Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.The Net Spread.“Look at this—and this. Five altogether, and I only had six chances. Not bad, is it? They were beastly wild, you know, and I had to scramble all over that second kopje after them.”He flung down two substantial feathered bunches, representingin totothe guinea-fowl just enumerated.“You are a dear good boy, Justin,” replied Hermia, looking down at the spoils which he had literally laid at her feet, and then up into his eyes. They were clear and blue, the clearer for the healthy brown of the face. How handsome he was, she thought, glancing with a thrill of approval at the tall well set-up form, in all the glory of youth and the full vigour of health. “You are really very reliable—and—you need not go yet. Come in now, and well put away the gun, and you shall stay and have some supper with me; for really I am awfully lonely. Unless, of course, you are afraid of going to your camp so late. They say lion spoor has been seen again.”“If it had been the devil’s spoor it would matter about as much or as little,” he replied, with huge and delighted contempt.“Sh! Don’t talk about unpleasant subjects—or people,” she retorted. “It isn’t lucky.”They had entered the house. After the glow of light without, it seemed almost dark, and the sun had just gone off the world, leaving the brief pretence of an African twilight. An arm stole around her, imprisoning her tightly.“I want my reward for having carried out your instructions so efficiently,” said the young man. “Now give it me.”“Reward! Virtue is its own reward, you silly boy,” answered Hermia, glancing up into his eyes, with her mocking ones. “In this case, it will have to be.”“Will it indeed?” he retorted shortly; and, stirred by the maddening proximity, likewise encouraged by a certain insidious yielding of her form within the enforced embrace, he dropped his lips on hers, and kissed them full, passionately, again and again.“There, that will do,” she gasped, striving to restrain the thrill that ran through her frame. “I didn’t say you might do that. Really, Justin, I shall have to forbid you the house. Let me go, do you hear?”“Hear? Yes, but I don’t intend to obey. Oh—damn!”The last remark was addressed at large as he changed his mind with marvellous alacrity, and, wheeling round, was endeavouring to hang the bandolier to the wall upon a pin that would hardly have held a Christmas card, as though his life depended upon it. For there had suddenly entered behind them one of the small Mashuna boys who did the house and other work—had entered silently withal, the sooty little rascal; and now his goggle eyes were starting from their sockets with curiosity as he went about doing whatever he had to do, sending furtive and interested glances at these two, whom he had surprised in such unwonted proximity.“See, now, where your impulsiveness comes in,” said Hermia, when the interrupter had gone out.“Is that the name of that small black nigger?” said Justin Spence, innocently. “I always thought he was yours.”“Don’t be foolish, dear. It’s a serious matter.”“Pooh! Only a small black nigger. A thing that isn’t more than half human.”“Even a small black nigger owns a tongue, and is quite human enough to know how to wag it,” she reminded him.“I’ll cut it out for the young dog if he does,” was the ferocious rejoinder.“Excellent, as a figure of speech, my dear Justin. Only, unfortunately, in real life, even in Mashunaland, it can’t be done.”“Well, shall I give him a scare over it?”“You can’t, Justin. In the first place, you could hardly make him understand. In the second, even if you could, you would probably make matters worse. Leave it alone.”“Oh, it was on your account. It was of you I was thinking.”“Then you don’t mind on your own?”“Not a hang.”She glanced at him in silent approval. This straight, erect fearlessness—this readiness to defy the whole world for her sake appealed to her. She was of the mind of those women of other times and peoples—the possession of whom depended on the possessor’s ability to take and keep.“Well, I must leave you now for a little while,” she said. “Those two pickannins are only of any use when I am looking after them. They haven’t even learnt to lay a table.”“Let me help you.”“No. Candidly, I don’t want you. Be a good boy, Justin, and sit still and rest after your walk. Oh, by the way—” And unlocking a cupboard, she produced a bottle of whisky. “I was very forgetful. You’ll like something to drink after the said walk?”“No, thanks. Really I don’t.”“You don’t? No wonder you’ve done no good prospecting. A prospector who refuses a drink after a hot afternoon’s exertion! Why, you haven’t learnt the rudiments of your craft yet. But you must want one, and so I’ll fix it up for you. There, say when—is that right?” she went on brightly, holding out the glass. “Yes, I know what you are going to say—of course it is, if I mixed it. You ought to be ashamed to utter such a threadbare banality.”He took the glass from her hand, but set it down untasted. The magnetism of her eyes had drawn him. It seemed to madden him, to sap his very reason, to stir every fibre in his body.“No,” she said decidedly, deftly eluding the clasp in which he would fain have imprisoned her again, and extending a warning hand. “No, not again,—so soon,” she added mentally. “Remember, I have not forgiven you for that outrageous piece of impertinence, and don’t know that I shall either. I am wondering how you could have dared.”If ever there was a past mistress in the art of fooling the other sex, assuredly Hermia Blachland might lay claim to that distinction. Standing there in the doorway, flashing back a bright, half-teasing, half-caressing look, which utterly belied the seeming sternness of her words, the effect she produced was such as to turn himinstanterinto a most complete fool, because her thorough and subservient slave. Then she went out.We have said that one of the large circular huts within the enclosure served the purpose of a kitchen, and hither she proceeded with the exceedingly useful and unromantic object of getting supper ready. Yet, standing there in the midst of stuffy and uninviting surroundings, as she supervised the Mashuna boys and the frying of the antelope steaks, even that prosaic occupation was not entirely devoid of romance to-night; for somehow she found herself discharging it extra carefully, for was it not for him?“Now, Tickey, keep those goggle eyes of yours on what you’re doing, instead of rolling them around on everything and everybody else,” she warned, apostrophising the small boy whose entrance had been so inopportune a short time ago.“Yes, missis,” replied the urchin, his round face splitting into a stripe of dazzling white as he grinned from ear to ear, whether at the recollection of what he had recently beheld, or out of sheer unthinking light-heartedness. Then he turned and made some remark in their own language to his companion, which caused that sooty imp to grin and chuckle too.“What’s that you’re grinning at, you little scamp?” said Hermia, sharply, with a meaning glance at a thin sjambok which hung on the wall, a cut or two from which was now and again necessary to keep these diminutive servitors up to the mark.“No be angry, missis. Tickey, he say, ‘Missis, she awful damn pretty.’”Hermia choked down a well-nigh uncontrollable explosion of laughter.“You mustn’t use that word, Primrose,” she said, trying to look stern. “It’s a bad word.”“Bad word? How that, missis? Baas, he say it. Baas in dere—Baas Sepence,” was the somewhat perplexing rejoinder.“Well, it’s a white man’s word; not a word for children, black or white,” explained Hermia, lamely.The imps chuckled. “I no say it, missis,” pursued Primrose. “Tickey, he say missis awful beastly pretty. Always want to look at her. Work no well done, missis’ fault. Dat what Tickey say. Always want look at missis.”“You’d better look at what you’re doing now, you monkey, and do it properly too, or you know what’s likely to happen,” rejoined Hermia. But the implied threat in this case was absolutely an empty one, and the sooty scamps knew it. They knew, too, how to get on the soft side of their mistress.That, however, was the side very much to the fore this evening. Throughout her prosaic occupation, her mind would recur with a thrill to that scene of a short half-hour ago, and already she longed for its repetition. But she was not going to give him too much. She must tantalise him sufficiently, must keep him on tenterhooks, not make herself too cheap. But was she not tantalising herself too? Certainly she was, but therein lay the zest, the excitement which lent keenness to the sport.They sat down to table together. The door stood open on account of the heat, and, every now and then, winged insects, attracted by the light, would come whizzing round the lamp. There was a soft, home-like look about the room, a kind of pervading presence, and Justin Spence, basking in that presence, felt intoxicatingly happy. He could hardly keep his eyes from her as she sat at the head of the modest table, and the artificial light, somewhat shaded, toned down any defects of feature or colouring, and enhanced twenty-fold the expression and animation which with her physical contour, constituted the insidious and undefinable attraction which was her greatest charm. Looking at these two it was hard to believe they were the inmates of a rough pioneer hut in the far wilds of Mashunaland, but for the attire of one of them; for a white silk shirt, rather open at the throat, guiltless of coat or waistcoat, a leathern belt and riding breeches hardly constitutes evening dress in more civilised countries.He was telling her about himself, his position and prospects, to all of which she was listening keenly, especially as regards the latter, yet without seeming to. She knew, none better, how to lead him on to talk, always without seeming to, and now, to-night, she was simply turning him inside out. He had prospects and good solid ones. He had only come out here partly from love of adventure, partly because, after all, prospects are only prospects; and he wanted to make a fortune—a quick and dazzling fortune by gold-digging. So far, he had been no nearer making it than most others out there on the same tack, in that, for all the gold he had struck, he might as well have sunk a shaft on Hampstead Heath. Still, there was no knowing, and all the exciting possibilities were there to spur him on.Afterwards they sat outside. The night, though warm and balmy, was not oppressive. And it was very still. The screech of the tree frog, the distant yelp of a jackal, the deeper howl of a hyena, broke in upon it from time to time, and the rhythmic drone of voices from the servants’ quarters. This soon ceased and the world seemed given over to night—and these two.“How will you find your way back?” Hermia was saying. “You’ll get lost.”“That’s quite likely. So I’m not going to try. You’ll have to give me a shakedown here.”“No. Justin, dear, believe me it would be much better not. You must even risk the chance of getting lost.”“What if I’m afraid? Suppose one of those lions they’ve been talking about got hold of me? It would be your doing.”Hermia smiled to herself. The excuse was too transparent. He afraid! The gleam of her white teeth in the darkness betrayed her.“It’s no laughing matter,” he said. “Listen, darling, you don’t really want to get rid of me?”“It would be better if you were to go, dearest,” she answered, slipping her hand into his. “Believe me, it would.”The softness of her voice, the thrill of her touch simply intoxicated him with ecstasy, and there was an unsteadiness in his tone as he answered—“Surely in the wilds of Mashunaland we can chuck conventionalities to the winds. If it was any one else who asked you for a shakedown you wouldn’t turn him out. Why me, then?”“Because it is you, don’t you see?” was the reply, breathed low and soft, as the pressure of her fingers tightened.They could hear each other’s heart-beats in the still dead silence—could see the light of each other’s eyes in the gleam of the myriad stars. The trailing streak of a meteor shot across the dark, velvety vault, showing in its momentary gleam to each the face of the other. Suddenly Hermia started violently.“Hark! what is that?” she cried, springing to her feet.For a loud harsh shout had cleft the stillness of the night. It was followed by another and another. Coming as it did upon the dead silence, the interruption was, to say the least, startling: all the more so to these two, their nerves in a state of high-strung tension.“Nothing very alarming,” returned Spence. “You must have heard it before. Only a troop of baboons kicking up a row in the kopjes.”“Of course; but somehow it sounded so loud and so near.”It was destined to do so still more. For even as she spoke there arose a most indescribable tumult—shrieks and yells and chattering, and over all that harsh, resounding bark: and it came from the granite kopje nearest the house—where Spence had found the troop of guinea-fowl that afternoon.“What a row they’re making!” he went on. “Hallo! By Jove! D’you hear that?”For over and above the simian clamour, another sound was discernible—a sound of unmistakable import. No one need go to Mashunaland to hear it, nor anything like as far. A stroll across Regent’s Park towards feeding time at the Zoo will do just as well. It was the deep, throaty, ravening roar of hungry lions.“Phew! that accounts for all the shindy!” said Justin. “Now do you want me to go, Hermia? There isn’t much show for one against a lion in the dark, and, judging from the racket, there must be several. Well, shall I start?”She had drawn closer to him instinctively; not that there was any danger, for the stockade was high and strong—in fact, had been erected with an eye to such emergency. Now they were strained together in a close embrace, this time she returning his kisses with more than his own passion.“You are mine—mine at last, my heart, my life!” he whispered. And the answer came back, merely breathed—“Yes, I am. All yours.”And above, the myriad eyes of the starry heavens looked down; and without, the horrible throaty growl of the ravening beasts rent the night.

