Part 25 (1/2)

”Might I, as a matter of curiosity, ask who the 'someone else' may be?”

I said, conscious at the same time of a wholly unaccustomed sinking of the heart.

”Certainly, and I'll tell you. It's myself.”

”That's straight anyway,” I rejoined, feeling relieved. ”Then I am to understand I must congratulate you--both--on an engagement?”

He started at the word ”both.”

”Er--no. Not exactly that. Hang it, Glanton, don't I put things plain enough? I mean I was first in the field, and it isn't fair--in fact I consider it beastly dishonourable for you, or any other fellow, to come trying to upset my coach. Now--do you see?”

”I think I understand,” I said, feeling softened towards him. ”But as regards myself, first of all you had better be sure you are not a.s.suming too much, in the next place, you are just in the position of anybody else, and can't set up any such plea as prior rights. See?”

”No, I'll be hanged if I do,” he snarled. ”I've told you how things stand, so now you're warned.”

”I'm not going to quarrel with you,” I answered. ”We are all alone here, with no chance of anybody overhearing us or at any rate understanding us if they did. Yet I prefer talking 'dark' as the Zulus say. Let's start fair, d'you hear? Let's start fair--and--now you're warned.”

He scowled and made no answer. In fact, he sulked for the rest of the evening--and, to antic.i.p.ate--long after that.

I went outside before turning in, leaving Falkner in the sulks. The rain had ceased, and bright patches of stars were s.h.i.+ning between the parting clouds. The fire had died low, and the conversation of the boys had dropped too. I can always think best out in the open, and now I set myself hard to think over these last developments. By its date the letter must have been nearly a week on the road. Well, there was not time for much to have happened in between. Then what Falkner had just revealed had come to me as something of an eye-opener. I had at first rather suspected him of resenting me as an interloper, but subsequently as I noted the free and easy terms on which he stood with both his cousins--the one equally with the other--the last thing to enter my mind was that he should think seriously of either of them, and that one Aida.

Why, she used to keep him in order and treat him very much as a boy-- indeed all her references to him when discussing him with me, even as lately as in the letter I had just received, bore the same elder sisterly tone, and I felt sure that while this held good, Falkner, in entertaining the hopes he had revealed to me, was simply twisting for himself a rope of sand. At the same time I felt sorry for him, and my not unnatural resentment of the very dictatorial tone which he had chosen to adopt towards myself cooled entirely. He was young and so boyish that every allowance must be made. At the same time I envied him his youth. As for me, well I hardly knew, but as my meditations ran on in the stillness and silence of the starlit night, cl.u.s.tering ever around one recollection, well I realised, and not for the first time, that life seemed very much to have been wasted in my case.

The one talent man in the parable recurred to my mind, and I will even own, I hope not irreverently, to a sneaking sympathy for that same poor devil. He might have lost his one talent, or fooled it away, instead of which, he at any rate kept it--and, after all there is a saying that it is more difficult to keep money than to make it. Now it seemed to me that I was very much in the same boat with him. I had kept my talent-- so far--and was it even now too late to add to it, but--what the deuce had this got to do with Aida Sewin, who formed the undercurrent of all the riotous meditations in which I was indulging? Well perhaps it had something.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

DOLF NORBURY AGAIN.

When two people, trekking together beyond the confines of civilisation fall out, the situation becomes unpleasant. If each has his own waggon, well and good, they can part company, but if not, and both are bound to stick together it spells friction. For this reason I have always preferred trekking alone.

Even my worst enemy could hardly accuse me of being a bad-tempered man, let alone a quarrelsome one. On the other hand I have never laid claim to an angelic disposition, and if I had the demeanour of my present companion would have taxed it to the uttermost, since we had each been betrayed into showing the other our hand. For my part I can honestly say the fact would have made no difference whatever in our mutual relations, but Falkner Sewin was differently hung. First of all he sulked heavily, but finding that this did not answer and that I was entirely independent of him for companions.h.i.+p, for I would talk to the Zulus by the hour--he threw that off and grew offensive--so much so that I felt certain he was trying to pick a quarrel with me. Had it been any other man in the world this would have concerned me not one atom, indeed he needn't have tried overmuch. But here it was different. There was my promise to his cousin, and further, the consideration that Aida Sewin was his cousin and thus very nearly related indeed. No, on no account must we come to blows, and yet the strain upon my temper became hourly more great.

I had not been able to trek when I had intended, by reason of something beyond the ordinary native delay in bringing in my cattle; in fact in one particular quarter I had some difficulty in getting them brought in at all. In view of the troubled state of the border this looked ominous. In ordinary times Majendwa's people like other Zulus, though hard men of business at a deal, were reliability itself once that deal was concluded. Now they were inclined to be s.h.i.+fty and evasive and not always over civil; and all this had come about suddenly. Could it mean that war had actually broken out? It might have for all we knew, dependent as we were upon those among whom we dwelt for every sc.r.a.p of information that might reach us from outside. Otherwise their behaviour was unaccountable. But if it had, why then we should be lucky to get out of the country with unperforated skins, let alone with a wheel or a hoof to our names.

Even Majendwa's demeanour towards me had undergone a change, and that was the worst sign of all; for we had always been good friends. All his wonted geniality had vanished and he had become curt and morose of manner. I resolved now to take the bull by the horns, and put the question to Majendwa point-blank. Accordingly I betook myself to his hut, with that object. But the answer to my inquiries for him was prompt. The chief was in his _isiG.o.dhlo_, and could not be disturbed.

This sort of ”not at home” was unmistakable. I returned to the waggons.

Now an idea struck me. Was there more in that gruesome discovery of mine--and Falkner's--than met the eye? Was the fact that we had made it, first one of us and then the other, at the bottom of the chief's displeasure? It might have been so. At any rate the sooner we took the road again the better, and so I announced to Falkner that we would inspan at sunrise. His reply was, in his then mood, characteristic.

”But we haven't traded off the stuff yet,” he objected. ”I say. You're not in a funk of anything, are you, Glanton? I ask because I rather wanted to stay on here a little longer.”

I turned away. His tone was abominably provoking, moreover I knew that he would be glad enough to return, and had only said the foregoing out of sheer cussedness.

”You have your horse,” I said. ”If you like to remain I'll leave Jan Boom with you, and you can easily find your way back.”

”Want to get rid of me, do you?” he rapped out. ”Well you won't. Not so easily as that. No--you won't.”

To this I made no answer. At sunrise the waggons were inspanned. Then another difficulty cropped up. The boys who were to have driven the herd of trade cattle, at any rate as far as the border, did not turn up.