When supper was ended the plates were pushed into a bucket of water and
left to soak until they should be required again. One of the men got
hold of the newspaper, and read it aloud to the rest. The names of Van
Bleit and Simmonds were familiar to everyone present. Some of them had
been personally acquainted with the owners of the names, and all were
interested more or less in the case.
"It's the best man that has reached his terminus," Stephens remarked.
"I could spin a yarn or two about Van Bleit."
"Who couldn't?" laughed another man. "But he always comes up smiling,
somehow. I should say this let off was the biggest surprise he ever
had."
"'E served me an ugly trick once," muttered Rentoul darkly, endeavouring
to obtain a further supply of dop from the empty bottle beside him...
"Over a woman that was... When I was down with dysentery too."
He sat up with a poor attempt to look sober, and leaning forward tried
to push the floor away, which, in the most annoying manner, threatened
to hit him in the face. To avoid collision with it, he stood upon his
feet, and turning round two or three times to get his balance, raised
his arms and solemnly addressed the grinning group of listeners.
"Dysentery's a crool complaint, gets a grip on a man. Reg'lar epidemic
it was in camp that year. Doctor done 'is best to stamp it out, but
whot could 'e do in that beastly 'ole? I done whot I could to 'elp 'im.
`Boys, the doctor's right,' I says. `You're a dirty lot o' swine.
Look at your camps. D'you expect the doctor to go round an' stick 'is
nose into your stinking places? Why don't you clean up? ... Personal
cleanliness... I know... I've seen it afore.'" He pointed at the
grinning faces about him, and became personal and aggressive. "You
wouldn't wash your dirty mugs if you could 'elp it, any of you."
"That'll do, Mat," someone interrupted.
"Neither would I," resumed the orator in a more conciliatory tone,
"unless I 'ad to. But we've got to be clean... We've got to 'elp the
doctor... We've got to fight this thing. Coming events cast their
shadders before. It'll be here amongst us next. And it ain't no use
waitin' for the Government. What's the use of the Government when
you're out prospecting with six boys, an' the lions come on you an' kill
three of them? Whot d'you do? S'pose you got a gun loaded in two
barrels... Do you run back to call the p'lice? ... Do you go for the
magistrate to come an' 'elp yer? Where'd you an' your boys be? ... No!
You put your barrel into their guts and pull the trigger--yes, every
time. An' we got to do the same with the dysentery. 'E don't come on
you with a bound; 'e crawls through the grass, like a snake. 'E comes
on gradually and slow... takes you unawares. We've got to stamp 'im
out. We've got to pull the trigger, and not wait for the Government..."
"Sit down, Mat, and give somebody else a chance," Stephens interrupted,
with a wink at the rest.
"You can 'ave your say," retorted Mat, "when I've finished." He turned
round and round, emphasising his remarks with repeated blows of one hard
soiled fist upon the grimy palm of the other hand. "We've got to stamp
it out," he shouted. "We've got to fight it. I remember when I was
young--"
"For God's sake, dry up!" interposed another. "You've missed your
vocation."
"Who're you gettin' at with yer `vocation'?" Rentoul demanded with
bitter superiority. "I don't know anything about vocation. I picked up
my eddication off jam tins and pickle bottles. I've no time for
vocation. If you'd been in Jo'burg when I was there, you'd 'ave 'ad no
time for eddication either. You'd 'ave been in tronk, where they makes
yer wash yer face every morning--behind the ears too. To hell with yer!
I've said all I want ter say... We've got to stamp it out."
He fell to muttering, and eyeing the last interrupter malevolently, sat
down again.
"We've got to stamp it out," he said. "Gimme the bottle, Tom. You've
swilled too much of that dysentery mixture, me boy. You're drunk--tha's
what you are."
"Van Bleit was running some quarry in Cape Town," an older man observed,
continuing the conversation from where it had been broken off. He
sucked thoughtfully at his pipe and stared into the fire... "Woman with
lots of money, I heard--and looks too. Must be hard up for an honest
man if she takes on Karl."
"This case will have about finished that game, I should fancy," the chef
of the party remarked.
Lawless got up, and flung a fresh log on the fire. He kicked it into
position with his boot, and pressed it down among the glowing embers,
pressing heavily as though it were some enemy he trod beneath his foot.
Then he turned slowly round.
"Time's been standing still for some of you," he said. "I've been in
Cape Town recently. There's nothing in that report."
Rentoul looked up from his corner.
"Whot you talking about?" he asked. "Time always stands still... We
move--Time don't move. If you come back in a thousand years, Time will
still be 'ere, I tell you... I read it in them magazines."
"Did you see Van Bleit when you were there?" someone asked, ignoring the
dissertation on Time.
"I did. I lunched with him the day I left. He is by way of being a--
chum of mine."