“Look at this—and this. Five altogether, and I only had six chances. Not bad, is it? They were beastly wild, you know, and I had to scramble all over that second kopje after them.”

He flung down two substantial feathered bunches, representingin totothe guinea-fowl just enumerated.

“You are a dear good boy, Justin,” replied Hermia, looking down at the spoils which he had literally laid at her feet, and then up into his eyes. They were clear and blue, the clearer for the healthy brown of the face. How handsome he was, she thought, glancing with a thrill of approval at the tall well set-up form, in all the glory of youth and the full vigour of health. “You are really very reliable—and—you need not go yet. Come in now, and well put away the gun, and you shall stay and have some supper with me; for really I am awfully lonely. Unless, of course, you are afraid of going to your camp so late. They say lion spoor has been seen again.”

“If it had been the devil’s spoor it would matter about as much or as little,” he replied, with huge and delighted contempt.

“Sh! Don’t talk about unpleasant subjects—or people,” she retorted. “It isn’t lucky.”

They had entered the house. After the glow of light without, it seemed almost dark, and the sun had just gone off the world, leaving the brief pretence of an African twilight. An arm stole around her, imprisoning her tightly.

“I want my reward for having carried out your instructions so efficiently,” said the young man. “Now give it me.”

“Reward! Virtue is its own reward, you silly boy,” answered Hermia, glancing up into his eyes, with her mocking ones. “In this case, it will have to be.”

“Will it indeed?” he retorted shortly; and, stirred by the maddening proximity, likewise encouraged by a certain insidious yielding of her form within the enforced embrace, he dropped his lips on hers, and kissed them full, passionately, again and again.

“There, that will do,” she gasped, striving to restrain the thrill that ran through her frame. “I didn’t say you might do that. Really, Justin, I shall have to forbid you the house. Let me go, do you hear?”

“Hear? Yes, but I don’t intend to obey. Oh—damn!”

The last remark was addressed at large as he changed his mind with marvellous alacrity, and, wheeling round, was endeavouring to hang the bandolier to the wall upon a pin that would hardly have held a Christmas card, as though his life depended upon it. For there had suddenly entered behind them one of the small Mashuna boys who did the house and other work—had entered silently withal, the sooty little rascal; and now his goggle eyes were starting from their sockets with curiosity as he went about doing whatever he had to do, sending furtive and interested glances at these two, whom he had surprised in such unwonted proximity.

“See, now, where your impulsiveness comes in,” said Hermia, when the interrupter had gone out.

“Is that the name of that small black nigger?” said Justin Spence, innocently. “I always thought he was yours.”

“Don’t be foolish, dear. It’s a serious matter.”

“Pooh! Only a small black nigger. A thing that isn’t more than half human.”

“Even a small black nigger owns a tongue, and is quite human enough to know how to wag it,” she reminded him.

“I’ll cut it out for the young dog if he does,” was the ferocious rejoinder.

“Excellent, as a figure of speech, my dear Justin. Only, unfortunately, in real life, even in Mashunaland, it can’t be done.”

“Well, shall I give him a scare over it?”

“You can’t, Justin. In the first place, you could hardly make him understand. In the second, even if you could, you would probably make matters worse. Leave it alone.”

“Oh, it was on your account. It was of you I was thinking.”

“Then you don’t mind on your own?”

“Not a hang.”

She glanced at him in silent approval. This straight, erect fearlessness—this readiness to defy the whole world for her sake appealed to her. She was of the mind of those women of other times and peoples—the possession of whom depended on the possessor’s ability to take and keep.

“Well, I must leave you now for a little while,” she said. “Those two pickannins are only of any use when I am looking after them. They haven’t even learnt to lay a table.”

“Let me help you.”

“No. Candidly, I don’t want you. Be a good boy, Justin, and sit still and rest after your walk. Oh, by the way—” And unlocking a cupboard, she produced a bottle of whisky. “I was very forgetful. You’ll like something to drink after the said walk?”

“No, thanks. Really I don’t.”

“You don’t? No wonder you’ve done no good prospecting. A prospector who refuses a drink after a hot afternoon’s exertion! Why, you haven’t learnt the rudiments of your craft yet. But you must want one, and so I’ll fix it up for you. There, say when—is that right?” she went on brightly, holding out the glass. “Yes, I know what you are going to say—of course it is, if I mixed it. You ought to be ashamed to utter such a threadbare banality.”

He took the glass from her hand, but set it down untasted. The magnetism of her eyes had drawn him. It seemed to madden him, to sap his very reason, to stir every fibre in his body.

“No,” she said decidedly, deftly eluding the clasp in which he would fain have imprisoned her again, and extending a warning hand. “No, not again,—so soon,” she added mentally. “Remember, I have not forgiven you for that outrageous piece of impertinence, and don’t know that I shall either. I am wondering how you could have dared.”

If ever there was a past mistress in the art of fooling the other sex, assuredly Hermia Blachland might lay claim to that distinction. Standing there in the doorway, flashing back a bright, half-teasing, half-caressing look, which utterly belied the seeming sternness of her words, the effect she produced was such as to turn himinstanterinto a most complete fool, because her thorough and subservient slave. Then she went out.

We have said that one of the large circular huts within the enclosure served the purpose of a kitchen, and hither she proceeded with the exceedingly useful and unromantic object of getting supper ready. Yet, standing there in the midst of stuffy and uninviting surroundings, as she supervised the Mashuna boys and the frying of the antelope steaks, even that prosaic occupation was not entirely devoid of romance to-night; for somehow she found herself discharging it extra carefully, for was it not for him?

“Now, Tickey, keep those goggle eyes of yours on what you’re doing, instead of rolling them around on everything and everybody else,” she warned, apostrophising the small boy whose entrance had been so inopportune a short time ago.

“Yes, missis,” replied the urchin, his round face splitting into a stripe of dazzling white as he grinned from ear to ear, whether at the recollection of what he had recently beheld, or out of sheer unthinking light-heartedness. Then he turned and made some remark in their own language to his companion, which caused that sooty imp to grin and chuckle too.

“What’s that you’re grinning at, you little scamp?” said Hermia, sharply, with a meaning glance at a thin sjambok which hung on the wall, a cut or two from which was now and again necessary to keep these diminutive servitors up to the mark.

“No be angry, missis. Tickey, he say, ‘Missis, she awful damn pretty.’”

Hermia choked down a well-nigh uncontrollable explosion of laughter.

“You mustn’t use that word, Primrose,” she said, trying to look stern. “It’s a bad word.”

“Bad word? How that, missis? Baas, he say it. Baas in dere—Baas Sepence,” was the somewhat perplexing rejoinder.

“Well, it’s a white man’s word; not a word for children, black or white,” explained Hermia, lamely.

The imps chuckled. “I no say it, missis,” pursued Primrose. “Tickey, he say missis awful beastly pretty. Always want to look at her. Work no well done, missis’ fault. Dat what Tickey say. Always want look at missis.”

“You’d better look at what you’re doing now, you monkey, and do it properly too, or you know what’s likely to happen,” rejoined Hermia. But the implied threat in this case was absolutely an empty one, and the sooty scamps knew it. They knew, too, how to get on the soft side of their mistress.

That, however, was the side very much to the fore this evening. Throughout her prosaic occupation, her mind would recur with a thrill to that scene of a short half-hour ago, and already she longed for its repetition. But she was not going to give him too much. She must tantalise him sufficiently, must keep him on tenterhooks, not make herself too cheap. But was she not tantalising herself too? Certainly she was, but therein lay the zest, the excitement which lent keenness to the sport.

They sat down to table together. The door stood open on account of the heat, and, every now and then, winged insects, attracted by the light, would come whizzing round the lamp. There was a soft, home-like look about the room, a kind of pervading presence, and Justin Spence, basking in that presence, felt intoxicatingly happy. He could hardly keep his eyes from her as she sat at the head of the modest table, and the artificial light, somewhat shaded, toned down any defects of feature or colouring, and enhanced twenty-fold the expression and animation which with her physical contour, constituted the insidious and undefinable attraction which was her greatest charm. Looking at these two it was hard to believe they were the inmates of a rough pioneer hut in the far wilds of Mashunaland, but for the attire of one of them; for a white silk shirt, rather open at the throat, guiltless of coat or waistcoat, a leathern belt and riding breeches hardly constitutes evening dress in more civilised countries.

He was telling her about himself, his position and prospects, to all of which she was listening keenly, especially as regards the latter, yet without seeming to. She knew, none better, how to lead him on to talk, always without seeming to, and now, to-night, she was simply turning him inside out. He had prospects and good solid ones. He had only come out here partly from love of adventure, partly because, after all, prospects are only prospects; and he wanted to make a fortune—a quick and dazzling fortune by gold-digging. So far, he had been no nearer making it than most others out there on the same tack, in that, for all the gold he had struck, he might as well have sunk a shaft on Hampstead Heath. Still, there was no knowing, and all the exciting possibilities were there to spur him on.

Afterwards they sat outside. The night, though warm and balmy, was not oppressive. And it was very still. The screech of the tree frog, the distant yelp of a jackal, the deeper howl of a hyena, broke in upon it from time to time, and the rhythmic drone of voices from the servants’ quarters. This soon ceased and the world seemed given over to night—and these two.

“How will you find your way back?” Hermia was saying. “You’ll get lost.”

