"Hi--Yup, friends. Glad to see another white man or two in this sooty,
flame of fire sort of hole," sung out the new arrival in rough
geniality, as he slid from his pony. "Why, if it isn't Joe Fleetwood!
Hullo, Joe, but I'm glad to see you again; that I am."
Fleetwood tried to appear as though that sentiment were reciprocated, as
they shook hands. Then he introduced Wyvern.
"Glad to meet you, Mister," extending a great gnarled paw. In taking it
an intense and unconquerable aversion came upon Wyvern, an aversion
which he believed would have been there in any case, and apart from the
doubtful character Fleetwood had just given. Rawson, for his part, was
appraising Wyvern. So this was the man he had been instructed to "take
care of"; and sizing him up he thought the job would not be a difficult
one. True, the object of such attention was tall and broad and strong--
for the matter of that, Bully himself was no weakling. But he had a
confiding, unsuspicious look which seemed to relieve the undertaking of
nine tenths of its difficulties.
"Going through to Swaziland, I suppose, Joe? You'll not trade a knife
to skin a dog with round here, and, if there was any trade--well, you
see, old man--this is my pitch."
For all the boisterous geniality of the tone, there was a distinct note
of "warning off" underlying.
"Don't be anxious, Bully," said Fleetwood, easily. "I wouldn't overlap
your trade to the tune of a string of beads."
"Damned if you would! Ha-ha, don't I know that?" was the boisterous
reply. "Joe Fleetwood's only another name for straight--all the world
knows that. Don't you agree with me, Mister?"
"Absolutely," answered Wyvern.
"Known him long?"
"Rather," answered Fleetwood for him. "We fought together in the war up
here, and that's equivalent to knowing a man all his life. Why, I
shouldn't be here now if it hadn't been for him."
"Oh, shut off that, Joe," said Wyvern, hastily. "Besides, it's not
quite accurate."
"I shall cotton to you. Mister," cried Rawson, "I do like pluck, and
you've got it, I can see." He was thinking, however, that the piece of
information just obtained brought back all the difficulties. Clearly
the attachment existing between these two men was no ordinary one. In
dealing with Wyvern, he had also to reckon with Fleetwood, and Fleetwood
had the reputation of being an uncommonly useful man to have at one's
back in a crisis, otherwise an awkward customer if taken the wrong way.
Wyvern in no wise felt like reciprocating the compliment. It was all he
could do to conceal his disgust for this blatant, loud-mouthed,
blasphemous ruffian--the actual text of whose speech has perforce
undergone material deletion here. But he laughed good-naturedly and
then Fleetwood suggested drinks, a proposal uproariously acclaimed by
their visitor.
"Don't you hurry on, Joe," said the latter, after a couple had been
disposed of, and both fairly stiff. "Trek on and outspan at my place.
We can have some roaring games of cards--eh? Had no one to play against
for months. Fond of cards, Mister?"
"Hate 'em," answered Wyvern pleasantly.
"Been skinned too much, maybe?"
"Never gave anyone the chance."
Rawson stared. This to him was something of a phenomenon.
"Well--well, Joe and I must go at it then. Talking of being skinned,
the last fellow I served that way was a half-Dutchman, half-Jew sort of
devil. When he'd lost he wouldn't part--swore I'd cheated. Oh--I went
for him, but he flashed off a pistol at me--darned fool couldn't have
hit a haystack. He didn't get another chance of trying though. I was
on him. Lord--Lord--the way I pounded that chap. He couldn't stand on
his legs for ten days after, and as soon as he could I kicked him off
the place. Bully Rawson cheated!"
The righteous indignation of this last utterance was so inexpressibly
comical to anybody with the most rudimentary knowledge of its utterer's
character, that the effort not to roar out laughing cost Fleetwood
physical pain.
"Have another drink, Bully," he said, by way of sparing himself the
necessity of comment.
"Right you are, Joe," reaching over for the square bottle. "You're a
white man, you are, if ever there was one. Bully Rawson cheated!" he
went on, returning to the subject. "Mister, you may not know much of
me, but I'm honest Bully Rawson has his faults, but all the world'll
tell you he's honest, damn him! Eh, Joe?"
"Oh, we're all honest--as long as we've got enough dibs and the other
fellow hasn't. It reminds me of a good joke I heard in the Durban Club
the other day. There was a difference of opinion among a lot of the men
at lunch as to the shadiness or not of some transaction. At last
someone appealed to old Colonel Bowker, who hadn't taken any part in the
general jaw, and began in this way--`Now, Colonel, as an honest man,
what would you say--' `Eh? as a what?' `Why, an honest man.' `But I
don't know that I am an honest man,' says the old chap, in that dry,
lack-lustre way of his. Of course, there was a big grin all round, and
the first fellow expostulates, `Oh come--hang it all, Colonel. You
don't know--' `No, I don't. I've never been in want of a shilling or a
breakfast in my life.' There was a bigger grin then, for it wasn't a
bad way of putting the thing."
"Haw-haw! damn good!" pronounced Rawson, who had got into the benign
stage of potation, preparatory to the quarrelsome one, wherein he was
wont to become sometimes a dangerous animal, and at all times a
completely objectionable one. "We'll see now, Joe. You two fellows
come up and outspan at my place. We'll have a roaring, sparking time,
by--" some dozen deities and demons--"we will! I don't see a white man
every day, no by--" the same over again--"I don't! Tell your boys to
in-span, and--come along."
"Not to-day, Bully. Can't move the oxen another inch till they've had a
good long rest."
Wyvern could hardly conceal his relief--nor his overmastering disgust
Fleetwood's definition of this noble specimen of civilised humanity
recurred to him--"A thick-set, shaggy, broken-nosed brute whom any jury
would hang at sight without retiring from the box." Yes, there was
nothing wanting from that definition. And he was doomed to see a great
deal more of the subject before him, and knowing this the consciousness
sickened him.
