A Veldt Vendetta Part 23

"Why, he's been with you close on twenty years, hasn't he?" I said.

"Rather more," answered Brian. "But that's always the way with these chaps. The longer they've been with you the more keen they are on clearing out for a change: for I don't swallow over-much of that brother's son yarn. Well, he'll have to go, I suppose--eh, dad?"

"Oh, yes." Then it was put to Dumela that he was behaving shabbily in taking himself off at a moment's notice after all these years, and that, too, just at a time when we were in need of a thoroughly trustworthy man to fill his position, after our friction with Kuliso. This he deprecatorily admitted. Still, if his relatives stood in need of him, what else could he do? And he was not leaving us entirely in the lurch, for he had found a man who was ready to take his place now at once, and who was a good man with cattle. In fact, he was over in his hut now.

"Well, we'd better see him, at any rate," said Brian, and calling one of the boys, despatched him to Dumela's hut to fetch the stranger. The boy reappeared in no time followed by--Maqala.

This fellow saluted us gravely, but showed no sign of ever having seen any of us before. I own his sudden appearance startled me. Was this part of the game, I wondered, and if so how on earth could it be that an old and faithful servant like Dumela could aid and abet any mischief that might be brewing against us? Yet having good reason to bear in mind this rascal's excellent knowledge of English, I could utter no word of warning. It was, however, unnecessary, for Brian had recognised him at once as the man I had pointed out in the street at Fort Lamport.

"Why, that is one of Kuliso's people," he said. "You are a Tembu, Dumela; how then can you bring me a man of another tribe, and vouch for him as good?"

Dumela's reply to this seemed lame, and deepened my suspicions more and more. Would it be well, I wondered, to engage Maqala, and thus have him more under our own observation? But Septimus Matterson cut the knot of the difficulty.

"I won't have him," he said. "I won't have him at any price. I've seen him before, and I don't want to see him again. He is one of the people who raided us that day, one of the foremost of them too. I wouldn't trust him further than I could see him, so he may take himself off."

There was no getting round the straight directness of this reply.

Maqala said nothing. He just flung his blanket round him, and lounged away; but as he did so the look he turned on me was not a pleasant one.

On _me_. I was conscious of a feeling of relief. I, then, was the object of his hostility. Whatever nefarious scheme he was hatching, I was the destined victim of it--I and not the boy. Well, that simplified the situation, for I was flattered to think I knew how to take care of myself. Yet, even then his implacability was not quite comprehensible, for Kafirs, as a rule, have a strong sense of justice and are not vindictive when they realise that they have deserved whatever punishment they may have got, and if this one did not deserve the somewhat rough treatment I had twice meted out to him, why I didn't know who did.

Physically he was a tall, lithe specimen of his race, rather light-coloured, and had an evil cast of countenance. The expression of that countenance now, as he darted that quick parting glance at me, reminded me of nothing so much as a roused snake.

Well, Dumela took himself off. He made no profuse apologies or extravagant expressions on the strength of thus terminating his twenty years' service. He just bade us farewell, collected his two wives, his cattle, and such pay as was due to him, and went. We had to put on one of our farm boys in his place, and were to that extent short-handed, necessitating more general supervision, which, as Brian was obliged to be away from home on a matter of business, considerably tended to enlarge my own sphere of energy. But for this I was not sorry, as it took me more and more away from the house.

Sometimes Pentridge would accompany me on my rides abroad, and I was glad to have him, for he was always good company, and, liking the man for his own sake, I could not feel mean enough to hate him for being more fortunate than myself. On one such occasion--Beryl having laughingly but firmly ordered him out of the schoolroom where she was giving Iris, and now George, their morning lessons, and thus throwing him for refuge on me--he said something that set me thinking.

"D'you know, Holt, I'm beginning to feel beastly jealous of you."

"So? And why?"

"Why, the way you seem to have captured every one here."

"Didn't know it."

"But you have. Why, it's 'Holt says this' and 'Kenrick thinks that' on all hands, till I believe if you weren't such a good chap I'd rather dislike you."

"'You do me proud,' Pentridge--unless, that is, you're pulling my leg.

Otherwise I hadn't the faintest idea of anything of the kind, and don't see why it should be so now."

I believe I spoke with needless bitterness, but at the moment I could not help thinking how much greater reason I had for disliking him.

"Well, but it is. Good old Matterson isn't effusive, as you know, and I've never heard him boom any one before. But he's always booming you.

That time the Kafirs made that raid on you, he swears you stood by him like a brick."

"Well, I could hardly turn tail and run away, could I?"

"Not only that, but he said he was astonished at the judgment you showed on the occasion. And only this morning he was thanking his stars you were so good at bossing up things, now that he was seedy, and rheumatic, and Brian had to be away a lot."