“That’s quite likely. So I’m not going to try. You’ll have to give me a shakedown here.”

“No. Justin, dear, believe me it would be much better not. You must even risk the chance of getting lost.”

“What if I’m afraid? Suppose one of those lions they’ve been talking about got hold of me? It would be your doing.”

Hermia smiled to herself. The excuse was too transparent. He afraid! The gleam of her white teeth in the darkness betrayed her.

“It’s no laughing matter,” he said. “Listen, darling, you don’t really want to get rid of me?”

“It would be better if you were to go, dearest,” she answered, slipping her hand into his. “Believe me, it would.”

The softness of her voice, the thrill of her touch simply intoxicated him with ecstasy, and there was an unsteadiness in his tone as he answered—

“Surely in the wilds of Mashunaland we can chuck conventionalities to the winds. If it was any one else who asked you for a shakedown you wouldn’t turn him out. Why me, then?”

“Because it is you, don’t you see?” was the reply, breathed low and soft, as the pressure of her fingers tightened.

They could hear each other’s heart-beats in the still dead silence—could see the light of each other’s eyes in the gleam of the myriad stars. The trailing streak of a meteor shot across the dark, velvety vault, showing in its momentary gleam to each the face of the other. Suddenly Hermia started violently.

“Hark! what is that?” she cried, springing to her feet.

For a loud harsh shout had cleft the stillness of the night. It was followed by another and another. Coming as it did upon the dead silence, the interruption was, to say the least, startling: all the more so to these two, their nerves in a state of high-strung tension.

“Nothing very alarming,” returned Spence. “You must have heard it before. Only a troop of baboons kicking up a row in the kopjes.”

“Of course; but somehow it sounded so loud and so near.”

It was destined to do so still more. For even as she spoke there arose a most indescribable tumult—shrieks and yells and chattering, and over all that harsh, resounding bark: and it came from the granite kopje nearest the house—where Spence had found the troop of guinea-fowl that afternoon.

“What a row they’re making!” he went on. “Hallo! By Jove! D’you hear that?”

For over and above the simian clamour, another sound was discernible—a sound of unmistakable import. No one need go to Mashunaland to hear it, nor anything like as far. A stroll across Regent’s Park towards feeding time at the Zoo will do just as well. It was the deep, throaty, ravening roar of hungry lions.

“Phew! that accounts for all the shindy!” said Justin. “Now do you want me to go, Hermia? There isn’t much show for one against a lion in the dark, and, judging from the racket, there must be several. Well, shall I start?”

She had drawn closer to him instinctively; not that there was any danger, for the stockade was high and strong—in fact, had been erected with an eye to such emergency. Now they were strained together in a close embrace, this time she returning his kisses with more than his own passion.

“You are mine—mine at last, my heart, my life!” he whispered. And the answer came back, merely breathed—

“Yes, I am. All yours.”

And above, the myriad eyes of the starry heavens looked down; and without, the horrible throaty growl of the ravening beasts rent the night.

Chapter Six.After-Thoughts.If ever any man was in the state colloquially defined as over head and ears in love, and if ever any man had practical demonstration that his love was returned abundantly by the object thereof, assuredly the name of that man was Justin Spence. Yet when the sun rose upon him on the following morning he somehow did not feel as elate as he should have done.For, whatever poetic associations may cluster around the hour of sunset, around that of sunrise there are none at all. It is an abominably matter-of-fact and prosaic hour, an hour when the average human is wont to feel cheap if ever, prone to retrospect, and, for choice, retrospect of an unwelcome nature. All that he has ever done that is injudicious or mean orgauchewill infallibly strike him as more injudicious and meaner and moregauchein the cold and judicial stare of the waking hour. To this rule Justin Spence was no exception. His passion had not cooled—no, not one whit; yet he awoke feeling mean. His conduct had been weak—the development thereof shady: in short, in the words of his own definition, “it was not playing the game.”The worst of it was that he was indebted to Blachland for more than one good turn, and now, what had been his requital for such? The other was his friend, and trusted him—and now, he had taken advantage of that friend’s absence. In the unsparing light of early morning the thing had an ugly look—yes, very.As against that, however, other considerations would arise to set themselves. First of all, he himself was human, and human powers had their limits. Then, again, the other did not in the least appreciate this splendid gift, this matchless treasure which had fallen to his lot: otherwise, how could he leave her all alone as he did, absent himself for days, for weeks at a time? He had not always done so, Justin had gathered; and from Hermia’s reminiscences of camp life she seemed to have enjoyed it. If he, Justin, had been in Blachland’s place, not for a single day should she have been away from him. But then, Justin was very young, and all the circumstances and surroundings went to make him think that way.He had known these people for some months, butofthem he knew nothing. The hard, reticent, self-reliant up-country trader was not the man to make a confidant of one whom he regarded as a mere callow youth. But he had been very kind to Justin, and had held out a helping hand to him on more than one occasion. Hermia, for her part, had merely noted that the young man was very handsome and well set up, and that in about a week he was desperately in love with herself. There were two or three others of whom the latter held good, even in that remote region, but they awakened no reciprocal feeling in her. She would keep them dangling simply as a mere matter of habit; but Justin Spence had touched a responsive chord within her. It was one of a sheerly physical nature, but she had more and more grown to look forward to his visits, and we must admit that she had not long to look.The more he thought it over the less he liked it. He could not even lay the spurious balm to his soul that “every man for himself” was the maxim which justified everything—that the glorious fascinations of this woman went wholly unappreciated by the man who should have been the one of all others to prize them, and therefore were reserved and destined for another, and that himself. This sort of reasoning somehow would not do. It struck him as desperately thin in the cool judicial hour of waking. He had behaved shabbily towards Blachland, and, the worst of it was, he knew he should go on doing so. And as though to confirm him in that conviction, at that moment the voice of the siren, clear but soft, was borne to his ears.What had become of all his misgivings now, as he sprang out of bed, his one and only thought that of joining her as soon as possible? The voice, however, was not addressed to him. It was merely raised in commonplace command to the small Mashuna boys. What a lovely voice it was! he thought to himself, pausing to listen, lest the splashing of his tub should cause him to lose a tone of it: and he was right so far. Hermia owned a beautiful speaking voice, and it constituted not the least of her fascinations. Recklessly now Justin cast his self-accusations to the winds.And Hermia? Well, she had none to cast. Self-accusation was a phase of introspect in which she never indulged. Why should she, when the rule of conduct on which she acted with a scrupulosity of observance worthy of a better cause, was “Get all you can out of life, and while you can”? Never a thought had she to waste on the absent. It was his fault that he was absent. Never, moreover, a misgiving.Yet when Spence joined her there in the gateway of the stockade, the eager, happy glow in his face met with scant response in her own. She affected a reproachful tone and attitude. They had both done very wrong, it conveyed. It could not be helped now, but the least said, soonest mended. They had been very weak, and very foolish, but it must never occur again. And all the while she was killing herself in her efforts to restrain her laughter, for she fully intended that it should occur again—again and again—and that at no distant period: but she was going to keep her adorer’s appreciation up to fever heat. To this intent, he must be kept well in hand at first.Well, he was submissive enough even for her, and again she was convulsed with suppressed mirth, for she promised herself keen enjoyment watching his struggles to keep within the bounds of conventionality she had imposed upon him. The whirlings and buzzings of the impaled beetle of her childhood’s days, as the luckless insect spun round and round in his efforts to free himself from the transfixing pin, were not in it with the fun held out to her by the writhings of this six-foot-one victim. And the sport was already beginning in his blank face and piteous tone.“No, I don’t think you must even use my name, Justin,” she said, in wind-up of the programme she was laying before him as to his future rule of conduct. “You will be forgetting, and rapping it out when Hilary is here.”“What then? Would he be very jealous?” returned the victim shortly, very sore with jealousy himself at this recalling of the absent one’s existence.“Perhaps. There’s no telling,” answered Hermia, with a wholly enigmatical smile. She was thinking that here was a new and entertaining development of the situation. Hilary jealous! Heavens! that would be a feat to have accomplished. She did not believe him capable of any such foolish and youthful passion. And yet, if she misjudged him? And recognising such a possibility, a spice of fear came to season the excitement, only serving however to enhance its original zest.In the fair scene spread out before these two there was little enough to suggest the growlings and roarings of ravening beasts making terrible the dark night hours. The undulating roll of veldt, green after the recent rains, and radiant in the golden morning, sparkled with innumerable dewdrops. Birds called cheerily; bird-wings glanced through the air in gorgeous colour and flash of sheeny streak; and the great granite kopjes to the westward, rising to the cloudless blue, seemed to tower twice their height in the shimmer and warmth of the newly risen sun.Upon this lovely outlook one of the two was gazing with a moody brow and a heavy heart. Suddenly he started.“Who’s this, I wonder?” he exclaimed, shading his eyes.A speck in the distance had arrested his attention—an approaching speck. It might have represented a horseman, almost certainly it did.“I believe it’s Blachland,” went on Spence. “I’ll get the binocular, and see.”The advancing object was hidden from sight as he dived into the house. But it reappeared about the same time he did. It now took shape as a horseman.“Yes, it is Blachland,” he went on, the glasses at his eyes. “But he’s all alone. Where’s his waggon and Sybrandt? I wonder if—” And he broke off, looking somewhat anxiously at his companion as he finished the unspoken thought to himself. What if Blachland were returning thus with a purpose—making a sort of surprise return? What if he had intended returning much earlier, but had miscalculated time and distance? What if hehadreturned much earlier? Oh, Great Heaven! And the thinker’s countenance reflected the consternation of the thought.That of his companion, however, betrayed no responsive qualm. It was as serene and unruffled as though she had never beheld the man at her side until five minutes ago.“Now, Justin,” she said, as they watched the approach of the horseman. “I want to give you a word of warning. First of all, you are not to greet him as if he had just risen from the dead, and you wish to goodness he hadn’t. Secondly, you are not to look at and talk to me in a sort of wistful and deathbed manner whenever you have occasion to look at and talk to me. Remember, he’s mighty sharp; I don’t know any one sharper. Come, brisk up, dear, and pull yourself together and be natural, or you’ll give away the whole show.”“That’s the last sweet word I shall hear from you for a long time to come, I suppose,” said Justin, somewhat comforted. “But you didn’t really mean all you were saying a little while ago? You’re not really sorry?”“Perhaps not,” she answered softly. “Perhaps we shall have good times again. Only, be careful now. It all depends upon that.”“Oh, then I’ll be careful enough, with that to look forward to,” he returned, quite cheered up now. Wherein her object was attained.To one of the two came a feeling of relief a moment after the new arrival had dismounted at the stockade, for his greeting was perfectly easy and natural and pleasant.“Well, Spence, you’re out early,” was all he said.Out early. Justin began to feel mean again. Should he say he had been there all night? But Hermia saved him the task of deciding by volunteering that information herself. She was not going to begin making mysteries.Well, there was no occasion to. Both forgot that the crucial moment was not entirely that of the greeting. The last hundred yards or so before dismounting had told Hilary Blachland all there was to tell. No—not quite all.“What have we got here?” said the returned master of the house, as, after a tub and a change of clothing, he sat at the head of his table. “Guinea-fowl?” raising the dish-cover.“Yes, Justin shot five for me yesterday,” answered Hermia. “By the way, I am always calling him Justin. ‘Mr Spence’ is absurdly formal in this out-of-the-way part, and he is really such a boy. Aren’t I right, Hilary?”“Oh, certainly,” was the reply, but the dry smile accompanying it might have meant anything. To himself the smiler was thinking, “So this is the latest, is it? What an actress she is, and that being so, I won’t pay her the bad compliment of saying it’s a pity she didn’t go on the stage.”Justin didn’t relish that definition of him; however, he recollected there was everything to console him for the apparent slight. And it was part of the acting. In fact, he was even conscious of being in a position to crow over the other, if the other only knew it, and though he strove hard to dismiss the idea, yet the idea was there.“By the way, Blachland,” he said, “how are things doing in Matabeleland? Niggers still cheeky?”“They’re getting more out of hand than ever. In fact, you prospectors had better keep a weather eye open. And, Hermia, I’ve been thinking things over, and I believe you’d better trek into Fort Salisbury.”“Is there going to be war then?” asked Justin quickly, for the words were as a knell to his newly born fool’s paradise. Had he found Hermia only to lose her immediately?“No, I’ll stay on. I don’t believe it’ll be anything more than a scare,” answered the latter with a light laugh.Hilary Blachland had been watching her, while not appearing to, watching them both. The start of consternation which escaped Justin Spence at the prospect of this separation had not escaped him. He noted, too, that beneath Hermia’s lightness of tone there lurked a shadowed anxiety. He was sharp, even as she herself had defined him—yes, he was decidedly sharp-witted was Hilary Blachland.

