"Great heavens, Beryl! you are never going to do anything so mad!"
"I am. What do you suppose I brought him all this way for--Be careful,
Kuliso," relapsing into Kafir. "My eyes are on you, although I'm
talking. The bullet, too, is just as ready."
To say that I was thunderstruck is to put it mildly. When I had agreed
to our daring and desperate scheme, the arrest of the chief in the very
thick of his own followers, I had never bargained for this. The idea
was that by seizing him ourselves we could bring him to justice and thus
prevent his escape, for if his said arrest were attempted in the
ordinary way his followers would never give him up. They would resist
any attempt to take him by force, as sure as such attempt were made.
This would probably bring on a war, but not condign punishment upon
Kuliso. I was filled with admiration for the promptitude and resolution
with which she had forced him to accompany us, but that he was marching
to his swift and certain doom had never entered my head--that Beryl had
constituted herself his judge, jury and executioner, least of all. No,
assuredly I had never bargained for this.
"Think better of it," I urged. "Think better of it, and let us carry
out our original plan and take him into the town."
"It was never _my_ original plan," she answered, in the same low,
monotonous tone. "Besides, to use your own words, we should never get
him anything like as far. He'd be rescued or give us the slip long
before. No. My original plan is the one I am going to carry out--Cross
the road, Kuliso. That's right. Keep straight on."
"Beryl, you cannot do this thing yourself," I urged earnestly. "We will
manage to keep possession of him somehow, but--leave the rest to the
hangman."
"The hangman would never get him, in that case. The Government itself
would find some pretext for letting him go, for fear of bringing on a
war. Kenrick, you stood beside me when we found _them_--you, too, saw
them. Have you so soon forgotten?"
"Forgotten? It would take more than a lifetime to forget that. Still,
for your own sake do not do this. I believe you yourself will regret it
afterwards. And then the law may call it murder. What then?"
"There isn't a jury in the land that would convict me," she said. "They
would call it an act of justice. And it will be. I have thought it all
out, you see."
What was I to answer? She was very likely right in her surmise. I
remembered Brian's words, uttered the day after my arrival here--words
to that very effect.
"Even then it will wear an ugly look," I persisted. "We bring this man
a considerable distance across country--the two of us--then shoot him in
cold blood."
"Has your blood cooled then, Kenrick?" she said. "Mine hasn't, nor will
it, until I see this murderer lying dead beside those he has killed."
"Understand, I am not pleading for his life," I went on, "only that you
should not be his executioner. Besides, what if he is the wrong man?
What if he should be speaking the truth after all when he says he knows
nothing about it?"
"A chief is responsible for the acts of his followers, even under their
own law. And he was not speaking the truth; he was lying. I know these
people better than you do, Kenrick. If he knew nothing of--of--what has
happened, do you think I could have frightened him into going with us?
Not for a moment. He knew all about it, and encouraged it, if he did
not actually instigate it. He is the principal murderer; afterwards I
shall find out the others."
"I was wrong in something I said just now," she went on while I was
thinking what next to urge. "I told you I had thought the matter all
out. Well, I was wrong. There was one side of it that escaped me."
"And that is?" I said eagerly, catching at a possible straw.
"Yourself."
"Me?"
"Yes. I don't want you to suffer for this in any way. You have helped
me this far, Kenrick. Now go--and leave the rest to me. You are not
supposed to know what I am about to do; and I'll take care it shall
never leak out that you did. Go back to the house and wait for me."
"That's so likely, isn't it?" I answered. "Of course, under any
circumstances I'd be sure to slink off and leave you in the middle of
the veldt at night, surrounded by Kuliso's cut-throats, watching an
opportunity to revenge the death of their chief. That would be me all
over, wouldn't it?"
"If only I could see some way out of it--for you! Let me think."
"No, Beryl. Don't think. There's nothing further to be said. Whatever
this is we are in it together."
It must not be supposed that during all this talk Beryl's vigilance over
her captive was relaxed for one single moment. Nor must it be supposed
that I--that either of us--imagined that we were going to have things
all our own way, and that Kuliso's people had tamely left their chief to
his fate.
We could not see them, but that they were keeping us under observation
the whole way neither of us had a shadow of a doubt. But while keeping
a sharp look-out, I was able to turn over the situation in my mind. If
only Brian had been here. As it was, would he not hold me responsible
for Beryl's action, and any disastrous consequences which might ensue?
Well, for that matter he could hardly do so, if only that he knew his
sister well enough to know also that under the circumstances she would
simply laugh at the advice or attempted control of anybody, and that had
I discountenanced her project by refusing to accompany her she would
simply have embarked on it alone, and then--putting the question on its
lowest ground--what sort of figure should I have cut?
Now we were drawing near the fatal spot. We seemed to be moving in a
dream--worse--a nightmare. The face of the murdered boy, swollen and
ghastly, staring upward to the full broad moon, again seemed to come
before my gaze--and that other face, calm, placid, as overtaken by death
before a last moment of fleeting horror had had time to stamp it. My
nerves were strung to the utmost tension. The Ndhlambe chief would now
guess why he had been brought here, and that moment would be his last;
for, thus rendered desperate, would he not make one last effort for
life? All was still--still as death, save for the tread of the horses;
yet momentarily I awaited the roar of the shot which should send Kuliso
into that unseen world whither his victims had preceded him.
Then just what I had expected came to pass. Suddenly, and by a rapid,
serpentine movement, the chief flung himself down, wriggling for the
shade of a thick clump of bush we were passing, and simultaneously dark,
sinuous forms started up in front, around us, seeming to spring from
nowhere. Beryl's pistol cracked, and then I saw a huge savage--naked,
ochre-stained--poising a heavy knobkerrie for a throw. He could not, at
that short distance, miss his mark--and that mark, Beryl. And he was
behind her, and--she did not see him. It was all done in a second. I
drove the spurs home, standing up in the stirrups to catch or ward off
the murderous club as, with a whizz, it left his hand. I felt a sharp,
fiery dig in the side, in my ears a jarring, roaring crash. My sight
was scorched as with the blaze of a million fires, and then--blankness--
oblivion!