Here was some practical cause for self-satisfaction, I thought. In view of my utter ruin financially, it was gratifying to know that I was deemed worth my salt in any one line of livelihood. But I answered--

"Well, if you've put your hand to the plough it's satisfactory to know that you're driving a straight furrow."

"Rather. Brian, too, is always booming you, and as for those two kids, why they don't cheek you a bit."

"Is that a sign of esteem?" I laughed, for the idea tickled me.

Further, I admit a littleness--in the shape of an anxiety to hear whether Beryl had added her quota to the general testimonial, and if so on what terms. But, by accident or design, he forebore to gratify me.

"I should say so," he rejoined. "Knowing their natural temperaments, it means that they must hold you in profound respect--especially George."

"Poor little devil! He's had the cheek considerably taken out of him of late," I said. "He used to be rather an outrage."

"So I should imagine. By the way, Holt, they were telling me about how you got Iris out of the sea that time at East London. It was--"

But whatever "it was" I didn't want to hear.

"Stop there, Pentridge," I said. "That's a forbidden topic and one I'm completely sick of. It was mere child's play to a fellow who is as thoroughly at home in the water as I am, so don't talk about it."

"Oh, all right, old chap," he answered good-humouredly, and then he went on to tell me something about himself. He had been some years in a slow Dutch towns.h.i.+p on the border line between the Eastern and Western Province, and had come to Fort Lamport to try and set up a practice there if he could buy out the District Surgeon, who was old and inclined to be shaky. "Yes," I thought somewhat bitterly, "and his reasons for coming to that particular place are not difficult to fathom."

For it was obvious to my mind that things were coming to a head. He and Beryl were a great deal together, and more and more of an excellent understanding seemed to exist between them, and in the light of this it seemed equally obvious that, apart from the catastrophe which had overtaken myself, I had been indulging in false hopes before--living in a fool's paradise, and I don't know whether the discovery rendered the situation any better for me or not.

One day I came upon them out riding. I had been doing an exhaustive round of the place and struck the main road. The bush grew right down to this on each side, and as I gained it I could see two other riders approaching. Even then I would have withdrawn, not wis.h.i.+ng to be the one too many, but they had seen me. Yet I had seen them a little before: had seen how happy they looked together, and, with a jealous pang, how well they looked together, how completely they seemed to match.

Beryl was looking lovely, the warm paleness of her face just suffused by the exercise, and the generous kiss of the free open air with just a sparkle of crisp keenness in it. She looked splendid in the saddle, too, as she always did, sitting her horse with the most perfect ease and grace--Meerkat, that very horse I had risked my life to recover and restore to her. Many a similar ride had we had together, she and I.

And ah! how little I had appreciated it then, I found myself thinking; yet now to look back upon those times! But they would not bear looking back upon.

Pentridge seemed, I thought, ever so slightly put out as I joined them, yet he need not have, for whatever my failings I flattered myself I was not quite such a fool as Trask, and consequently knew when I was not wanted. Beryl, on the other hand, did not give even the most subtle indication of disturbance; but then, after all, women are much better actors than we are.

"Had a good ride?" I asked carelessly, dropping the bridle rein on the horse's neck, and s.h.i.+elding a match with my hands to light a pipe.

"Er--yes. Jolly," answered Pentridge. But Beryl said--

"I don't think there's much chance of anything going wrong on the place while you're about, Kenrick. Why, you're as good as ten policemen."

"Don't know if that's to be taken as a compliment after the way I've heard some of you talk of that useful force," I answered with a laugh.

"Why, of course it is. But you are really too good about it. You might take it easy now and then."

"Oh, that's all right," I rejoined in would-be airy tone. "Best thing in the world for me. I enjoy it."

Beryl's large eyes, deep with one of those strange, unfathomable glances in which she sometimes indulged, were full on my face. I fancied Pentridge was making an effort not to fidget uneasily. Well, I was not going to be a marplot; and flattered myself there was nothing of the dog-in-the-manger about me, as I replied--

"Well, I shall have to leave you now. By the time I get to the vee-kraal it will be counting-in time. And the oftener Notuba's sheep are counted, the better, in my opinion."

I fancied that Pentridge's face cleared, for he knew that the course I now proposed to pursue would take me away at right angles from their line of march, viz. the main road. But the same did not hold good of Beryl.

"I thought you were going to ride home with us," she said; and if the tone was not one of genuine disappointment, why then she was even a better actress than I had at first reckoned her.

"I wish I could," I answered. "But now Brian's away, you know! You see it's a matter I take a pride in."

"Yes, I know you do," she said; and there was that in her way of saying it that brought back all the old time.