"I shall be relieved when this load is fairly on board. That head, you
know, is a sort of a nightmare. All the rest put together isn't in with
it."
"Oh, you can trust Charlie Newnes," said the trader. "He's a straight,
reliable man as ever was--a darn sight more so than lots of men who are
quite white--and stands well with those who _baas_ this show now. I was
shooting what I chose here in these parts when these new officials--damn
them!--were being licked at school, before ever they dreamed of coming
here to tell an old up-country man like me that he mustn't shoot this
and mustn't shoot that. I don't know what the devil we're all coming
to. Oh, here is Charlie."
A tall, well-set-up young fellow appeared on the scene. He was the son
of a well-known old-time trader by a Zulu wife, but in him the European
had predominated to such an extent that outside Africa he might have
passed for a white man. There was, however, a certain lithe suppleness
about his walk and movements that would have given him away in a moment
to any South African not of the town born and bred.
"Well, Charlie," said Ben Halse; "it's all loaded up now. Mr Denham
says he won't close his eyes until he knows his cargo's shipped, so be
sure and impress upon Garland that he must send word at once."
"That'll be all right, Mr Halse; Mr Denham can rest easy," answered
the young fellow. "If there's a reliable agent in Durban for anything
under the sun, from shipping an elephant to the Zoo to sending a
youngster to sea properly equipped, Mr Garland's the man."
"Well, then, you can trek. Come in and have a drop of square face
first."
"Well, Mr Halse, I don't often take anything," said the young fellow
deprecatorily. "But--once in a way."
The refection was duly consumed, and the waggon rolled its way down the
hill.
"Your stuff'll be all right, Mr Denham, never fear," said Charlie
Newnes, as they shook hands. Then he started to overtake the waggon.
"That's a fine young fellow," said Denham, looking after the outfit. "I
should think he and his like would count for something in this country,
in the long run."
"Oh, I don't know. They are rather between the devil and the deep sea,"
answered the trader. "There are quite a lot of them about--decent,
respectable chaps for the most part. Neither one thing nor the other.
I knew his father well in the old days. Bob Newnes ran the whole
north-western part of this country before and after the war of '79. He
made his pile a good bit."
"Father, you _are_ giving yourself away," laughed Verna.
"Oh, I've done that already before. Well, what does it matter? Any
fool can see I'm no chicken."
"You're a jolly well-preserved one, Halse," said Denham. "No one would
have given you credit for such far-back experiences if you hadn't told
them yourself."
"They used to call me a gun-runner, you know, Denham--do still, in fact.
We were all gunrunners in those days, as I was telling you just now.
But what the devil did it matter? No one was damaged by any gunshot
during the war of '79, except in a couple of stray instances, for the
average Zulu is such a wretched shot he couldn't hit a cathedral. Since
then--well, when they fought each other, there was no harm in supplying
them with as many as they wanted."
Verna was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and some mysterious telepathy
made Denham aware of the fact.
"Of course," he answered cheerily. "Don't we build war-ships on the
Clyde and Tyne and at Belfast for foreign Powers to use against
ourselves if they want to? It seems to me there's precious little
difference, if any at all."
"Bless your soul, no. Well, I raft up some pretty good loads for the
Usutu in the mid-eighties, when they were at each other's throats here.
The Usutu paid the best, you see. The other side had got their own
white men--John Dunn and others. We weren't over-ridden with
officialdom in those days. Those were times, but they've all gone.
Verna, if you're still on to that picnic, suppose you give us
breakfast."
"That picnic" was a ride which she and Denham had planned down into the
forest country in search of specimens. They had taken several of the
kind already.
Yes, several. And Denham, thrown into the daily society of this girl,
had come to the conclusion that such society was necessary to him,
daily, and thenceforward. His life since he had been here had been an
idyll, he told himself, a sheer idyll. Why should it not be a permanent
one? Strangely enough, with all his advantages and experiences Denham
was singularly modest. Why should he expect Verna to leave her father
at the call of a mere stranger? Why should he expect her father to be
ready to part with her? They were so happy together, so wrapt up in
each other; and he, after all, what was he but a mere stranger? And
then there was something darker at the back of that, but it he put away
from his thoughts. Still, it would obtrude.
Sometimes the thought of his wealth and position would come to his aid.
But immediately it would strike him that such counted for nothing here.
