dismounting had told Hilary Blachland all there was to tell. No – not quite all.
“What have we got here?” said the returned master of the house, as, after a tub and a change of clothing, he sat at the head of his table. “Guinea-fowl?” raising the dish-cover.
“Yes, Justin shot five for me yesterday,” answered Hermia. “By the way, I am always calling him Justin. ‘Mr Spence’ is absurdly formal in this out-of-the-way part, and he is really such a boy. Aren’t I right, Hilary?”
“Oh, certainly,” was the reply, but the dry smile accompanying it might have meant anything. To himself the smiler was thinking, “So this is the latest, is it? What an actress she is, and that being so, I won’t pay her the bad compliment of saying it’s a pity she didn’t go on the stage.”
Justin didn’t relish that definition of him; however, he recollected there was everything to console him for the apparent slight. And it was part of the acting. In fact, he was even conscious of being in a position to crow over the other, if the other only knew it, and though he strove hard to dismiss the idea, yet the idea was there.
“By the way, Blachland,” he said, “how are things doing in Matabeleland? Niggers still cheeky?”
“They’re getting more out of hand than ever. In fact, you prospectors had better keep a weather eye open. And, Hermia, I’ve been thinking things over, and I believe you’d better trek into Fort Salisbury.”
“Is there going to be war then?” asked Justin quickly, for the words were as a knell to his newly born fool’s paradise. Had he found Hermia only to lose her immediately?
“No, I’ll stay on. I don’t believe it’ll be anything more than a scare,” answered the latter with a light laugh.
Hilary Blachland had been watching her, while not appearing to, watching them both. The start of consternation which escaped Justin Spence at the prospect of this separation had not escaped him. He noted, too, that beneath Hermia’s lightness of tone there lurked a shadowed anxiety. He was sharp, even as she herself had defined him – yes, he was decidedly sharp-witted was Hilary Blachland.
Chapter Seven.
A Limed Bird
“Was the trip a success this time, Hilary? And – where’s Mr Sybrandt? Didn’t he come back with you?”
“Three questions at once. That’s the feminine cross-examiner all over. Well, it was and it wasn’t. There was no doing any trade to speak of, and Lo Ben was in a very snuffy mood. I found out a good deal that was worth finding out though. Questions two and three. I left Sybrandt half a day’s trek the other side of the Inpembisi river.”
“And do you think there is really any danger of war?” asked Hermia.
“I think you will be far safer away from here. So you had better go. I’m sending the waggon on to Fort Salisbury to-morrow.” And again, without seeming to, his keen observant glance took in Justin’s face.
“But I don’t want to go, Hilary, and I won’t,” was the answer. “I’m not in the least afraid, and should hate the bother of moving just now.”
“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, flourishing 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 circumstances 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 assumption 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, cumbrous, 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 ejaculations 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
