Part 54 (1/2)
”So, then, you are not willing to go back in a veld waggon?” demanded the bullying voice.
”I'm willing to go back in anything that isn't a coffin,” she declared.
He gave the wooden chuckle, swung about and trampled to the door, calling to Van Busch in the tone of a dog's master:
”Here, you ...!”
Van Busch followed, wriggling as obsequiously as the dog with a stolen mutton-chop upon his conscience. The door slammed, the key turned roughly in the lock. Lady Hannah, oblivious of the absence of outdoor footwear, flew joyously to cram a few belongings into her travelling-bag and resume her discarded hat.
Outside in the street, the motley crowd having melted away upon his appearance, General Selig Brounckers was saying to Van Busch:
”It is a pity that the Engelschwoman's story was not true about that mare and spider. For if a mare and spider there had been, you might perhaps have kept them for your trouble----”
--”Now I come to think of it, Myjnheer Commandant,” said Van Busch in a hurry, ”perhaps the woman was not lying, after all. Bough has a mouse-coloured trotter in the stables at Haargrond Plaats, and a spider stands under the waggon-shed in the yard. If they are hers, I'll let Bough know Myjnheer Commandant said I was to have them. He'll make no bones about parting then. Sure, no! he'll never dare to.”
”I will send a couple of my burghers with you to take care he does not,”
said the Commandant, in what was for the redoubtable Brounckers an easy tone. ”It is unlucky,” he added less pleasantly, ”that you were such a verdoemte clever knave as to tell the Engelschwoman I had commandeered both beast and vehicle for Republics' use. Because now I will do it, look you! No Boer's son that lives, by the Lord! will I suffer to make Selig Brounckers out a liar.” He added, as Van Busch salaamed and squirmed with more than Oriental submissiveness, ”Least of all a sneaking Africander schelm like you. And now, about the money?”
”Excellentie----” lisped Van Busch, smiling his oily brown face into ingratiating creases ...
”I am no Excellentie.... Of how much money, properly belonging to the Republics' war-chest, have you cheated this little fool of an Engelschwoman?”
”Five weeks back, Myjnheer Commandant,” bleated Van Busch, ”I had from her one hundred and fifty pounds, which I swear as an honest man has been handed over to Myjnheer Blinders----”
”He has accounted to me.”
”Five weeks back----?” Van Busch hinted.
”He has accounted for it five weeks back.”
There are men who possess all the will to be rogues, but have not the requisite courage. Such a man was Blinders, who emerged plus a sweetheart, the approval of his Commandant, and the _eclat_ of having chaffed the British Lion, out of the affair that was to prove so expensive to Mr. Van Busch.
”And”--the big voice trumpeted, as Van Busch, like a stout pinned b.u.t.terfly, quivered, transfixed by the glare of the savage eyes--”you will now account to me for the rest.”
Van Busch faltered with a sickly smile:
”Fifty more, Myjnheer, that I was bringing you myself----”
”One hundred and fifty you have paid me, and fifty you were going to pay me. Ik wil het--but where are the other hundreds you have paid Van Busch?”
bellowed the roaring voice. ”Does not my old man-baboon at home pouch six walnuts for every one that his wife gets to share with her youngster? When I want to make the big thief spit them out, I squeeze him by the neck. So, voor den donder! will I do to you. Only, geloof mij, I will not do it in play. Pay Blinders the other five hundred pounds before kerk-time. If you haven't got the cash about you, he and young Schenk Eybel shall ride with you to Haargrond, where lives your friend Bough. They can bring back the money and the mare and spider, too. Moreover, Eybel, who is a bright boy, and has a head upon his shoulders, wants a slim rogue of a fellow that talks Engelsch to worm himself in over yonder”--he jerked his gnarled thumb in the direction of Gueldersdorp--”and bring back a plan of the defences on the west, where the native stad lies. Perhaps I will let you keep two hundred of that five hundred if you are the man to go.... But whether you go or stay, by the Lord! you will find it best to be square with Selig Brounckers.”
And the redoubtable Brounckers stumped off. Verily, in times of scarcity, when the lion is a-hungered, the jackal must lose his bone.
It would be well, thought the dispirited jackal ruefully, to remove the unfavourable impression made, by a valuable service rendered to the United Republics. It would be a good thing to stand well with Myjnheer Schenk Eybel, who would, when Brounckers went south, be left in sole command. It would be as well, also, to get a look at that girl that was living with the nuns at Gueldersdorp.
”Mildare ...” That was the puzzle--her having the name so pat. But these little frightened, white-faced things were sly, and kids remembered more than you thought for....
Grown up a beauty, too, and with the manners of a lady. He swore again, the thing seemed so incredible, and spat upon the dust. A pretty green s.h.i.+ning beetle crawled there. He set his heavy foot upon the insect, and its beauty was no more.