THE MEETING
Joe, the Kaffir boy, bestirred himself to the sound of Mary Ann's
shrill rating. The hour was still early, but the big _baas_ was in
a hurry and wanted his boots. Joe hastened to polish them to the
tune of Mary Ann's repeated assurance that he would be wanting his
whip next, while Fair Rosamond laid the table with a nervous speed
that caused her to trip against every chair she passed. When Burke
made his appearance, the whole bungalow was as seething with
excitement as if it had been peopled by a horde of Kaffirs instead
of only three.
He was scarcely aware of them in his desire to be gone, merely
throwing an order here and there as he partook of a hasty
breakfast, and then striding forth to their vast relief to mount
into the Cape cart with its two skittish horses that awaited him
beyond the _stoep_.
He departed in a cloud of dust, for still the rain did not fall,
and immediately, like the casting of a spell, the peace of a great
somnolence descended upon the bungalow. The Kaffirs strolled back
to their huts to resume their interrupted slumbers.
The dust slowly settled upon all things, and all was quiet.
Down the rough track Burke jolted. The horses were fresh, and he
did not seek to check them. All night long he had been picturing
that swift journey and the goal that awaited him, and he was in a
fever to accomplish it. Their highest speed was not swift enough
for him.
Through the heavy clouds behind him there came the first break of
the sunshine transforming the _veldt_. It acted like a goad upon
him. He wanted to start back before the sun rose high. The track
that led to Bill Merston's farm was even rougher than his own, but
it did not daunt him. He suffered the horses to take their own
pace, and they travelled superbly. They had scarcely slackened
during the whole ten-mile journey.
He smiled faintly to himself as he sighted the hideous iron
building that was Bill Merston's dwelling-place. He wondered how
Sylvia appreciated this form of life in the wilderness. He slowed
down the animals to a walk as he neared it, peering about for some
sign of its inhabitants. The clouds had scattered, and the son was
shining brilliantly behind him. He reflected that Merston was
probably out on the lands. His wife would be superintending the
preparation of breakfast. And Sylvia----
Something jerked suddenly within him, and a pulse awoke to a
furious beating in his throat. Sylvia was emerging at that very
moment from the doorway of the humble guest-chamber. The sun was
in her eyes, blinding her, and she did not see him. Yet she paused
a moment on the threshold.
Burke dragged in his horses and sat watching her across the yard.
She looked pale and unspeakably weary in the searching morning
light. For a second or two she stood so, then, slightly turning,
she spoke into the room behind her ere she closed the door:
"Stay here while I fetch you something to eat! Then you shall go
as soon as you like."
Clearly her voice came to him, and in it was that throb of
tenderness which he had heard once before when she had offered him
her dreaming face to kiss with the name of another man upon her
lips. He sat quite motionless as one transfixed while she drew the
door after her and stepped forth into the sunshine. And still she
did not see him for the glory of the morning.
She went quickly round to the back of the bungalow and disappeared
from his sight.
Two minutes later Burke Ranger strode across the yard with that in
his face which made it more terrible than the face of a savage
beast. He reached the closed door, opened it, and stepped within.
His movements were swift and wholly without stealth, but they did
not make much sound. The man inside the room did not hear
immediately.
He was seated on the edge of the bed adjusting the strap of one of
his gaiters. Burke stood and watched him unobserved till he lifted
his head. Then with a curt, "Now!" he turned and bolted the door
behind him.
"Hullo!" said Guy, and got to his feet.
They stood face to face, alike yet unlike, men of the same breed,
bearing the same ineradicable stamp, yet poles asunder.
The silence between them was as the appalling pause between the
lightning and the thunder-clap. All the savagery of which the
human heart is capable was pent within its brief bounds. Then
Burke spoke through lips that were white and strangely twisted:
"Have you anything at all to say for yourself?"
Guy threw a single glance around. "Not here," he said. "And not
now. I'll meet you. Where shall I meet you?"
"Why not here--and now?" Burke's hands were at his sides, hard
clenched, as if it took all his strength to keep them there. His
eyes never stirred from Guy's face. They had the fixed and cruel
look of a hawk about to pounce upon its prey and rend it to atoms.
But there was no fear about Guy, neither fear nor shame. Whatever
his sins had been, he had never flinched from the consequences.
