Part 26 (1/2)
”'Respected Sir,'” read Jonaique, ”'with pain and sorrow I write these few lines, to tell you of poor Peter Quilliam----'”
”Aw boy veen, boy veen!” broke in Grannie.
”'Knowing you were his friend in the old island, and the one he talked of mostly, except the girl----'”
”Boy ve----”
”Hush, woman.”
”'He made good money out here, at the diamond mines----'”
”Never a yellow sovereign he sent to me, then,” said Black Tom, ”nor the full of your fist of ha'pence either. What's the use of getting grand-childers?”
Caesar waved his hand. ”Go on, Jonaique. It's bad when the deceitfulness of riches is getting the better of a man.”
”Where was I? Oh, 'good money ------' 'Yet he was never for taking joy in it----'”
”More money, more cares,” muttered Caesar.
”'But talking and talking, and scheming for ever, for coming home.'”
”Ah! home is a full cup,” moaned Grannie. ”It was a show the way that lad was fond of it. 'Give me a plate of mate, bolstered with cabbage, and what do I care for their buns and sarves, Grannie,' says he. Aw, boy veen, boy bogh!”
”What does the nightingale care for a golden cage when he can get a twig?” said Caesar.
”Is the boy's chest home yet?” asked John the Clerk.
”There's something about it here,” said Jonaique, ”if people would only let a man get on.”
”It's mine,” said Black Tom.
”We'll think of that by-and-bye,” said Caesar, waving his hand to Jonaique.
”'He had packed his chest for going, when four blacklegs, who had been hanging round the compound, tempting and plaguing the Kaffirs, made off with a bag of stones. Desperate gang, too; so n.o.body was running to be sent after them. But poor Peter, being always a bit bull-necked, was up to the office in a jiffy, and Might he go? And off in chase in the everin' with the twenty Kaffirs of his own company to help him--not much of a lot neither, and suspected of dealing diamonds with the blacklegs times; but Peter always swore their love for him was getting thicker and stronger every day like sour cream. ”The captain's love has been their theme, and shall be till they die,” said Peter.'”
”He drank up the Word like a thirsty land the rain,” said Caesar. ”Peter Quilliam and I had mortal joy of each other. 'Good-bye, father,' says he, and he was shaking me by the hand ter'ble. But go on, Jonaique.”
”'That was four months ago, and a fortnight since eight of his Kaffirs came back.'”
”Aw dear!” ”Well, well!” ”Lord-a-ma.s.sy!” ”Hus.h.!.+”
”'They overtook the blacklegs far up country, and Peter tackled them.
But they had Winchester repeaters, and Peter's boys didn't know the muzzle of a gun from the neck of a gin-bottle. So the big man of the gang c.o.c.ked his piece at Peter, and shouted at him like a high bailiff, ”You'd better go back the way you came.” ”Not immajetly,” said Peter, and stretched him. Then there was smoke like a smithy on hooping-day, and ”To your heels, boys,” shouted Peter. And if the boys couldn't equal Peter with their hands, they could bate him with their toes, and the last they heard of him he was racing behind them with the shots of the blacklegs behind him, and shouting mortal, ”Oh, oh! All up! I'm done!
Home and tell, boys! Oh, oh.”'”
”Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall I shall arise.
Selah,” said Caesar.
Amid the tumult of moans which followed the reading, Philip, sitting with head on his hand by the ingle, grew hot and cold with the thought that after all there was no actual certainty that Pete was dead. n.o.body had seen him die, n.o.body had buried him; the story of the returned Kaffirs might be a lie to cover their desertion of Pete, their betrayal of him, or their secret league with the thieving Boers. At one awful moment Philip asked himself how he had ever believed the letter. Perhaps he had _wanted_ to believe it.