Lawless stood in the sunshine and watched the departure of this strange
aggregate of human limitation setting forth on its journey into the
infinitudes. The clumsy waggon, drawn by its team of four mules, with
the dirty faded hood of yellowish green shading the wain, bumped and
rumbled over the uneven ground. The jingling of the harness, the
creaking of the heavy wheels, and the loud and too frequent cracking of
the long whip, struck separate and not inharmonious notes of sound in
the stillness of the morning air. And above these sounds a strong voice
rang out heartily:
"Good-bye, Grit."
The men in the waggon started to sing, "_For he's a jolly good fellow_."
The rude music of their voices came back strongly to Lawless' ears, and
then grew fainter, and yet more faint, until only the silence reigned
about him, and the waggon showed smaller and smaller as it trailed
slowly across the veld, farther and farther into the illimitable blue
distance. Hayhurst had ridden off some time before, taking an opposite
direction to that followed by the waggon. The occupant of the shanty
was left alone. The world seemed to have emptied suddenly and to have
overlooked himself in its indiscriminate sweeping away of all life.
He gazed about him at the solitudes--waste land on all sides, stretching
away league upon league in one great sameness,--vast, unchanging open
spaces of veld, green and brown and orange, in which the yellow stones
shone warmly in the sunshine, and the dew that lay heavily on the ground
like a veil of silver flashed a prismatic defiance with the fire of
myriads of gems.
He turned about and went into the house. The advent of these men had
been unwelcome, their departure left a blank feeling of desolation
behind. He had had as much of the solitudes as was good for him, he
decided; if Van Bleit arrived, he would settle matters with him speedily
and return to the beaten track. He felt depressed, and knew not that it
was the influence of Graves' personality working upon his mind. This
man who had stirred up thoughts of failure by his talk, who in his
person stood for waste--the result of neither competition nor
intellectual incapacity, but of his own ineffectually--had set him
thinking of the purposelessness of his life, its want of aim, of every
high and right intention that once had actuated him, and which he had
flung aside and trampled on in weak resentment against the tide of
circumstances he had himself set loose and made no attempt to stem. He
also stood for waste--the waste of powers which had left him stunted
mentally and morally enervated. It is waste that is responsible for the
world's great failures.
He made an effort to shake off the mood that held him, and moving across
the littered room surveyed the disordered breakfast-table with disgust.
Empty bottles stood upon the table, and lay under it where they had been
rolled the night before when they had yielded the last drop of their
contents. They had been thirsty souls, these men who had happened out
of the darkness and vanished again with the light,--failures, in a
certain sense, each one of them,--a queer conglomerate of misdirected
energy.
Lawless had a feeling that he ought to reduce the muddle to order, but
he had only a vague idea how to set about it. He caught up the empty
bottles, and going outside with them flung them out upon the veld.
"It's no use, Grit, playing Aunt Sally with those bottles. You can't
hide your debauch from me."
He turned his face with a laugh and a look of quick relief in the
direction of the voice, and there stood Tottie in her short tweed skirt,
with a golden lock straggling rakishly over one eye, and her lips
unusually pallid.
"You! Gods! I'm glad," he cried.
"Don't stare at me like that," she exclaimed,--"look somewhere else,
can't you? I won't have the eye of man upon me until I have attended to
my toilet. There wasn't the vestige of a glass in the hut, you
lunatic."
He followed her into the house.
"What an orgy!" she exclaimed, with a swift glance round the untidy
room. Her wandering gaze came back to his face and rested upon it
curiously. "Reaction!" she murmured.
"Eh?" he said.
She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him towards the door.
"You're looking cheap. Clear out of this. I'll put things right. Come
back in half an hour, and you'll find breakfast ready."
"I've breakfasted," he answered indifferently.
"Have you? Then you can return in half an hour and repeat the
performance with me."
"I want to ride into town," he said.
"Yes, of course. I'll go with you. You might put in your time now
grooming the horses. It'll keep you out of mischief, anyhow... It may
be the last ride we'll take together for many a day."
He looked swiftly at her. She was trying to hide her feelings, but it
was evident that the near termination of this life in the wilds which he
had been contemplating with satisfaction, affected her differently. She
had enjoyed the uneventful weeks with only his society to companion the
long days. It had been a fresh experience which a really strong
affection for him had made altogether agreeable. She turned her back on
him, and putting up a hand jerked back the straying lock of hair
impatiently.
