Wild Honey Part 4

"I always keep them up--it gives those brutes something to do," was Roper's surly response. "And why not, about here?"

"Oh, it's a good general plan. But there isn't any particular need round here. No lions. A stray hyena or two is the worst you'll strike."

"You seem to know all about it," sneered Roper, his straggly moustache lifted to one side in the usual unlovely manner.

"I ought to. I helped to make that road." The stranger slightly indicated the wide and dusty main track fifty yards off. Roper gaped a moment or two.

"Ah! a blessed pioneer!" he said at last, but there was no benediction in his tone. "And a mighty rotten road it is," he was presently inspired to remark.

"Yes," said the stranger placidly, "roads are like dogs--and some men-- they soon go to pot if they are not kept in order."

Roper digested this as best he might, but the process did not appear to agree with him.

"No one seems to realise that it's nearly one o'clock in the morning,"

he suddenly snarled. "Get off to bed, youngster." He added to the stranger: "If you're going to make tracks for your waggons at dawn, I should advise you to get some sleep too."

"Thanks, I'm not sleepy--but I'll turn in when you do."

"Well, I'm going now. The youngster has the tent. I roll up under the waggon."

"I'll roll up beside you," announced the stranger pleasantly. "But I hope you don't snore, for I am a light sleeper, and wake at the slightest sound." He happened to be looking steadily into the eyes of Vivienne as he said this.

"The blazes you do!" burst out Roper violently, as though this were the last straw. "Well, I don't care a hang whether you sleep or not."

"Thanks," answered the other imperturbably. Vivienne spent a wakeful night. As a matter of fact, snoring was not an accomplishment of Roper's, so she was unable to gather from the silence that reigned under the waggon whether either or neither of the men slept. She lay straining her ears for what seemed ages, but the only break in the silence was the sound of the _umfan_ at his mechanical duty of replenis.h.i.+ng the fire, until, in the dark hour just before dawn, she was aroused from an uneasy doze by a faint movement at the opening of the tent. She lay dead still, and for one moment her heart seemed to miss a beat. In the darkness she could see nothing by which to judge whether the person near were friend or foe, but suddenly her heart beat again, for a faint fragrance of Navy Cut tobacco had come stealing into the tent, and she knew that fragrance well. She had sat next to it for many days in a coach. Very different that to the rank odour of Roper's Boer _tabak_.

Then, silently and swiftly, a small heavy object, cold and polished to the touch slid in beside her. Her hand slipped round it, and another hand closed for an instant on hers, then withdrew. No word was spoken.

As soon as it was light enough, she examined her new possession, though her fingers had long since informed her of its character. A beautiful Colt's, loaded in all its five chambers. A tiny leaf of paper tucked into the barrel bore a few scribbled words:

"_Use this if necessary. Don't worry about consequences. I'll look after those, Kerry_."

Part of the "y" of "Kerry" had been left behind in the note book from which the leaf was torn.

"Well! our friend the gallant pioneer has gone, hey?"

It was the first time Roper had ever come near the waggon tent while she was in it, and the coincidence was not lost upon Vivienne. He sat on the brake now, face level with the mattress, and looked in with a triumphant leer on his degenerate face. But his news was no news to her. She had climbed down softly as soon as it was light, according to her usual custom, and made for herself the discovery that the stranger was gone. It was no more than she expected. The gift of the revolver had meant nothing if it had not meant that he would not be there to use it himself in case of need. The knowledge that it reposed under the pillow close to her hand was of great service to her nerves at the present moment, enabling her to answer Roper with an air of nonchalance that surprised him.

"I daresay he will soon catch us up again."

"Oh, _do_ you? And what makes you daresay that, hey?"

She moved her shoulders in a slight disdainful movement, to express that he and his question bored her intolerably, but for all her a.s.sumed carelessness she was on the alert. It was as much for her own rea.s.surance as for his annoyance that she remarked:

"His waggons can't be far off, or he wouldn't have reached us on foot last night."