If ever any man was in the state colloquially defined as over head and ears in love, and if ever any man had practical demonstration that his love was returned abundantly by the object thereof, assuredly the name of that man was Justin Spence. Yet when the sun rose upon him on the following morning he somehow did not feel as elate as he should have done.

For, whatever poetic associations may cluster around the hour of sunset, around that of sunrise there are none at all. It is an abominably matter-of-fact and prosaic hour, an hour when the average human is wont to feel cheap if ever, prone to retrospect, and, for choice, retrospect of an unwelcome nature. All that he has ever done that is injudicious or mean orgauchewill infallibly strike him as more injudicious and meaner and moregauchein the cold and judicial stare of the waking hour. To this rule Justin Spence was no exception. His passion had not cooled—no, not one whit; yet he awoke feeling mean. His conduct had been weak—the development thereof shady: in short, in the words of his own definition, “it was not playing the game.”

The worst of it was that he was indebted to Blachland for more than one good turn, and now, what had been his requital for such? The other was his friend, and trusted him—and now, he had taken advantage of that friend’s absence. In the unsparing light of early morning the thing had an ugly look—yes, very.

As against that, however, other considerations would arise to set themselves. First of all, he himself was human, and human powers had their limits. Then, again, the other did not in the least appreciate this splendid gift, this matchless treasure which had fallen to his lot: otherwise, how could he leave her all alone as he did, absent himself for days, for weeks at a time? He had not always done so, Justin had gathered; and from Hermia’s reminiscences of camp life she seemed to have enjoyed it. If he, Justin, had been in Blachland’s place, not for a single day should she have been away from him. But then, Justin was very young, and all the circumstances and surroundings went to make him think that way.

He had known these people for some months, butofthem he knew nothing. The hard, reticent, self-reliant up-country trader was not the man to make a confidant of one whom he regarded as a mere callow youth. But he had been very kind to Justin, and had held out a helping hand to him on more than one occasion. Hermia, for her part, had merely noted that the young man was very handsome and well set up, and that in about a week he was desperately in love with herself. There were two or three others of whom the latter held good, even in that remote region, but they awakened no reciprocal feeling in her. She would keep them dangling simply as a mere matter of habit; but Justin Spence had touched a responsive chord within her. It was one of a sheerly physical nature, but she had more and more grown to look forward to his visits, and we must admit that she had not long to look.

The more he thought it over the less he liked it. He could not even lay the spurious balm to his soul that “every man for himself” was the maxim which justified everything—that the glorious fascinations of this woman went wholly unappreciated by the man who should have been the one of all others to prize them, and therefore were reserved and destined for another, and that himself. This sort of reasoning somehow would not do. It struck him as desperately thin in the cool judicial hour of waking. He had behaved shabbily towards Blachland, and, the worst of it was, he knew he should go on doing so. And as though to confirm him in that conviction, at that moment the voice of the siren, clear but soft, was borne to his ears.

What had become of all his misgivings now, as he sprang out of bed, his one and only thought that of joining her as soon as possible? The voice, however, was not addressed to him. It was merely raised in commonplace command to the small Mashuna boys. What a lovely voice it was! he thought to himself, pausing to listen, lest the splashing of his tub should cause him to lose a tone of it: and he was right so far. Hermia owned a beautiful speaking voice, and it constituted not the least of her fascinations. Recklessly now Justin cast his self-accusations to the winds.

And Hermia? Well, she had none to cast. Self-accusation was a phase of introspect in which she never indulged. Why should she, when the rule of conduct on which she acted with a scrupulosity of observance worthy of a better cause, was “Get all you can out of life, and while you can”? Never a thought had she to waste on the absent. It was his fault that he was absent. Never, moreover, a misgiving.

Yet when Spence joined her there in the gateway of the stockade, the eager, happy glow in his face met with scant response in her own. She affected a reproachful tone and attitude. They had both done very wrong, it conveyed. It could not be helped now, but the least said, soonest mended. They had been very weak, and very foolish, but it must never occur again. And all the while she was killing herself in her efforts to restrain her laughter, for she fully intended that it should occur again—again and again—and that at no distant period: but she was going to keep her adorer’s appreciation up to fever heat. To this intent, he must be kept well in hand at first.

Well, he was submissive enough even for her, and again she was convulsed with suppressed mirth, for she promised herself keen enjoyment watching his struggles to keep within the bounds of conventionality she had imposed upon him. The whirlings and buzzings of the impaled beetle of her childhood’s days, as the luckless insect spun round and round in his efforts to free himself from the transfixing pin, were not in it with the fun held out to her by the writhings of this six-foot-one victim. And the sport was already beginning in his blank face and piteous tone.

“No, I don’t think you must even use my name, Justin,” she said, in wind-up of the programme she was laying before him as to his future rule of conduct. “You will be forgetting, and rapping it out when Hilary is here.”

“What then? Would he be very jealous?” returned the victim shortly, very sore with jealousy himself at this recalling of the absent one’s existence.

“Perhaps. There’s no telling,” answered Hermia, with a wholly enigmatical smile. She was thinking that here was a new and entertaining development of the situation. Hilary jealous! Heavens! that would be a feat to have accomplished. She did not believe him capable of any such foolish and youthful passion. And yet, if she misjudged him? And recognising such a possibility, a spice of fear came to season the excitement, only serving however to enhance its original zest.

In the fair scene spread out before these two there was little enough to suggest the growlings and roarings of ravening beasts making terrible the dark night hours. The undulating roll of veldt, green after the recent rains, and radiant in the golden morning, sparkled with innumerable dewdrops. Birds called cheerily; bird-wings glanced through the air in gorgeous colour and flash of sheeny streak; and the great granite kopjes to the westward, rising to the cloudless blue, seemed to tower twice their height in the shimmer and warmth of the newly risen sun.

Upon this lovely outlook one of the two was gazing with a moody brow and a heavy heart. Suddenly he started.

“Who’s this, I wonder?” he exclaimed, shading his eyes.

A speck in the distance had arrested his attention—an approaching speck. It might have represented a horseman, almost certainly it did.

“I believe it’s Blachland,” went on Spence. “I’ll get the binocular, and see.”

The advancing object was hidden from sight as he dived into the house. But it reappeared about the same time he did. It now took shape as a horseman.

“Yes, it is Blachland,” he went on, the glasses at his eyes. “But he’s all alone. Where’s his waggon and Sybrandt? I wonder if—” And he broke off, looking somewhat anxiously at his companion as he finished the unspoken thought to himself. What if Blachland were returning thus with a purpose—making a sort of surprise return? What if he had intended returning much earlier, but had miscalculated time and distance? What if hehadreturned much earlier? Oh, Great Heaven! And the thinker’s countenance reflected the consternation of the thought.

That of his companion, however, betrayed no responsive qualm. It was as serene and unruffled as though she had never beheld the man at her side until five minutes ago.

“Now, Justin,” she said, as they watched the approach of the horseman. “I want to give you a word of warning. First of all, you are not to greet him as if he had just risen from the dead, and you wish to goodness he hadn’t. Secondly, you are not to look at and talk to me in a sort of wistful and deathbed manner whenever you have occasion to look at and talk to me. Remember, he’s mighty sharp; I don’t know any one sharper. Come, brisk up, dear, and pull yourself together and be natural, or you’ll give away the whole show.”

“That’s the last sweet word I shall hear from you for a long time to come, I suppose,” said Justin, somewhat comforted. “But you didn’t really mean all you were saying a little while ago? You’re not really sorry?”

“Perhaps not,” she answered softly. “Perhaps we shall have good times again. Only, be careful now. It all depends upon that.”

“Oh, then I’ll be careful enough, with that to look forward to,” he returned, quite cheered up now. Wherein her object was attained.

To one of the two came a feeling of relief a moment after the new arrival had dismounted at the stockade, for his greeting was perfectly easy and natural and pleasant.

“Well, Spence, you’re out early,” was all he said.

Out early. Justin began to feel mean again. Should he say he had been there all night? But Hermia saved him the task of deciding by volunteering that information herself. She was not going to begin making mysteries.

Well, there was no occasion to. Both forgot that the crucial moment was not entirely that of the greeting. The last hundred yards or so before dismounting had told Hilary Blachland all there was to tell. No—not quite all.

“What have we got here?” said the returned master of the house, as, after a tub and a change of clothing, he sat at the head of his table. “Guinea-fowl?” raising the dish-cover.

