KROOL
"A message from Mr. Byng to say that he may be a little late, but he
says will you go on without him? He will come as soon as possible."
The footman, having delivered himself, turned to withdraw, but Barry
Whalen called him back, saying, "Is Mr. Krool in the house?"
The footman replied in the affirmative. "Did you wish to see him, sir?"
he asked.
"Not at present. A little later perhaps," answered Barry, with a glance
round the group, who eyed him curiously.
At a word the footman withdrew. As the door closed, little black, oily
Sobieski dit Melville said with an attempt at a joke, "Is 'Mr.' Krool
to be called into consultation?"
"Don't be so damned funny, Melville," answered Barry. "I didn't ask the
question for nothing."
"These aren't days when anybody guesses much," remarked Fleming. "And
I'd like to know from Mr. Kruger, who knows a lot of things, and
doesn't gas, whether he means the mines to be safe."
They all looked inquiringly at Wallstein, who in the storms which
rocked them all kept his nerve and his countenance with a power almost
benign. His large, limpid eye looked little like that belonging to an
eagle of finance, as he had been called.
"It looked for a while as though they'd be left alone," said Wallstein,
leaning heavily on the table, "but I'm not so sure now." He glanced at
Barry Whalen significantly, and the latter surveyed the group
enigmatically.
"There's something evidently waiting to be said," remarked Wolff, the
silent Partner in more senses than one. "What's the use of waiting?"
Two or three of those present looked at Ian Stafford, who, standing by
the window, seemed oblivious of them all. Byng had requested him to be
present, with a view to asking his advice concerning some international
aspect of the situation, and especially in regard to Holland and
Germany. The group had welcomed the suggestion eagerly, for on this
side of the question they were not so well equipped as on others. But
when it came to the discussion of inner local policy there seemed
hesitation in speaking freely before him. Wallstein, however, gave a
reassuring nod and said, meaningly:
"We took up careful strategical positions, but our camp has been
overlooked from a kopje higher than ours."
"We have been the victims of treachery for years," burst out Fleming,
with anger. "Nearly everything we've done here, nearly everything the
Government has done here, has been known to Kruger--ever since the
Raid."
"I think it could have been stopped," said the once Sobieski, with an
ugly grimace, and an attempt at an accent which would suit his new
name. "Byng's to blame. We ought to have put down our feet from the
start. We're Byng-ridden."
"Keep a civil tongue, Israel," snarled Barry Whalen. "You know nothing
about it, and that is the state in which you most shine--in your
natural state of ignorance, like the heathen in his blindness. But
before Byng comes I'd better give you all some information I've got."
"Isn't it for Byng to hear?" asked Fleming.
"Very much so; but it's for you all to decide what's to be done.
Perhaps Mr. Stafford can help us in the matter, as he has been with
Byng very lately." Wallstein looked inquiringly towards Stafford.
The group nodded appreciatively, and Stafford came forward to the
table, but without seating himself. "Certainly you may command me," he
said. "What is the mystery?"
In short and abrupt sentences Barry Whalen, with an occasional
interjection and explanation from Wallstein, told of the years of
leakage in regard to their plans, of moves circumvented by information
which could only have been got by treacherous means either in South
Africa or in London.
"We didn't know for sure which it was," said Barry, "but the proof has
come at last. One of Kruger's understrappers from Holland was
successfully tapped, and we've got proof that the trouble was here in
London, here in this house where we sit--Byng's home."
There was a stark silence, in which more than one nodded significantly,
and looked round furtively to see how the others took the news.
"Here is absolute proof. There were two in it here--Adrian Fellowes and
Krool."
"Adrian Fellowes!"
It was Ian Stafford's voice, insistent and inquiring.
"Here is the proof, as I say." Barry Whalen leaned forward and pushed a
paper over on the table, to which were attached two or three smaller
papers and some cablegrams. "Look at them. Take a good look at them and
see how we've been done--done brown. The hand that dipped in the same
dish, as it were, has handed out misfortune to us by the bucketful.