"Ah!" Roper sat gazing at her, his moustache lifted sideways, the shadow of a sneering smile under his half-closed lids. It was patent to her that he was meditating something malignant, though what it was she could not at present fathom. No word did he speak on the subject of their last night's interrupted conversation: but his glance, travelling over her in slow gloating detail, was eloquent of much that his tongue left unsaid; and though her eyes met his with scornful contempt, she could feel the colour mounting in her cheeks and pa.s.sing over her face from chin to hair in a hot wave. And the sight was not lost on Roper.

Laughing in his throat in a way that chilled her blood, he jumped from the brake and walked away.

Immediately afterwards, he let loose a storm of abuse upon the _umfans_, who began to scuttle round the camp like frightened squirrels. It was unusual for him to be stirring in the camp at such an early hour, and this was their time to be cutting their own little capers while they collected fuel and stowed it on the other waggon for the night fires.

Roper now diverted them from this to the task of clearing up camp. Then Vivienne heard him get down the ox-whip from the side of the waggon and begin to swirl the lash round and round in the air. A moment later the revolver-like crack of the huge whip went ringing and echoing across the veld and she understood. It was the sign for the return of the oxen!

He meant to begin the afternoon _trek_ about five hours earlier than usual!

Thus, when the stranger, secure in the knowledge that all transport riders give their oxen from ten to twelve hours for rest and grazing, caught up to the present outspan, it would be to find Roper gone with a five hours' start. And once let anyone get five hours' start of you on the veld it will take stiff running to catch up. A man with oxen in less robust condition than Roper's might never catch up! This was the situation Vivienne had to face, and, thanks to the Colt, she was able to face it without panic. But her heart was somewhere in the vicinity of her boots as she watched the weary oxen come trampling back from their short respite. Seeming to know that they had been robbed of their legitimate rest, they kicked and b.u.t.ted each other, ran round the waggons, and gave as much trouble as they could. Many a bad and bitter word went to their yoking, but at last they were under weigh, raising clouds of dust as they took the road.

It was soon clear that Roper did not mean to let things go at the usual easy pace. He kept the lash over his beasts, running beside them like a man possessed, cracking and swirling the long whip thong in the air, letting out astonis.h.i.+ng cries, and long streams of words which though incomprehensible to the uninitiated ear left, by the violent sound of them, no doubt as to their character, every injunction ending in a ferocious command to "_Yak_!"

The oxen at an incredible pace shuffled and clappered along, the waggon spite of its heavy load bounding and swaying at their heels. Sometimes Roper, a menacing figure covered with dust, appeared round the end of the waggon and dropped back a few paces on the road, thereby enabling himself to see well into the tent where Vivienne sat guarding her shaking soul behind a calm and unapprehensive manner. Nearly always he would laugh--a laugh that made the girl grip the revolver under the pillow. A moment later she would hear his voice adjuring the oxen with a savage "_Yak_!"

It must have been about four o'clock in the afternoon when she found herself suddenly face to face with him in the opening of the tent. With such unexpected agility had he sprung upon the brake that for the moment she was taken unawares, and might easily have been out-generalled, but for his c.o.c.ksureness that he was master of the situation. He stood there smiling his slow evil smile--giving her time to s.h.i.+ft farther into the tent and lay her hand on the stock of the revolver. "What do you want?" she demanded evenly. He a.s.sumed an air of hurt surprise. "I suppose I can have a ride in my own waggon if I want to?"

"Not here," she said in a firm voice. "You must go and ride where you have always ridden. This tent has been given over to me and I mean to keep possession of it."

"Oh, you wouldn't be so unkind," he said with a slimy smile, and made to mount his knee on the mattress and clamber in, but found himself nose to nose with the s.h.i.+ning steel barrel.

"If you stir a hand, I fire." Her voice was absolutely steady. "Get down!"

His utterly dumbfoundered look and the alacrity with which he loosened his hold on the side of the tent and dropped from the brake was funny.