"Get out, Grit. You're in the way," she said.
He faced about, and without a word strode out into the sunshine.
It was rather a silent ride they took--that last ride together into
Stellenbosch. Lawless was preoccupied, and the woman too appeared busy
with her thoughts. She asked him once what he purposed doing if Van
Bleit decided not to come up, and he answered shortly:
"If he doesn't come to me, I go to him."
She looked him straight in the eyes.
"You mean to best him, Grit," she said.
"Yes."
"Remember, I'm your lieutenant."
"Yes," he said again. And they fell into silence as before.
Van Bleit's answer acted somewhat as a set-back to their plans. Lawless
had never contemplated the addition of Denzil to their numbers. It came
altogether as a surprise.
"This complicates matters," he said. "Looks fishy... rather as though
he had his doubts of me. And yet I'll swear when I last saw him--"
He broke off and thought about the matter.
"It won't be so easy to outwit two," he said. Then a smile of
satisfaction dawned in his eyes. "It's safe to predict, if they're both
up here, we shall have a chance of seeing those letters..."
Van Bleit and Denzil on their arrival hired a Cape cart from the town
and drove the twenty miles across the veld. They congratulated
themselves long ere they reached their destination on the foresight that
had decided them to bring only a small amount of luggage.
"No man," Van Bleit observed to his companion, "could stick it here for
long. What a cheek the fellow has to imagine a woman--and such a
woman--is going to find his companionship sufficient to reconcile her to
this sort of thing! It's not surprising Tottie scooted."
Denzil looked out across the unvarying scene with increasing
dissatisfaction.
"Lots of chaps have the Turk in them. They'd like to veil their women,"
he returned, with no particular interest in the subject.
He was watching without appreciation the wonderful effects of the
sunshine on the inimitable blending of colour in the veld, and the
slowly moving shadows that swept across it where the clouds veiled the
golden light. A soft wind was blowing, a wind that had the warm feel of
the spring in it with its promise of early summer. The Cape winter was
passing, going its way unmarked, even as it had come. But here on the
high veld the nights were cold yet, and the crispness of the mornings
still reminded a man of the feel of an English spring.
Van Bleit examined his finger-nails--which was a habit with him--and
laughed.
"That would be all right if the women didn't prefer being looked at," he
said. "The Turk will have to awake to the fact one day that the veil is
out of fashion."
It was afternoon when they reached the shanty. They had had three
stoppages on the journey owing to the breaking of different parts of the
harness, that was, native fashion, repaired with string. The horses
were outspanned, and left to graze, while the coloured driver flung
himself face downwards in the full rays of the sun to sleep for a couple
of hours before making the return journey. Van Bleit settled with him,
and bade him return for them in three days.
"Make it four," urged Lawless. "You're in a devil of a hurry to quit."
"I should think so," Van Bleit responded. But he made the alteration in
the time. "What on earth do you do with yourself up here? I'd want to
cut my throat if I stayed a week."
"Oh! it hasn't been half bad. I was getting a bit sick of my own
company, though."
"All alone, eh?"
"All alone," Lawless answered. "It was all right while she was here;
but the life was too domesticated for her taste. I was on the point of
chucking it myself when I sent you that wire. It occurred to me that
this might suit your book."
"Awfully decent of you," Van Bleit replied. But his eyes narrowed
vindictively. He had a score to pay off against this man. His
treatment at the hands of Mrs Lawless was, he felt convinced,
attributable to him somehow. Grit had played him false in more ways
than one.
"It's not a bad little hutch," he said, as he looked round the interior.
"Oh! it's all right... A bit cramped." Lawless threw open a door.
"The bedrooms lead out," he explained,--"two of them. Boxes, of course;
but they serve for single rooms. You and Denzil can make shift for a
few nights. I'll bunk up in here."
Van Bleit walked into the bedroom.
"Nonsense!" he replied decidedly. "We aren't turning you out of your
room. Denzil and I will sleep together. I'll not hear of any other
arrangement, Grit."
"As you like," Lawless answered.
Van Bleit went into the inner room.
