The Dop Doctor Part 54

"So, then, you are not willing to go back in a veld waggon?" demanded the bullying voice.

"I'm willing to go back in anything that isn't a coffin," she declared.

He gave the wooden chuckle, swung about and trampled to the door, calling to Van Busch in the tone of a dog's master:

"Here, you ...!"

Van Busch followed, wriggling as obsequiously as the dog with a stolen mutton-chop upon his conscience. The door slammed, the key turned roughly in the lock. Lady Hannah, oblivious of the absence of outdoor footwear, flew joyously to cram a few belongings into her travelling-bag and resume her discarded hat.

Outside in the street, the motley crowd having melted away upon his appearance, General Selig Brounckers was saying to Van Busch:

"It is a pity that the Engelschwoman's story was not true about that mare and spider. For if a mare and spider there had been, you might perhaps have kept them for your trouble----"

--"Now I come to think of it, Myjnheer Commandant," said Van Busch in a hurry, "perhaps the woman was not lying, after all. Bough has a mouse-coloured trotter in the stables at Haargrond Plaats, and a spider stands under the waggon-shed in the yard. If they are hers, I'll let Bough know Myjnheer Commandant said I was to have them. He'll make no bones about parting then. Sure, no! he'll never dare to."

"I will send a couple of my burghers with you to take care he does not,"

said the Commandant, in what was for the redoubtable Brounckers an easy tone. "It is unlucky," he added less pleasantly, "that you were such a verdoemte clever knave as to tell the Engelschwoman I had commandeered both beast and vehicle for Republics' use. Because now I will do it, look you! No Boer's son that lives, by the Lord! will I suffer to make Selig Brounckers out a liar." He added, as Van Busch salaamed and squirmed with more than Oriental submissiveness, "Least of all a sneaking Africander schelm like you. And now, about the money?"

"Excellentie----" lisped Van Busch, smiling his oily brown face into ingratiating creases ...

"I am no Excellentie.... Of how much money, properly belonging to the Republics' war-chest, have you cheated this little fool of an Engelschwoman?"

"Five weeks back, Myjnheer Commandant," bleated Van Busch, "I had from her one hundred and fifty pounds, which I swear as an honest man has been handed over to Myjnheer Blinders----"

"He has accounted to me."

"Five weeks back----?" Van Busch hinted.

"He has accounted for it five weeks back."

There are men who possess all the will to be rogues, but have not the requisite courage. Such a man was Blinders, who emerged plus a sweetheart, the approval of his Commandant, and the _eclat_ of having chaffed the British Lion, out of the affair that was to prove so expensive to Mr. Van Busch.

"And"--the big voice trumpeted, as Van Busch, like a stout pinned b.u.t.terfly, quivered, transfixed by the glare of the savage eyes--"you will now account to me for the rest."

Van Busch faltered with a sickly smile:

"Fifty more, Myjnheer, that I was bringing you myself----"

"One hundred and fifty you have paid me, and fifty you were going to pay me. Ik wil het--but where are the other hundreds you have paid Van Busch?"

bellowed the roaring voice. "Does not my old man-baboon at home pouch six walnuts for every one that his wife gets to share with her youngster? When I want to make the big thief spit them out, I squeeze him by the neck. So, voor den donder! will I do to you. Only, geloof mij, I will not do it in play. Pay Blinders the other five hundred pounds before kerk-time. If you haven't got the cash about you, he and young Schenk Eybel shall ride with you to Haargrond, where lives your friend Bough. They can bring back the money and the mare and spider, too. Moreover, Eybel, who is a bright boy, and has a head upon his shoulders, wants a slim rogue of a fellow that talks Engelsch to worm himself in over yonder"--he jerked his gnarled thumb in the direction of Gueldersdorp--"and bring back a plan of the defences on the west, where the native stad lies. Perhaps I will let you keep two hundred of that five hundred if you are the man to go.... But whether you go or stay, by the Lord! you will find it best to be square with Selig Brounckers."

And the redoubtable Brounckers stumped off. Verily, in times of scarcity, when the lion is a-hungered, the jackal must lose his bone.