But his face was not funny. Something in it made Vivienne s.h.i.+ver. His mouth under the tilted moustache worked as if it tasted poison, and his eyes were bad to see. Down in the road he looked upwards once more to where Vivienne sat, the weapon lowered, but still in sight.

"So that's it?" he muttered. "He left you his revolver, did he?"

It was plain, of course, that she could have come by it in no other way.

He walked behind awhile blinking and swallowing the dust, considering perhaps the problem of how much she had told the other man. Then silently in his veld-schoened feet he pa.s.sed to the side of the waggon, and for the time being she saw him no more.

Nor even heard him. The tent on a buck-waggon is so placed that when the latter is loaded there is no way of entering or seeing from the tent except from the brake end. The whole of the back opening was blocked with heavy packing-cases that could not have been budged except by the efforts of several men. Vivienne congratulated herself on that for it made for safety. But it also kept her in ignorance of what was going forward in the front part of the waggon, or even at the sides. All she could do through that long bright hot afternoon was to sit like Sister Anne in her tower watching the road down which help might come.

When she observed that the waggon was no longer on the road, she was instantly on the alert for the meaning of the new move. It was too early to outspan, and if Roper did so he must know that he could easily be caught up, for they had not been travelling more than three hours!

But they did not stop. They went cras.h.i.+ng on over shrub and bush, lurching against ant-hills, being torn at by the branches of trees.

At last, the terrified girl realised what was happening. Roper was leaving the road and all danger of interference from those who might be travelling on it, and making for the wild bus.h.!.+

What should she do? Jump down and run? He might, expecting that, be lurking beside the waggon, and spring upon her while her hands in descending were yet engaged in holding the quickly moving waggon. There was a subtle cunning about the fellow that terrified her. Better stay in the tent where at least she had her face to the foe, and her back guarded by packing-cases. Besides, to where could she run? Back to the bush, to be lost once more, perhaps for ever this time? No, better stay and fight it out; die fighting, if necessary. That was what the man had given the gun for. And he meant to come back. She felt sure of that.

She trusted him. But would he come in time?

On and on went the waggon, lurching and swaying over the rough ground.

Once a dead branch ripped open the roof of the tent and a long slit of blue sky showed through. Another time a back wheel sank deep into a hole, and the whole waggon tipped over to such an angle that Vivienne found herself standing on the canvas ribs of the tent with her back keeping up the mattress and bedding. It took much hooting and hauling, two boys working with a crowbar, and Roper las.h.i.+ng, and howling terrible imprecations at the oxen before they pulled out and went lumbering on.

The sun began to sink, and the skies to turn blood red with the trees inked against them. The approaching night looked menacing and full of danger. The girl crouched in the tent holding fast to the revolver.

"Oh, this Africa! What terrible things she has done to me, and is doing! What terrible things has she still in her hand? '_Out of Africa always something new_,' indeed! Pliny knew something when he wrote that! Oh, man Kerry, do not fail me! Come soon!"

She kept saying that last sentence over and over again, like a prayer.

Sometimes it seemed to her the only prayer she knew. The night fell abruptly, as pitch-black as if some monstrous bat had spread its wings and blotted out the light. There was no moon, and storm clouds had defaced the stars. Since first she came to the veld, Vivienne had never seen a night so black, so filled with brooding abysmal loneliness.

At last, the waggon stopped. Yokes began to clatter and fall, and the tired beasts lowed moodily as they moved away. The flicker of a swiftly lighted fire sprang up, casting knife-like shafts of light through the heavy darkness, and the weary, nerve-wrung girl in the tent, tense as an overstrung violin, braced herself for she knew not what fresh ordeal of terror might be awaiting her in this silent lonely spot. She was well aware that it was of no use relying on any help from the cowed native boys. There was nothing to hope from anyone, or anything, but her own courage and the revolver. She had a sudden, swift vision of the light-eyed man who had left it with her, and a little involuntary cry burst from her heart at the thought of him.

"Oh, Kerry!--come!"