"Mopela, what on earth have you been doing all this time? I sent you
for that water half an hour ago."
There is menace as well as wrath in the tones of the speaker as he
confronts the individual addressed, who is calmly squatting on the
ground between two pails containing water just drawn out of the dam. It
is midday, and a blazing sun pours down upon them, to the delectation of
certain mud turtles basking on the hard, cracked surface of the baked
ooze, and who, alarmed by the sound of angry voices, scuttle away into
the water as fast as their legs can carry them; while, in the noontide
stillness, the smooth surface of the reservoir glows like copper beneath
the burnished rays. Again Claverton--for it is he--repeats his question
in a more irate tone than before.
Mopela rises and eyes his interlocutor in a manner that betokens
mischief. He is a huge Kafir, tall and broad-shouldered, and his
bronze, sinewy frame, whose nudity shows the development of great
muscular power, looks formidable enough. He hates Claverton, who has
more than once had occasion to be "down on" him for careless herding, or
other derelictions, and never loses an opportunity, whether by covert
insolence or neglect of orders, of showing it. And for some time past
the relations between the two have been--in the language of diplomacy--a
trifle "strained."
"I _haven't_ been half an hour," he replies, defiantly, "I only stopped
a minute to light my pipe."
"You infernal blackguard, do you mean to give me the lie direct?" says
Claverton; and his voice shakes with pent-up fury as he advances a pace
nearer the last speaker. "Take up those buckets and get away at once!"
The savage gives an exclamation of disgust, and his eyes glare. Then
throwing back his head contemptuously, he says with an insolent sneer:
"You are not _Baas_ here."
"The devil I'm not!" Crack!--woof!--a right and left-hander straight
from the shoulder, and the huge barbarian goes down like a ninepin.
"You dog! you've played the fool with me long enough, and now you've
come to the end of your tether. Get up," he continues, spurning with
his foot the prostrate man, from whose mouth and nostrils a red torrent
is gushing. "Get up, and I'll floor you again!" His fierce temper is
now completely beyond his control, and for the moment he is as
thoroughly a savage as the dusky giant lying at his feet.
How it will end Heaven only knows, but at this juncture a low cry of
horror behind him causes him to turn, and what he sees brings a hot
flush to his face, up till now livid with rage. For there stands Lilian
Strange, and her white face and dilated eyes betray that she has been a
terrified witness of the whole scene.
Claverton started as if he had been shot.
"I fear you have been dreadfully frightened," he said. "Needless to
explain I had no idea of your presence."
He felt very concerned, and his face flushed hotly again as he thought
what an awful ruffian he must seem in her eyes. This was the second
time within twenty-four hours that she had seen him lose his temper,
though yesterday, anxiety for her own safety had been the justification.
His clothes were plentifully splashed with sulphur and lime, in which
salutary decoction he had been dipping sheep when the _fracas_ occurred.
At his feet lay the hulking form of the Kafir, breathing stertorously
and bleeding like a pig. Yes, what a cut-throat he must seem to her!
But Lilian could not have been of this opinion, for the startled
expression faded from her eyes and a delicate tinge showed in the warm
paleness of her cheek.
"I had been for a walk in the garden, and came suddenly upon you. I
couldn't help seeing it all. He seems badly hurt; can't we do anything
for him?" she pursued, going up to look at the prostrate barbarian, and
again growing pale at the sight of the blood. For Mopela lying there,
with all the results on his countenance of the punishment he had
received, was not an exhilarating object to gaze upon.
"Do anything for him? Oh, no; he's all right. Look."
The Kafir opened his eyes stupidly and staggered to his feet. Then,
with a glance of deadly hatred at his chastiser, he took up the buckets
and walked away, his gait rolling and uneven.
"You don't know what I've had to put up with from that bru--that rascal
for some time past. Well, he's got it now, at all events. I knew it
was only a question of time. The only thing I regret is that it should
have been at so inopportune a time," he added, in tones of deep concern.
He was exceedingly vexed and disgusted with himself. Mopela might have
inflicted upon him a whole vocabulary of impudence before he would have
afforded Lilian such an exhibition had he but foreseen.
"I suppose you find these natives very trying?" she said.
"Not as a rule. On the contrary, I always pull well enough with them.
But that chap's defiance had reached such a point that one of us had to
knuckle under. It would never have done for that one to have been
myself."
"I suppose not," answered Lilian, with a little smile at the idea of her
escort of yesterday "knuckling under" to anybody. "And now I must not
delay you. I see you are busy--but--would you mind walking back to the
house with me? I am easily frightened, and these savages do look so
dreadful when they are angry."
"Would I mind? But don't _you_ mind being seen in such ragged company?"
he added, drily, with a glance at his rough and besplashed attire.
"In Bond Street it is just possible that I should. On an African sheep
farm the escort is appropriate," she answered, with a flash of merriment
in her lovely, changing eyes.
The distance to the house was not great, but Claverton contrived to
render it as great as possible.
"How is it you are out all alone?" he asked, as they walked along.
"Oh, the fact is, Mrs Brathwaite and the girls were busy, very busy. I
wouldn't for the world abuse my guest's privilege, so I slipped off on a
solitary voyage of discovery."
"And a pretty sort of discovery you made! By-the-bye, I have had no
opportunity of asking if you had quite recovered from yesterday's
fatigue, and it has been lying heavily on my conscience. You did not
appear at breakfast, and we have been desperately busy all the morning."
