"Bless 'em!" said Anson to himself that same evening, "I don't wish 'em
any harm. I only hope that before they've gone far the Boers will
challenge them.
"I can almost see it now: getting dark, and an outpost challenges.
`Come on, gallop!' says old Ingle, and they stick their spurs into their
nags and are off over the veldt. Then _crack, cracky crack_, go the
rifles till the saddles are emptied and two gallant defenders of
Kimberley and brave despatch-riders lie kicking in the dust.
"Ugh! How. I should like to be there with my flute. I'd stand and
look on till they'd given their last kick and stretched themselves out
straight, and then I'd play the `Dead March' in `Saul' all over 'em
both. Don't suppose they'd know; but if they could hear it they
wouldn't sneer at my `tootling old flute'--as Ingle called it--any more.
"Urrrr! I hated the pair of 'em. Ingle was a hound--a regular
sniffing, smelling-out hound, and Noll West a miserable, sneaking cur.
Beasts! So very good and nice and straightforward. Hundreds of
thousands of pounds' worth--yes, millions' worth of diamonds being
scraped together by the company, and a poor fellow not allowed to have a
handful. I don't say it's the thing to steal 'em; but who would steal?
Just a bit of nice honest trade--buy in the cheapest market and sell in
the dearest. It's what the company does, but nobody else ought to, of
course. Who's going to ask every Kaffir who comes to you and says: `Buy
a few stones, baas?' `Where do you get 'em from?' Not me. They've as
good a right to 'em as the company, and if I like to do a bit of honest
trade I will, in spite of the miserable laws they make. Hang their
laws! What are they to me? Illicit-diamond-buying! Police force, eh?
A snap of the fingers for it!
"A bit sooner than I expected," mused the flute-player. "A few months
more, and I should have made a very big thing if the Boers hadn't upset
it all and Master Ingle hadn't been so precious clever! Never mind: it
isn't so very bad now! I'll be off while my shoes are good. I don't
believe the Boers have got round to the south yet, and, if they have, I
don't believe it'll matter. Say they do stop me, it'll only be: `Who
are you--and where are you going?' Down south or west or anywhere, to
do a bit of trade. I'm sloping off--that's what I'm doing--because the
British are trying to force me to volunteer to fight against my old
friends the Boers. I'll soft-soap and butter 'em all over, and play 'em
a tune or two upon the flute, and offer 'em some good tobacco. They
won't stop me."
The quiet, plump, thoughtful-looking muser was on his way to a farm just
beyond the outskirts of Kimberley, as he walked slowly through the
darkness, hardly passing a soul; and he rubbed his hands softly at last
as he came in sight of a dim gleaming lantern some distance ahead.
"All ready and waiting," he said softly, and now he increased his pace a
little in his excitement, but only to stop short and look back once or
twice as if to make sure that he was not followed. But, neither seeing
nor hearing anything, he rubbed his hands again, muttered to himself
something about wiping his shoes of the whole place, and went on
quickly.
"Das you, baas?" said a thick guttural voice just above the lantern.
"Yes, this is me," replied Anson. "Team in-spanned?"
"Yaas, baas: big long time ago. Not tink baas come."
"But I said I would," replied Anson. "Got the water-barrel slung
underneath?"
The man grunted, Anson gave an order or two in a low tone, and in
response to a shout a dimly-seen team of great bullocks roughly
harnessed to the dissel boom and trek tow of a long covered-in wagon
began to trudge slowly along over the rough track which led to the main
road leading south. A second man led the way, while the Kaffir with the
light swung himself up onto the great box in front of the wagon and drew
out an unusually long whip, after hanging his horn lantern to a hook in
the middle of the arched tilt over his head.
"Baas come alon' heah?" said the man.
"No, go on, and I'll walk behind for a bit," said Anson, in a low tone
of voice. "Go on quietly, and keep off the track. Go straight away
till I tell you to turn off."
The Kaffir grunted, and the oxen plodded on at their slow
two-mile-an-hour rate, leaving the last sign of occupation far behind,
Anson twice over giving instructions to the man who was leading which
way to steer, the result being that the creaking wagon was driven right
away south and west over the open veldt, avoiding the various farms and
places till Kimberley was left far behind.
It was a bright starlit night, and the long procession of big bullocks
looked weird and strange in the gloom, for at times they seemed to be
drawing nothing, so closely did the tilt of the great lightly-loaded
wagon assimilate with the drab dusty tint of the parched earth and the
dusky-coloured scrub which the great wheels crushed down.
The driver sat on the box with his huge whip, his shoulders well up and
his head down, driving mechanically, and seeming to be asleep, while the
voorlooper kept pace with the leading oxen, and hour after hour passed
away without a word being spoken.