We've been carted in the house of a friend."
The group, all standing, leaned over, as Barry Whalen showed them the
papers, one by one, then passed them round for examination.
"It's deadly," said Fleming. "Men have had their throats cut or been
hanged for less. I wouldn't mind a hand in it myself."
"We warned Byng years ago," interposed Barry, "but it was no use. And
we've paid for it par and premium."
"What can be done to Krool?" asked Fleming.
"Nothing particular--here," said Barry Whalen, ominously.
"Let's have the dog in," urged one of the group.
"Without Byng's permission?" interjected Wallstein.
There was a silence. The last time any of them, except Wallstein, had
seen Byng, was on the evening when he had overheard the slanders
concerning Jasmine, and none had pleasant anticipation of this meeting
with him now. They recalled his departure when Barry Whalen had said,
"God, how he hates us." He was not likely to hate them less, when they
proved that Fellowes and Krool had betrayed him and them all. They had
a wholesome fear of him in more senses than one, because, during the
past few years, while Wallstein's health was bad, Byng's position had
become more powerful financially, and he could ruin any one of them, if
he chose. A man like Byng in "going large" might do the Samson
business. Besides, he had grown strangely uncertain in his temper of
late, and, as Barry Whalen had said, "It isn't good to trouble a
wounded bull in the ring."
They had him on the hip in one way through the exposure of Krool, but
they were all more or less dependent on his financial movements. They
were all enraged at Byng because he had disregarded all warnings
regarding Krool; but what could they do? Instinctively they turned now
to Stafford, whose reputation for brains and diplomacy was so great and
whose friendship with Byng was so close.
Stafford had come to-day for two reasons: to do what he could to help
Byng--for the last time; and to say to Byng that they could not travel
together to South Africa. To make the long journey with him was beyond
his endurance. He must put the world between Rudyard and himself; he
must efface all companionship. With this last act, begotten of the
blind confidence Rudyard had in him, their intercourse must cease
forever. This would be easy enough in South Africa. Once at the Front,
it was as sure as anything on earth that they would never meet again.
It was torture to meet him, and the day of the inquest, when Byng had
come to his rooms after his interview with Lady Tynemouth and Mr.
Mappin, he had been tried beyond endurance.
"Shall we have Krool in without Byng's permission? Is it wise?" asked
Wallstein again. He looked at Stafford, and Stafford instantly replied:
"It would be well to see Krool, I think. Your action could then be
decided by Krool's attitude and what he says."
Barry Whalen rang the bell, and the footman came. After a brief waiting
Krool entered the room with irritating deliberation and closed the door
behind him.
He looked at no one, but stood contemplating space with a composure
which made Barry Whalen almost jump from his seat in rage.
"Come a little closer," said Wallstein in a soothing voice, but so
Wallstein would have spoken to a man he was about to disembowel.
Krool came nearer, and now he looked round at them all slowly and
inquiringly. As no one spoke for a moment he shrugged his shoulders.
"If you shrug your shoulders again, damn you, I'll sjambok you here as
Kruger did at Vleifontein," said Barry Whalen in a low, angry voice.
"You've been too long without the sjambok."
"This is not the Vaal, it is Englan'," answered Krool, huskily. "The
Law--here!"
"Zo you stink ze law of England would help you--eh?" asked Sobieski,
with a cruel leer, relapsing into his natural vernacular.
"I mean what I say, Krool," interposed Barry Whalen, fiercely,
motioning Sobieski to silence. "I will sjambok you till you can't move,
here in England, here in this house, if you shrug your shoulders again,
or lift an eyebrow, or do one damned impudent thing."
He got up and rang a bell. A footman appeared. "There is a
rhinoceros-hide whip, on the wall of Mr. Byng's study. Bring it here,"
he said, quietly, but with suppressed passion.
"Don't be crazy, Whalen," said Wallstein, but with no great force, for
he would richly have enjoyed seeing the spy and traitor under the whip.