Rentoul made a clumsy effort to get upon his feet.
"Then I'm goin' to 'it you," he said. "I can't get at 'im, but I'll
bash your mug in, see if I don't."
"Oh! sit down, and don't be a silly ass," Lawless returned irritably.
Tom Hayhurst pulled the quarrelsome member back into his place.
"Go easy, Mat; he's baas here," he said.
Rentoul scowled darkly.
"I don't own any man baas," he muttered thickly. "I don't care a damn
for any man breathing... All men are equal. I don't care for you, nor
anyone. In a few years we'll all be the same. When some digger comes
along and digs up my skull and Cecil Rhodes' skull, who'll tell which
was Mat Rentoul's, and which Rhodes'?"
Somebody laughed.
"They'll only need to look at the size of the cavity in the craniums,
Mat," he said.
"There you go again!" Rentoul rejoined acrimoniously. "Fancies yerself
a British encyclopaedia don't yer?"
The oldest of the party, who was slightly grizzled, and had the
appearance of one who might have done something in the world and had
somehow missed his opportunities, looked hard at Lawless.
"Weren't you in the C.M. at one time?" he asked. "The name conveys
nothing, but I seem to remember your face."
Lawless nodded.
"That's right," he said. "I knew you the minute I saw you. But as I
stood for law and order in those days and you didn't, I did not insist
on the acquaintance. It was only the accident of the different sources
from which we drew our pay that put me in the right and you seemingly in
the wrong. The Police were too damned interfering with the privileges
of humanity for my taste. That's why I chucked it."
"Good!" The grizzled man smiled in appreciation of the speaker's
sentiments, and tossed his nearly empty tobacco-pouch across to him.
"Fill up," he said. "That's good stuff."
Lawless caught the pouch, filled his pipe, and tossed it back again to
the owner.
"It was while I was in the Police I got chummy with Van Bleit," he
volunteered.
Tom Hayhurst rose unexpectedly and swaggered through the group sprawling
before the hearth, until he stood close to Lawless, with his back
towards the fire.
"I wouldn't mind making a wager there isn't a man here who hasn't heard
of `Grit,'" he said.
His face was flushed, his mien slightly defiant, as though he
challenged, not only the men he addressed, but the stern, keen-eyed man
who surveyed him disapprovingly with his strangely penetrating,
inscrutable grey eyes.
"`Grit'!" The grizzled man looked up with a laugh. "Of course. That
was the name you went by in the days when you weren't Lawless either in
name or occupation. To think I should forget!"
"You're too damned modest," yelled a youngster. "The chaps tell stories
about you up in Rhodesia to-day."
"Fairy-tales," Lawless responded, smoking indifferently.
"That's a lie, anyway," retorted Hayhurst. "I know one or two facts."
"Among facts I know about you," Lawless replied sharply, "is that you
gab too freely. Sit down, and shut up."
Hayhurst looked nettled. He lost his ready assurance and lapsed into a
sulky mood.
"I'll knock any man's head off who says that about me," he muttered.
"Well, come and knock mine off," was the curt invitation; and during the
derisive laughter that followed Hayhurst sat down.
"Shake!"
Mat Rentoul had emerged from his corner, and, swaying at Lawless' elbow,
unsteadily advanced his huge fist.
"Shake!" he repeated peremptorily. And on the command being complied
with, he turned about and harangued the rest. "Said I'd 'it 'im, didn't
I? Well, 'e can 'it me, if 'e likes. I'll 'it any man whot isn't a
friend of 'is. That woman I spoke of--"
"Oh! dry up," shouted Lawless, beginning to lose his temper.
"'It me, if you like," returned Mat imperturbably... "I've said you
might... Gave 'er 'is last thick 'un, 'e did, and 'elped 'er back to
'er friends. She told me 'erself... You did--you lie!--an' took in yer
belt two 'oles when you fancied she wasn't looking. I don't care what
hell's scum you chum with... they won't do you any 'arm."
"Oh! let him alone, Grit," the man whose pouch he had shared, and who
was called Graves, interposed carelessly. "Nobody's listening. Send
round the bottle, boys. There's been too much leakage in one quarter.
Play fair."
Somebody produced a tin whistle, and after a very creditable performance
on it, took a draught from a glass another man offered him, wiped his
lips with the back of his hand, and started a familiar music-hall ditty.
"You take solo, Tom," Stephens suggested.
Hayhurst, who was lying sulking, with his elbow on the floor and his
hand supporting his head, kicked out a dusty riding-boot aggressively,
but made no other move.
"I'm holding my jaw," he said.
"Don't be a jackass. If you won't take the solo, I will."
The other rolled over and sat up.
"There's one thing I object to more strongly than singing myself on the
present occasion," he remarked, "and that's listening to you. Give me
the note, Bill, and then go ahead."