He answered without an instant's faltering: "Because we shall be
interrupted. We don't want a pack of women howling round. Also,
there are no weapons. You haven't even a _sjambok_." His eyes
gleamed suddenly. "And there isn't space enough to use it if you
had."
"I don't need even a _sjambok_," Burke said, "to kill a rat like
you."
"No. And I shan't die so hard as a rat either. All the same," Guy
spoke with quiet determination, "you can't do it here. Damn it,
man! Are you afraid I shall run away?"
"No!" The answer came like a blow. "But I can't wait, you
accursed blackguard! I've waited too long already."
"No, you haven't!" Guy straightened himself sharply, braced for
violence, for Burke was close to him and there was something of the
quality of a coiled spring in his attitude, a spring that a touch
would release. "Wait a minute, Burke! Do you hear? Wait a
minute? I'm everything you choose to call me. I'm a traitor, a
thief, and a blackguard. But I'm another thing as well." His
voice broke oddly and he continued in a lower key, rapidly, as if
he feared his strength might not last. "I'm a failure. I haven't
done this thing I tried to do. I never shall do it now.
Because--your wife--is incorruptible. Her loyalty is greater than
my--treachery."
Again there sounded that curious catch in his voice as if a
remorseless hand were tightening upon his throat. But he fought
against it with a fierce persistence. He faced Burke with livid,
twitching lips.
"God knows," he said in a passionate whisper, "whether she loves
you. But she will be true to you--as long as you live!"
His words went into silence--a silence so tense that it seemed as
if it must end in furious action--as if a hurtling blow and a
crashing, headlong fall could be the only outcome.
But neither came. After several rigid seconds Burke spoke, his
voice dead level, without a hint of emotion.
"You expect me to believe that, do you?"
Guy made a sharp movement that had in it more of surprise than
protest. His throat worked spasmodically for a moment or two ere
he forced it to utterance.
"Don't you think," he said then, in a half-strangled undertone,
"that it would be a million times easier for me to let you
believe--otherwise?"
"Why?" said Burke briefly.
"Because--" savagely Guy flung back the answer--"I would rather be
murdered for what I've done than despised for what I've failed to
do."
"I see," Burke said. "Then why not let me believe the obvious
without further argument?"
There was contempt in his voice, but it was a bitter self-contempt
in which the man before him had no share. He had entered that room
with murder in his heart. The lust was still there, but he knew
now that it would go unsatisfied. He had been stopped, by what
means he scarcely realized.
But Guy knew; and though it would have been infinitely easier, as
he had said, to have endured that first mad fury than to have
stayed it with a confession of failure, for some reason he forced
himself to follow the path of humiliation that he had chosen.
"Because what you call the obvious chances also to be the
impossible," he said. "I'm not such a devil as to want to ruin her
for the fun of the thing. I tell you she's straight--as straight
as I am crooked. And you've got to believe in her--whether you
want to or not. That--if you like--is the obvious." He broke off,
breathing hard, yet in a fashion oddly triumphant, as if in
vindicating the girl he had somehow vindicated himself also.
Burke looked at him fixedly for a few seconds longer. Then,
abruptly, as if the words were hard to utter, he spoke; "I believe
you."
Guy relaxed with what was almost a movement of exhaustion, but in a
moment he braced himself again. "You shall have your satisfaction
all the same," he said. "I owe you that. Where shall I meet you?"
Burke made a curt gesture as if dismissing a matter of but minor
importance, and turned to go.
But in an instant, as if stung into action, Guy was before him. He
gripped him by the shoulder. "Man! Don't give me any of your
damned generosity!" He ground out the words between his teeth.
"Name a place! Do you hear? Name a place and time!"
Burke stopped dead. His face was enigmatical as he looked at Guy.
There was a remote gleam in his stern eyes that was neither of
anger nor scorn. He stood for several seconds in silence, till the
hand that clutched his shoulder gripped and feverishly shook it.
Then deliberately and with authority bespoke: "I'll meet you in my
own time. You can go back to your old quarters and--wait for me
there."
Guy's hand fell from him. He stood for a moment as if irresolute,
then he moved aside. "All right. I shall go there to-day," he
said.
And in silence Burke unbolted the door and went out.