“Yes, Justin shot five for me yesterday,” answered Hermia. “By the way, I am always calling him Justin. ‘Mr Spence’ is absurdly formal in this out-of-the-way part, and he is really such a boy. Aren’t I right, Hilary?”

“Oh, certainly,” was the reply, but the dry smile accompanying it might have meant anything. To himself the smiler was thinking, “So this is the latest, is it? What an actress she is, and that being so, I won’t pay her the bad compliment of saying it’s a pity she didn’t go on the stage.”

Justin didn’t relish that definition of him; however, he recollected there was everything to console him for the apparent slight. And it was part of the acting. In fact, he was even conscious of being in a position to crow over the other, if the other only knew it, and though he strove hard to dismiss the idea, yet the idea was there.

“By the way, Blachland,” he said, “how are things doing in Matabeleland? Niggers still cheeky?”

“They’re getting more out of hand than ever. In fact, you prospectors had better keep a weather eye open. And, Hermia, I’ve been thinking things over, and I believe you’d better trek into Fort Salisbury.”

“Is there going to be war then?” asked Justin quickly, for the words were as a knell to his newly born fool’s paradise. Had he found Hermia only to lose her immediately?

“No, I’ll stay on. I don’t believe it’ll be anything more than a scare,” answered the latter with a light laugh.

Hilary Blachland had been watching her, while not appearing to, watching them both. The start of consternation which escaped Justin Spence at the prospect of this separation had not escaped him. He noted, too, that beneath Hermia’s lightness of tone there lurked a shadowed anxiety. He was sharp, even as she herself had defined him—yes, he was decidedly sharp-witted was Hilary Blachland.

Chapter Seven.A Limed Bird.“Was the trip a success this time, Hilary? And—where’s Mr Sybrandt? Didn’t he come back with you?”“Three questions at once. That’s the feminine cross-examiner all over. Well, it was and it wasn’t. There was no doing any trade to speak of, and Lo Ben was in a verysnuffymood. I found out a good deal that was worth finding out though. Questions two and three. I left Sybrandt half a day’s trek the other side of the Inpembisi river.”“And do you think there is really any danger of war?” asked Hermia.“I think you will be far safer away from here. So you had better go. I’m sending the waggon on to Fort Salisbury to-morrow.” And again, without seeming to, his keen observant glance took in Justin’s face.“But I don’t want to go, Hilary, and I won’t,” was the answer. “I’m not in the least afraid, and should hate the bother of moving just now.”“Very well, please yourself. But don’t blame me if you do get a scare, that’s all.”Heavens! what a cold-blooded devil this was, Justin Spence was thinking. If Hermia belonged to him,hewould not treat a question of peril and alarm to her as a matter of no particular importance as this one was doing. He would insist upon her removing to a place of safety; and, unable to restrain himself, he said something to that effect. He did not, however, get much satisfaction. His host turned upon him a bland inscrutable face.“Perhaps you’re right, Spence. I shouldn’t be surprised if you were,” was all the reply he obtained. For Hilary Blachland was not the man to allow other people to interfere in his private affairs.“By the way, there are lions round here again,” said Hermia. “They were making a dreadful noise last night over in the kopjes. They seemed to have got in among a troop of baboons, and between the lions and the baboons the row was something appalling.”“Quite sure they were lions?”“Of course they were. Weren’t they, Justin?”“No sort of mistake about that,” was the brisk reply.“Well, I think they were lions too,” went on Blachland, “because the one I shot this morning might easily have been coming from this direction.”“What?” cried Spence. “D’you mean to say you shot a lion this morning?”“Yes. Just about daylight. And a fine big chap too.”“And you never told us anything about it all this time!”Blachland smiled. “Well, you see, Spence, it isn’t my first, not by several. Or possibly I might have ridden up at a hard gallop, flourishing my hat and hooraying,” he said good-naturedly.But there was a grimness about the very good nature, decided Spence. Here was a man who had just shot a lion, and seem to think no more of the feat than if he had merely shot a partridge. He was conscious that he himself, under the same circumstances would have acted somewhat after the manner the other had described.“But how did you come upon him?” asked Hermia, eagerly.“Just after daylight. Started to ride on ahead of the waggon. Came to a dry drift; horse stuck short, refused to go down. Snake, I thought at first; but no. On the opposite side a big lion staring straight at us, not seventy yards away. Slipped from the gee, drew a careful bead, and let go. Laid him out without a kick, bang through the skull. Quite close to the waggon it was too. I left them taking off the skin. There! that’s the waggon”—as the distant crack of a whip came through the clear morning air. “We’ll go and look at it directly.”“Oh, well done!” cried Hermia; and the wholly approving glance she turned upon the lion-slayer sent a pang of soreness and jealousy through Justin Spence. He began to hate Blachland. That infernal assumption of indifference was really affectation—in short, the most objectionable form of “side.”Soon, the rumble of heavy wheels drew nearer, and, to the accompaniment of much whip-cracking, and unearthly and discordant yells, without which it seems impossible to drive a span of oxen, the waggon rolled up. It was drawn within the enclosure to be out-spanned.“You have got a small load this time,” said Hermia, surveying the great, cumbrous, weather-worn vehicle, with its carefully packed cargo, and hung about with pots and kettles and game horns, and every sort of miscellaneous article which it was not convenient to stow within. “Ah, there’s the skin. Why, yes, Hilary, it is a fine one!”The native servants gathered to admire the great mane and mighty paws there spread out, and many were the excited ejaculations and comments they fired off. The skin, being fresh, was unpleasantly gory—notably the hole made by the bullet where it had penetrated the skull.“What a neat shot!” exclaimed Hermia, an expression of mingled admiration and disgust upon her face as she bent down to examine the huge head. Was it a part of her scheme, or the genuine admiration of every woman for a feat of physical prowess, that caused her to turn to Blachland with almost a proud, certainly an approving look? If the former, it served its purpose; for Justin began to feel more jealous and sorer than ever.“Nkose!”Blachland turned. A native stood forth with uplifted hand, hailing him. He had seen this man among his servants, but did not choose to recognise him first.“Oh, it is you, Hlangulu?” he said, speaking in Sindabele; which tongue is a groundwork of Zulu overlaid with much Sechuana and Sesutu. “That is strange, for since you disappeared from our camp on the Matya’mhlope, on the morning that we went to see the King, I have not set eyes on you.”“Au!” replied the man, with a half-smile, bringing his hand to his mouth in deprecatory gesture, “that is true,Nkose. But the Great Great One required me to stand among the ranks of the warriors. Now I am free once more, I would fain serveNkoseagain.”Blachland looked musingly at him, but did not immediately reply.“I would fain serve a white man who can so easily slay a great thing like that,” went on Hlangulu. “Take me,Nkose. You will not find me useless for hunting, and I know of that as to whichNkosewould like to know.”Blachland did not start at these last words, which were spoken with meaning, but he would have if his nerves had not long since been schooled to great self-control.For, remembering the subject under discussion the last time he had seen this man, whom they had all suspected of eavesdropping,—being moreover, accustomed to native ways of talking “dark,” he had no doubt whatever as to the meaning intended to be conveyed.“Sit still a while, Hlangulu,” he said. “I am not sure I have not servants enough. Yet it may be that I can do with another for hunting purposes. I will think about it. Here!”—and he handed him a stick of tobacco.“You are my father,Nkose,” replied the Matabele, holding forth his joined hands to receive it. Then he stepped back.“Who is he, and what does he want, Hilary?” said Hermia, who had hardly understood a word of this colloquy; and the same held good of Spence.“Oh, he’s a chap we had at Bulawayo. Wants to be taken on here. I think I’ll take him.”“I don’t much like the look of him,” pursued Hermia, doubtfully.“I should hang him on sight, if I were the jury empanelled to try him,” declared Spence.But for all the notice he took of them, Blachland might as well not have heard these remarks, for he busied himself giving directions to his “boys,” relating to the preparation of the lion’s skin, and a dozen other matters. Leaving him to this, the other two strolled back to the house.“I’m going home directly, Hermia,” said Spence, with a bitter emphasis on the word “home.” “I rather think I’m the third who constitutes a crowd.”“How can you talk like that, after—” And she broke off suddenly.“Still, I think I’ll go, darling. But—are you really going away—to Salisbury?”“No. But you’ve got too speaking a face, Justin dear. Why on earth did you look so dismal and blank when he said that?”“Because I couldn’t help it, I suppose.”“But you’ve got to help it. See here now, Justin, I can’t keep you in leading-strings. You are such a great baby, you have no control over yourself. You’re quite big enough, and—”“Ugly enough? Yes, go on.”“No, the other thing—only I’m spoiling you too much, and making you abominably conceited. Now come in, and give me just one little kiss before you start, and then I think you really had better go.”“Promise me you won’t go away without letting me know,” he urged, when the above-named process—which, by the way, was not of such very diminutive proportions as she had suggested—had been completed. Outside, Blachland’s voice directing the native servants was plainly audible.“Yes, I promise. Now, go and say good-bye, and get your horse. No, not ‘one more.’ Do be a little prudent.”“Eh? Want to saddle up, Spence?” said Blachland, as Justin went over to where he was occupied. “All right. I say, though, excuse me; I really am rather busy. Come along, and we’ll get out your horse. Have a drink before you start.”“Thanks awfully, Blachland, I’ve just had one. Good-bye, old chap, don’t bother to come to the stable. Good-bye.”The other took a side glance at his retreating guest.“He’s flurried,” he said to himself. “These callow cubs don’t know how to play the game. They do give it away so—give it away with both hands.”Then he went on tranquilly with what he was doing. He did not even go to the gate to see Spence off. He simply took him at his word. In social matters, Hilary Blachland was given to taking people at their word. If they didn’t know their own minds, not being infants or imbeciles, that wasn’t his affair.Then his thoughts were diverted into another channel, and this was effected by the sight of Hlangulu. The Matabele was standing around, lending a hand here or there whenever he saw an opportunity. For some reason of his own he seemed anxious to be kept on there. That he would be of no use at all as a farm servant was obvious, equally so that he had no ambition to fill thatrôle. The rather mysterious words he had uttered could refer to but one thing; namely, the exceedingly dangerous and apparently utterly profitless scheme talked over by the camp fire on the Matya’mhlope, and which there could be no doubt whatever but that he had overheard. That being so, was not Blachland indeed in this man’s power?Turning it over in his mind, Blachland could see two sides to the situation. Either Hlangulu designed to render him a service, and, incidentally, one much greater to himself—or his intent was wholly sinister, to set a trap for him to wit. He looked at Hlangulu. The Matabele’s aspect was not prepossessing. It was that of a tall, gaunt native, with a sinister cast of countenance, never entirely free from something of a scowl,—in fact, an evil and untrustworthy rascal if appearances counted for anything at all. He tried to think whether he had ever given this man cause to harbour a grudge against him, and could recall nothing of the kind; but he did remember that Hlangulu was a clever and skilful hunter. Perhaps, after all, he had really gained the man’s respect, and, to a certain extent, his attachment. He would keep him, at any rate for a while, but—would watch him narrowly.“Hlangulu,” he called. “Go now and hurry on the herd of trade cattle. It should have been done before this.”“Nkose!”And with this one word of salute the man started on his errand, not asking where the object thereof was to be found, where it had been last seen or anything. All of which was not lost upon Blachland. Decidedly he would keep Hlangulu, he told himself.

