Читать книгу The Triumph of Hilary Blachland - Mitford Bertram - Страница 7

“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 very snuffy mood. 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, he would 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 serve Nkose again.”

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 which Nkose would 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 that rôle. 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.