"Check number one, Master Grit," he murmured. Aloud he said: "I'd like
a wash, old man. And then, if you've anything to eat, we won't say no."
When they were alone together, Van Bleit drew Denzil's attention to the
thinness of the partition between the two rooms, and laid a significant
finger upon his lips.
"Leaks," he said, and winked expressively.
He put his eye to a crack in the boarding.
"That's where he'll spy upon us when he thinks we're unsuspecting," he
whispered, coming back. Then, whistling cheerily, he divested himself
of his coat and plunged his face into a basin of cold water.
Later, when, having eaten, they sat outside smoking and talking, while
the sun dipped below the horizon and the low wind died away, Van Bleit
spoke of his trial and the night at the bungalow, giving a word picture
of the shooting which by constant repetition he was beginning to
believe. The recital made him something of a hero, but it did not
reflect well on Colonel Grey.
"It was a damned trap," he finished, and blew a cloud of smoke into the
quiet air. "People who set traps for me are apt to find themselves
ensnared."
"I knew Simmonds. He seemed a decent, harmless sort of chap," Lawless
remarked after a pause. "I can't associate him with traps, somehow. He
lent me ten pounds once, and never bothered me to return it. I'm glad
to remember now that I settled my account with him."
"I've settled my account with him too," Van Bleit rejoined... "I don't
go back on my word whatever the consequences."
He was growing excited. Denzil, whose impulses did not lead him into
indiscretions, brought him up suddenly with the quietly uttered remark:
"No one could have been more upset than you were over Simmonds' death,
dear fellow."
"That's a fact," Van Bleit returned readily. "It was a shock to me.
But it was my life against his. I fancy most men value their own lives
more highly than another's. Simmonds tricked me to the bungalow, and he
paid the cost. He meant mischief. It isn't wise for any man to attempt
that sort of game with me."
Lawless smoked in silence, and Denzil, under the pretext of getting a
light for his pipe, nudged his friend significantly. Van Bleit in his
excitement was giving himself away.
"Well, anyway," Van Bleit resumed more collectedly after a pause, "he's
gone, poor devil! Let him Rip. My resentment doesn't cross the
border." He laughed. "I require a certain amount of the commodity this
side the Styx... most chaps do. I reckon you've got an enemy or so
yourself, Grit?"
"I'm pretty well at enmity with all mankind," Lawless answered. "And my
greatest enemy, I take it, is myself."
"That's rot," Van Bleit returned. "Every man has at least a sneaking
affection for himself, and no enemy entertains the slightest regard for
the object of his animosity."
"There is something in that," Lawless agreed, and thought for a moment.
"Nevertheless, a man who makes enemies has an enemy in himself," he
added with conviction. "It is so much easier to win friends."
"My experience hasn't tended to that conclusion," Van Bleit replied.
"Friends are like the diamonds men dig out of the bowels of the earth at
great expense of time and labour, valuable on account of their
scarcity."
"You've had some good friends yourself, Karl," Denzil interposed with a
wink. "Take Lawless, for instance. How many men would stay on in this
God-forsaken hole solely to accommodate another?"
"There wasn't much sacrifice in that," Lawless replied. "The house is
mine till the end of the month. So long as I can get anyone to bear me
company there isn't any incentive to leave it. When you go I clear out
also. I can't stick it here alone. The place has served its purpose.
I've had a good time on the whole. But, as anyone can see, it's not
intended for a single man. In all these weeks I haven't seen a soul
besides yourselves, except for a party of prospectors who outspanned one
night."
He rose and knocked the ash from his pipe. Away in the distance he had
seen a pinpoint of light like a dull star low down upon the horizon, and
he knew that Tottie had lighted her candle in the lonely hut a quarter
of a mile away. He planted himself between Van Bleit's vision and the
hut.
"It's getting chilly," he said. "I've no particular fancy for watching
the stars: Have you?"
"No," Van Bleit answered, and he and Denzil rose and accompanied their
host indoors.
"It's a dashed sight more comfortable inside," he remarked.
Lawless drew the outer door to and fastened it. Neither of them had
observed that pinpoint of flickering yellow light that was more like the
elusive glimmer of a firefly than the luminous brilliance of a star. He
wondered how he would have explained it had they remarked on the
unexpected illumination in the hut.