He had known these people for some months, but _of_ them 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 const.i.tuted 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 att.i.tude. 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 pa.s.sion. 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 gla.s.ses 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 he _had_ returned 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?
n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 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."