Decidedly Lamont had had a surprise sprung upon him. Whether it was an
agreeable one or not is another matter.
His greeting of the new arrival was polite rather than cordial; even
pleasant, but not spontaneous. There was a vast difference in his
handshake here to that wherewith he had welcomed Peters, for instance;
nor did he use the formula, "Glad to see you." Ancram noticed this, and
so did Peters.
Lamont was nothing if not downright, and would never say a thing he did
not mean. Peters knew this, wherefore he began to feel mightily
uncomfortable, and wished he hadn't brought the stranger along. But
then Ancram had asked him point-blank if he could tell him where to find
Lamont, who was a friend of his, and whom he had heard was settled
somewhere in these parts; and he had received the question with a great
roar of laughter, replying that no man in all Rhodesia was more fully
qualified to give him that very information. But if this outsider's
presence was going to prove a thorn in the side of his friend,--rather
than do anything to annoy whom he would have cut off his right hand,--
why, the sooner they scooted him off the better, decided Peters. Aloud
he said--
"Here's luck, Ancram. What would you have given for this jolly long
drink when you were strolling about in the _doorstland_, hey?"
"Just about all I was worth," laughed the other, sending down the
remains of his whisky-and-selzogene with infinite gusto.
"I'm afraid you'll find these quarters a bit rough, Ancram," said
Lamont. "New country, you know, and all that kind of thing."
The other protested that he liked nothing better than roughing it, and
how awfully jolly it was to run against Lamont again. But even he was
conscious of a something which restrained him from making further
reference to Courtland.
Outwardly Ancram was a tall, well-built fellow, several years younger
than Lamont. He was good-looking, but the face was one of a very
ordinary type, with nothing about it to stamp itself upon the
recollection. As a fellow-guest at Courtland, Lamont had rather
disliked him for his own sake, and still more because he had tried to
get between himself and Violet. Moreover, Ancram had been among those
who muttered against him on the bank of the frozen mere what time his
_fiancee_ had put upon him that abominable and unmerited insult. And
now the fellow turned up here, claiming his hospitality, and talking to
him as if he was his dearest friend.
"Excuse my seeming inhospitality, Ancram," he said. "I must go and help
give an eye to the off-loading, but if you like to go in there you'll
find all the ingredients for a wash-up. We shall have supper directly."
"Oh, that's quite all right, old chap," was the airy reply, "By the way,
I'll come with you."
Outside, by the light of three or four lanterns, several natives were
busily unloading the donkey-carts and transferring their contents to the
strongly-built hut which constituted the store-room: bags and boxes, and
pockets of sugar, and packages of candles and soap--all sorts of
necessaries and a few luxuries.
"Aha!" laughed Peters, shaking one case; "was beginning to think this
had been forgotten. What'd become of us then, hey, Ancram?"
"Why, what is it?"
"Scotch. Pother's Squareface. Well, we're nearly through now, and I
shan't be sorry to get my champers into a steak of that sable."
"Well, you won't be able to," said Lamont. "There's none left. But I
went down into `the poultry yard' and picked up a few pheasants."
"We call the river bank our poultry yard, Ancram," explained Peters,
when they were seated at table discussing the products of the same.
"When we first came up here, Lamont and I, if we wanted a bird or two we
just went to the door and shot it. Now you have to go away from the
homestead a bit, but you can always get as many as you want. Are you
fond of shooting?"
"Rather. I say, Lamont, d'you remember what jolly shoots we had at
Courtland?"
"Are you fond of fighting, Ancram?" said Lamont.
The other stared. There was a grim directness in the question. Both
were thinking the same thing. It seemed an odd question to be put by a
man who had been publicly accused of cowardice. Its propounder was
enjoying the other's confusion.
"Fighting?" echoed Ancram.
"Yes. Because if you are you've come to the right shop for it. You'll
get plenty if you remain in the country, and that before very long too."
"Why? Who is there to fight?"
"The Matabele."
"But I thought they were all conquered--licked into a cocked hat."
"So did, so do, a lot of other people who ought to know better. But
they're not. Let this rinderpest go a little further, and when the
Government has shot a few more of their cattle--then we shall see."
"By Jove! I had no idea of that."
"Or you wouldn't have come," Lamont could not help appending. He had
detected a note of consternation in Ancram's tone. And Ancram was one
of those who had stood by and endorsed the accusation of cowardice
hurled against himself.
"Oh yes, I would," answered the other, with rather a forced laugh. "But
I say, Lamont, what about you two fellows--and others in a lonely place
like this? Where would you come in?"
"Nowhere, unless we got wind and scooted in time. But that's just the
difficulty."
"Phew! But don't you take any precaution?"
"Not any. We take our chance instead. Chance is the name of a very
great god up-country, as you'll find out if you stop out here long."
"Well, it would be a jolly good job if we did have a war," rejoined
Ancram airily. "Give us lots of fun. I should enjoy it."
Peters looked quickly up.
"Fun! Enjoy it!" he repeated. "D'you hear that, Lamont? Wonder how
much _fun_ he'd have voted it--how much he'd have _enjoyed_ it--if he'd
been along with us on the retreat from the Shangani."
"Oh, damn the retreat from the Shangani!" burst forth Lamont. "Ain't
you sick of that sick old yarn yet, Peters? Because I am."
Ancram stared. There seemed nothing to warrant the ill-tempered
outburst--unless--Ah, that was it. Lamont had hoisted the white feather
in some way while on the expedition referred to, and of course was shy
of hearing it mentioned. But, strangely enough, Peters didn't seem to
resent the tone or the brusque interruption. On the contrary he
inclined to the apologetic.
