Part 46 (2/2)

There was that in the voice, some terrible thing, which drew Krool's eyes in spite of himself, and he met a look of fire and wrath.

”I tell why. If it was bad, it was bad. But I tell why, that is all. If it is not good, it is bad, and h.e.l.l is for the bad; but I tell why.”

”You got money from Oom Paul for the man--Fellowes?” It was hard for him to utter the name.

Krool nodded.

”Every year--much?”

Again Krool nodded.

”And for yourself--how much?”

”Nothing for myself; no money, Baas.”

”Only Oom Paul's love!”

Krool nodded again.

”But Oom Paul flayed you at Vleifontein; tied you up and skinned you with a sjambok.... That didn't matter, eh? And you went on loving him.

I never touched you in all the years. I gave you your life twice. I gave you good money. I kept you in luxury--you that fed in the cattle-kraal; you that had mealies to eat and a shred of biltong when you could steal it; you that ate a steinbok raw on the Vaal, you were so wild for meat ... I took you out of that, and gave you this.”

He waved an arm round the room, and went on: ”You come in and go out of my room, you sleep in the same cart with me, you eat out of the same dish on trek, and yet you do the Judas trick. Slim--G.o.d of G.o.ds, how slim! You are the snake that crawls in the slime. It's the native in you, I suppose.... But see, I mean to do to you as Oom Paul did. It's the only thing you understand. It's the way to make you straight and true, my sweet Krool.”

Still keeping his eyes fixed on Krool's eyes, his hand reached out and slowly took the sjambok from the table. He ran the cruel thing through his fingers as does a prison expert the cat-o'-nine-tails before laying on the lashes of penalty. Into Krool's eyes a terror crept which never had been there in the old days on the veld when Oom Paul had flayed him. This was not the veld, and he was no longer the veld-dweller with skin like the rhinoceros, all leather and bone and endurance. And this was not Oom Paul, but one whom he had betrayed, whose wife he had sought to ruin, whose subordinate he had turned into a traitor. Oom Paul had been a mere savage master; but here was a master whose very tongue could excoriate him like Oom Paul's sjambok; whom, at bottom, he loved in his way as he had never loved anything; whom he had betrayed, not realizing the hideous nature of his deed; having argued that it was against England his treachery was directed, and that was a virtue in his eyes; not seeing what direct injury could come to Byng through it.

He had not seen, he had not understood, he was still uncivilized; he had only in his veins the morality of the native, and he had tried to ruin his master's wife for his master's sake; and when he had finished with Fellowes as a traitor, he was ready to ruin his confederate--to kill him--perhaps did kill him!

”It's the only way to deal with you, Hottentot dog!”

The look in Krool's eyes only increased Byng's l.u.s.t of punishment. What else was there to do? Without terrible scandal there was no other way to punish the traitor, but if there had been another way he would still have done this. This Krool understood; behind every command the Baas had ever given him this thing lay--the sjambok, the natural engine of authority.

Suddenly Byng said with a voice of almost guttural anger: ”You dropped that letter on my bedroom floor--that letter, you understand?... Speak.”

”I did it, Baas.”

Byng was transformed. Slowly he laid down the sjambok, and as slowly took off his coat, his eyes meanwhile fastening those of the wretched man before him. Then he took up the sjambok again.

”You know what I am going to do with you?”

”Yes, Baas.”

It never occurred to Byng that Krool would resist; it did not occur to Krool that he could resist. Byng was the Baas, who at that moment was the Power immeasurable. There was only one thing to do--to obey.

”You were told to leave my house by Mrs. Byng, and you did not go.”

”She was not my Baas.”

”You would have done her harm, if you could?”

<script>