PREPARATION.
The days went by and Hazon's preparations were nearly completed, and it
became patent to the Rand at large that "The Pirate" intended to relieve
that delusive locality of his unwelcome presence; for a couple of
waggons appeared on the scene, bearing his name, and in charge of a
mysterious native of vast proportions and forbidding physiognomy, who
seemed not to be indigenous to those parts, nor, indeed, to hail from
anywhere around. And Hazon, in his quiet, thorough way, was very busy in
fitting out these waggons, loading them with articles suitable for
up-country trade, eke with munitions of sport, and, if need be, war.
Wherein he was ably assisted by Laurence Stanninghame.
On learning that the latter was a party to the undertaking, whatever it
was, the Rand shrugged its shoulders, and whispered; and the burden of
its whispering consisted mainly of the ancient innuendo relating to
those who had heretofore accompanied Hazon anywhere. This one--would he
not travel the same dark road as others had done, whatever that road
might be? But that was his own lookout, and he had been warned. And the
two men would hold long and earnest confabs together; but those which
were the most earnest were held in the course of long rides away into
the veldt. Then they would dismount at some sequestered spot, where,
secure from all interruption, weather-beaten maps and plans and darkly
written memos., also ciphers, would be produced and long and carefully
discussed. Of this, however, the Rand knew nothing; yet from such
Laurence would return feeling a trifle graver, for even he had to
accustom himself to such a road to wealth as was here held out. But his
case was desperate. He was utterly ruined, and to the same extent
reckless. It was sink or swim, and not his was the mind to elect to go
under when the jettison of a last lingering scruple or two would keep
him afloat. As for potential--nay, certain--risk, that did not enter
into his calculations.
Now, while these preparations were in progress, Holmes was going about
with a very gloomy countenance; more than hinting, indeed, at a desire
to take part in the trip. Finally, he put it plainly to Laurence
himself.
"Take my advice and watch it," the latter decisively replied. Then
remembering that the ostensible object of the undertaking was sport and
native trade, he went on, "You see, Holmes, it's going to be a hard
business. Not just three or four months up in the bush-veldt and so
forth, but--well, Heaven only knows where the thing will end, let alone
how."
"I don't care about that. Why, it's just the very thing that'll suit me
down to the ground. I say, Stanninghame, I know you don't mind, but
Hazon? I've always stood up for Hazon, and we seem to get on all right?
Do put it to Hazon. I could pay my shot, of course."
There was a despondency of manner and tone that was extremely foreign to
the mercurial Holmes, and this, together with certain signs he had read
of late, caused Laurence to look up with a queer half smile.
"Why are you so anxious to clear from here, Holmes? Rather sudden, isn't
it?"
"Oh, I'm dead off waiting for a 'boom' that never comes. It's dashed
sickening, don't you know."
"It is. And what else is dashed sickening? That isn't all."
The other stared for a moment, then, as though he were bringing it out
with an effort, he burst forth:
"Oh, well, hang it all, Stanninghame, I don't see why I shouldn't tell
you. The fact is I've--I've got the chuck."
Laurence laughed inwardly. He understood.
"Why, I thought you were bringing it on all right," he said.
"So did I; but when I put it to her, she was dead off," said Holmes,
disconsolately savage.
"Sure?"
"Cert."
"Well, give her another show. Some women--girls especially--like that
sort of application twice over. They think it enhances their value in
some inexplicable way," said Laurence, with a touch of characteristic
satire. "I don't, but that's a matter of opinion. And, I don't want to
hurt your feelings, Holmes, but is this one worth it?"
"I don't know," answered the other savagely, driving his heel into the
ground. "It's that beast Barstow. What the deuce she can see in him,
bangs me."
"Yes, unless it is that you hold a quantity of unsaleable scrip and he
doesn't," rejoined Laurence, who had been secretly amused in watching
the progress of pretty Mabel Falkner's latest preference. "But in any
case I think you'd better not touch it, or you'll find yourself on the
one horn or other of this dilemma; if she is coming the 'playing off'
trick, why, that is despicable, and in fact not good enough; if she
means business, why, you can't go begging to her for what she has given
to the other Johnny without any begging at all. See?"
"Oh, yes, I see," was the rueful rejoinder. "By the Lord, Stanninghame,
I used to think you a deuced snarling, cynical beggar at first, but now,
'pon my soul, I believe you're right."
"Do you? Well, then, you don't want to go away up-country and get bowled
out with fever or struck by a nigger, and all that sort of thing,
because one girl don't care a cent for you."
"Perhaps not. Still, I hate this place now. I'm sick of it. By the way,
Stanninghame, you're the sort a fellow can tell anything to; you don't
start a lot of cheap blatant chaff as some chappies do when you want
them to talk sound sense."
There was a great deal underlying the remark, also the tone. Though
lacking the elements which go to make up the "popular" man, Laurence
possessed the faculty of winning the devoted attachment of individuals,
and that to an extent of which he himself little dreamed. Not the least
important item which went to make up that attribute lay in the fact that
he was a most indulgent listener, whom nothing astonished, and who could
look at all sides of any given question with the tact and toleration of
a man who thinks. This faculty he seldom exercised, and then almost
unconsciously.
To the other's remark he made no immediate reply. Taking into
consideration age and temperament, he had no belief that Holmes'
rejection and disappointment had left any deep wound. Still, it had come
at an unfortunate time--a time when the sufferer, in common with most of
them, had been hard hit in a more material way. He had a genuine liking
for the sunny-natured, open-hearted youth; a liking begotten, it might
be, of the ingenuously unconscious manner in which the latter looked up
to him, in fact, made a sort of elder brother of him. Holmes was no
stronger-headed than most youngsters of his temperament and
circumstances, and Laurence did not want to see him--soured and dejected
by disappointment all round--throw himself in with the reckless,
indiscriminate bar-frequenter, of whom there were not lacking woeful
examples in those days, though, poor fellows, much from the same motive,
to drown care; and into this current would Holmes in all probability be
swept if left by himself in Johannesburg. Was there no method of taking
him with them for a month or two's shoot in the bush-veldt, and sending
him back by some returning expedition before the serious part of the
undertaking was entered upon? He decided to sound Hazon upon the
matter, yet of this resolve he said nothing now to Holmes. The latter
broke the silence.