Stafford regarded the scene with detached, yet deep and melancholy
interest.
While they waited, Krool seemed to shrink a little; but as he watched
like some animal at bay, Stafford noticed that his face became venomous
and paler, and some sinister intention showed in his eyes.
The whip was brought and laid upon the table beside Barry Whalen, and
the footman disappeared, looking curiously at the group and at Krool.
Barry Whalen's fingers closed on the whip, and now a look of fear crept
over Krool's face. If there was one thing calculated to stir with fear
the Hottentot blood in him, it was the sight of the sjambok. He had
native tendencies and predispositions out of proportion to the native
blood in him--maybe because he had ever been treated more like a native
than a white man by his Boer masters in the past.
As Stafford viewed the scene, it suddenly came home to him how strange
was this occurrence in Park Lane. It was medieval, it belonged to some
land unslaked of barbarism. He realized all at once how little these
men around him represented the land in which they were living, and how
much they were part of the far-off land which was now in the throes of
war.
To these men this was in one sense an alien country. Through the dulled
noises of London there came to their ears the click of the wheels of a
cape-wagon, the crack of the Kaffir's whip, the creak of the
disselboom. They followed the spoor of a company of elephants in the
East country, they watched through the November mist the blesbok flying
across the veld, a herd of quaggas taking cover with the rheebok, or a
cloud of locusts sailing out of the sun to devastate the green lands.
Through the smoky smell of London there came to them the scent of the
wattle, the stinging odour of ten thousand cattle, the reek of a native
kraal, the sharp sweetness of orange groves, the aromatic air of the
karoo, laden with the breath of a thousand wild herbs. Through the
drizzle of the autumn rain they heard the wild thunderbolt tear the
trees from earthly moorings. In their eyes was the livid lightning that
searched in spasms of anger for its prey, while there swept over the
brown, aching veld the flood which filled the spruits, which made the
rivers seas, and ploughed fresh channels through the soil. The luxury
of this room, with its shining mahogany tables, its tapestried walls,
its rare fireplace and massive overmantel brought from Italy, its
exquisite stained-glass windows, was only part of a play they were
acting; it was not their real life.
And now there was not one of them that saw anything incongruous in the
whip of rhinoceros-hide lying on the table, or clinched in Barry
Whalen's hand. On the contrary, it gave them a sense of supreme
naturalness. They had lived in a land where the sjambok was the symbol
of progress. It represented the forward movement of civilization in the
wilderness. It was the vierkleur of the pioneer, without which the long
train of capewagons, with the oxen in longer coils of effort, would
never have advanced; without which the Kaffir and the Hottentot would
have sacrificed every act of civilization. It prevented crime, it
punished crime, it took the place of the bowie-knife and the derringer
of that other civilization beyond the Mississippi; it was the lock to
the door in the wild places, the open sesame to the territories where
native chiefs ruled communal tribes by playing tyrant to the commune.
It was the rod of Aaron staying the plague of barbarism. It was the
sceptre of the veldt. It drew blood, it ate human flesh, it secured
order where there was no law, and it did the work of prison and
penitentiary. It was the symbol of authority in the wilderness.
It was race.
Stafford was the only man present who saw anything incongruous in the
scene, and yet his travels in the East his year in Persia, Tibet and
Afghanistan, had made him understand things not revealed to the wise
and prudent of European domains. With Krool before them, who was of the
veld and the karoo, whose natural habitat was but a cross between a
krall and the stoep of a dopper's home, these men were instantly
transported to the land where their hearts were in spite of all, though
the flesh-pots of the West End of London had turned them into by-paths
for a while. The skin had been scratched by Krool's insolence and the
knowledge of his treachery, and the Tartar showed--the sjambok his
scimitar.
In spite of himself, Stafford was affected by it all. He understood.
This was not London; the scene had shifted to Potchefstroom or
Middleburg, and Krool was transformed too. The sjambok had, like a
wizard's wand, as it were, lifted him away from England to spaces where
he watched from the grey rock of a kopje for the glint of an assegai or
the red of a Rooinek's tunic: and he had done both in his day.
