When the strokes of the horse's hoofs told that he had mounted and was
riding away, Clare could not resist turning to glance back at him. How
well he looked in the saddle, she thought, and then the calm strength of
the almost melancholy face as he talked to her, the easy indifference to
what would have irritated and stung most men, came back to her. This
was an individuality absolutely new to her experience, and one of vivid
interest, so vivid indeed that she began to recognise with a sort of
wonder that she could not get it out of her thoughts. She recalled
their conversation. If he had laid himself out to say exactly the right
thing all through it, he could not have pleased her more, and yet it was
obvious that he was talking perfectly naturally, and without
premeditation--certainly without an idea of pleasing anybody. But--was
she going to make a sort of hero of the man? Well, it certainly began
to look something like it. So when at the breakfast-table Fullerton
remarked--
"Didn't I see you talking to Lamont just now, Clare, over by the Sea
Deep stands?" she felt that the mere question evolved within her quite
an unexpected degree of combativeness.
"Yes, you very probably did," she answered. "We met during my morning
constitutional while you lazy people were snoring. He's very
interesting."
"Is he?"
The tone, savouring of curt incredulity, whipped up the combative
instinct still more, as she answered, with quite unnecessary crispness--
"Certainly. He's got ideas, anyhow. So there's that much interesting
about him, if only for the scarcity of those who have."
"Ideas or not, he funked again yesterday. When Jim Steele wanted him to
take his coat off," sneered Fullerton. Then the accumulated
combativeness broke its barriers and fairly overwhelmed the incautious
sneerer.
"Funked again!" echoed Clare. "I don't believe he ever did such a thing
in his life--no, nor ever could. Because he was too much of a gentleman
to be drawn into a disgusting tap-room brawl to please a drunken rowdy,
you call that funking. Well, I don't, and I shouldn't have the good
opinion I have of Mr Lamont if he had acted otherwise. You forget,
too, that we were all there, and even in Gandela I suppose it's hardly
the correct thing to indulge in prize fights in the presence of ladies."
"Phew!" whistled Fullerton. "So that's the way the cat jumps; Clare has
struck her flag at last, Lucy. Lamont's captured her."
"Oh, go easy, Dick. I won't have Clare teased," was all the response he
got in the conjugal quarter.
"She seems jolly well able to take care of herself anyhow," pronounced
her brother-in-law resentfully.
"I like fair play," rejoined the girl, "and a great many of you don't
seem to know the meaning of the word. Because somebody says one thing,
and somebody else another about a man who is really too much of a man to
bother himself about it--you all go to work to make him out this and to
make him out that. You're worse than a pack of spiteful women."
Oh, how she longed to tell them all she knew--how the man they were
decrying had spent the day watching over the safety of all present, how
his cool nerve and unflagging resource had averted from them the ghastly
peril that threatened. But this she could not do. She was bound over
to absolute and entire secrecy.
"By Jingo, I'll tell you another thing now," said Fullerton. "Blest if
I didn't meet this very chap, Lamont, at the bend of the road, just
beyond the house, at twelve o'clock last night--you know, just after
those fellows left us. He was strolling this way, and he'd got a
Lee-Metford magazine rifle. I asked him what the deuce he was playing
at sentry-go like that for, and he grunted something about getting his
hand in, whatever that might mean; and when I wanted him to come in and
have a whisky--for you can't be inhospitable even though you don't care
much for a fellow--he wouldn't, because he was afraid of scaring you all
if you saw him with a rifle at that time of night, and of course he
wouldn't leave it outside. What was he up to, that's the question. I
own it stumps me."
"Ah!" said Clare, with a provoking smile. "What _was_ he up to?"
But a new light had swept in upon her mind. In view of what she had
learned that morning there was nothing eccentric about this lonely
watcher and his midnight vigil. And yet--and yet--why should he have
singled out Richard Fullerton's house as the special object of his
self-imposed guardianship?
Meanwhile a sort of council of war was going on elsewhere. It consisted
of four persons, Orwell the Resident Magistrate, Isard the officer in
command of the Mounted Police stationed at Gandela, Driffield the Native
Commissioner, and Lamont. To the other three the latter had just
unfolded his tale of the conspiracy, and the steps he had taken to avert
its execution on the previous day.
