A glance of understanding, humorous withal, pa.s.sed between brother and sister.
"Beryl is just about a dead shot, Holt," said the former quietly.
"But even then, what can one do against a number, and that one a--"
"A woman, you were going to say, Mr Holt," supplied that equable, resolute voice, that had already begun to charm me.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Brian. "Are you afraid to throw up your hat in the air, Holt, now, just as we sit? But never mind. It wouldn"t be fair to spoil that new "smasher" of yours. Mine"s a very old one. Look now."
While he had spoken Beryl had disappeared within the house for a moment.
Now she stood there holding a revolver--no toy, mind, but a real effective and business-like six-shooter. Up went Brian"s hat, whirling in mid-air. Just as it rested stationary for a fraction of a second at its highest flight, there was a sharp report; the hat gave a spasmodic jerk, like a live thing, and began to fall. But before it touched ground there was another report. Struck again, it gave a leap, and went skimming away to the ground in sidelong flight.
"Magnificent, by Jove!" broke from me. But that she had lowered the still smoking weapon, Beryl had not moved. Brian, however, had sprung from his seat to retrieve his hat.
"Call that nothing, Holt?" he cried, pointing out two clean bullet holes--one through the brim, the other through the crown. "Good thing it wasn"t yours, eh?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Brian, it"s too bad of you, to make me show off in that way," said Beryl. "I can"t think why I did it. Now I must go and see to things inside, or you two poor hungry creatures will get nothing to eat to-night."
She disappeared, and as the playful, chiding tone, the merrily deprecatory glance remained in my mind, I realised a strange impression.
It seemed that all in a moment she had thrown aside that outer crust of reserve which she had worn for my benefit, and underneath I descried the real Beryl Matterson. And into a very sweet and alluring personality did my mental gaze seem to penetrate.
"Bushbuck chops, Holt," said Brian, as we sat down to supper, in the snug, well-lighted dining-room, which in the comfort and refinement of its appointments bore token of the hand of a presiding genius--to wit, Beryl. "Rather out of season, buck, just now; still, we shoot one now and then, if only as a change from the eternal sheep. Try them. New kind of grub for you, eh?"
I did try them, and found them perfect, as indeed everything on the table was, and this was a farm on the average scale. I have since been at many a similar place run on a large scale where the appointments were slovenly in comparison. But then such did not own Beryl Matterson as a presiding G.o.ddess. Afterwards we adjourned to the stoep.
"Beryl will join us directly, Holt," said Brian, as we lit our pipes.
"She has to see to things a bit first. Girls over here have to do that, you know. I can tell you we should come off badly if they didn"t."
Later on, when I got to my room at the end of the stoep, and turned in between snowy sheets, I appreciated what some of the aforesaid "seeing to things" on Beryl"s part involved.
"I expect the governor and George"ll sleep at Trask"s to-night, and turn up first thing in the morning," declared Brian as it waxed late. And Beryl, who had long since joined us, concurred.
It was wholly delightful as we sat there chatting, in the soft night air--the range of hills opposite silvered and beautiful in the moonlight, and ever and anon the strange cry of bird or beast floating through the stillness, or the wailing whistle of plover circling above-- and to me the experience was as strange as it was delightful. A day or two ago, I had felt lonely and forlorn indeed--a stranger in a strange land. Yet now here I was, in the most congenial surroundings beneath a hospitable roof whose inmates looked upon me as one of themselves and had made me thoroughly at home accordingly. And the fact that one of the said inmates was an unusually attractive girl did not, you may be sure, under the circ.u.mstances tend to lessen the feeling of thorough and comfortable enjoyment to which the situation caused me to give myself up. At last Brian began to yawn.
"Holt, old chap, you must excuse me," he said. "We turn out early here and have to turn in tolerably ditto."
I professed myself quite in accord with the idea. The fact was I felt just a little tired myself.
"So? Well, then, we"ll have a gla.s.s of grog and turn in."
If I have dwelt upon the incidents of that first evening, I suppose it is because upon such one"s first and most vivid impressions are invariably based.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
A NEW LIFE.
I awoke from a sound sleep, or rather was awakened by a knocking at the door. Remembering my disclaimer of susceptibility, I hardly like to own the persistency wherewith my dreams were haunted by visions of my hostess. But now the sun was already up, and as I shouted "Come in,"
the opening door admitted a broad dazzling flash of his new-born radiance together with the form of a small Kafir girl bearing a cup of coffee. Sounds, too, of busy life came from outside.
A shave and a cool refreshing tub, and it did not take me long to get into my clothes. There was no one about the house, except a Kafir girl sweeping the stoep, but I heard voices in the direction of the kraals, and thither wending I came upon a great enclosure filled with cattle, and the hissing squirt of milk into zinc pails told what was going forward. As I climbed over the gate, the voices increased in volume, and expressed anger, not to say menace. Then a sight met my eyes, causing me to move forward a little quicker.