It would be well, thought the dispirited jackal ruefully, to remove the unfavourable impression made, by a valuable service rendered to the United Republics. It would be a good thing to stand well with Myjnheer Schenk Eybel, who would, when Brounckers went south, be left in sole command. It would be as well, also, to get a look at that girl that was living with the nuns at Gueldersdorp.

"Mildare ..." That was the puzzle--her having the name so pat. But these little frightened, white-faced things were sly, and kids remembered more than you thought for....

Grown up a beauty, too, and with the manners of a lady. He swore again, the thing seemed so incredible, and spat upon the dust. A pretty green s.h.i.+ning beetle crawled there. He set his heavy foot upon the insect, and its beauty was no more.

x.x.xVII

As the Captain's heavy cavalry stride shakes Nixey's roof, the upright, lightly-built soldierly figure in khaki turns and comes towards him, giving the binoculars in charge to the Sergeant-Major of Irregulars, who is his orderly of the day.

"I want a word with you, Wrynche. Rawlings will take the gla.s.ses. Come in here under cover."

He leads the way. The cover is a canvas shelter, perhaps a protection from the blazing sun, but none at all from sh.e.l.l and bullets. There are a couple of wooden chairs under its flimsy spread and a little table. The Chief sits down astride on one of the chairs, accepts a cigar from Captain Bingo's enormous crocodile-leather case, and says, as the first ring of blue smoke goes wavering upwards:

"You'll be glad to know that Monboia's Barala runner has got through with good news _for you_." The last two words are rather strongly emphasised.

"Just before dawn and after Beauvayse relieved you at Staff Bombproof South."

Captain Bingo swallows violently, runs a thick finger round inside his collar, and his big face goes through several changes of complexion, ranging from boiled suet-dumpling paleness to beetroot red. He looks away and blinks before he says in a voice that wobbles:

"Then my wife's--all right?"

"Lady Hannah and her German attendant, as far back as the day before yesterday, when Monboia's man saw them, were in the enjoyment of excellent health."

"Poof!" Captain Bingo blows a genuine sigh of relief, and the latent lugubriousness departs from him. "Good hearing. I've had--call it hippopotamus on the chest this two months, and you'll about hit the mark.

Uncertainty and suspense get on a man's nerves, in the long-run. Bound to.

And never a word--the deuce a line--all these---- Poof!" He blows again, and beams. The Colonel, watching him out of the corner of one keen eye, says, with a twitching muscle in the cheek that is turned away from him:

"My good news being told, I have a slice of bad for you. But first let me make an admission. Since Nixey's pony pulled Nixey's spider out of Gueldersdorp with Lady Hannah and her maid in it, I have had three communications from your wife."

"You're pullin' my leg, sir, ain't you?" queries Bingo doubtfully.

"Not a bit of it."

In confirmation of the statement he takes out a shabby pocket-book, fat with official doc.u.ments, and, unstrapping it, selects three, and hands them to Bingo. They are flimsy sheets of tissue-paper covered with spidery characters in violet ink, and Bingo, taking them, recognises the handwriting, and is, as he states without hesitation, confoundedly flabbergasted.

"For they are in my wife's wild scrawl," he splutters at last. "How on earth did they reach you, sir?"

"The first was brought in by a native boy who said he belonged to the kraals at Tweipans," says the Chief. "Boiled small and stuffed into a quill stuck through his ear in the usual way. He trumped up a glib story about his cow having been killed and his new wife beaten by Brounckers'

men, and his desire to be revenged, and oblige the English lady who'd been kind to him----"

"Umph! Native grat.i.tude don't run to being skinned alive with sjamboks--not much!" the other comments. "Chap must have been lyin', or a kind of n.i.g.g.e.r Phoenix."

"Exactly. So I couldn't find it in my heart to part with him. He's on the coloured side of the gaol now, with two others, who subsequently landed in with the doc.u.ments you have in hand there."

"Am I to read 'em?" Bingo queries.

His commanding officer nods, with the muscle in his lean cheek twitching.

"Certainly. Aloud, if you'll be so good."