“Was the trip a success this time, Hilary? And—where’s Mr Sybrandt? Didn’t he come back with you?”

“Three questions at once. That’s the feminine cross-examiner all over. Well, it was and it wasn’t. There was no doing any trade to speak of, and Lo Ben was in a verysnuffymood. I found out a good deal that was worth finding out though. Questions two and three. I left Sybrandt half a day’s trek the other side of the Inpembisi river.”

“And do you think there is really any danger of war?” asked Hermia.

“I think you will be far safer away from here. So you had better go. I’m sending the waggon on to Fort Salisbury to-morrow.” And again, without seeming to, his keen observant glance took in Justin’s face.

“But I don’t want to go, Hilary, and I won’t,” was the answer. “I’m not in the least afraid, and should hate the bother of moving just now.”

“Very well, please yourself. But don’t blame me if you do get a scare, that’s all.”

Heavens! what a cold-blooded devil this was, Justin Spence was thinking. If Hermia belonged to him,hewould not treat a question of peril and alarm to her as a matter of no particular importance as this one was doing. He would insist upon her removing to a place of safety; and, unable to restrain himself, he said something to that effect. He did not, however, get much satisfaction. His host turned upon him a bland inscrutable face.

“Perhaps you’re right, Spence. I shouldn’t be surprised if you were,” was all the reply he obtained. For Hilary Blachland was not the man to allow other people to interfere in his private affairs.

“By the way, there are lions round here again,” said Hermia. “They were making a dreadful noise last night over in the kopjes. They seemed to have got in among a troop of baboons, and between the lions and the baboons the row was something appalling.”

“Quite sure they were lions?”

“Of course they were. Weren’t they, Justin?”

“No sort of mistake about that,” was the brisk reply.

“Well, I think they were lions too,” went on Blachland, “because the one I shot this morning might easily have been coming from this direction.”

“What?” cried Spence. “D’you mean to say you shot a lion this morning?”

“Yes. Just about daylight. And a fine big chap too.”

“And you never told us anything about it all this time!”

Blachland smiled. “Well, you see, Spence, it isn’t my first, not by several. Or possibly I might have ridden up at a hard gallop, flourishing my hat and hooraying,” he said good-naturedly.

But there was a grimness about the very good nature, decided Spence. Here was a man who had just shot a lion, and seem to think no more of the feat than if he had merely shot a partridge. He was conscious that he himself, under the same circumstances would have acted somewhat after the manner the other had described.

“But how did you come upon him?” asked Hermia, eagerly.

“Just after daylight. Started to ride on ahead of the waggon. Came to a dry drift; horse stuck short, refused to go down. Snake, I thought at first; but no. On the opposite side a big lion staring straight at us, not seventy yards away. Slipped from the gee, drew a careful bead, and let go. Laid him out without a kick, bang through the skull. Quite close to the waggon it was too. I left them taking off the skin. There! that’s the waggon”—as the distant crack of a whip came through the clear morning air. “We’ll go and look at it directly.”

“Oh, well done!” cried Hermia; and the wholly approving glance she turned upon the lion-slayer sent a pang of soreness and jealousy through Justin Spence. He began to hate Blachland. That infernal assumption of indifference was really affectation—in short, the most objectionable form of “side.”

Soon, the rumble of heavy wheels drew nearer, and, to the accompaniment of much whip-cracking, and unearthly and discordant yells, without which it seems impossible to drive a span of oxen, the waggon rolled up. It was drawn within the enclosure to be out-spanned.

“You have got a small load this time,” said Hermia, surveying the great, cumbrous, weather-worn vehicle, with its carefully packed cargo, and hung about with pots and kettles and game horns, and every sort of miscellaneous article which it was not convenient to stow within. “Ah, there’s the skin. Why, yes, Hilary, it is a fine one!”

The native servants gathered to admire the great mane and mighty paws there spread out, and many were the excited ejaculations and comments they fired off. The skin, being fresh, was unpleasantly gory—notably the hole made by the bullet where it had penetrated the skull.

“What a neat shot!” exclaimed Hermia, an expression of mingled admiration and disgust upon her face as she bent down to examine the huge head. Was it a part of her scheme, or the genuine admiration of every woman for a feat of physical prowess, that caused her to turn to Blachland with almost a proud, certainly an approving look? If the former, it served its purpose; for Justin began to feel more jealous and sorer than ever.

“Nkose!”

Blachland turned. A native stood forth with uplifted hand, hailing him. He had seen this man among his servants, but did not choose to recognise him first.

“Oh, it is you, Hlangulu?” he said, speaking in Sindabele; which tongue is a groundwork of Zulu overlaid with much Sechuana and Sesutu. “That is strange, for since you disappeared from our camp on the Matya’mhlope, on the morning that we went to see the King, I have not set eyes on you.”

“Au!” replied the man, with a half-smile, bringing his hand to his mouth in deprecatory gesture, “that is true,Nkose. But the Great Great One required me to stand among the ranks of the warriors. Now I am free once more, I would fain serveNkoseagain.”

Blachland looked musingly at him, but did not immediately reply.

“I would fain serve a white man who can so easily slay a great thing like that,” went on Hlangulu. “Take me,Nkose. You will not find me useless for hunting, and I know of that as to whichNkosewould like to know.”

Blachland did not start at these last words, which were spoken with meaning, but he would have if his nerves had not long since been schooled to great self-control.

For, remembering the subject under discussion the last time he had seen this man, whom they had all suspected of eavesdropping,—being moreover, accustomed to native ways of talking “dark,” he had no doubt whatever as to the meaning intended to be conveyed.

“Sit still a while, Hlangulu,” he said. “I am not sure I have not servants enough. Yet it may be that I can do with another for hunting purposes. I will think about it. Here!”—and he handed him a stick of tobacco.

“You are my father,Nkose,” replied the Matabele, holding forth his joined hands to receive it. Then he stepped back.

“Who is he, and what does he want, Hilary?” said Hermia, who had hardly understood a word of this colloquy; and the same held good of Spence.

“Oh, he’s a chap we had at Bulawayo. Wants to be taken on here. I think I’ll take him.”

“I don’t much like the look of him,” pursued Hermia, doubtfully.

“I should hang him on sight, if I were the jury empanelled to try him,” declared Spence.

But for all the notice he took of them, Blachland might as well not have heard these remarks, for he busied himself giving directions to his “boys,” relating to the preparation of the lion’s skin, and a dozen other matters. Leaving him to this, the other two strolled back to the house.

“I’m going home directly, Hermia,” said Spence, with a bitter emphasis on the word “home.” “I rather think I’m the third who constitutes a crowd.”

“How can you talk like that, after—” And she broke off suddenly.

“Still, I think I’ll go, darling. But—are you really going away—to Salisbury?”

“No. But you’ve got too speaking a face, Justin dear. Why on earth did you look so dismal and blank when he said that?”

“Because I couldn’t help it, I suppose.”

“But you’ve got to help it. See here now, Justin, I can’t keep you in leading-strings. You are such a great baby, you have no control over yourself. You’re quite big enough, and—”

“Ugly enough? Yes, go on.”

“No, the other thing—only I’m spoiling you too much, and making you abominably conceited. Now come in, and give me just one little kiss before you start, and then I think you really had better go.”

“Promise me you won’t go away without letting me know,” he urged, when the above-named process—which, by the way, was not of such very diminutive proportions as she had suggested—had been completed. Outside, Blachland’s voice directing the native servants was plainly audible.

“Yes, I promise. Now, go and say good-bye, and get your horse. No, not ‘one more.’ Do be a little prudent.”

“Eh? Want to saddle up, Spence?” said Blachland, as Justin went over to where he was occupied. “All right. I say, though, excuse me; I really am rather busy. Come along, and we’ll get out your horse. Have a drink before you start.”

“Thanks awfully, Blachland, I’ve just had one. Good-bye, old chap, don’t bother to come to the stable. Good-bye.”

The other took a side glance at his retreating guest.

“He’s flurried,” he said to himself. “These callow cubs don’t know how to play the game. They do give it away so—give it away with both hands.”

Then he went on tranquilly with what he was doing. He did not even go to the gate to see Spence off. He simply took him at his word. In social matters, Hilary Blachland was given to taking people at their word. If they didn’t know their own minds, not being infants or imbeciles, that wasn’t his affair.

Then his thoughts were diverted into another channel, and this was effected by the sight of Hlangulu. The Matabele was standing around, lending a hand here or there whenever he saw an opportunity. For some reason of his own he seemed anxious to be kept on there. That he would be of no use at all as a farm servant was obvious, equally so that he had no ambition to fill thatrôle. The rather mysterious words he had uttered could refer to but one thing; namely, the exceedingly dangerous and apparently utterly profitless scheme talked over by the camp fire on the Matya’mhlope, and which there could be no doubt whatever but that he had overheard. That being so, was not Blachland indeed in this man’s power?

Turning it over in his mind, Blachland could see two sides to the situation. Either Hlangulu designed to render him a service, and, incidentally, one much greater to himself—or his intent was wholly sinister, to set a trap for him to wit. He looked at Hlangulu. The Matabele’s aspect was not prepossessing. It was that of a tall, gaunt native, with a sinister cast of countenance, never entirely free from something of a scowl,—in fact, an evil and untrustworthy rascal if appearances counted for anything at all. He tried to think whether he had ever given this man cause to harbour a grudge against him, and could recall nothing of the kind; but he did remember that Hlangulu was a clever and skilful hunter. Perhaps, after all, he had really gained the man’s respect, and, to a certain extent, his attachment. He would keep him, at any rate for a while, but—would watch him narrowly.

“Hlangulu,” he called. “Go now and hurry on the herd of trade cattle. It should have been done before this.”

“Nkose!”

And with this one word of salute the man started on his errand, not asking where the object thereof was to be found, where it had been last seen or anything. All of which was not lost upon Blachland. Decidedly he would keep Hlangulu, he told himself.

