"Where"s the dad?" said Brian, looking up from his outspanning. "He"s not seedy, too, is he?"
"Not a bit. He"s down in the further land. Ah, here he comes. By Jove, Brian, you"ve had rather a load," I went on, as I helped in the extraction of numerous bundles, and in the casting loose of the luggage lashed on behind. I must be doing something, I felt; talking too, otherwise the contrast between this return as I had pictured it hardly twenty-four hours ago and as it now was, would have been too forcibly brought home. Then, even though others were by, I would have managed to convey to Beryl what a delight her return had brought to, at any rate, myself; now, we had met in ordinary conventional fashion, and she was chatting with the stranger, while I chaffed Iris and tried to cheer up that poor little devil, George.
The stranger aforesaid, whose name was Pentridge, was a well-set-up, good-looking fellow of about my own age, a man to whom under other circ.u.mstances I should have taken. But now it was easy to see that Beryl occupied nearly, if not quite, as large a preponderance in his thoughts as she did in mine. He was a doctor by profession, and an old acquaintance of the Mattersons, though they had not met for some time.
Now, meeting him by chance in Fort Lamport, Beryl had invited him out to the farm.
Here was a new element in the situation for which I had not bargained.
The said situation I had thought out again and again during the twenty-four hours which had intervened since my first hearing the abominable news, and notably during an almost sleepless night. I would not say anything about it yet; would take time to think it over more fully. Meanwhile I had found some comfort in the thought that things would be to all outward appearance as they had been. Beryl and I would be together as before; and did I, by any chance, cherish a wild vague hope that anything might happen to cut the knot of the whole difficulty?
I believe I did.
But now the advent of this stranger upset all this. In him I saw a rival, and a potent one, for he was probably in a position to declare himself at any moment, while I must perforce lie low. Not only this, but there was that in the personality of the fellow which rendered him doubly dangerous, for he was one of those men to whom all women would naturally turn, some indeed with headlong resistless attraction; whereas I, Kenrick Holt--plain, common-place, plodding--knew myself to be endowed with no such attributes, and had anybody hinted to the contrary, should have laughed in their face.
Upon the resolve to keep my own counsel for the present followed another one, and this was to throw off the dead weight which the change in my fortunes had at first bound upon me, outwardly at any rate. Wherefore as we all shook down again into the ordinary routine of life, I avoided any appearance of aloofness and strove to bear myself as if there had been no change at all. But it involved a tremendous effort of will, amounting at times almost to physical anguish. For instance, if we were taking a collective walk or ride, and I had to witness the incidental pairing off together of Beryl and Pentridge, the bitter reflection that up till now it would have been her and myself would require some crushing down, it may safely be a.s.sumed; or in half a hundred incidents of everyday life he had a way of showing her little attentions, and that in a way which to me, at any rate, was unmistakable, though there was this about Pentridge, he never trod upon his own heels, so to say, with over-eagerness.
Still, my manner towards her must have undergone an unconscious change, for more than once Beryl would give me a strange look which I could not quite fathom. Sometimes, too, she would take on almost a coldness towards me, as different from her former free, unaffected cordiality as it could possibly be. Ah! a light suddenly dawned upon me. I was in the way, was becoming a nuisance to her. And acting upon this idea, I threw myself into the work of the place with tenfold energy. That would keep me out pretty well all day, and every day--but then, there was always the evening.
To me there was a humorous element underlying even this situation, and it spelt Trask. Trask"s disgust on finding Pentridge already in the field was quite comical. He could no longer monopolise the conversation, and when he started in to be funny, Pentridge, without seeming to do so, would invariably cap his would-be wit, and effectually turn it against himself. In short, to use a homely metaphor, Trask"s nose was put clean out of joint.
"Who the deuce is that bounder Pentridge, Holt?" he said to me one day when we were alone together.
"First, I don"t know. Second, he"s rather a good chap."
"Eh? Rather a good chap? Man alive! I should have thought if any one would wish him to the devil it"d be you."
"Well, I don"t. I like the chap," I rejoined, shortly.
Trask fired off a long whistle.
"That"s good," he said. "That"s good, coming from you of all people, Holt. Why he"s cutting you out all along the line."
Then I fired off a speech.
"I won"t pretend to misunderstand you, Trask," I said. "But that sort of remark is in the rottenest taste, in fact downright caddish. And look here. For a good while past you have laid yourself out to try and make me a b.u.t.t for your stodgy wit. Well, I"ve had enough of that--more than enough. So chuck it. See? Chuck it."
"Oh, all right, Holt. Keep your hair on, old man. How beastly "short"
you"ve got in these days. You usen"t to be."
