and Kaffir traders and wanderers whom one meets in this strange land?”
“In what way indeed?” thought I to myself, in my dream.
“If you can’t see, I can’t explain to you. But as I happen to know, the man is of blood as good as mine—and a great deal better than yours,” he added with a touch of insolence. “Moreover, he has an honest name among white and black, which is much in this country.”
“Yes,” replied the doctor in the same reflective voice, “I agree with you, I let him pass as a gentleman. But I repeat, Why did you bring them here when with one more word it would have been so easy—” and he stopped.
“I have told you, it was not I. What are you driving at?”
“Do you think it is exactly convenient, especially when we are under the British flag again, to have two people who, we both admit, are English gentlemen, that is, clean, clear-eyed men, considering us and our affairs for an indefinite period, just because you wish for the pleasure of their society? Would it not have been better to tell those Basutos to let them trek on to Pretoria?”
“I don’t know what would have been better. I repeat, what are you driving at?
“Heda is coming home in a day or two; she might be here any time,” remarked Rodd as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
“Yes, because you made me write and say that I wanted her. But what of that?”
“Nothing in particular, except that I am not sure that I wish her to associate with ‘an English gentleman’ like this Anscombe.”
Marnham laughed scornfully. “Ah! I understand,” he said. “Too clean and straight. Complications might ensue and the rest of it. Well, I wish to God they would, for I know the Anscombes, or used to, and I know the genus called Rodd.”
“Don’t be insulting; you may carry the thing too far one day, and whatever I have done I have paid for. But you’ve not paid—yet.”
“The man is very ill. You are a skilled doctor. If you’re afraid of him, why don’t you kill him?” asked Marnham with bitter scorn.
“There you have me,” replied Rodd. “Men may shed much, but most of them never shed their professional honour. I shall do my honest best to cure Mr. Anscombe, and I tell you that he will take some curing.”
Then I woke up, and as no one was in sight, wondered whether or no I had been dreaming. The upshot of it was that I made up my mind to send Footsack to Pretoria for the oxen, not to go myself.
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