Chapter Eight.“Merely Spence.”“So that’s your latest, is it, Hermia?”The remark was inconsequent, in that it came on top of nothing at all. The time was the cool of the evening, and Blachland, lying back in a deep cane chair, was lazily puffing out clouds of smoke. He had not been talking much, and what little he had said consisted of a few drowsy remarks about nothing in particular. Now, after an interval of silence, came the above inconsequent one.“My latest! Who and what on earth are you talking about, Hilary?”“Merely Spence.”“Oh, is that all? He’s such a nice boy, though, isn’t he?”“Candidly, he’s only like thirty-nine out of forty, colourless.”“How can you say that, Hilary? Why, he’s awfully handsome.”“Oh, I wasn’t referring to externals, I mean the more important side of him; and—there’s nothing in him.”Hermia made no reply, she only smiled; but the smile was meant to convey that she knew better. Nothing in him! Wasn’t there? If Hilary only knew?Truth to tell, however, she was a little relieved. This was the first reference he had made to the subject, and his silence all these hours had rendered her uneasy. What if he suspected? Now he seemed to drop it as though it were not worth pursuing. She, however, paradoxically enough, intended to let him know that it was. Could she not make him just one atom jealous?“Poor fellow, he’s so lonely over at his camp,” she pursued. “It does him good to come over here now and then.”“Who?” said Blachland. His mind was running on the subject of Umzilikazi’s grave, and the trustworthiness or the reverse of Hlangulu.“Who? Why, Justin of course. Weren’t we talking about him?”“Were—yes, that’s it. We were, but I had forgotten all about him, and was thinking of something totally different. What were you saying? That he was lonely in camp? Well, that’s very likely; but then, you see, it’s one of the conditions attendant upon prospecting. And he may as well chuck prospecting if he’s going to spend life galloping over here.”Thought Hermia to herself, “He is a little jealous after all.”The other went on: “He’s lonely in camp, and you’re lonely here. That’s about the British of it; eh, Hermia?”“Well, can you wonder? Here I am, left all by myself to get through time as best I can. How long have you been away this time? Four weeks?”“Just under. And this was a short trip. It is hard lines, rather; but then, you always knew what life up here was going to mean. You did it with your eyes open.”“It is mean of you to throw it at me. I never thought you would have done it,” she flashed.“Throw what? Oh, I see. I wasn’t referring to—that. You might as well give me the benefit of the doubt, Hermia. You ought to know that I was referring to our coming out here at all. We might have gone anywhere else, so it wasn’t England.”She looked down at him as he sat there, for she was standing, or restlessly moving about. How cool and passionless he was now, she thought. He had not always been so. Decidedly he was tired of her. She could not help drawing a mental contrast between him and the other. The countenance of this one, with its well-cut features, but lined and weather-worn, dark and bronzed by sun and exposure, was indeed a contrast to that of the other, in its smooth, clear-skinned blue-eyed comeliness of youth. Yet, this one, sitting there, strong, reposeful-looking in his cool white raiment was, and would always be,theone when she came to pass in review her polyandrous experiences.Now his very tranquillity, indifference she called it, nettled her. At any other time, indeed, it would have served as a powerful draw in keeping her to him; now however, the entirely fresh excitement she had struck formed an effective counterblast. If he was tired of her, she would let him see that she was even more tired of him, whether she was so or not.“To revert to Spence,” he said. “What pleasure can it give you to make a bigger fool of the young idiot than his parents and Nature have already made him?”“He isn’t at all a fool,” snapped Hermia, shortly.“Not eh? Well, everything is relative, even in terminology. We’ll call him not so wise as some other people, if you prefer it. If he was as wise, he might be over head and ears in love with you without giving it away at every turn—in fact, thrusting it into the very face of the ordinary observer.”“Why, Hilary, you really are jealous!” she cried with a ringing laugh. For a moment, however, she had looked perturbed.“Ha, ha! That’s good—distinctly good. Jealous! There is, or ought to be, no such thing, once past the callowness of youth. The self-respect of any man should be above whining to any one woman because she prefers somebody else. The mere fact of her doing so renders her utterly valueless in his sight there and then.”“You don’t really mean that, Hilary?” she said. “You’re only just talking, you know.”“Try it and see.”His eyes were full on hers. For the life of her, she could not as straightly meet that straight, firm glance. This was the only man she had never been able to deceive. Others she could hoodwink and fool at will, this one never. So, with a light laugh, with a shade of nervousness in it that would have been patent to an even less acute faculty of perception than his, she rejoined—“Well, you’re out of it this time, Hilary. Justin isn’t in love with me at all. Why, it’s ridiculous!”She turned away uneasily. For he knew that she was lying, and she knew that he did.“One moment, Hermia,” he called out to her. She paused. “While we are on the subject: are you not getting a little tired of—our partnership?”“Why?”“I’ve seen symptoms of it lately, and I don’t think I’m mistaken. Because, if you are, say so squarely and openly. It’ll be much better in the long run.”“I think you are tired of it,” she flashed. “I suppose you have a lot of black wives over yonder, like that disgusting old Pemberton and Young. That’s why you’re so fond of going into the Matabele country, and leaving me all alone for weeks.”“Apparently you know more about Pemberton’s and Young’s conjugal arrangements than I do, but let me assure you you’re utterly wrong in your estimate of mine.”“I don’t believe it. You are all of you alike, once you take to going among those beastly natives.”“You don’t believe it? That I can’t help, so there it stays. And now I’ve lazed long enough, I must rustle about and see to things.”Left there, Hermia watched his tall form, like a pillar of white, wending up the low kopje at the back of the stockade. He had become very reserved, very self-contained and inscrutable of late; so much so indeed, that it was almost impossible to gauge how much he knew or suspected. Now she felt uneasy, uncomfortable with a dim consciousness of having come off second best in the recent cut and thrust. Well, perhaps he was right. She was tired of the existing state of affairs—perhaps a trifle tired of him.And he? The kopje up which he had taken his way, ascended by an easy acclivity to a point which commanded an immense view to the south and westward. Range upon range of rolling slope and wooded ridge lay there outspread—vast and scarcely inhabited country, a land given over to wild game and a few shrinking, starving remnants of tribes living in daily fear of the sweep of the terrible Matabele besom. The evening was still, and golden, and beautiful, and, seated under a mahobo-hobo tree, Blachland lit his pipe, and began to think out the position.So Hermia was tired of their life together! He had seen it coming on, and at first the knowledge had caused him some concern. He contrasted the lives of other pioneers, living all alone, or in native fashion, with two or three dusky-hued daughters of the land, in rough, uncivilised manner, growing more and more into the happy-go-lucky, soulless simplicity of life of the barbarous aborigines themselves,—contrasted them with the life he himself led, its comfort, and refined companionship, and, until lately, love,—and, doing so, a qualm of regret tinged his mind. It was evanescent however. For he himself was growing tired of this mode of life. He had embarked on it when he and Hermia had reckoned the world well lost for each other’s sake. Now, neither of them so reckoned any more; nay, further, to be perfectly candid with themselves, they wondered how they ever could have. Why not leave it then, move to some more cheerful and civilised quarter of the globe? To do so would be tantamount to leaving each other.Hermia had taxed him with being jealous, and he had replied, and rightly, that he was past the capacity for any such foolishness. But he had no intention of remaining her dupe. That he had ample cause for jealousy in the matter just under discussion, he was well aware; but that was nothing to what he would meet with should they return to civilisation together. She could no more cleave to one, and one only, than she could fly over the moon. They had better part.Over the vast roll of country beneath, stretching away into misty dimness, his glance swept. How would he take to civilisation again? The old restlessness would come upon him. The wandering up-country life had got into his system. The other kind, too, was not so very great as to lure him back to it either. He supposed he had made a mess of things. Well, most people did one way and another, and it couldn’t be helped.Up the slope, through the sparse bushes, a herd of cattle was threading—his cattle; and in the tall dark form of their driver he recognised Hlangulu, the Matabele. Mechanically, however, he took in this while his thoughts reverted to their former train. Would they miss each other? he wondered; or, rather, would he miss Hermia? That she would hardly waste a regret on him he knew, for he had long since discovered the shallow emptiness of her nature, and that what he had at one time taken for depth was the mere frenzied abandonment of a passing passion, wholly unrestrained and absorbing for the time being; but now, and indeed long since, burnt out. Turning, he looked back on the group of primitive buildings within the protecting stockade, his home. A stillness and peace seemed to brood over it in the evening light. He could make out Hermia’s form crossing a section of the enclosure. He thought of the years they had been together. Had those years been happy? Well, hardly. Disillusionment had not been long in coming, and with its growth their brief and spurious happiness had faded. They did not quarrel, but it was a case of mutual toleration. And now, at last, he had returned one fine day to recognise that his place was filled by another. Decidedly the time had come for them to part.“Nkose!”Blachland looked up. His meditations must have run on, for the utterer of this sonorous salutation was he who, but a moment ago it seemed, was right away down there driving the cattle, yet he had had time to take them borne and return here himself.“What is it, Hlangulu?”The man dropped down into a squatting attitude, and began to talk. Blachland, who understood natives, let him run on about nothing in particular—the state of the country, the new settlements of the pioneers, the King, the decreasing of the game, and so forth,—for he knew something was coming. Presently it came.“Nkoseis even as Umlimo. The dark mysteries of the Great bold no terrors for him?”“Not any,” was the laconic reply.“Yet it is certain death to look into such.”“Death is certain, but the time of death, never. I have looked at ‘certain death’ before, yet here I am.”“Au,Nkose! What you desire is not possible, save by one way.”“And that way?”“Is known to me alone.”“And you are going to make it known to me. Now, Hlangulu, men are men, and men have motives. Why are you going to do this?”“What is that which is most desired by all white men,Nkose?”“Gold.”“Yeh-bo, Nkose, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle and wives.Hau! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of it.”Blachland didn’t start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man’s words were plain enough. A quantity of treasure had been buried with the dead King. That was the interpretation.“Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?” he said, producing a sovereign.“Eh-hé, Nkose!” assented the Matabele. “It is in a bag, so high,”—holding his hand about a couple of feet from the ground.Then they talked, the white man and the savage,—talked long and earnestly. The superstitions of the latter precluded him from going near the dreaded sepulchre, let alone entering it. But for the former no such barrier existed. Hlangulu knew a way of getting him through the pickets: then he could accomplish a double purpose, explore the interior of the King’s grave, and bring away the concealed wealth which lay there; and this they would share equally.It was quite dark when they separated: Blachland all braced up by the prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did, was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in some far-away land where Lo Bengula’s arm could not reach, where he could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy wives, young and new, whenever inclined.

“So that’s your latest, is it, Hermia?”