There was a tender ring in his tones as he made this very commonplace
observation which could hardly have escaped the other. She answered
very sweetly:
"I am afraid I was dreadfully lazy. But I was a little tired this
morning. It shan't occur again; there!"
"You must rest to-day, then, because they are getting up a dance
to-night in your honour. You are literally to make your _debut_ here.
Didn't they tell you?"
"Now I think of it, they did. Here we are at the house, Mr Claverton.
Thanks, so much, for accompanying me."
"And now I shall catch it. The dear old man hates any of us to thrash a
nigger. Stand by and support me under my castigation."
Claverton had seen Mr Brathwaite in the hall, and lost no time in
telling him what had happened. The old settler shook his head as he
listened.
"It won't do," he said. "You'll never get any good out of them if you
take to hammering them. They cut off to the district town and lay an
information against you, and you're summoned before the magistrate, and
put to no end of bother. And that's not all. It has a bad effect on
the others. They know they'll get the better of you in court, and
invariably do get it; and once a black fellow thinks he can get the
better of you in any way, then good-bye to your authority. Besides, it
earns you a bad name among the Kafirs, which means a constant difficulty
in obtaining labour, and when you do obtain it you only get the refuse.
There's Thorman, for instance. He used to lick his Kafirs for the least
thing, and he never kept a decent servant on his place two months at a
time. I advised him to knock off that plan, and he did; but for years
afterwards he suffered from its effects, in the shape of a constant lack
of decent labour. No; it doesn't pay, take my word for it."
"Well, but you've no idea how cheeky that fellow was, and has been for
some time past," urged Claverton.
The other merely shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man
unconvinced, and repeated as he turned away: "It doesn't do."
Claverton shot a glance at his late companion as much as to say; "There,
I told you how it would be," and caught a bright, rapid smile in return.
Then he went back to his work.
Hard by the scene of the recent row was the dipping tank, oblong in
shape, fifteen feet by five and about eight in depth. It was two-thirds
full of a decoction of lime and sulphur, and into this the sheep were
dropped, and after swimming about for a couple of minutes or so were
suffered to emerge, by the raising of a sliding door at one end. This
end, unlike the other, was not perpendicular, but the floor was on a
sufficient slope to enable the animals to walk out, which they did, and
stood dripping in a stone-paved enclosure also with a shelving floor so
that the liquid that drained off them should run back into the tank. At
the other end was a larger enclosure containing several hundred sheep,
which four or five Kafirs, among them the recreant Mopela, were busy
catching for the purpose of dipping them in the unsavoury but
scab-eradicating mixture. Over which operation presided Hicks and
Claverton, each with a forked pole in his hand, wherewith to administer
the necessary ducking to the immersed quadrupeds. At last Hicks
proposed that they should knock off, and come back and finish after
dinner.
"Not worth while, is it?" was the reply. "Let's finish off now we're at
it, then we can take things easy, clothed and in our right minds. We
can hardly go inside the house, even, in this beastly mess."
Claverton carries his point, as he generally does. So they work on and
on in the heat and the dust, and the air is full of splashes as the
kicking animals are dropped into the tank, and redolent with the ill
savour of sulphur and lime and perspiring natives; and the contents of
one of the great cauldrons simmering over the fire are thrown in to
replenish the medicinal bath, and the number of sheep left undipped
waxes smaller and beautifully less, till at length the last half-dozen
are disposed of and the job is at an end.
Then Hicks suggested a swim in the dam, and the proposal was soon
carried into effect. After which, in renewed attire and presentable
once more, they appeared among the rest of the household.
To some at least in that household has come among them a change; an
element of upheaval certainly not even dreamed of by all whom it shall
concern. A change. The acquisition of a beautiful and agreeable young
lady visitor by this circle? No, something more than that.
Mrs Brathwaite playfully upbraided Claverton for being the unconscious
cause of frightening her visitor on the first morning of her arrival.
Then Lilian came to the rescue. If she had been startled it was her own
fault or ill fortune for going where she was not wanted. Here vehement
protest from him whose cause she was pleading. Then, she urged, he who
had been the means of startling her had made all the amends in his power
by seeing her safely home, coward as she was to need it. Here more
vehement protest.
What does this vehemence mean on the part of a man to whose nature it is
wholly foreign, who is calmness and equability itself?
This question--partly its own answer--flashed through Ethel's mind. She
was to all appearances deep in discussion with Laura and Hicks as to
certain debatable arrangements for the coming festivity. In reality she
was performing that extremely difficult feat, keeping an ear for two
distinct conversations. In the course of which difficult feat Ethel was
wondering how it was that these adventuresses (yes, that is the word she
used) with nothing on earth to recommend them, should have the power of
taking everybody by storm in the way their visitor seemed to be doing.
Lilian was wondering how it was that her visit seemed likely to be far
more pleasant and enjoyable than she had at first anticipated, which was
saying a great deal. Also what there was about this man, now talking so
unconcernedly to herself and her hostess, that raised him on a pedestal
considerably above the residue of the species.
Claverton was wondering how it was, that his life seemed to have been
cut in two distinct halves since yesterday.
And Ethel again read both faces like an open book. And this time she
read in the one, greater possibility; in the other, absolute certainty.
Such was the situation.
And it had all come about in a single day.