Wild Honey Part 3

"A beastly swell, of course. I suppose you lost your eye-gla.s.s in the bush, hey? Well, Carlton, my fine fellah, just you understand this: If I've got to board and lodge you from here to Buluwayo or until your fine friends pick you up, I shall expect to be well paid for it; and don't you forget it."

"Of course you will be paid," she said coldly. "But I must ask you in the meantime to treat me with a little civility--"

He stared at her with sullen eyes. "Civility be blowed! And don't you give me any of your cheek, you young snook, else you'll find yourself in the wrong box. Clear out now, I've had enough of you. You're welcome to the waggon tent as I never use it,--but don't you come near me again, except by special invitation."

This was the unpropitious beginning of Miss Carlton's new adventure.

Often during the next two weeks she wondered whether she would not have been wiser to have stayed in the bush. The man Roper, as she discovered his name to be, was an insufferable brute, and she went in mortal terror of his ever finding out that she was a woman. He ill-treated his boys shamefully, thras.h.i.+ng them on the smallest provocation, and never spoke to Vivienne except in a bullying tone. What nationality he was she could not imagine. From his constant use of such colonialisms as _Ach_!

and _Hey_! he might have been a South African, but his accent was distinctly English, and he scoffed equally at both British and Boer, and seemed to have the good qualities of neither.

The one thing to be earnestly thankful for was that he had such a dislike to her that she was rarely troubled by his society. He invariably took his mid-day meal alone, the greater part of the day being spent in sleep, for like most transport drivers he never slept during the night _treks_. The hour of danger for Vivienne was at the night outspan, for it was then that Roper usually sent her a gruff message to join him at the meal that was both supper and breakfast in one--afterwards the whole camp would sink into slumber until nearly mid-day, except Vivienne who invariably utilised this time to wash and tidy herself, though she never went far from the waggon, having a horror of once more losing herself.

Since she must see Roper then, evening was much the best time for the ordeal. Flickering firelight and the beams of a waning moon were less inimical than broad daylight to a role that became daily more difficult to play. For Vivienne was beginning to outgrow her disguise! True, few people would have recognised in the dirty, if healthy-looking young man in khaki, the erstwhile lovely debutante of a London Season, and more recently lady-correspondent of the _Daily Flag_. But life in the open with rest and food, were doing their work upon a healthy physique, and her beauty was rapidly returning. The heavy sunburn wearing off showed the skin beneath clear and tinted; her violet eyes had come out of retreat; her lips no longer cracked were a smooth and healthy red. Her hair, for the most part hidden under a primitive hat of plaited gra.s.s made for her by one of the _umfans_ [Young native boys] curled and glistened in the sun as though it were alive. It was with increased anxiety that she looked every day into the tin-backed mirror.

During the long afternoon _treks_, lying in the waggon tent her usual occupation was the study of a letter she had found inside her blouse with no clear idea of how it came there. She wondered if it were possible that during that extraordinary period of mental aberration she had deliberately opened the letter of another person, but she preferred not to believe this.

At any rate, before she had solved the mystery of its origin she knew the thing off by heart, and now for lack of any better thing to do she daily pondered the matter of de Windt's farm. And one day the thought flashed into her mind. "If I were to get 500 pounds and buy it instead of letting those two rogues at Onder-Koppies have it!" Instantly she dismissed the question with another--"Is this country utterly demoralising me?"--reminding herself sharply of who she was, and the obligations of her birth and honourable training. But later the thought came again, and with it extenuating arguments. After all, would such an act on her part be any more dishonourable than the one she contemplated--marrying some man for his money? The one was no more than a piece of sharp practice, such as business men did every day of their lives. The other--well at any rate it would be a far _pleasanter_ way to fortune than the other!

Cogitating the matter until it made her head ache, she fell asleep at last. It is wonderful how much sleep can be put in on the veld where the air seems charged with mingled ozone and wine!

At outspan time, which seemed to come earlier than usual, she descended to Roper's call, and slipped una.s.sumingly into her place. Everything seemed much the same, but the moment she glanced at Roper she knew that something untoward had happened. The look she had so long dreaded was in his eye. _He knew_.