Brian Matterson was standing at the further end, and, confronting him, a huge Kafir. The latter was talking volubly in his own tongue, whose rolling ba.s.s seemed to convey a ferocity which even to my inexperienced ear was unmistakable. Moreover, he seemed to emphasise his arguments, whatever they, were, with a very suggestive grip upon a pair of hardwood sticks, which he held one in each hand. But Brian, who was totally unarmed, stood, one hand in his trousers pocket, talking quietly, and absolutely and entirely at his ease.
Suddenly the savage, an evil-looking, ochre-smeared ruffian, raised his voice to a roar of menace, and at the same time one of the sticks whirled through the air. But Brian merely stepped back a pace, and then what followed was beautiful to behold. His fists were playing like the drumsticks of a kettledrum, and down went his towering a.s.sailant into the dust of the cattle kraal--then springing up, down he went again. It was all done in a moment, before I could even reach the spot.
"That you, Holt?" said Brian, without, however, taking his eyes off his discomfited adversary, to whom he continued to address some further remarks in the tongue of the Amaxosa, and who, shuffling along the ground, rose to his feet some little way off and slunk away out of the enclosure, snarling out a deep-toned running fire of what sounded not in the least like benediction.
"What"s the row?" I said.
"Oh, nothing much. Rum thing, though, it should have happened the very first glimpse you get of us. Still, it had to be. That fellow, Sibuko, was with us here once, but we turned him off. He came back this morning, and it"s my belief he came back on purpose to have a row--and he"s got his wish."
"Rather," I said, in hearty admiration for the masterly way in which my former schoolfellow had reduced to order a formidable and muscular barbarian, an encounter with whom I myself would far rather have avoided than welcomed. "You did that well, Brian. Yet I don"t remember you as a superlative bruiser at old w.a.n.kley"s."
"Nor am I now. After all, it"s nothing. These chaps can"t use their fists, you know."
"How about their sticks?"
"Yes, that comes in. A smart Kafir with a couple of kerries is often a large contract--quickness is the great thing with either. Still, it"s unpleasant, and I don"t care about it. But you"ll hardly believe me when I tell you the necessity may not arise once in a year. Only, you can"t be defied on your own place. I told that chap to clear, and he answered point-blank that he wouldn"t. There was only one way of settling that difference of opinion, you see."
And he turned to give an order to one of his Kafirs, calm, equable, as if nothing had happened.
"Have a smoke," he went on, "or is it too early for you? Yes? Oh well, perhaps a fellow is better in moderation. Though I expect you"ll soon tumble into all our ways." And he filled and lighted his pipe, while we chatted, but not for a moment did his attention slacken from what he was engaged upon, the superintending of the milking to wit.
It was a lovely cloudless morning, and there was something in the clear dry atmosphere that was exhilarating in the extreme. How would I take to this sort of life? I thought to myself. Already the old life seemed far away, and all behind. The charm of this new life--its freedom and glorious climate--were settling upon me; why should I not embark in it?
I had the means, if I started carefully and modestly. I did not imagine for a moment there was a fortune in it, but neither was there in the branch of business in which my lines had hitherto been cast. And somehow, woven in with such meditations was already the image of Beryl Matterson; which was quite too absurd, remembering that twenty-four hours ago I had never seen her.
"Don"t you ever carry a six-shooter, Matterson?" I said, my mind reverting to the little difference of opinion I had just seen so effectually settled.
"Very seldom. You see, we are not outside the law here, and if I shot a fellow I should almost certainly find myself in a nasty awkward mess."
"What--even in self-defence?"
"Even then. The English law is curiously wooden-headed on some points.
The "sacredness of human life" is one of them, especially with a judge or two we have here who will always go against a white man in favour of a Kafir; and if you were known to habitually carry arms it would go further against you still."
"But what about your sister?"
"That"s different. There isn"t a jury on the frontier would convict a woman for shooting a Kafir, because they know perfectly well that such a thing couldn"t happen except in a case of the direst necessity. In fact, there are far too few women and girls who are able to take care of themselves, and they all ought to be."
"I should very much think so," I said, and the time was to come when these remarks were destined to recur to my mind with vivid clearness and weighty force.
"Hallo!" said Brian, "here"s the governor coming back." And following his glance, I saw the white tent of a trap coming down the road from the opposite direction to that of our way the evening before. A minute or so more and it drew up opposite the kraals.
"Don"t say anything about what you"ve just seen, Holt," he went on, as we made our way to the gate. "He doesn"t like that sort of thing, but for all that it"s sometimes inevitable."