It had been received in varying manner. Orwell, a recent importation
from England, and who deemed himself lucky in drawing a fixed salary
from the Government of the Chartered Company as against years of waiting
as a briefless barrister, was inclined to treat it flippantly. Isard,
on the other hand, thought there might be something in it, but was
resentfully disposed towards Lamont for not consulting him from the very
first. He was responsible for the safety of the place, in a way, even
more than the R.M., he deemed, and should have been informed of what was
going on in order to take the necessary steps. But Driffield was fully
awake to the gravity of the situation. He moved constantly among the
natives, and understood not only their language perfectly but their ways
of thought, and customs, and now this development seemed to fit in with,
and piece together, what he had only heard darkly rumoured and hinted at
among them.
"One thing about it puzzles me," said Orwell. "You say that these
fellows were actually posted up there on Ehlatini watching us all the
time, Lamont. Now, how on earth could you find that out for certain?"
"Spoor. A considerable body like that could not have got up there and
gone away again without leaving plenty of tracks, even when the ground
is as dry as it is now. Now could it?"
"Oh, I suppose not," answered Orwell rather hastily, for to him the
mysteries of spoor were simply a blank page.
Lamont went on, "I'll take you up there and point it all out to you.
What do you say, Isard?"
"Yes, I'd like to see it," was the answer, sceptically made, for Isard
was a retired military man, with but little experience of veldt-craft.
"Here is another trifle or two which is corroborative evidence," went on
Lamont, producing the cow-tail ornament which Clare had picked up, as
also one he himself had found.
"Ah yes. Well, but two swallows don't make a summer," said Orwell,
still flippant.
"No, and two cow-tails don't make an impi," rejoined Lamont equably.
"But these things are never worn as peaceable adornments. Driffield
will bear me out in that."
"That's a fact," said the Native Commissioner decisively.
"We ought to have been told, Orwell and I," pronounced Isard briskly.
"We'd have arrested this witch-doctor, and laid him by the heels as a
hostage."
"You'd have spoilt the whole show," answered Lamont calmly. "The rest
would have seen that something was wrong and would have rushed us at a
disadvantage. What then? There wasn't a man Jack on that race ground
yesterday with so much as a six-shooter in his hip pocket. Where would
they all have come in--and the women and children? Think it out a
moment. No, my plan was the best."
"Lamont's right," said Driffield. "By Jove, Lamont's right! I've
always said we go about a deuced sight too careless in this country,
with no more means of defence than a toothpick, a pipe, and a bunch of
keys."
"Well, the point is," struck in Orwell, rather testily, "what are we
going to do now? Yes. What the very devil are we going to do now?
Supposing I--or rather Isard and I--get laagering up the township, we
incur the devil's own responsibility, and then, if nothing comes of it,
maybe we shan't get into high hot water at Buluwayo for raising an
all-searching scare."
"I still think we ought to have boned the witch-doctor," said Isard,
"even if we waited until everybody had gone home. How's that, Lamont?"
"It isn't. In the first place, I had pledged myself to let him go away
safe. In the next, you'd have brought matters to a head a lively sight
sooner than was wanted. As it is, we have nearly a fortnight to get
ready in."
"How do you get at that?"
"Well, I've got at it--never mind how. The point is to see that you
profit by the knowledge. I shall. I'm going back to my farm to-night."
"Going back to your farm? The devil you are!" exclaimed Orwell.
"Of course. I'm not going to be the one to start the scare. I've
warned every fellow I could, but they took it as a howling joke--like in
the case of old Noah when he was knocking up the ark."
There was a laugh at this.
"Well, I've done all I could," he went on. "If you see an idiot
sprinting straight for the edge of a precipice and when you warn him off
he persists in swearing there's no precipice there--what can you do?
Nothing. Your responsibility ceases, unless you are physically strong
enough to hold him back. Now, I am not physically strong enough to hold
back the whole Matyantatu district. Give us another fill of your
'bacco, Orwell. Mine has all run to dust."
"The thing is, what's to be done?" went on Orwell, now rather testily.