So the night wore on, the only watchful eyes being those of Anson, who
kept on straining them forward right and left, while his ears twitched
as he listened for the sounds which he knew would be uttered by a Boer
vedette.
But no challenge came, and the fugitive breathed more freely as the
stars paled, a long, low, sickly streak began to spread in the east, and
the distance of the wide-spreading desolate veldt grew more clear.
"I knew they wouldn't be on the look-out," said Anson to himself, in an
exulting fashion. "Hah! I'm all right, and I wonder how West and Ingle
have got on."
It was growing broad daylight when the thoughtful-looking ex-clerk
climbed up to the side of the driver.
"How far to the fontein?" he said.
"One hour, baas," was the reply.
"Is there plenty of grass?"
"Plenty, baas. Bullock much eat and drink."
The information proved quite correct, for within the specified time--the
team having stepped out more readily, guided as they were by their
instinct to where water, grass, and rest awaited them--and soon after
the great orange globe had risen above what looked like the rim of the
world, the wagon was pulled up at the edge of a broad crack in the dusty
plain, where the bottom of the spruit could be seen full of rich green
grass besprinkled with flowers, through which ran the clear waters of an
abundant stream.
A fire was soon lighted, a billy hung over it to boil, and Anson, after
watching the team, which had dragged their load so well and so far,
munching away at the juicy grass, began to get out the necessaries
connected with his own meal.
"Hah!" he said softly, as he rubbed his hands; "sorry I haven't got my
two fellow-clerks to breakfast: it would have been so nice and Ugh!" he
growled, shading his eyes to give a final look round, for there in the
distance, evidently following the track by which he had come through the
night, there was a little knot of horsemen cantering along, and from
time to time there came a flash of light caused by the horizontal beams
of the sun striking upon rifle-barrel or sword.
Anson's hands dropped to his sides, and he looked to right, left, and
behind him as if meditating flight. Then his eyes went in the direction
of his oxen, freshly outspanned, but he turned frowningly away as he
felt that even with the team already in their places, the lumbering
bullocks could not have been forced into a speed which the horses could
not have overtaken in a few yards at a canter.
Then he shaded his eyes again to have a good look at the party of
horsemen.
"Police," he said, in a hiss. "Yes, and that's Norton. _Hfff_!"
He drew in his breath, making a peculiar sound, and then, as if
satisfied with the course he meant to pursue, he went back to the fire
and continued his preparations for his meal, apparently paying no heed
to the party of mounted police till they cantered up and came to a halt
by the wagon.
"Hallo, constables!" cried Anson boisterously; "who'd have thought of
seeing--Why, it's you, Mr Norton!"
"Yes," said the superintendent. "You seem surprised!"
"Why, of course I am. Got something on the way? Anyone been smuggling
stones?"
"Yes," said the officer shortly.
"Sorry for them then, for I suppose you mean to catch 'em."
"I do," said the officer warningly.
"That's right; I'm just going to have some breakfast: will you have a
snack with me?"
"No, thank you. I'm on business."
"Ah, you are a busy man, Mr Norton; but let bygones be bygones. Have a
snack with me! You're welcome."
"I told you I was on business, Master Anson. Now, if you please, where
are you going?"
"Where am I going?" said Anson warmly. "Why, down south. What's the
good of my staying in Kimberley?"
"I can't answer that question, sir. Where's your pass?"
"Pass? What pass?"
"Your permit from the magistrate to leave the town."
"Permit? Nonsense!" cried Anson. "I'm turned out of the mine offices,
and I'm not going to sit and starve. No one will give me work without a
character. You know that."
The superintendent nodded.
"Perhaps not," he said; "but you are still a suspect, and you have no
right to leave the town."
"I'm not a prisoner," said Anson defiantly, "and I'm going on my lawful
way. What have you to say to that?"
"In plain English, that I believe you are going off to escape arrest and
to carry off your plunder."
"My what? Plunder? Why, it's sickening! Didn't you come to my place
and thoroughly search it?"
"I did search your room, but found nothing, because I believe you had
everything too well hidden. Now then, if you please, what have you got
in your wagon?"
"Nothing but provisions and my clothes! Why?"
"Because of your sudden flight."
"My sudden what?" said Anson, laughing.
"You know what I said, sir. Your sudden flight!"
"My sudden nonsense!" cried Anson angrily. "I have told you why I came
away."
"Yes," said the superintendent; "but I'm not satisfied that this move
does not mean that you have smuggled diamonds here with you to carry to
where you can dispose of them."
"Well, it's of no use to argue with a policeman," said Anson coolly.
"You had better make another search."