The remark was inconsequent, in that it came on top of nothing at all. The time was the cool of the evening, and Blachland, lying back in a deep cane chair, was lazily puffing out clouds of smoke. He had not been talking much, and what little he had said consisted of a few drowsy remarks about nothing in particular. Now, after an interval of silence, came the above inconsequent one.

“My latest! Who and what on earth are you talking about, Hilary?”

“Merely Spence.”

“Oh, is that all? He’s such a nice boy, though, isn’t he?”

“Candidly, he’s only like thirty-nine out of forty, colourless.”

“How can you say that, Hilary? Why, he’s awfully handsome.”

“Oh, I wasn’t referring to externals, I mean the more important side of him; and—there’s nothing in him.”

Hermia made no reply, she only smiled; but the smile was meant to convey that she knew better. Nothing in him! Wasn’t there? If Hilary only knew?

Truth to tell, however, she was a little relieved. This was the first reference he had made to the subject, and his silence all these hours had rendered her uneasy. What if he suspected? Now he seemed to drop it as though it were not worth pursuing. She, however, paradoxically enough, intended to let him know that it was. Could she not make him just one atom jealous?

“Poor fellow, he’s so lonely over at his camp,” she pursued. “It does him good to come over here now and then.”

“Who?” said Blachland. His mind was running on the subject of Umzilikazi’s grave, and the trustworthiness or the reverse of Hlangulu.

“Who? Why, Justin of course. Weren’t we talking about him?”

“Were—yes, that’s it. We were, but I had forgotten all about him, and was thinking of something totally different. What were you saying? That he was lonely in camp? Well, that’s very likely; but then, you see, it’s one of the conditions attendant upon prospecting. And he may as well chuck prospecting if he’s going to spend life galloping over here.”

Thought Hermia to herself, “He is a little jealous after all.”

The other went on: “He’s lonely in camp, and you’re lonely here. That’s about the British of it; eh, Hermia?”

“Well, can you wonder? Here I am, left all by myself to get through time as best I can. How long have you been away this time? Four weeks?”

“Just under. And this was a short trip. It is hard lines, rather; but then, you always knew what life up here was going to mean. You did it with your eyes open.”

“It is mean of you to throw it at me. I never thought you would have done it,” she flashed.

“Throw what? Oh, I see. I wasn’t referring to—that. You might as well give me the benefit of the doubt, Hermia. You ought to know that I was referring to our coming out here at all. We might have gone anywhere else, so it wasn’t England.”

She looked down at him as he sat there, for she was standing, or restlessly moving about. How cool and passionless he was now, she thought. He had not always been so. Decidedly he was tired of her. She could not help drawing a mental contrast between him and the other. The countenance of this one, with its well-cut features, but lined and weather-worn, dark and bronzed by sun and exposure, was indeed a contrast to that of the other, in its smooth, clear-skinned blue-eyed comeliness of youth. Yet, this one, sitting there, strong, reposeful-looking in his cool white raiment was, and would always be,theone when she came to pass in review her polyandrous experiences.

Now his very tranquillity, indifference she called it, nettled her. At any other time, indeed, it would have served as a powerful draw in keeping her to him; now however, the entirely fresh excitement she had struck formed an effective counterblast. If he was tired of her, she would let him see that she was even more tired of him, whether she was so or not.

“To revert to Spence,” he said. “What pleasure can it give you to make a bigger fool of the young idiot than his parents and Nature have already made him?”

“He isn’t at all a fool,” snapped Hermia, shortly.

“Not eh? Well, everything is relative, even in terminology. We’ll call him not so wise as some other people, if you prefer it. If he was as wise, he might be over head and ears in love with you without giving it away at every turn—in fact, thrusting it into the very face of the ordinary observer.”

“Why, Hilary, you really are jealous!” she cried with a ringing laugh. For a moment, however, she had looked perturbed.

“Ha, ha! That’s good—distinctly good. Jealous! There is, or ought to be, no such thing, once past the callowness of youth. The self-respect of any man should be above whining to any one woman because she prefers somebody else. The mere fact of her doing so renders her utterly valueless in his sight there and then.”

“You don’t really mean that, Hilary?” she said. “You’re only just talking, you know.”

“Try it and see.”

His eyes were full on hers. For the life of her, she could not as straightly meet that straight, firm glance. This was the only man she had never been able to deceive. Others she could hoodwink and fool at will, this one never. So, with a light laugh, with a shade of nervousness in it that would have been patent to an even less acute faculty of perception than his, she rejoined—

“Well, you’re out of it this time, Hilary. Justin isn’t in love with me at all. Why, it’s ridiculous!”

She turned away uneasily. For he knew that she was lying, and she knew that he did.

“One moment, Hermia,” he called out to her. She paused. “While we are on the subject: are you not getting a little tired of—our partnership?”

“Why?”

“I’ve seen symptoms of it lately, and I don’t think I’m mistaken. Because, if you are, say so squarely and openly. It’ll be much better in the long run.”

“I think you are tired of it,” she flashed. “I suppose you have a lot of black wives over yonder, like that disgusting old Pemberton and Young. That’s why you’re so fond of going into the Matabele country, and leaving me all alone for weeks.”

“Apparently you know more about Pemberton’s and Young’s conjugal arrangements than I do, but let me assure you you’re utterly wrong in your estimate of mine.”

“I don’t believe it. You are all of you alike, once you take to going among those beastly natives.”

“You don’t believe it? That I can’t help, so there it stays. And now I’ve lazed long enough, I must rustle about and see to things.”

Left there, Hermia watched his tall form, like a pillar of white, wending up the low kopje at the back of the stockade. He had become very reserved, very self-contained and inscrutable of late; so much so indeed, that it was almost impossible to gauge how much he knew or suspected. Now she felt uneasy, uncomfortable with a dim consciousness of having come off second best in the recent cut and thrust. Well, perhaps he was right. She was tired of the existing state of affairs—perhaps a trifle tired of him.

And he? The kopje up which he had taken his way, ascended by an easy acclivity to a point which commanded an immense view to the south and westward. Range upon range of rolling slope and wooded ridge lay there outspread—vast and scarcely inhabited country, a land given over to wild game and a few shrinking, starving remnants of tribes living in daily fear of the sweep of the terrible Matabele besom. The evening was still, and golden, and beautiful, and, seated under a mahobo-hobo tree, Blachland lit his pipe, and began to think out the position.

So Hermia was tired of their life together! He had seen it coming on, and at first the knowledge had caused him some concern. He contrasted the lives of other pioneers, living all alone, or in native fashion, with two or three dusky-hued daughters of the land, in rough, uncivilised manner, growing more and more into the happy-go-lucky, soulless simplicity of life of the barbarous aborigines themselves,—contrasted them with the life he himself led, its comfort, and refined companionship, and, until lately, love,—and, doing so, a qualm of regret tinged his mind. It was evanescent however. For he himself was growing tired of this mode of life. He had embarked on it when he and Hermia had reckoned the world well lost for each other’s sake. Now, neither of them so reckoned any more; nay, further, to be perfectly candid with themselves, they wondered how they ever could have. Why not leave it then, move to some more cheerful and civilised quarter of the globe? To do so would be tantamount to leaving each other.

Hermia had taxed him with being jealous, and he had replied, and rightly, that he was past the capacity for any such foolishness. But he had no intention of remaining her dupe. That he had ample cause for jealousy in the matter just under discussion, he was well aware; but that was nothing to what he would meet with should they return to civilisation together. She could no more cleave to one, and one only, than she could fly over the moon. They had better part.

Over the vast roll of country beneath, stretching away into misty dimness, his glance swept. How would he take to civilisation again? The old restlessness would come upon him. The wandering up-country life had got into his system. The other kind, too, was not so very great as to lure him back to it either. He supposed he had made a mess of things. Well, most people did one way and another, and it couldn’t be helped.

Up the slope, through the sparse bushes, a herd of cattle was threading—his cattle; and in the tall dark form of their driver he recognised Hlangulu, the Matabele. Mechanically, however, he took in this while his thoughts reverted to their former train. Would they miss each other? he wondered; or, rather, would he miss Hermia? That she would hardly waste a regret on him he knew, for he had long since discovered the shallow emptiness of her nature, and that what he had at one time taken for depth was the mere frenzied abandonment of a passing passion, wholly unrestrained and absorbing for the time being; but now, and indeed long since, burnt out. Turning, he looked back on the group of primitive buildings within the protecting stockade, his home. A stillness and peace seemed to brood over it in the evening light. He could make out Hermia’s form crossing a section of the enclosure. He thought of the years they had been together. Had those years been happy? Well, hardly. Disillusionment had not been long in coming, and with its growth their brief and spurious happiness had faded. They did not quarrel, but it was a case of mutual toleration. And now, at last, he had returned one fine day to recognise that his place was filled by another. Decidedly the time had come for them to part.

“Nkose!”

Blachland looked up. His meditations must have run on, for the utterer of this sonorous salutation was he who, but a moment ago it seemed, was right away down there driving the cattle, yet he had had time to take them borne and return here himself.

“What is it, Hlangulu?”

The man dropped down into a squatting attitude, and began to talk. Blachland, who understood natives, let him run on about nothing in particular—the state of the country, the new settlements of the pioneers, the King, the decreasing of the game, and so forth,—for he knew something was coming. Presently it came.

“Nkoseis even as Umlimo. The dark mysteries of the Great bold no terrors for him?”

“Not any,” was the laconic reply.

“Yet it is certain death to look into such.”

“Death is certain, but the time of death, never. I have looked at ‘certain death’ before, yet here I am.”

“Au,Nkose! What you desire is not possible, save by one way.”

“And that way?”

“Is known to me alone.”

“And you are going to make it known to me. Now, Hlangulu, men are men, and men have motives. Why are you going to do this?”

“What is that which is most desired by all white men,Nkose?”

“Gold.”

“Yeh-bo, Nkose, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle and wives.Hau! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of it.”

Blachland didn’t start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man’s words were plain enough. A quantity of treasure had been buried with the dead King. That was the interpretation.

“Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?” he said, producing a sovereign.

“Eh-hé, Nkose!” assented the Matabele. “It is in a bag, so high,”—holding his hand about a couple of feet from the ground.

Then they talked, the white man and the savage,—talked long and earnestly. The superstitions of the latter precluded him from going near the dreaded sepulchre, let alone entering it. But for the former no such barrier existed. Hlangulu knew a way of getting him through the pickets: then he could accomplish a double purpose, explore the interior of the King’s grave, and bring away the concealed wealth which lay there; and this they would share equally.

It was quite dark when they separated: Blachland all braced up by the prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did, was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in some far-away land where Lo Bengula’s arm could not reach, where he could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy wives, young and new, whenever inclined.

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