"We've got you at last, Krool," said Wallstein. "We have been some time
at it, but it's a long lane that has no turning, and we have you--"
"Like that--like that, jackal!" interjected Barry Whalen, opening and
shutting his lean fingers with a gesture of savage possession.
"What?" asked Krool, with a malevolent thrust forward of his head.
"What?"
"You betrayed us to Kruger," answered Wallstein, holding the papers.
"We have here the proof at last."
"You betrayed England and her secrets, and yet you think that the
English law would protect you against this," said Barry Whalen,
harshly, handling the sjambok.
"What I betray?" Krool asked again. "What I tell?"
With great deliberation Wallstein explained.
"Where proof?" Krool asked, doggedly.
"We have just enough to hang you," said Wallstein, grimly, and lifted
and showed the papers Barry Whalen had brought.
An insolent smile crossed Krool's face.
"You find out too late. That Fellowes is dead. So much you get, but the
work is done. It not matter now. It is all done--altogether. Oom Paul
speaks now, and everything is his--from the Cape to the Zambesi,
everything his. It is too late. What can to do?" Suddenly ferocity
showed in his face. "It come at last. It is the end of the English both
sides the Vaal. They will go down like wild hogs into the sea with
Joubert and Botha behind them. It is the day of Oom Paul and Christ.
The God of Israel gives to his own the tents of the Rooineks."
In spite of the fierce passion of the man, who had suddenly disclosed a
side of his nature hitherto hidden--the savage piety of the copper Boer
impregnated with stereotyped missionary phrasing, Ian Stafford almost
laughed outright. In the presence of Jews like Sobieski it seemed so
droll that this half-caste should talk about the God of Israel, and
link Oom Paul's name with that of Christ the great liberator as
partners in triumph.
In all the years Krool had been in England he had never been inside a
place of worship or given any sign of that fanaticism which, all at
once, he made manifest. He had seemed a pagan to all of his class, had
acted as a pagan.
Barry Whalen, as well as Ian Stafford, saw the humour of the situation,
while they were both confounded by the courageous malice of the
traitor. It came to Barry's mind at the moment, as it came to Ian
Stafford's, that Krool had some card to play which would, to his mind,
serve him well; and, by instinct, both found the right clue. Barry's
anger became uneasiness, and Stafford's interest turned to anxiety.
There was an instant's pause after Krool's words, and then Wolff the
silent, gone wild, caught the sjambok from the hands of Barry Whalen.
He made a movement towards Krool, who again suddenly shrank, as he
would not have shrunk from a weapon of steel.
"Wait a minute," cried Fleming, seizing the arm of his friend. "One
minute. There's something more." Turning to Wallstein, he said, "If
Krool consents to leave England at once for South Africa, let him go.
Is it agreed? He must either be dealt with adequately, or get out. Is
it agreed?"
"I do what I like," said Krool, with a snarl, in which his teeth showed
glassily against his drawn lips. "No one make me do what I not want."
"The Baas--you have forgotten him," said Wallstein.
A look combined of cunning, fear and servility crossed Krool's face,
but he said, morosely:
"The Baas--I will do what I like."
There was a singular defiance and meaning in his tone, and the moment
seemed critical, for Barry Whalen's face was distorted with fury.
Stafford suddenly stooped and whispered a word in Wallstein's ear, and
then said:
"Gentlemen, if you will allow me, I should like a few words with Krool
before Mr. Byng comes. I think perhaps Krool will see the best course
to pursue when we have talked together. In one sense it is none of my
business, in another sense it is everybody's business. A few minutes,
if you please, gentlemen." There was something almost authoritative in
his tone.
"For Byng's sake--his wife--you understand," was all Stafford had said
under his breath, but it was an illumination to Wallstein, who
whispered to Stafford.
"Yes, that's it. Krool holds some card, and he'll play it now."