"Well, come up and see my place then," persisted the enemy. "The day's
young yet, and it's only a matter of five mile; and you've got horses.
Tell your boys to saddle up, and we'll all go over together."
We have said that in anything to do with the expedition Wyvern followed
his friend's lead absolutely; wherefore when the latter agreed to this
proposition he made no objection by word or sign, taking for granted
that their interests would be better served in the long run by such a
course.
"Who's this?" said Bully Rawson, becoming suddenly alive to the presence
of Hlabulana. "He doesn't belong in these parts. I know all them what
does."
"Oh, he's an old friend of mine," answered Fleetwood carelessly. "He
fell in with us further down, and seemed to want to come along--just for
the fun of the thing apparently. So I let him."
"Sure he ain't a spy of those damned Usutus?" said Rawson suspiciously.
"Not he. He's no sort of a spy at all."
Even then Rawson eyed the man. Had he guessed the secret that lay
within that smooth, shaven, ringed pate as Hlabulana sat, watching the
white men with indifferent interest, there was no telling what dark and
bloody tragedy might not have been the result. For the acquisition of
such wealth as this there was no crime, however treacherous, at which
that white savage would have stuck; no bloodshed, however wholesale.
But the copper-hued savage knew how to guard his secret, as well as he
had known whom to entrust with it.
The first living object to meet them as they drew in sight of Rawson's
kraal, was a young native, and to him the meeting seemed not palatable.
It seemed, in fact, a terror. He was coming along the path at a trot,
and at sight of them pulled up short and looked wildly around as though
about to take to headlong flight Rawson, spurring his horse, went for
him like an arrow.
"Ho, Pakisa!" he roared, as he curled his whiplash round the boy's naked
ribs. "So thou art skulking again, instead of being at the
wood-cutting. Now I will flog thee back to it." And with every few
words he flung out the cutting whiplash with painful effect. In vain
the victim doubled. The horsemanship of his chastiser was perfect, and
reckless with liquor and sheer lust of cruelty the ruffian would turn as
quickly as the belaboured one. At last the latter managed to wriggle
into a patch of bush where the horse could not enter.
"Keep cool, Wyvern," Fleetwood took the opportunity of saying in an
undertone. "We don't know, of course, what that young _schelm_ may have
been up to."
"What a sickening sweep!" was Wyvern's reply, with a set face.
"Well, that young brute's got what he won't forget in a hurry," cried
Rawson, rejoining them. "Skulked away from his job directly my back was
turned, and slunk up here to cadge some _tywala_. One of my wives is
his sister, you know."
"One of your what?" said Wyvern.
"Wives," shouted Bully, with an evil grin, enjoying the other's look of
disgust. "Wives. I've only two of 'em at present--I've had lots in my
time--and I shall have to lick one of 'em for this, too."
"You seemed rather--well, rough on your brother-in-law," answered
Wyvern, with a sneer he could no longer repress.
"You've got to be. Look here, Wyvern," waxing familiar, "I take it
you're one of them raw, out from home Britishers who think the way to
_baas_ niggers is to soft sawder them. You may take it from me then
that it ain't. Oh, Joe there'll tell you exactly the same for that
matter."
"Is he a Zulu?" with a jerk of the hand in the direction of the
vanishment of the licked one.
"Zulu? Not much. He's a Swazi."
"I wonder you're not afraid of them poisoning you."
"Look here. What the devil d'you mean?"
The man's face had gone a sort of dirty ash colour. He sat glowering at
Wyvern with evil eyes. The latter thought he saw the gnarled dirty hand
which held the bridle-rein shake--and it may have done so, for it may
have been that a refrain was sounding in this ruffian's ears: "The
Snake-doctor--_whau_! his _muti_ is great and subtle!"
"What I said. And now look here," went on Wyvern very stern and
decisive, "I suppose I can't interfere in your domestic affairs, if only
that it would make things worse for the poor wretches afterwards. But I
don't choose to be present at any woman-thrashing performance--black or
white. So I'll wish you good-bye."
The sudden fury that came into the man's forbidding face was rather
terrific. Then as suddenly it faded out.
"Hang it, Wyvern, couldn't you see that I was only humbugging. That
young rip had to be taught a lesson, but you didn't suppose I was really
going to whack a girl, did you? Bully Rawson has his faults, but no one
can say he ain't soft-hearted at bottom. Why, I wouldn't do such a
thing for the world."
Wyvern did not exactly believe this; still he felt sure that the
threatened chastisement would not now take place. And Fleetwood had
made no move towards actively supporting him, and his rule of being
guided by Fleetwood still held.
"I should hope not," he answered, but rather shortly, riding on with
them again.
"Why, of course not Man alive, but you mustn't take everything we say up
here as serious. Eh, Joe?" returned Rawson, with huge geniality. "Now
we'll go inside and have another drink and then I want to show you my
wood-cutting place."
If it be imagined for a moment that the speaker had been shamed into
relenting, either by Wyvern's words or demeanour, why the notion may
immediately be classed among popular delusions. What was behind it was
this. It had suddenly been borne in upon him, that to have Wyvern for a
friend would render the allotted task of "taking care" of him infinitely
easier than if he should sheer off, and hold himself in a state of
suspicious and therefore watchful aloofness. Under his own eyes his
opportunities would be greater: whereas his intended victim away, and
thoroughly on his guard--why, then the matter was not so easy. And,
even then, there flashed through his evil brain a hell-sent idea. The
wood-cutting place. There would be a royal opportunity there; and with
the hideous thought he had blossomed forth into a rugged geniality
again. He could not afford to scare away his bird.