The Triumph of Hilary Blachland. Mitford Bertram
the glasses at his eyes. “But he’s all alone. Where’s his waggon and Sybrandt? I wonder if – ” And he broke off, looking somewhat anxiously at his companion as he finished the unspoken thought to himself. What if Blachland were returning thus with a purpose – making a sort of surprise return? What if he had intended returning much earlier, but had miscalculated time and distance? What if he had returned much earlier? Oh, Great Heaven! And the thinker’s countenance reflected the consternation of the thought.
That of his companion, however, betrayed no responsive qualm. It was as serene and unruffled as though she had never beheld the man at her side until five minutes ago.
“Now, Justin,” she said, as they watched the approach of the horseman. “I want to give you a word of warning. First of all, you are not to greet him as if he had just risen from the dead, and you wish to goodness he hadn’t. Secondly, you are not to look at and talk to me in a sort of wistful and deathbed manner whenever you have occasion to look at and talk to me. Remember, he’s mighty sharp; I don’t know any one sharper. Come, brisk up, dear, and pull yourself together and be natural, or you’ll give away the whole show.”
“That’s the last sweet word I shall hear from you for a long time to come, I suppose,” said Justin, somewhat comforted. “But you didn’t really mean all you were saying a little while ago? You’re not really sorry?”
“Perhaps not,” she answered softly. “Perhaps we shall have good times again. Only, be careful now. It all depends upon that.”
“Oh, then I’ll be careful enough, with that to look forward to,” he returned, quite cheered up now. Wherein her object was attained.
To one of the two came a feeling of relief a moment after the new arrival had dismounted at the stockade, for his greeting was perfectly easy and natural and pleasant.
“Well, Spence, you’re out early,” was all he said.
Out early. Justin began to feel mean again. Should he say he had been there all night? But Hermia saved him the task of deciding by volunteering that information herself. She was not going to begin making mysteries.
Well, there was no occasion to. Both forgot that the crucial moment was not entirely that of the greeting. The last hundred yards or so before 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