If ever there was an independently-minded man on earth it was his host,
and as for Verna, why, she was clean outside all his experience of the
other sex. Then again would come in that strange and subtle sympathy,
which would well up at times during their close and daily companionship.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The atmosphere of the Lumisana forest was not so stuffy and
fever-breathing now. A touch of approaching winter was upon it, and
from the blue, unclouded sky the sun no longer shot down rays of torrid
heat. So as the pair threaded the narrow path, closely shut in overhead
by towering tree-tops, the horses showed no sign of weariness or
distress.
"I don't much like bringing them in here," Verna said. "There's tsetse
at times. But it has turned so much cooler that I think it's safe."
They were riding in single file, she leading. It was a wonderful road.
Tall trees shutting out the light; ropes of monkey trailers dangling to
the ground, thick undergrowth and long grass making that peculiar
translucent hue such as you may see by taking a deep dive into a
tropical sea. Not many bird voices, but here and there one, for birds
prefer the outskirts of inhabited lands, and the remotest depths of
forest are not to their taste.
"Shall we lunch here, Verna?" said Denham, as they came out upon a small
open space where a runnel of water flowed into a pool. In the course of
their close companionship he had got into the way of calling her by her
name. It had come naturally to both of them somehow. She, for her
part, had, of late, never called him anything at all.
"Yes; it's as good a place as any, and, I'll tell you now, it's where
the record head was shot. I never would bring you here before, you
know, but--here we are."
And she flashed a merry laugh at him.
"By Jove! that's capital. Now we'll `reconstitute' the whole
performance, as the French police do in a murder case. Now, show me.
Where was the koodoo, and where were you?"
"First of all, about the horses," she said; "we must keep them hitched
up, we can't knee-halter them because it's swampy the other side of the
_vlei_, and once they got into that, why--good-night. We should have to
walk home and break the news as gently as we could to father."
They loosened the girths only, having first allowed the animals to
drink; and then Verna, in as few words as possible, showed him the
positions of the whole affair.
"It's nothing to brag about," she ended up. "I'll own to one bit of
conceit about it, though. I told father that it seemed a thousand
pities my name shouldn't figure as having shot the record koodoo head of
the world, even if it was only in a private collection. He said that it
could--however, we've settled all that now."
"Well, he was wrong, for, on second thoughts, it can't."
"What's the joke?" she said, fairly mystified.
"None at all, it's dead serious," speaking quickly. "I shan't label it
as shot by Verna Halse, but by Verna Denham. Those are my conditions.
How do they strike you--darling?"
Her face flushed, then grew pale, then flushed again. In the world of
adoring love in her eyes he read his answer. She put forth both hands,
which he seized.
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Yes, but, I do know. Yet, listen,
Alaric"--it was the first time she had ever used his name, and it came
out sweetly--"are you sure you mean what you say? For instance,
supposing you were to go away for six months, would you come back and
say it all the same?"
"I've no intention of trying any such idiotic experiment, and,
fortunately, such an utterly unnecessary one. Well?"
"How long have we known each other?" she answered. "Barely a month,
certainly not more. We have been thrown together all day and every day.
Are you sure that such propinquity has not something to do with it?"
He laughed good-humouredly, tolerantly.
"That's all very well," she went on, "but this is serious. What can you
see in me, you who have seen so much and so many, the not even _half_
educated daughter of an up-country trader, whose bringing up has given
little opportunity for the ordinary refinements, let alone for acquiring
accomplishments? And with all these deficiencies I should very soon
pall upon you."
"I shall have to laugh directly," he answered. "Half educated? Why,
you've been arguing against yourself with a grip of your points which
would be worthy of the smartest K.C., and with a terseness which would
not earn him his fee. What can I see in you?"--and his tone became very
vehement and very serious. "I can see in you attributes which, taken
together, should render any woman irresistible--a rare physical
attractiveness, an unbounded power of sympathy, and a staunchness that
would stand by a man through the worst that might befall him. Is that
sufficient, or must I go on adding to it?"
Verna's eyes had filled as he was speaking. The words, the tone, seemed
to burn through her whole being; but there was a smile upon her lips--
very soft, very sweet.
"And can you see--really see all that in _me_, Alaric?"
"All that, and a great deal more," he answered vehemently, drawing her
to him. "So now give me your first kiss."
"Darling, I will."
The sun streamed hotter and hotter into the open space, frogs croaked
among the reeds surrounding the burnished surface of the pool; a lemur,
swinging and bounding on high among the twisted tree-trunks, stared
down, blinking his beady eyes and cocking his pointed snout; a large
snake lay coiled in the grass hard by, wondering if safety rested in
lying still or beating a retreat; half-a-hundred of the eyes and lives
of the forest were witness to the beginning of the mating of these two,
witnesses, as they may have been to the darker deeds of blood which
these grim shades had so lately contained.