By his glance and by his word of assent, Wallstein set the cue for the
rest, and they all got up and went slowly into the other room. Barry
Whalen was about to take the sjambok, but Stafford laid his hand upon
it, and Barry and he exchanged a look of understanding.
"Stafford's a little bit of us in a way," said Barry in a whisper to
Wallstein as they left the room. "He knows, too, what a sjambok's worth
in Krool's eyes."
When the two were left alone, Stafford slowly seated himself, and his
fingers played idly with the sjambok.
"You say you will do what you like, in spite of the Baas?" he asked, in
a low, even tone.
"If the Baas hurt me, I will hurt. If anybody hurt me, I will hurt."
"You will hurt the Baas, eh? I thought he saved your life on the
Limpopo."
A flush stole across Krool's face, and when it passed again he was
paler than before. "I have save the Baas," he answered, sullenly.
"From what?"
"From you."
With a powerful effort, Stafford controlled himself. He dreaded what
was now to be said, but he felt inevitably what it was.
"How--from me?"
"If that Fellowes' letter come into his hands first, yours would not
matter. She would not go with you."
Stafford had far greater difficulty in staying his hand than had Barry
Whalen, for the sjambok seemed the only reply to the dark suggestion.
He realized how, like the ostrich, he had thrust his head into the
sand, imagining that no one knew what was between himself and Jasmine.
Yet here was one who knew, here was one who had, for whatever purpose,
precipitated a crisis with Fellowes to prevent a crisis with himself.
Suddenly Stafford thought of an awful possibility. He fastened the
gloomy eyes of the man before him, that he might be able to see any
stir of emotion, and said: "It did not come out as you expected?"
"Altogether--yes."
"You wished to part Mr. and Mrs. Byng. That did not happen."
"The Baas is going to South Africa."
"And Mr. Fellowes?"
"He went like I expec'."
"He died--heart failure, eh?"
A look of contempt, malevolence, and secret reflection came into
Krool's face. "He was kill," he said.
"Who killed him?"
Krool was about to shrug his shoulders, but his glance fell on the
sjambok, and he made an ugly gesture with his lean fingers. "There was
yourself. He had hurt you--you went to him.... Good! There was the
Baas, he went to him. The dead man had hurt him.... Good!"
Stafford interrupted him by an exclamation. "What's that you say--the
Baas went to Mr. Fellowes?"
"As I tell the vrouw, Mrs. Byng, when she say me go from the house
to-day--I say I will go when the Baas send me."
"The Baas went to Mr. Fellowes--when?"
"Two hours before you go, and one hour before the vrouw, she go."
Like some animal looking out of a jungle, so Krool's eyes glowed from
beneath his heavy eyebrows, as he drawled out the words.
"The Baas went--you saw him?"
"With my own eyes."
"How long was he there?"
"Ten minutes."
"Mrs. Byng--you saw her go in?"
"And also come out."
"And me--you followed me--you saw me, also?"
"I saw all that come, all that go in to him."
With a swift mind Stafford saw his advantage--the one chance, the one
card he could play, the one move he could make in checkmate, if, and
when, necessary. "So you saw all that came and went. And you came and
went yourself!"
His eyes were hard and bright as he held Krool's, and there was a
sinister smile on his lips.
"You know I come and go--you say me that?" said Krool, with a sudden
look of vague fear and surprise. He had not foreseen this.
"You accuse yourself. You saw this person and that go out, and you
think to hold them in your dirty clutches; but you had more reason than
any for killing Mr. Fellowes."
"What?" asked Krool, furtively.
"You hated him because he was a traitor like yourself. You hated him
because he had hurt the Baas."
"That is true altogether, but--"
"You need not explain. If any one killed Mr. Fellowes, why not you? You
came and went from his rooms, too."
Krool's face was now yellowish pale. "Not me ... it was not me."
"You would run a worse chance than any one. Your character would damn
you--a partner with him in crime. What jury in the world but would
convict you on your own evidence? Besides, you knew--"
He paused to deliver a blow on the barest chance. It was an insidious
challenge which, if it failed, might do more harm to others, might do
great harm, but he plunged. "You knew about the needle."