There was an insinuation here conveyed that did not tend to soothe me, but possibly it was unintentional. Trask had a way of climbing down if tackled direct, that disarmed resentment. To do him justice, I don"t think it was due to cowardice, but to a feeling that he had gone too far, and a natural shrinking on the part of a man not actually drunk or an idiot, from the possibility of being made to look foolish in a row of his own bringing on.
One wet and drizzling day George, who was riding round the place with me during one of my tours of inspection, burst forth with--
"Man, but that chap Pentridge is dead spoons on Beryl."
"What are you talking about?" I said, rather roughly, not relishing the topic, yet not unwilling, curiously enough, that he should pursue it.
"Why, of course he is. Any fool could see that. Why, they"re always together, and then the way he looks, and the way he talks to her. I mean not what he says, but the way he says it. Of course they are spoons. But he"s a fine chap--hey, Kenrick?"
The young rascal, it will be observed, had made a big brother of me by that time.
"That"s a great yarn you"ve got hold of there, George," I answered, "but I should advise you not to be too fond of spinning it around, because I"m pretty certain Beryl wouldn"t like it."
"Oh, of course I wouldn"t say it to any one but you, Kenrick," he answered, rather hurt. I had taken the youngster somewhat under my wing of late, and he was keen to accompany me on my rounds. It had been decided that he must on no account be allowed to go about alone; in fact, his father had been advised to send him right away out of the locality altogether, and was even then negotiating for a school for him in Port Elizabeth or Cape Town. It could not be too far, it was represented.
The boy"s inconsequent chatter had given another turn to the knife. He was a sharp youngster, and p.r.o.ne to get in everybody"s way. Probably he had seen or heard more between the two than we had, but as to this, of course, I should curtly have shut him up had he volunteered any such narrative to me.
"We"ll just look round by Jabavu"s flock, and then go home," I said.
"_Ja_, let"s. It"s beastly cold, and I"ve had enough of it," he answered, as if that decided the matter.
Cold it a.s.suredly was. A thin penetrating drizzle was falling, and the hilltops over beyond the valley were hidden in mist. Dotting the slope in front, which looked indescribably dreary in the drawing-in afternoon, a spread of white specks and patches represented a thousand or so of sheep.
"Why, there are several Kafirs there with Jabavu," said George. "Look, Kenrick. There are at least three of them--no, two--counting him."
The herd, as we drew near, made a great show of rounding up his flock.
The other two stood still, awaiting our arrival. They gave me sullen greeting.
"What do you do here, you two? Who are you?" I said in Kafir, which I could talk fairly well by that time. And hardly had I uttered the words when I recognised the big savage, Sibuko, and in the other the fellow who had announced his amiable intention of cutting my throat up there in the cattle-stealers" cave. "You. What is your name?" I went on, pointing at this latter.
"Maqala."
The fellow was staring at me with an expression of impudent menace. I didn"t relish his off-hand way of answering, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from laying my whip about his shoulders; but I remembered that we had had enough trouble of late, and it would be as well to avoid a fresh quarrel. So I said--
"Go, Maqala. Go, Sibuko. You have no business here. Go."
They muttered something as they slouched their blankets around them, and strolled leisurely away. But for one moment, as their glances rested on the boy, the expression of their countenances was such that I thought it would be well if those school negotiations could be brought to a head as soon as possible. Anyhow, that they were here to-day for no good was as certain as that they were here at all.
"I wonder if they"ve been "slaag-ing,"" said George.
Evidently he was under no apprehension on the other head, which was as well.
"I don"t think so," I answered, "but we can count and see." So we called Jabavu, and having halted our horses a little way apart, made him drive the whole flock slowly between us. The count was correct.
The herd, who was one of Kuliso"s people, declared that these two had merely sat down for a while to have a chat. What harm could they do? he said. They were not even disturbing the game, for they had no dogs.
This was undeniable, but I had a very uncomfortable feeling on the subject of the encounter; and a conviction that these two scoundrels had joined hands through no mere chance, but were watching their opportunity for mischief, forced itself in upon my mind more and more; and as we rode home in the gathering dusk, I almost forgot my own troubles in thinking out what form such mischief might take, and how to guard against it.
A presentiment is a wholly arbitrary thing and subject to no laws of reasoning whatever. Such a presentiment was upon me then. I felt irresistibly that some danger hung over some or all of us, and that when we should be least on our guard. Well, the only way to defeat it was never to be off our guard.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
DUMELA"S DEFECTION.
"What do you think of this, Kenrick?" said Brian, as I went into the cattle kraal at milking time a couple of mornings after. "Here"s old Dumela saying he wants to leave."
The old cattle-herd was squatted on his heels on the ground. Brian and his father were seated on a log listening to what he had to say. This was not much. His brother"s son had got into trouble at Gangelizwe"s "Great Place," away beyond the Tsomo, and had involved his brother too.
He must go and help them at once, taking with him the several head of cattle he had running on the farm. He was getting old, and thought he would not work any more.