The men sat round, smoking and listening, while Bill played his little
tin whistle, and the youngster sang in a throaty tenor some jingling
absurdity about a girl and a balloon. Each in his way was an artist,
and made music out of the poor material. Mat Rentoul grew noisily
hilarious, and then tearful; but he joined in the chorus with the rest.
Lusty and strong rang out the voices from half a dozen stalwart throats,
all of which needed lubricating when the song was finished before they
started afresh. Through the open window the sound floated out into the
night. The stars that hung low in the purple heavens blinked as it were
with astonishment at this rude breaking of the surrounding peace, and
someone, crouching in the darkness against the mud wall of the hut, with
the dirty blanket wrapped around her to protect her from the cold,
opened wide eyes and listened intently to the unfamiliar noise.
One by one the voices trailed off, till only the tenor was left singing
to the thin accompaniment of the tireless tin whistle. Then that too
ceased, and the night was silent again, given over to the watchful stars
and the stirless air, as they waited for the dawn.
Lawless looked round on his sleeping guests, and stirred the fire
noisily with his boot until it leapt into flame. Slumber had overtaken
these men where they sprawled before the hearth. Some rested easily
with their heads pillowed on their arms; one--it was Rentoul--lay like a
log on his back, his great mouth open, breathing stertorously, and his
twitching limbs flung wide.
"Hogs!" he muttered.
He fetched a pillow from one of the bedrooms, and lifting Rentoul's
inert head slipped it underneath. As he straightened himself after the
performance of this office he became aware of a pair of eyes that
followed his movements with interest, and perceived that among those
silent figures one at least was wakeful and alert.
Hayhurst sat up, and then got upon his feet.
"Not all hogs this journey," he said. And added: "The bed where that
pillow came from will serve me better than the floor."
Lawless nodded.
"There's a bed apiece," he answered. "The floor to-night is good enough
for these."
He flung on fresh logs, and stepping between the closely packed forms,
took up the lamp from the table and led the way to the bedrooms. Before
separating for the night Hayhurst held out his hand.
"To show there's no ill-feeling," he explained with a self-conscious
laugh.
Notwithstanding the late carousal of the previous night, the morning
found the men early astir. Rentoul awoke only half sober, and had to
sharpen his faculties with a nip before he rose, and, despite his
overnight homily on personal cleanliness, wiped the dust from his hair
and beard with a grimy hand and sat down to breakfast unwashed. In the
clear light of day they were a rough, strangely assorted lot; only the
older man, Graves, with his air of distinction and education, stood out
from the rest, like a man-of-war among a flotilla of "tramps"--but a
man-of-war that has been in battle and come out of it badly damaged.
"Rum go, our meeting again, like this," he said to Lawless, while they
stood in the sunshine together and watched the others inspanning the
mules. "I'd ask you to make a return call, only,"--he lifted his
shoulders and smiled--"I'm a descendant of Cain--a wanderer upon the
earth. I'll own my six feet some day, I suppose, and come to anchor."
Lawless glanced at the speaker with interest.
"I'm something of a rolling stone myself," he answered. "I doubt I
shall ever lay claim to greater acreage than you."
"Ah!" Graves stroked the back of his head reflectively, and stared
vaguely away into space. "Failures!" he muttered... "Eh?... And to
think of some of the fellows who're on top!"
"It's another form of selfishness, theirs," Lawless replied. "They've
gone for the one thing, and stuck to it. A single idea would never
satisfy either you or me. One man takes Wealth for his mistress;
another, being polygamous, goes for a bevy of mistresses that we may
bring under a common heading--Pleasure. The fool pursues Ambition, and
the sentimentalist his Ideal... And when it comes to the finish--as
Rentoul says--who shall say which man's skull it is he turns up?"
Graves nodded assent.
"And yet," he said--"a man's talents... It seems rotten things should
pan out like that. I was never a white-haired boy exactly, but I had
ideas once of doing something... Rot, of course--damned rot! And
queer, too, how ideas run to seed before they fruit. I tell you a man
needs to be ever on the alert, watching his ideas to prevent the growth
exceeding the vitality. We don't prune and tend enough. We're so proud
of our ideas that we let 'em run up rank and weedy, till they seed
before time. It's the man with the strength of mind to nip the young
shoots and exert patience who sees the fruition of his ideas."
"I confess I don't understand," said Lawless, "how you came to allow all
yours to seed. With men like those," and he waved his hand in the
direction of the swearing, noisy group hitching the mules to the
disselboom with many loud and unnecessary oaths, "it's easy of
comprehension. But--"
Graves filled in the pause with a laugh. "Ah well!" he returned...
"Who can say? The secret to the riddle lies in what you spoke of just
now... I'm a polygamist."