Krool was cowed and silent. On a venture Stafford had struck straight
home.
"You knew that Mr. Fellowes had stolen the needle from Mr. Mappin at
Glencader," he added.
"How you know that?" asked Krool, in a husky, ragged voice.
"I saw him steal it--and you?"
"No. He tell me."
"What did he mean to do with it?"
A look came into Krool's eyes, malevolent and barbaric.
"Not to kill himself," he reflected. "There is always some one a man or
a woman want kill."
There was a hideous commonplaceness in the tone which struck a chill to
Stafford's heart.
"No doubt there is always some one you want to kill. Now listen, Krool.
You think you've got a hold over me--over Mrs. Byng. You threaten.
Well, I have passed through the fire of the coroner's inquest. I have
nothing to fear. You have. I saw you in the street as you watched. You
came behind me--"
He remembered now the footsteps that paused when he did, the figure
behind his in the dark, as he watched for Jasmine to come out from
Fellowes' rooms, and he determined to plunge once more.
"I recognized you, and I saw you in the Strand just before that. I did
not speak at the inquest, because I wanted no scandal. If I had spoken,
you would have been arrested. Whatever happened your chances were worse
than those of any one. You can't frighten me, or my friends in there,
or the Baas, or Mrs. Byng. Look after your own skin. You are the vile
scum of the earth,"--he determined to take a strong line now, since he
had made a powerful impression on the creature before him--"and you
will do what the Baas likes, not what you like. He saved your life. Bad
as you are, the Baas is your Baas for ever and ever, and what he wants
to do with you he will do. When his eyes look into yours, you will
think the lightning speaks. You are his slave. If he hates you, you
will die; if he curses you, you will wither."
He played upon the superstitious element, the native strain again. It
was deeper in Krool than anything else.
"Do you think you can defy them?" Stafford went on, jerking a finger
towards the other room. "They are from the veld. They will have you as
sure as the crack of a whip. This is England, but they are from the
veld. On the veld you know what they would do to you. If you speak
against the Baas, it is bad for you; if you speak against the Baas'
vrouw it will be ten times worse. Do you hear?"
There was a strange silence, in which Stafford could feel Krool's soul
struggling in the dark, as it were--a struggle as of black spirits in
the grey dawn.
"I wait the Baas speak," Krool said at last, with a shiver.
There was no time for Stafford to answer. Wallstein entered the room
hurriedly. "Byng has come. He has been told about him," he said in
French to Stafford, and jerking his head towards Krool.
Stafford rose. "It's all right," he answered in the same language. "I
think things will be safe now. He has a wholesome fear of the Baas."
He turned to Krool. "If you say to the Baas what you have said to me
about Mr. Fellowes or about the Baas's vrouw, you will have a bad time.
You will think that wild hawks are picking out your vitals. If you have
sense, you will do what I tell you."
Krool's eyes were on the door through which Wallstein had come. His
gaze was fixed and tortured. Stafford had suddenly roused in him some
strange superstitious element. He was like a creature of a lower order
awaiting the approach of the controlling power. It was, however, the
door behind him which opened, and he gave a start of surprise and
terror. He knew who it was. He did not turn round, but his head bent
forward, as though he would take a blow from behind, and his eyes
almost closed. Stafford saw with a curious meticulousness the long
eyelashes touch the grey cheek.
"There's no fight in him now," he said to Byng in French. "He was
getting nasty, but I've got him in order. He knows too much. Remember
that, Byng."