The discovery nearly suffocated her. She felt her face scorch as if by a swift flame, then all the blood drain from it, and tighten like a band round her heart. Opposite her, dark half-closed eyes full of malice and some other hateful quality pa.s.sed over her in a gloating enveloping stare. If she had suddenly lost her appet.i.te, so, too, it seemed, had he. It was with his eyes he feasted.

Utterly wretched and terrified, hardly knowing what she said, the girl made some attempt at conversation. He laughed strangely, answering her remark with another.

"The mail-coach pa.s.sed this afternoon, and I had a few minutes' talk with the driver. He gave me a bit of news."

"Oh?" she faltered enquiringly, sick with mingled fear and curiosity.

Why, oh why, had not she been awake when that coach pa.s.sed?

"It appears that a young lady was lost off the coach, week before last-- much about the same place as you were--you didn't happen to meet her I suppose?" he leered at Vivienne with indescribable malice. She made no answer,--only with her hand sheltered her pallid face as best she could from the gleam of the fire.

"They were out looking for her some time--nearly a week--have given it up now, though--but all the coach drivers have orders to keep their eyes open. They wanted to know if I had seen anything of her? But of course I said no."

_Brute_! was what her sick heart cried, though her lips made no sound.

There was a silence. He leaned on his elbows, smiling his slow evil smile at her, and she sat perfectly still looking through her fingers at the fire and the forms of the two _umfans_ beside it, rolled in their blankets and already sleeping. No use calling to them, she knew, and the other boys were away with the oxen. In any case, all were too much under the dominion of Roper to stand by her. She realised that she was in deadly danger--and alone. For the first time in the last two years of proud and bitter defiance, she felt the need of some stronger spirit than her own, and in her extremity her heart turned to G.o.d with a silent cry for help.

"I forgot to tell you," said Roper softly, "that _her_ name was Carlton, too. Isn't that a funny thing now!"

"I don't think so," she found courage to say, though her eyes were the eyes of a hunted thing.

"No? Now I thought it the funniest thing I ever heard," said he laughing softly, "and ever since, I have been saying to myself, 'What a pity it wasn't the young lady I found!' It would be so pleasant on an evening like this for instance, to have the society of a nice young lady! So very pleasant," he repeated, and leaned on the table looking into her eyes with some horrible meaning. "Quite alone on the veld, with no one to know or care what we did--no one to--interfere--all alone with love and the daisies." With a swift movement he caught hold of the girl's hand which was lying on the table. But the next instant he had loosed it and was on his feet.

"Who the devil--"

A man had come into the camp. Swift-footed and noiseless as a ghost, neither the dog nor the sleeping _umfans_ had heard his coming. It was almost as if he had sprung from a neighbouring bush and Vivienne, startled as Roper by the sudden apparition, rose to her feet. But apart from his quietness, and the gleam of his light clothes, there was nothing supernatural about the tall lithe s.h.i.+rt-sleeved figure which with rifle on shoulder and revolver on hip, came into the firelight.

Nothing supernatural either, but something indescribably soothing to the nerves of Vivienne Carlton in the sound of that cheerful, careless voice.

"Ah, gentlemen! Hope I did not startle you? I'm delighted to come upon your camp, having mislaid my own by a few miles. I shall be glad to spend the night here if you have no objection?"

Roper turned his back and with a sullen scowling face sat down again, muttering some words that sounded anything but inviting. The stranger took no offence. He also sat down opposite the girl, and began to relate how he had left his boys and gone after a buck and got too far away to bother to return that night--and all the time he was looking steadily across the packing-case at Vivienne and she saw that he recognised her, even as she recognised him as soon as she saw his light grey eyes. It was the silent, tanned man who had left the coach at Palapye.

CHAPTER TWO.

WILD HONEY--PART II.

The three sat round the fire awhile, unspeaking, each busy with their own thoughts. Whatever were Roper's his face grew more sullen every moment, and the glances he cast in the direction of the new-comer were full of malignance. He looked menacingly too at Vivienne, who had suddenly taken on such a feminine appearance that he was amazed he could have been deceived so long. Her intense pallor and the dilation of her eyes through fear or excitement until they looked like great sombre pools of fire may have had something to do with the phenomena, but there she was, spite of the travesty of masculine attire, glowing like some beautiful night-blooming magnolia. And she said nothing; just sat very still behind the packing-case, watching the two men.

