"It has more than paid for it all!" said West that night, when they lay
down to rest after a wildly-exciting day.
"Yes," replied Ingleborough, laughing. "I felt quite jealous!"
"I don't believe you!" said West sharply. "You couldn't; they all made
as much fuss over you as they did over me, from the chief downward!"
"Well, I suppose they did; but I began to have the horrors once!"
"Horrors?"
"Yes; knowing as I did that they must be short of food, I began to think
that they were welcoming us so warmly because we were something good to
eat, and all the feasting was the beginning of fattening us up."
"Of course you did!" said West drily.
"I say though," continued Ingleborough; "if it is not a state secret,
what was it the chief said to you when he took you aside?"
"Oh, it's no secret from you!" replied West.
"Let's have it then!"
"Well, first of all, it was a lot of flattery."
"Flattery?"
"Yes, about being so brave, and bringing the Kimberley despatch through
the Boer lines."
"That was not flattery. You did bring the despatch to its destination
very bravely."
"So did you!" said West sharply.
"Oh, very well, so did I then! It was _we_ if you like! Being buttered
is not an unpleasant sensation when you can honestly believe that you
deserve it; and, without being vain, I suppose we can feel that our
consciences are at rest."
"Never mind that!" said West hurriedly. "I don't like being buttered,
as you call it. The chief said then that he should have to send another
despatch back to Kimberley, and that he should ask us to take it."
"What a cracker!" cried Ingleborough.
"Cracker--lie? I declare he did!"
"I don't believe you."
"Very well!" said West stiffly.
"No; it is not very well! Come now, he didn't say anything about _us_.
He said you. Confess: the truth!"
West began to hesitate.
"He--well--perhaps not exactly in the words I said."
"That will do, sir!" cried Ingleborough. "You are convicted of
cramming--of making up a fictitious account of the interview. He did
not allude to me."
"But he meant to include you, of course!"
"No, he did not, Noll; he meant you."
"I say he meant both of us. If he did not, I shan't go!"
"What!"
"I shall not go a step out of the way without my comrade!"
"What!" cried Ingleborough, holding out his hand. "Well, come, I like
that, lad, if you mean it."
"If I mean it, Ingle!" said West reproachfully.
"All right, old chap! You always were a trump! There, _we'll_ take the
despatch back! And now no more butter! We're very brave fellows, of
course, and there's an end of it. I say, I wonder how Anson is getting
on."
"The miserable renegade!" cried West. "I should like to see the
scoundrel punished!"
"Well, have patience!" said Ingleborough, laughing. "It's a very
laudable desire, which I live in hopes of seeing gratified. But don't
you think we might as well go to sleep and make up for all we have gone
through?"
"Yes, but who is to sleep with all this terrible bombarding going on?"
"I for one!" said Ingleborough. "I'm getting quite used to it! But I
say, I can see a better way of making a fortune than keeping in the
diamond business."
"What is it?" said West carelessly. He was listening to the roar of the
enemy's guns and the crash of shells, for the Boers were keeping up
their bombardment right into the night.
"I mean to go into the gunpowder trade, and--oh dear, how--"
West waited for the words that should have followed a long-drawn yawn,
but none came, for the simple reason that Ingleborough was fast asleep.
Ten minutes later, in the face of his suggestions to the contrary, and
in spite of the steady regular discharge of artillery, sending huge
shells into the place, West was just as fast asleep, and dreaming of
Anson sitting gibbering at him as he played the part of a monkey filling
his cheeks with nuts till the pouches were bulged out as if he were
suffering from a very bad attack of mumps. The odd part of it was that
when he took out and tried to crack one of the nuts in his teeth he
could not, from the simple fact that they were diamonds.