Byng's look was as that of a man who had passed through some chamber of
torture, but the flabbiness had gone suddenly from his face, and even
from his figure, though heavy lines had gathered round the mouth and
scarred the forehead. He looked worn and much thinner, but there was a
look in his eyes which Stafford had never seen there--a new look of
deeper seeing, of revelation, of realization. With all his ability and
force, Byng had been always much of a boy, so little at one with the
hidden things--the springs of human conduct, the contradictions of
human nature, the worst in the best of us, the forces that emerge
without warning in all human beings, to send them on untoward courses
and at sharp tangents to all the habits of their existence and their
character. In a real sense he had been very primitive, very objective
in all he thought and said and did. With imagination, and a sensitive
organization out of keeping with his immense physique, it was still
only a visualizing sense which he had, only a thing that belongs to
races such as those of which Krool had come.
A few days of continuous suffering begotten by a cataclysm, which had
rent asunder walls of life enclosing vistas he had never before seen;
these had transformed him. Pain had given him dignity of a savage kind,
a grim quiet which belonged to conflict and betokened grimmer purpose.
In the eyes was the darkness of the well of despair; but at his lips
was iron resolution.
In reply to Stafford he said quietly: "All right, I understand. I know
how to deal with Krool."
As Stafford withdrew, Byng came slowly down the room till he stood at
the end of the table opposite to Krool.
Standing there, he looked at the Boer with hard eyes.
"I know all, Krool," he said. "You sold me and my country--you tried to
sell me and my country to Oom Paul. You dog, that I snatched from the
tiger death, not once but twice."
"It is no good. I am a Hottentot. I am for the Boer, for Oom Paul. I
would have die for you, but--"
"But when the chance came to betray the thing I cared for more than I
would twenty lives--my country--you tried to sell me and all who worked
with me."
"It would be same to you if the English go from the Vaal," said the
half-caste, huskily, not looking into the eyes fixed on him. "But it
matter to me that the Boer keep all for himself what he got for
himself. I am half Boer. That is why."
"You defend it--tell me, you defend it?"
There was that in the voice, some terrible thing, which drew Krool's
eyes in spite of himself, and he met a look of fire and wrath.
"I tell why. If it was bad, it was bad. But I tell why, that is all. If
it is not good, it is bad, and hell is for the bad; but I tell why."
"You got money from Oom Paul for the man--Fellowes?" It was hard for
him to utter the name.
Krool nodded.
"Every year--much?"
Again Krool nodded.
"And for yourself--how much?"
"Nothing for myself; no money, Baas."
"Only Oom Paul's love!"
Krool nodded again.
"But Oom Paul flayed you at Vleifontein; tied you up and skinned you
with a sjambok.... That didn't matter, eh? And you went on loving him.
I never touched you in all the years. I gave you your life twice. I
gave you good money. I kept you in luxury--you that fed in the
cattle-kraal; you that had mealies to eat and a shred of biltong when
you could steal it; you that ate a steinbok raw on the Vaal, you were
so wild for meat ... I took you out of that, and gave you this."
He waved an arm round the room, and went on: "You come in and go out of
my room, you sleep in the same cart with me, you eat out of the same
dish on trek, and yet you do the Judas trick. Slim--god of gods, how
slim! You are the snake that crawls in the slime. It's the native in
you, I suppose.... But see, I mean to do to you as Oom Paul did. It's
the only thing you understand. It's the way to make you straight and
true, my sweet Krool."
Still keeping his eyes fixed on Krool's eyes, his hand reached out and
slowly took the sjambok from the table. He ran the cruel thing through
his fingers as does a prison expert the cat-o'-nine-tails before laying
on the lashes of penalty. Into Krool's eyes a terror crept which never
had been there in the old days on the veld when Oom Paul had flayed
him. This was not the veld, and he was no longer the veld-dweller with
skin like the rhinoceros, all leather and bone and endurance. And this
was not Oom Paul, but one whom he had betrayed, whose wife he had
sought to ruin, whose subordinate he had turned into a traitor. Oom
Paul had been a mere savage master; but here was a master whose very
tongue could excoriate him like Oom Paul's sjambok; whom, at bottom, he
loved in his way as he had never loved anything; whom he had betrayed,
not realizing the hideous nature of his deed; having argued that it was
against England his treachery was directed, and that was a virtue in
his eyes; not seeing what direct injury could come to Byng through it.
