Part 7 (1/2)
”Very well, please yourself. But don't blame me if you do get a scare, that's all.”
Heavens! what a cold-blooded devil this was, Justin Spence was thinking.
If Hermia belonged to him, _he_ would not treat a question of peril and alarm to her as a matter of no particular importance as this one was doing. He would insist upon her removing to a place of safety; and, unable to restrain himself, he said something to that effect. He did not, however, get much satisfaction. His host turned upon him a bland inscrutable face.
”Perhaps you're right, Spence. I shouldn't be surprised if you were,”
was all the reply he obtained. For Hilary Blachland was not the man to allow other people to interfere in his private affairs.
”By the way, there are lions round here again,” said Hermia. ”They were making a dreadful noise last night over in the kopjes. They seemed to have got in among a troop of baboons, and between the lions and the baboons the row was something appalling.”
”Quite sure they were lions?”
”Of course they were. Weren't they, Justin?”
”No sort of mistake about that,” was the brisk reply.
”Well, I think they were lions too,” went on Blachland, ”because the one I shot this morning might easily have been coming from this direction.”
”What?” cried Spence. ”D'you mean to say you shot a lion this morning?”
”Yes. Just about daylight. And a fine big chap too.”
”And you never told us anything about it all this time!”
Blachland smiled. ”Well, you see, Spence, it isn't my first, not by several. Or possibly I might have ridden up at a hard gallop, flouris.h.i.+ng my hat and hooraying,” he said good-naturedly.
But there was a grimness about the very good nature, decided Spence.
Here was a man who had just shot a lion, and seem to think no more of the feat than if he had merely shot a partridge. He was conscious that he himself, under the same circ.u.mstances would have acted somewhat after the manner the other had described.
”But how did you come upon him?” asked Hermia, eagerly.
”Just after daylight. Started to ride on ahead of the waggon. Came to a dry drift; horse stuck short, refused to go down. Snake, I thought at first; but no. On the opposite side a big lion staring straight at us, not seventy yards away. Slipped from the gee, drew a careful bead, and let go. Laid him out without a kick, bang through the skull. Quite close to the waggon it was too. I left them taking off the skin.
There! that's the waggon”--as the distant crack of a whip came through the clear morning air. ”We'll go and look at it directly.”
”Oh, well done!” cried Hermia; and the wholly approving glance she turned upon the lion-slayer sent a pang of soreness and jealousy through Justin Spence. He began to hate Blachland. That infernal a.s.sumption of indifference was really affectation--in short, the most objectionable form of ”side.”
Soon, the rumble of heavy wheels drew nearer, and, to the accompaniment of much whip-cracking, and unearthly and discordant yells, without which it seems impossible to drive a span of oxen, the waggon rolled up. It was drawn within the enclosure to be out-spanned.
”You have got a small load this time,” said Hermia, surveying the great, c.u.mbrous, weather-worn vehicle, with its carefully packed cargo, and hung about with pots and kettles and game horns, and every sort of miscellaneous article which it was not convenient to stow within. ”Ah, there's the skin. Why, yes, Hilary, it is a fine one!”
The native servants gathered to admire the great mane and mighty paws there spread out, and many were the excited e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and comments they fired off. The skin, being fresh, was unpleasantly gory--notably the hole made by the bullet where it had penetrated the skull.
”What a neat shot!” exclaimed Hermia, an expression of mingled admiration and disgust upon her face as she bent down to examine the huge head. Was it a part of her scheme, or the genuine admiration of every woman for a feat of physical prowess, that caused her to turn to Blachland with almost a proud, certainly an approving look? If the former, it served its purpose; for Justin began to feel more jealous and sorer than ever.
”_Nkose_!”
Blachland turned. A native stood forth with uplifted hand, hailing him.
He had seen this man among his servants, but did not choose to recognise him first.
”Oh, it is you, Hlangulu?” he said, speaking in Sindabele; which tongue is a groundwork of Zulu overlaid with much Sechuana and Sesutu. ”That is strange, for since you disappeared from our camp on the Matya'mhlope, on the morning that we went to see the King, I have not set eyes on you.”