Part 53 (2/2)
”Wrong, do you say? Hoe?”
”What the green reim does teach them,” explained Lady Hannah, secretly aghast at her own temerity, ”is, not to be found out next time.”
He gave a wooden chuckle, but his regard was as menacing and his voice as gruff as ever.
”I make no mouth-play with words. I talk in men and guns, and there are half a dozen among the Engelsch, niet mier, that know how to talk back.
There are one or two others that are duyvels, and not men. And the worst duyvel of all”--he waved the big hand westward--”is he over there at Gueldersdorp.”
She mentally registered the compliment.
”You are a woman who writes for the Engelsch newspapers that are full of shameless tales about the Boers.” He spat copiously upon the floor, and the big voice became a bellow. ”Lies, lies! I have had them read to me, and the people who make them should be shot. Hear you now. You shall write to them and say: 'Selig Brounckers is a merciful man and a just. He is not as zwart as he is painted. He caught me mousing round his hoofd laager at Tweipans--and what does he do?'” The pause was impressive. Then the roaring voice resumed:
”'He sends me marching down to the gaol at Groenfontein, that is packed with dirty white and dirty coloured schelms until there is not room for one more----”
He named the homely parasite hymned by Burns ...
--”'Or he packs me up to Oom Paul at Pretoria, chained to the waggon-tail like the others.' ...”
Lady Hannah wondered, while the stuffy room spun round her, who the others were.
”Geen, I will tell you what he does.” He pitched the crumpled transformation contemptuously into the corner. ”He writes to the Engelsch Commandant at Gueldersdorp and says: 'I have here a silly female thing that is no use to me. Take her you, and give me in exchange a man of mine.' ...”
”And he ... what does ...?” She could get out nothing more.
”He agrees. Mevrouw Vrynks”--”Dutch for Wrynche,” thought Lady Hannah dizzily--”you will now pay the Mevrouw Kink what is owing for her amiable entertainment, and you will start for Gueldersdorp in ten minutes' time.”
The roaring voice of the stern, fierce-eyed man, sounded lovelier than the swan-song of De Rezke. She faltered, with her joyful heart leaping at the gates of utterance:
”The--mare and spider. You will be so kind as to return them----?”
His face became as a human countenance rudely carved in seasoned oak.
”I know nothing of a mare and spider,” blared the great voice.
She looked him straight between the hot fierce eyes, and spoke out pluckily.
”They are not my property. I hired the trap and the trotter from a hotel-keeper at Gueldersdorp. And Mr. Van Busch tells me that they have recently been commandeered for the service of the United Forces of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.”
”So!... Well, that is what I would have done, if they were worth having.
Where is Van Busch?” The angry glance pounced on that patriot in the remote corner to which he had modestly retired. Van Busch cringed forwards, hat in hand, explaining:
”The English Mevrouw mistakes, Myjnheer. Sure, now, I never told her anything of that kind. How could I, when there was no mare and no spider?
Didn't I drive her and the other woman over from Haargrond, with Bough's little beast pulling in a cart of my own? Call the other woman, and she will tell you it was as I say.”
Lady Hannah, supremely disdainful, turned her back upon the liar....
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