"You and Isard must settle that," answered Lamont. "I'm not responsible
for the safety of the township. Only remember," and here he became
impressive, "you have women and children in the place, and lots of the
houses are rather outlying. What I would suggest is to formulate some
scheme by which you could run together some sort of laager at very short
notice. Get all the waggons you can, and sand-bags and store-bags and
so on, and warn quietly all the most level-headed of the community, and
fix up that they shall get inside it if necessary. Only, do the thing
quietly, so you will escape the obloquy of posing as scare-mongers and
yet not give it away to the natives that you're funking them. Isard,
with his knowledge of strategy, ought to be able to arrange all that to
a hair."
This was rather a nasty one to Isard, whom the speaker happened to know
had been one of those who was too ready to take in the insinuations of
cowardice that had been made against himself, and had been a bit short
and supercilious in consequence.
"That's all very fine and large," retorted the police captain. "But
what we should like to know is, how the devil we're going to get that
very short notice."
"You have native detectives attached to your force," answered Lamont,
"who may or may not be reliable--probably not. But failing them, or in
any case, if I'm above ground I'll contrive to give it you."
"You? Why, how?"
"I told you I was going to start out for my farm to-night. After that
I'm going to pay another visit to Zwabeka's kraal."
"The devil you are!" And Orwell and the police captain looked at each
other. The same thought was in both their minds. This Lamont had
acquired a reputation for being careful of his skin. Why, even the new
arrival, Ancram, who had known him at home, had added to such reputation
by the tale he had put about as to the reason why Lamont had found his
own county too hot to hold him. Yet here he was proposing to go and put
his head into the lion's mouth. The subject of their thoughts, reading
them, smiled to himself.
"Certainly I am," he said. "You see, now, I was right in keeping faith
with old Qubani. I'll be able to find out something, and when I do I'll
let you know by hook or by crook. Meanwhile get everything prepared--
quietly if you can, but--prepared. Now I don't think we've any more to
talk about, so I shall get back to Foster's. Coming, Driffield?"
"Yes," answered the Native Commissioner.
The two officials left together looked at each other for a moment in
silence.
"Can't make that fellow out," said Orwell, breaking it. "I like Lamont
well enough, but there's no doubt about it that on at least two
occasions, irrespective of Ancram's yarn about him, he--well, er--caved
in. Yet now he's as cool and collected as a cucumber."
"'M--yes. A collected cucumber," said Isard.
"Oh, don't be an ass, Isard. Now, I wonder if it's a case of the nigger
lion-tamer who used to stick his head in the lion's mouth every evening,
but when some fighting rough threatened to take it out of him he ran.
That cad wouldn't have gone into that lion's cage even, let alone stick
his head into the brute's mouth. No, I expect we are all funksticks on
some point or other. What?"
"Perhaps," said Isard frostily, not in the least agreeing. Outwardly he
was a tall, fine, soldierly man, looking well set up and smart in his
uniform and spurs, and `Jameson' hat. He had a bit of a reputation for
`side,' and now he little relished playing second fiddle to a man he
esteemed as lightly as he did Lamont. "I don't know that the fellow's
yarn isn't all cock-and-bull and mare's-nest," he went on. "You see,
it's in his interest to pose as the saviour of Gandela."
And he clanked out, not quite so convinced of what he preached, all the
same.
"Say, Mr Lamont," grinned the bar-keeper, as he and Driffield entered
the hotel, "I'm afraid you won't be able to pull off that scrap with Jim
Steele to-day. He's much too boozed."
"Is he? Oh well, I really can't be expected to hang about Gandela
waiting till Jim Steele condescends to be sober again. Now can I? I
put it to anyone."
"Certainly not," said Driffield. "You've given him every chance."
A murmur of assent went up from those in the room, with one or two
exceptions. These, charitably opined, though they did not say so, that
it was `slim' of Lamont putting off the affair, knowing what sort of
state the other man would be in for the next three days at least.
Lamont went on--
"He can take it on any time he likes. For the matter of that he can
come out to my place and have it there. I'll put him up for the
occasion. Peters 'll see fair play. What more can I do!"
It was agreed that the speaker stood vindicated.