Part 26 (1/2)

”Mine,” p.r.o.nounced the former. ”By the way, Langrishe, there are a dozen thirsty police outside. Serve them a good tot all round.”

In the rough dining-room a small Makalaka boy was spreading a murky cloth on a murkier table. The inhabitants of the room were mostly flies, and, incidentally, Lucy and Clare. But they were used to these little defects of detail, by that time.

”Can't give you anything but tinned stuff, ladies,” said Langrishe, gruffly apologetic. ”Everything fresh has died of the drought or the rinderpest.”

That too, did not afflict them, and they discussed Paysandu tongue in that rough-and-ready veldt shanty with an appet.i.te not always present at the most dainty and glittering of snowy tables. Then after a brief rest the mules were inspanned again. ”Going to outspan at Skrine's?” said Langrishe, as, having settled up, they bade him good-bye.

”Don't know,” answered Wyndham; ”I'd like to get on to the Kezane.”

”You can't. It's too far and too hot. You'll bust them mules.”

”Oh well, I'll see how they get on. So long, Langrishe, we'll look in on the way back.”

Poor Langrishe! he was a rough pioneer in a rough country, but a good fellow enough according to his lights. Little they thought, that gay and light-hearted party, as they bade him good-bye--little he thought himself--that not merely his days, but his hours were numbered--and that not even two figures would be needed to write the number of them; for one of the awful features of that ghastly rising was that it whirled down upon its victims as a veritable bolt from the blue. And its victims were scattered, singly or by twos and threes, throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Craftily Wyndham had manoeuvred that Clare should share the front seat with him. She could see the country better, he declared, and if there was more sun there was more air than in the back seat. Clare herself was nothing loth, and moreover the move met with Fullerton's approval.

That sybaritic engineer, feeling genial after a plain but plentiful lunch and two or three long whiskies-and-sodas, felt likewise a little drowsy; and the back seat was more comfortable for the purpose of forty winks. Wyndham was actuated by another motive. He was proud of his driving and he wanted the girl to witness and appreciate it. And she did, and said so, thereby raising Wyndham to the seventh heaven of delighted complacency.

More than once he stole a glance of admiration at the beautiful, animated face beside him. The heat, and a modic.u.m of dust, seemed to affect her not one whit. Poor Lucy Fullerton in the back seat, not less drowsy than her proprietor, was looking a trifle red and puffy from the effects of both, but Clare, in her fresh and cool attire and straw hat, was as fresh and cool and smiling as though heat and dust did not exist.

She did not even want to put up a sunshade, that most abominable of nuisances on the part of the sharer of your driving seat, what time your way lies over none too smooth roads, and through an occasional stony and slippery drift. And they chatted and joked merrily and light-heartedly as they sped over the sunlit landscape with its variety of towering granite kopje near by and hazy line of distant ridge far away against the deep blue of heaven's vault, what time both Fullertons snored placidly behind, one discordantly, the other lightly.

”Our good Fullerton is guilty of a snore fit to give a dead man the nightmare, isn't he, Miss Vidal?” said Wyndham presently, turning his head to look at the offender. That estimable engineer lay back in his corner in an uncomfortable att.i.tude, his mouth wide open and emitting sounds that baffle description. ”I really think we ought to wake him.”

Clare laughed. ”No, no. Let him alone. He's quite happy now.”

”He reminds me of a man who was one of a shooting party I was with up on the Inyati. There were several of us, and we slept in a _scherm_, very snug and jolly we were too. But the moonlight nights were heavenly, and I was restless and couldn't sleep--so I used to get up and light my pipe, and stroll about outside, and admire the view, and all that sort of thing. Well, after a couple of nights or so the chap who slept next me objected--swore I was an outrageously restless beggar and disturbed him half a dozen times a night, and wouldn't I go and sleep on the other side of the _scherm_ in future? I put it to him how the demon could I be anything but restless when I found myself turned in alongside of a saw-mill in full blast--not even a respectable saw-mill either, and one of regular habits, but one that started on a hard-grained slab and buzzed through that, then struck a hard knot and bucked and kicked and returned to the charge, and finally screamed through it, and no sooner had it resumed the even tenor of its way than a nail had to be negotiated. Well, as for the cutting through of that nail, I give it up. I suppose the infernal regions alone could produce such sounds of soul-splitting stridency as those evolved by my next-door neighbour's blowpipes when it got to that.”

Clare was convulsed.

”How did you settle it?” she said.

”Why, he went and turned in alongside of a man who was stone deaf in one ear, and half in the other, so it didn't matter. Fullerton is a terror to snore, too, and with a little more practice he'll be as good as the other man. Just listen to him.”

”Eh? What's that about me?” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the object of this remark, starting up spasmodically, and rubbing his eyes. ”Why, I believe I've been asleep.”

”I don't know about that, old chap,” laughed Wyndham. ”What we do know is that you must have worked off a biggish contract in the plank sawing line, since we last heard the sound of your manly voice. Don't we, Miss Vidal?”

”Well, this scooting through the air--hot air too--makes one snoozy,”

explained Fullerton, uttering a cavernous yawn. ”Hallo! I must have been asleep a good time, we're at Skrine's already.”

They had topped a rise, and now on the slope beneath, and in front, stood two or three buildings, with the usual native huts and goat kraal behind. But about the place no sign of life showed.

”Great Scott! I believe there isn't a soul on the place,” said Wyndham anxiously. ”No, I thought not,” as they rattled up to the door, and saw that it was securely shut, and that of the stable padlocked. Then, putting his head round the tent of the waggon, ”Sergeant!”

”Sir?” answered the non-com. trotting up.

”Fall back just out of earshot with your men, and do a little language for us, will you? We can't, we've got ladies with us. Skrine's store's no good. Skrine's away and his idiotic stable's locked up. No use outspanning here.”

The police sergeant spluttered--and those in the waggon laughed. Yet not very light-heartedly. It was really a nuisance, for it meant that they must push on another stage to the Kezane Store--the original plan, but one which Wyndham had already recognised that Langrishe was right in advising him to abandon; for the heat and the pace had already told on the mules.