He had not seen, he had not understood, he was still uncivilized; he
had only in his veins the morality of the native, and he had tried to
ruin his master's wife for his master's sake; and when he had finished
with Fellowes as a traitor, he was ready to ruin his confederate--to
kill him--perhaps did kill him!
"It's the only way to deal with you, Hottentot dog!"
The look in Krool's eyes only increased Byng's lust of punishment. What
else was there to do? Without terrible scandal there was no other way
to punish the traitor, but if there had been another way he would still
have done this. This Krool understood; behind every command the Baas
had ever given him this thing lay--the sjambok, the natural engine of
authority.
Suddenly Byng said with a voice of almost guttural anger: "You dropped
that letter on my bedroom floor--that letter, you understand?... Speak."
"I did it, Baas."
Byng was transformed. Slowly he laid down the sjambok, and as slowly
took off his coat, his eyes meanwhile fastening those of the wretched
man before him. Then he took up the sjambok again.
"You know what I am going to do with you?"
"Yes, Baas."
It never occurred to Byng that Krool would resist; it did not occur to
Krool that he could resist. Byng was the Baas, who at that moment was
the Power immeasurable. There was only one thing to do--to obey.
"You were told to leave my house by Mrs. Byng, and you did not go."
"She was not my Baas."
"You would have done her harm, if you could?"
"So, Baas."
With a low cry Byng ran forward, the sjambok swung through the air, and
the terrible whip descended on the crouching half-caste.
Krool gave one cry and fell back a little, but he made no attempt to
resist.
Suddenly Byng went to a window and threw it open.
"You can jump from there or take the sjambok. Which?" he said with a
passion not that of a man wholly sane. "Which?"
Krool's wild, sullen, trembling look sought the window, but he had no
heart for that enterprise--thirty feet to the pavement below.
"The sjambok, Baas," he said.
Once again Byng moved forward on him, and once again Krool's cry rang
out, but not so loud. It was like that of an animal in torture.
In the next room, Wallstein and Stafford and the others heard it, and
understood. Whispering together they listened, and Stafford shrank away
to the far side of the room; but more than one face showed pleasure in
the sound of the whip and the moaning.
It went on and on.
Barry Whalen, however, was possessed of a kind of fear, and presently
his face became troubled. This punishment was terrible. Byng might kill
the man, and all would be as bad as could be. Stafford came to him.
"You had better go in," he said. "We ought to intervene. If you don't,
I will. Listen...."
It was a strange sound to hear in this heart of civilization. It
belonged to the barbaric places of the earth, where there was no law,
where every pioneer was his own cadi.
With set face Barry Whalen entered the room. Byng paused for an instant
and looked at him with burning, glazed eyes that scarcely realized him.
"Open that door," he said, presently, and Barry Whalen opened the door
which led into the big hall.
"Open all down to the street," Byng said, and Barry Whalen went forward
quickly.
Like some wild beast Krool crouched and stumbled and moaned as he ran
down the staircase, through the outer hall, while a servant with scared
face saw Byng rain savage blows upon the hated figure.
On the pavement outside the house, Krool staggered, stumbled, and fell
down; but he slowly gathered himself up, and turned to the doorway,
where Byng stood panting with the sjambok in his hand.
"Baas!--Baas!" Krool said with livid face, and then he crept painfully
away along the street wall.
A policeman crossed the road with a questioning frown and the apparent
purpose of causing trouble, but Barry Whalen whispered in his ear, and
told him to call that evening and he would hear all about it. Meanwhile
a five-pound note in a quick palm was a guarantee of good faith.
Presently a half-dozen people began to gather near the door, but the
benevolent policeman moved them on.
At the top of the staircase Jasmine met her husband. She shivered as he
came up towards her.
"Will you come to me when you have finished your business?" she said,
and she took the sjambok gently from his hand.
He scarcely realized her. He was in a dream; but he smiled at her, and
nodded, and passed on to where the others awaited him.