Part 24 (1/2)

”Look out for snakes, Ancram,” said Lamont, who was bringing up the rear. ”They often lie out in a path like this at night.”

Ancram started, instinctively stopping, with the result that the other cannoned into him. His nerves all unstrung he came near emitting a shout.

”Good Lord! Oh, it's you, Lamont!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, the perspiration pouring from him. ”I say, though, how the deuce am I to look out for snakes, or any d.a.m.ned thing else, when I can't see an inch beyond the end of my nose? Eh?”

”Of course. I thought I'd warn you, that's all.”

It amused Lamont to play upon his fears. This fellow had thrust himself upon him all unbidden, and had requited his hospitality first of all by trying to blackmail him, and then by disseminating slanders about him; slanders relating to his cowardice. And the fellow himself was an arrant coward. a.s.suredly he deserved punishment, and now he was getting it. The process of administering it was rather a congenial amus.e.m.e.nt.

Suddenly there broke forth upon the night a loud booming roar. The very air seemed to vibrate with it.

”Good G.o.d! What's that?” gasped Ancram. A smothered chuckle on the part of his companions was the first answer.

”The rats are in the trap,” said Lamont. ”_Were_, rather, because now they're nowhere; no, nor the trap either.”

”Rats? Trap? I don't quite follow, Lamont,” said Ancram helplessly, ”Don't you remember wondering what sort of b.o.o.by trap I was setting?

Well I was rehearsing then with a dummy. After you two had cleared, I rigged up the real thing, and it consisted of I shouldn't like to say how many pounds of dynamite. It seems to have answered finely. Only, Ancram, I shan't be able to entertain you again under my more or less inhospitable roof for a good long time to come, because my poor old shack has just been blown off the face of the earth, and with it.

Heaven knows how many Matabele.”

”D'you mean to say you've blown up your own house, Lamont?”

”Not me--but the confiding savage who'd called to cut our three throats while we were asleep--as he thought. We knew he would, and--he did.”

”By Jove, what a sell for them! Why, you're a genius, Lamont!”

p.r.o.nounced Ancram admiringly.

”Anyhow,” said Peters, ”it's been the saving of our lives so far, for otherwise, directly they found we weren't in the place, they'd have started out to look for us. Now they won't, because there'll be few enough left to do it, and those'll be more'n sick of us by this time.”

”It'll be the saving of the lives of a good many white men, when the news spreads, as it soon will,” appended Lamont. ”It'll make 'em think twice before they meddle with houses in future--too much _tagati_ about the job--and so our fellows will get a show.”

He was thinking, too, of the stories he had filled up old Qubani with, on the Gandela race-course, as to how the ground immediately around the towns.h.i.+p was extensively mined; and now this last manoeuvre of his would go to confirm it. The savage has a holy horror of unseen danger. He might, indirectly, have been the means of again saving Gandela, at a very perilous and critical time. Then he fell to wondering whether Clare Vidal was already away and safe at Buluwayo.

Day broke upon an expanse of wild, hilly country, moderately bushed.

Huge baboons barked at them from their fastnesses among the piles of craggy boulders which heaved up here and there against a drear and lowering sky, and which seemed a perfect rookery of predatory birds-- falcons and buzzards and kites--soaring and circling aloft. And now a halt was called.

”About time too,” groaned Ancram. ”I don't believe I could have gone a step farther.”

The other two made no comment upon this, but both were thinking the same thought. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and that link in this chain spelt Ancram. He was dead tired already, he declared, and his boots were wearing holes in his feet into the bargain. And the situation was serious enough in itself. They had no doubt but that the whole native population was up in arms, and here they were, only three, and afoot at that, in the heart of the hostile ground. True they were well-armed, and two of them, at any rate, resolute and full of resource; but even that wouldn't count for much with an entire population against them.

”Well, see how you feel after a feed, Ancram,” said Lamont. ”We can rest here a bit too. In fact, it's none too safe travelling in the daytime at all.”

They were out of the forest belt now, and the spot marked out for their halt was on the side of a great granite kopje, with long tambuti gra.s.s and acacia growing right up around its base. Hence they could see, and not be seen. Lamont and Peters took turn about to watch, while the other two slept. A friendly squabble took place between them as to who should take first watch, and, as usual in such a case, Peters had to 'obey orders.'

It was a wretched day. The dreary cloudiness had turned to drizzle.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances the prospect of rain would have been heart rejoicing. Now, with his homestead blown to bits, and no prospect of returning to his farm, possibly for months, or doing any good with it when he got there, the watcher was wis.h.i.+ng the longed-for rain somewhere else. In spite of the night's exertions he felt no desire for sleep, and as he sat there, while the other two snored, gazing forth on the drear wildness of the scene before him, why was it that his thoughts should revert so persistently to Clare Vidal? Yet they did. He recalled that scene on the race-course, and somehow he could remember every word she had said, and how she had said it. Then that last visit he had made at Fullerton's, and entirely at her request--what a strange, witching enchantment had hung around her all the time! She had made much of him, but in such an insidious and tactful way--what did it all mean? He had always been a bit of a misogynist, and had looked upon women and their fascinations with a kind of contemptuous aloofness, only broken through when he knew and became engaged to Violet Courtland. And now at last he could dwell upon that day at Courtland Mere without a stirring of the mind, unless it were a stirring of relief. But--why?

The day wore on, and it was not until late in the afternoon that the sleepers awoke.

”What's this?” said Peters sharply, sitting upright. ”Lamont--what the devil's this? Here it's nearly time to start again, and you never turned me out to take my watch. How about your own snooze, eh?”