第9章 Chapter I.(9)

Peter looked triumphantly at the stranger. This was his only story; and he had told it a score of times round the camp fire for the benefit of some new-comer. When this point was reached, a low murmur of applause and sympathy always ran round the group: tonight there was quiet; the stranger's large dark eyes watched the fire almost as though he heard nothing.

"I shouldn't have minded so much," said Peter after a while, "though no man likes to have his woman taken away from him; but she was going to have a kid in a month or two--and so was the little one for anything I know; she looked like it! I expect they did away with it before it came; they've no hearts, these niggers; they'd think nothing of doing that with a white man's child. They've no hearts; they'd rather go back to a black man, however well you've treated them. It's all right if you get them quite young and keep them away from their own people; but if once a nigger woman's had a nigger man and had children by him, you might as well try to hold a she-devil! they'll always go back. If ever I'm shot, it's as likely as not it'll be by my own gun, with my own cartridges. And she'd stand by and watch it, and cheer them on; though I never gave her a blow all the time she was with me. But I tell you what--if ever I come across that bloody nigger, I'll take it out of him. He won't count many days to his year, after I've spotted him!" Peter Halket paused. It seemed to him that the eyes under their heavy, curled lashes, were looking at something beyond him with an infinite sadness, almost as of eyes that wept.

"You look awfully tired," said Peter; "wouldn't you like to lie down and sleep? You could put your head down on that stone, and I'd keep watch."

"I have no need of sleep," the stranger said; "I will watch with you."

"You've been in the wars, too, I see," said Peter, bending forward a little, and looking at the stranger's feet. "By God! Both of them!--And right through! You must have had a bad time of it?"

"It was very long ago," said the stranger.

Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire. "Do you know," he said, "I've been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of.

It's my mother! You're not like her in the face, but when your eyes look at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me. Curious, isn't it? I don't know you from Adam, and you've hardly spoken a word since you came; and yet I seem as if I'd known you all my life." Peter moved a little nearer him. "I was awfully afraid of you when you first came; even when I first saw you;--you aren't dressed as most of us dress, you know. But the minute the fire shone on your face I said, 'It's all right.' Curious, isn't it?" said Peter. "I don't know you from Adam, but if you were to take up my gun and point it at me, I wouldn't move! I'd lie down here and go to sleep with my head at your feet; curious, isn't it, when I don't know you from Adam? My name's Peter Halket. What's yours?"

But the stranger was arranging the logs on the fire. The flames shot up bright and high, and almost hid him from Peter Halket's view.

"By gad! how they burn when you arrange them!" said Peter.

They sat quiet in the blaze for a while.

Then Peter said, "Did you see any niggers about yesterday? I haven't come across any in this part."

"There is," said the stranger, raising himself, "an old woman in a cave over yonder, and there is one man in the bush, ten miles from this spot.

He has lived there six weeks, since you destroyed the kraal, living on roots or herbs. He was wounded in the thigh, and left for dead. He is waiting till you have all left this part of the country that he may set out to follow his own people. His leg is not yet so strong that he may walk fast."

"Did you speak to him?" said Peter.

"I took him down to the water where a large pool was. The bank was too high for the man to descend alone."

"It's a lucky thing for you our fellows didn't catch you," said Peter.

"Our captain's a regular little martinet. He'd shoot you as soon as look at you, if he saw you fooling round with a wounded nigger. It's lucky you kept out of his way."

"The young ravens have meat given to them," said the stranger, lifting himself up; "and the lions go down to the streams to drink."

"Ah--yes--" said Peter; "but that's because we can't help it!"

They were silent again for a little while. Then Peter, seeing that the stranger showed no inclination to speak, said, "Did you hear of the spree they had up Bulawayo way, hanging those three niggers for spies? I wasn't there myself, but a fellow who was told me they made the niggers jump down from the tree and hang themselves; one fellow wouldn't bally jump, till they gave him a charge of buckshot in the back: and then he caught hold of a branch with his hands and they had to shoot 'em loose. He didn't like hanging. I don't know if it's true, of course; I wasn't there myself, but a fellow who was told me. Another fellow who was at Bulawayo, but who wasn't there when they were hung, said they fired at them just after they jumped, to kill 'em. I--"

"I was there," said the stranger.

"Oh, you were?" said Peter. "I saw a photograph of the niggers hanging, and our fellows standing round smoking; but I didn't see you in it. I suppose you'd just gone away?"

"I was beside the men when they were hung," said the stranger.