"By Jove, Stanninghame, I envy you!" he said. "You are such a
hard-headed chap. Why, I don't believe you care a little d---- for any
mortal thing in the world. Yes, I envy you."
"You needn't, if it means hankering after the process by which that
blissful state is attained. But you are wrong. I care most infernally
about one thing."
"And what's that? What is it, old chap? You needn't be afraid I'll let
on!" said Holmes eagerly, anticipating it might be something similar in
the way of a confidence to that which his own exuberant heart had not
been able to refrain from making.
"Why, that I was stewed idiot enough to go on investing in this infernal
scrip instead of clearing out just when I had made the modest profit of
four hundred per cent."
"Oh!" said the other, in disappointed surprise, adding, "But you don't
show it. You take it smiling, Stanninghame. You don't turn a hair."
"H'm!"
With the ejaculation, Laurence was thinking of a certain room, shaded
from the glare of the sunlight without, and of a very grim moment
indeed. He was looking, too, at the hearty, bright-mannered youngster
who had already begun to forget his recent disappointment in the
prospect of adventure and novelty. He himself had been nearly as
light-hearted, just as ready to mirth and laughter at that age. Yet now?
Would it be the same with this one? Who could say?
The suggestion that Holmes should accompany the expedition was not
received with enthusiasm by Hazon, neither did it meet with immediate
and decisive repudiation. Characteristically, Hazon proceeded to argue
out the matter pro and con.
"He doesn't know the real nature of our business, Stanninghame? no, of
course not. Thinks it's only a shooting trip?--good. Well, the question
is, are we dead certain of finding opportunities for sending him back;
for we can't turn him loose on the veldt and say good-bye?"
"There are several places where we might drop him," said Laurence,
consulting a map and mentioning a few.
"Quite so. Well, here's another consideration. He's a youngster, and
probably has scores of relations more or less interested in him. We
don't want to draw down inquiries and investigations into our movements
and affairs."
"That won't count seriously, Hazon."
"Think not? Um! Well then, what if we were to take him along--run him
into the whole shoot with us?"
"Phew! That's a horse whose colour I've never scrutinized. And the
point?"
"Might help us in more ways than one; in case of difficulties
afterwards, I mean. The idea seems to knock you out some, Stanninghame?"
There was something in it. Laurence, reckless, unscrupulous as he was,
could not but hesitate. In striving to save his young friend from one
form of ruin, was it written that he should plunge him into another
more irretrievable, more sweeping, more lifelong?
"I am thinking he might give us trouble," he replied deliberately. "What
if he sickened of the whole business, and kicked just when we wanted to
pull together the most? No, no, Hazon. If we take him at all, we must
send him back as I say. It's all very well for us two, but it doesn't
seem quite the thing to run a fresh-hearted youngster, with all his life
before him, and bursting with hopes and ideals, into a grim business of
this kind. But taking him, or leaving him, rests with you entirely."
"Leave it that way, then. I'll think it over and see if it pans out
any," said Hazon, leisurely lighting a fresh pipe. "But, Stanninghame,
what's this?" he added, with a sudden, keen glance out of his piercing
eyes. "You are letting yourself go with regard to this matter--showing
feeling. That won't do, you know. You've got to have no sample of that
sort of goods about you, no more than can be put into a block of
granite. Aren't you in training yet?"
"Well, I think so; or, at any rate, shall be long before it is wanted
seriously."
No more was said on the subject then.
As the preparations progressed, and the time for the start drew near, it
seemed to Laurence Stanninghame that more and more was the old life a
mere dream, a dream of the past. Sometimes in his sleep he would be back
in it, would see the dinginess of the ramshackle semi-detached, would
hear the vulgar sounds of the vulgar suburban street; and he would turn
uneasily in his dreams, with a depressing consciousness of dust and
discord, and a blank wall as of the hopelessness of life drawn across
his path. Feeling? Pooh! Who would miss him out of the traditional
"charm" of the family circle? A new toy, costing an extra shilling or
so, would quite knock out all and any recollection of himself. There
were times when in his dreams he had even returned to the domestic ark,
and in the result a day of welcome and comparative peace, then discord
and jangling strife as before, and the ever weighing-down, depressing,
crushing consciousness of squalid penury for the rest of his natural
life. From such visions he had awakened, awakened with a start of
exultant gratulation, to find the glow of the African sun streaming into
the room; every nerve tingling with a consciousness of strength and
braced-up vigour; his mind rejoicing to look forward into the boundless
possibilities held out by the adventure in which he was involved; that
other ghastly horror, which had haunted him for so long, now put far
away. Risk, excitement, peril, daring, to be rewarded by wealth, after
long years of unnatural stagnation. The prospect opened out a vista as
of boundless delight.
Yet was this dashed--dashed by an impending parting. The certainty of
this would ever intrude and quench his exultation. Sweet Lilith! how she
had subtilely intertwined herself within his life! Well, he was strong;
he could surely keep himself in hand. It should be a part of his
training. Still, though the certainty of impending separation would
quench his exultation, on awakening to the light of each new day, which
brought that parting nearer, yet there was another certainty, that at
least a portion of every such day should be spent with her.
But even he, with all his strength, with all his foresight, little
realized what the actual moment of that parting should mean.