Part 32 (1/2)

”None at present, Miss Commerell,” replied Carb.u.t.t. ”Things are slack.

We shall have to go and have another slap at the n.i.g.g.e.rs up yonder, to keep the rust off. They are getting altogether too cheeky, squatting around Government House its very self.”

”That'll make a little excitement,” said Nidia. ”We can watch your deeds of derring-do from here through the gla.s.ses.”

”Heavens, no!” said Mrs Bateman, with fervour. ”I don't want to see or hear anything more of those dreadful wretches, except that they've all been shot.”

”By the way, there is a small item in the way of the latest,” said Tarrant, carelessly. ”Another man has rolled in who had been given up as a dead 'un.”

”Yes. Is it anybody we know?” asked Nidia, quickly.

”I rather think it is,” returned Tarrant, watching her face yet while not seeming to. ”Ames of Sik.u.mbutana.”

Nidia caught her breath with a sort of gasp, and her whole face lit up.

”Not John Ames?” she cried, as though hanging on the answer. Then, as Tarrant nodded a.s.sent, ”Oh, I am glad!”

And then all of Nidia's old self seemed to return. She poured forth question upon question, hardly waiting to be answered. How had he escaped? Where was he, and when was he coming to see her? and so on-- and so on.

”He's rather close on the subject, Miss Commerell,” Tarrant replied.

”He has a yarn about being chevvied by n.i.g.g.e.rs and tumbling over a _dwala_, and lying unconscious--and then some n.i.g.g.e.rs who knew him piloting him in. He asked after you the first thing, just as if you had never been away from here; and the odd part of it is, he didn't seem in the least surprised to hear you were safe and sound, and quite all right.”

But the oddness of John Ames' lack of astonishment did not strike Nidia just then. She talked on, quite in her old way--now freely, too--on the subject of her escape and wanderings, making much of the humorous side thereof, and more of the judgment and courage and resource of her guide.

Her voice had a glad note about it; a very carol of joy and relief seemed to ring out in every tone. Ever unconventional, it never occurred to her to make the slightest attempt to disguise her feelings.

If she was glad that the man who had done so much for her had returned safe and sound, it was not in her to conceal that fact.

”Phew! she's giving away the show,” Tarrant was thinking to himself.

”That first shot of mine _re_ John Ames was a plumb centre. I'll have the crow over old Moseley now. Lucky John Ames!”

But at heart he was conscious of a certain not altogether to be controlled sinking. He was not without a weakness for Nidia himself; now, however, in a flash he recognised its utter futility, and was far too much a man of the world not to realise that the sooner he cured himself of it the better.

Upon one other the change in Nidia's manner was not lost, and the discovery struck Susie Bateman with such wild amazement that she at first refused to entertain it. Here, then, lay the secret of the girl's fits of depression and generally low spirits. Such were not due to her recent terrible experiences. She had been secretly grieving on account of the man who had shared them, or why this sudden and almost miraculous restoration which the news of his safety had effected? She recalled her half-playful, half-serious warning to Nidia during their earlier acquaintance with this man--a warning more than once repeated, too.

That had been out of consideration for the man; but that it should ever have been needed on Nidia's own account--oh, Heavens! the idea was ghastly, if it were not so incredible Nidia, who had renounced airily the most alluring possibilities more than once, now to throw herself away upon a mere n.o.body! Nidia, who had never taken any of them seriously in her life, to succ.u.mb in this fas.h.i.+on! No, it could not be allowed. It could be nothing but the result of propinquity, and danger mutually shared. She must be saved from this at all costs. And then the good woman recognised uneasily that John Ames would be rather a difficult person to defeat, once he had made up his mind to opposition.

Ah! but she had one card to play, one weapon wherewith to deal a blow to which one of his mould would be peculiarly vulnerable.

The while she watched Nidia closely. But for the discovery she had made, she would have rejoiced to see her darling so completely her old self, all brightness and animation as she chatted away with the two visitors; now that very gladsomeness was as a poisoned and rankling dart to the dismayed observer, for it confirmed all her direst suspicions.

Susie Bateman's Christianity was about on a par with that of the average British female, in that she would have looked sourly askance at anybody who should refuse to attend church, yet just then she would have given a great deal to learn that Tarrant's report was erroneous, and that John Ames was at that moment lying among the granite wilds of the Matopos, as lifeless as the granite itself, with half a dozen Matabele a.s.segais through him.

Such aspirations, however, were as futile as they usually are, and the best proof of the truth of Tarrant's story lay in the real objective presence of the subject thereof; for hardly had the two men departed when they were replaced by a third--even John Ames him-self.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE PACKET MARKED ”B.”

With her usual frank naturalness and absence of conventionality, Nidia went to meet him in the doorway. Then, as he took her extended hands, it seemed as though he were going to hold them for ever. Yet no word had pa.s.sed between them.

How well he looked! she was thinking. The light, not unpicturesque attire there prevailing, and so becoming to a good-looking, well-made man, suited him, she decided. She had first seen him in the ordinary garments of urban civilisation. She had seen him last a tattered fugitive, haggard and unshaven. Now the up-country costume--silk s.h.i.+rt and leather belt, and riding-trousers with gaiters--endowed his lithe well set-up form with an air of freedom and ease, and looking into the clear-cut face and full grey eyes, framed by the wide, straight brim of the up-country hat, she thought she had never seen him looking so well.