"Oh, keep your hair on, Lamont," he answered deprecatingly. "You know,
Ancram, I shouldn't be here now if it hadn't been for--"
"Will you have another whisky-and-selz, Ancram, or will you try some
black tea?" interrupted Lamont, speaking quickly. "Can't offer you any
milk with it because of the drought, except tinned, and that makes it
entirely beastly."
"I should think so," answered Ancram, again wondering at the rudeness of
the pointed interruption. "But isn't it the deuce on the nerves? Keeps
you awake, and all that."
"In civilisation it would. Not up here. I've often, while lying out in
camp, polished off three big beakers of it--black as ink, mind--and
dropped off fast asleep when only half through my first pipe."
"By Jove! that knocks a good old superstition endways, anyway."
"Good job if they were all knocked endways. Now here's another--" And
then Lamont, fastening on to another topic proceeded to thresh it out,
and, in fact, for him, became quite voluble, so much so that Peters
could not have got a word in edgeways even if he had wanted to, which he
did not. At him Ancram stole more than one glance, expecting to descry
an offended look. But he descried nothing of the sort. Peters went on
placidly with his supper, nodding occasional assent to the other's
remarks. But Lamont had got what he wanted; he had got clean away from
the retreat from the Shangani. There was no possibility of reopening
that subject, short of dragging it in by the tail. All of which set the
new arrival wondering still more.
"Then if these Matabele chaps were to rise," went on Ancram, "you--we--
should all get our throats cut?"
"From ear to ear," supplied Lamont, with grim uncompromising crispness.
"Oh, come. I say, Lamont, you're getting at a fellow, don't you know."
"No, I don't. But if you don't believe me ask Peters."
"The Captain's--er--oh!--ah!--I mean Lamont's right," declared Peters,
half briskly, half deprecatorily, as he noted the positive scowl which
wrinkled his friend's dark brows. The reason wherefor was that the
latter, having held a subordinate command during the war of occupation,
had experienced much trouble in convincing Peters and others that they
were not to call him `Captain' ever after. That sort of tin-pot aping
of military rank was bad enough while they were on active service, he
declared--afterwards it was simply poisonous, and there were enough
`captains' and `majors' and `colonels' knocking about Matabeleland to
stock a whole Army Corps with, if they had been genuine.
Again Ancram wondered. What the deuce did it all mean, he tried to
unravel, that a tough, hard-bitten frontiersman, such as he had already
estimated Peters to be, should care twopence for the frown or smile of a
fellow like Lamont, whom he himself had seen show the white feather on
an occasion when there was the least possible excuse of all for it--
indeed, he wished he himself had been at hand at the time, instead of
arriving on the scene just after the rescue had been effected? Yet,
somehow, there was something very solid, very square, about this, as
even he realised, involuntary host of his, sitting there the very
embodiment of self-possession, devil-may-care-ishness, even masterful
dominance. It did not fit in, somehow, with that scene in the falling
dusk, by the frozen mere at Courtland, on Christmas Eve.
"But," he persisted, "do you really and seriously mean, Lamont, that if
these chaps were to break out to-night they would cut all our throats?"
"Really and seriously, Ancram. But didn't I tell you that the great god
Chance was a ruling factor up here? You'll soon tumble to his little
ways. Here--try some of this Magaliesburg," pushing a large two-pound
bag towards him.
"Er--thanks. I think I'll stick to my mixture. The fellows at Pagadi
gave me some of that the other night, and I didn't care for it."
"Oh, that'll pass. You'll soon not look at anything else," chipped in
Peters briskly, filling his own pipe. He had sized up the new-comer as
being very raw, very green. But then he had seen plenty such before.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright, listening intently.
"D'you hear that, Lamont?" he said eagerly.
"Yes," was the answer, after a moment of careful listening.
"Why--what--what is it?" broke in Ancram, and there was a note of scare
in his voice. In the light of their previous conversation it must be at
least the Matabele war-cry, he decided.
"There it is again," said Peters. "Did you hear?"
"Yes," answered Lamont. "You may be in luck's way yet, Ancram, and get
a shot at a lion. They are over there, in the Ramabana Forest, though
whether they'll be there still to-morrow is another thing. Let's get
outside and listen."
Ancram, to be candid with himself, would much rather have remained
inside. He had an idea that a lion might pounce upon him the moment he
set foot in the darkness outside.
In the soft velvet of the black sky a myriad of stars hung. So near did
they seem that the flash of flaming planets was even as the burning of
distant worlds. The ghostly stretch of veldt around was wrapped in
darkness and mystery, and from afar, just audible on the waft of
stillness, came a succession of hollow, coughing roars.
"Don't send up your hopes too high, Ancram," said Lamont, emitting quick
puffs from his pipe. "You may not get a show at them after all. Lions
are very sporadic. Here to-night, fifty miles off to-morrow morning."
Ancram devoutly hoped these might be five hundred miles off, as he
answered--
"Ah yes. That's the beastly bore of it. I'd like to have had a shot at
them, I must say."
"Oh, we'll fix you up with that, sooner or later, sonny, never fear,"
said Peters cheerfully. "If not to-morrow, later on we'll worry up a
trip, and it'll be hard if we don't turn you out a big 'un."
Then a friendly wrangle ensued between Lamont and Peters as to whether
wild animals, and especially lions, would come into houses after
anything. Lamont declared they wouldn't, and Peters cited instances
where they had, not at first hand however; and at length by the time the
guest was told off to his makeshift couch in the living-room, he was so
worked up to the terrors of this strange wild land, to which he had been
fool enough to come, that he spent half the night wondering whether the
outer door would for a moment resist the furious rush of a famished
beast, or whether the window was of sufficient width to admit such.
Whereby it is manifest that Lamont and the other had taken in the
stranger in more ways than one.