of the veldt at his fingers' ends, and here, these imprints on a scantily used road, were as the very elementary side of his craft to him. They had not been made to-day; there were evidences of the effect of dew to show that. They had been made yesterday, and tolerably late at night; that too, he took in, and doing so felt more than ever justified in his resentment. What on earth had Lalante come to that she should ride over, alone, to this man's place directly his own back was turned, and--return with him late at night? Now he had good ground for interference, and what his inner consciousness told him was still better, a just grievance against Wyvern.

"He'll be sold up," he said to himself in hot wrath, as he covered the short distance which still lay between him and his homestead. "He'll be sold up, and I'll buy the place--I will, by G.o.d, even if it's the only rotten bargain I ever made in my life. I won't leave the chance to any other fool, with some arrangement perhaps for keeping him on on the halves. No--I'll buy it myself--although it won't be worth a tinker's twopenny d.a.m.n for years to come. Then he'll have to clear, and that's what I want."

A Hottentot stable boy ran to take his horse as he dismounted at the gate. Lalante came down the garden path to meet him. Her greeting of him was unreservedly affectionate. Perhaps his own to her thawed more than he was aware of.

"Come along in, father dear," she cried, hooking her arm within his, and drawing him through the open door into the cool room beyond. "And tell me how you got on. But first of all, you must have something after your ride," unlocking a cupboard and producing a decanter of excellent Boer brandy. "Now, did you pick up anything worth having?"

"Not bad in a small way. Couple of dozen slaughter-oxen of Piet Nel's-- he's in a bad way, you know, and obliged to sell I can turn them down upon Hartslief at Gydisdorp, at an easy two pound a head profit, if not more. There was nothing else quite worth taking on. Warren'll do the delivery for me on very small commission."

He had thawed still more as he watched his daughter moving about, ministering to his comfort. Any preconceived idea that Vincent Le Sage was of the tyrannical order of parent may at once be jettisoned. He was--as we have said--simply intolerant, to a fault, of the unsuccessful man.

"Warren?" repeated Lalante, in some astonishment, as she placed the porous terra-cotta water-bottle wits its fresh, cool contents upon the table. "Was Mr Warren at the sale then?"

"No. I came back by his place."

There was a something in her father's tone, and the searching glance he threw upon her face as he said this, that struck the girl as strange.

She had not expected him back by that particular way, but she failed to connect the circ.u.mstance with her doings of the day before. The mysteries of spoor, of course, were rather outside her scope.

"Oh, did you?" was all she said. "A little further round, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I had business with him--this and other. Where are the kiddies, Lalante?"

"Oh, they're larking about down the kloof, catapulting birds, or something."

"All the better. I want to have some serious talk with you."

"Serious? Don't scare me, old chap, will you?" she answered, going to him, and taking his face between her long cool fingers. "Because I'm easily scared, and 'serious' sounds so unconscionably alarming."

Le Sage felt more than ever disarmed. He was glowing angry with himself, and in proportion felt the less inclined to be so with her.

His heart swelled with pride and love, as he met the half-laughing, half-wistful eyes of this beautiful, splendid girl of his. How the devil could he get out what he wanted to say, he asked himself savagely?

But the thought of Wyvern came to his aid. With him, at any rate, he felt desperately angry.

"What time did you get back last night?" he said, shortly.

It was Lalante's turn to feel disconcerted.

"Last night? Get back?" she repeated, changing colour ever so slightly.

"Yes. That's what I said," he answered, still more shortly, and inwardly las.h.i.+ng himself up. "What time?"

"Well, it wasn't so very late," replied the girl, serenely. She had had time to pick herself up, though it cost her an effort, while wondering who had given her away; though indeed who could have done so, seeing that she herself had met her father at the gate before he had spoken to anybody? "But there was a fine bright moon--almost at the full."

"Well, you have done a thing I entirely disapprove of. You had no business to go over there all by yourself like that, at night."

"But I didn't go at night. I went in the morning."

"But you came back at night. At least if you didn't I'm a raw Britisher at reading spoor. How's that?"

Spoor? Oh, this was what had given her away then. This was a factor Lalante had wholly omitted to take into account, and even if she had not she had never reckoned on her father returning by that particular road at all.

"How's that?" she repeated sweetly. "Why of course that you're not a raw Britisher at all."

"Surely you must see it isn't the thing for a girl to go and spend the day with a man at his own place all alone," he fumed. "Can't you see that?"

"It depends on the girl and the man," she answered demurely. "Not if they are engaged?"

"Not even then. Coming back late at night too. I'm surprised at Wyvern being a party to it; and shall let him have a bit of my mind next time I see him."

"Oh, don't blame him," said Lalante, rather quickly. "I paid him a surprise visit, and--and--well, under the circ.u.mstances I stopped on.

_I_ stopped on. He couldn't very well turn me out. Now could he?"

Le Sage snorted. He had no reply ready. The shrewd practical farmer, the hard-headed man of business, was floundering more and more hopelessly out of his depth here.

"Were you never young once, father?" said the girl in her softest tone, bending over him and sliding an arm round his shoulders.

"Young? Young? Well, Wyvern's not particularly young at any rate, and ought to have known better." Then, bitterly, "I wish to G.o.d we'd never set eyes on him."

The arm was removed.

"You didn't always wish that. You thought a great deal of him once."

"That was before I found out he was no good," retorted Le Sage, who had succeeded in las.h.i.+ng himself up again. "Pity, while you were about it, if you must go in for--for leaving me--you didn't fix upon some solid and sensible fellow like Warren, for instance, instead of a mere dreamer. Warren's worth fifty of such wasters as that."