As for the stranger, he had taken up an easy position on one of the boxes which were always lying about the camp, and with his rifle beside him, leaning forward elbows on knees, began to fill his pipe. No hospitality of any kind was offered him. Just as he was about to light up, he gave a half glance in the direction of the girl, and for a moment she was afraid he was going to ask for her permission to smoke, but it must have been fancy on her part for he lit without speaking.

"I hope your waggons are not far off," said Roper suddenly. "For I've no idea of turning mine into a sort of refuge for lost dogs." His tone was extremely offensive. The other man looked at him steadily for a long moment, then said with a gentleness almost deadly:

"I don't see any dogs about here--except one." It is true that Roper's pointer was asleep under the waggon not far off, but the stranger did not happen to be looking that way. Roper was at liberty to like the inference or lump it, whichever he pleased. Perhaps the cheerful flicker on the bright barrels of the stranger's .303 helped his decision not to lump it, for his tone was less aggressive when he spoke again.

"What I mean is, I've had enough of picking up and feeding and lodging people who choose to get lost on the veld. I'm full up with it. I didn't lay in provisions against such accidents."

"Oh!" said the stranger, still gently. "Have you had many of the kind?"

"Yes; one too many," was the retort.

Vivienne thought this the time and place to make a statement. "I am the unfortunate accident," she said in a low voice. "I was lost on the veld some three weeks or more ago, and this man Roper found me, and has been supplying me ever since with food and a waggon tent to sleep in. He seems to resent having to do it so much, however--in spite of my a.s.surance that he will be well paid--that I should be only too glad to leave this camp if I could."

This was tantamount to an appeal and she antic.i.p.ated and hoped that the stranger would immediately offer her the refuge of his camp. To her mortification, he merely looked reflective.

"I see," he said; then casually to Roper: "Well, you needn't worry about me. I shall not encroach upon your provisions."

"Very glad to hear it," commented Roper, brusquely. "As for you, young fellah," he turned his dark glance on Vivienne, "I don't see what you've got to complain of. You have always had civil treatment from me and the best of whatever was going. Fine grat.i.tude to turn on me now!"

The girl was silent for a moment, nonplussed by the stranger's indifference, and the thought that perhaps after all his presence there was only an accident, that he did not mean to help her, and would go off to-morrow without a word, leaving her once more in the power of Roper!

She determined that at any rate he should not be in any doubt as to her position.

"I'm not complaining without cause," she said, looking at Roper scornfully; "you have repeatedly spoken most insultingly about being obliged to give me hospitality, and to-night your manner was so offensive that I was very glad to see this gentleman come into camp."

"Ach! you're a fool to get scared at my jokes. I've even forgotten what it was we were talking about. Whatever it was, I should have thought a big strapping fellow like you could have taken his own part."

He laughed bl.u.s.teringly, and she realised that he did not suspect the other man knew of her ident.i.ty, and that he meant to keep up the fiction she herself had begun. Doubtless, he, too, expected the stranger to be gone with the dawn before he could make any further discoveries!

It seemed at any rate that there was nothing further to be done for the moment, or until she could be sure of the man whose name she did not even know, or whether he knew hers! After all, had he recognised her?

Had she been mistaken in the meaning of that swift look given her when their eyes first met, that seemed to say: "All's well! I am your friend!"

Surely he must remember her! Yet what had she done to be remembered by?

Nothing. She had held herself aloof in disdainful pride from him as from all the others. She knew now that she had always felt an interest in this silent light-eyed man, who never seemed to look at anything but the horizon, and had felt more instinctively akin to him than the others. Still, she had never given any outward sign that he was not, as Laurence Hope has it, "less than the dust beneath her chariot wheels,"

and had treated him to the same civil disdain with which she froze the other pa.s.sengers. Oh! would he remember it against her now?--if he remembered her at all!

Her eyes searched his face almost pleadingly; but it told nothing. He had crossed his legs easily, and with one hand nursing his elbow, the other holding his pipe, sat smoking in impenetrable reflection.

Well! it was something to have him here. His very presence gave her a feeling of protection. One of the _umfans_ made a diversion by rising like a somnambulist from his dreams to throw a great heap of fuel on the fire. Mechanically, he performed his task, then, without looking to east or west, rolled himself to sleep again.

"You keep up your fires all night--here?" remarked the stranger.