Forging the Blades Part 18

"Do you know why I came over here now, Verna?" he burst forth suddenly, impulsively. "It was because I heard you would be here, and I couldn't help trying my luck again."

His animated face and eager eyes held her. Yet her reply was unequivocal, though kind.

"Your luck is elsewhere, Harry," she answered softly but firmly. "Try it. I don't want to hurt you, but there is no other way out."

He began to plead. He was at low ebb now, but luck might change.

Beyond that he had expectations; nothing very great, but substantial.

Would she not wait? And a great deal more he poured forth, there in the golden sunshine among the roses, and the bees humming from flower to flower, and the flitting b.u.t.terflies. But Verna's answer was the same steady shake of the head.

"It's of no use, Harry," she said. "I like you very much, as you know, but not in that way. People are drawn towards each other--in that way-- or they are not. I mean, you were talking about luck changing, and so on, but if you were ever such a millionaire I'm afraid it would make no difference in that way. Now do you see?"

He said nothing. He looked at her with misery in his eyes. Never had she seemed so all-alluring as here under the burning midday sun, so cool and fresh and self-possessed. And it was hopeless.

"Well, I suppose I'm nothing but a born idiot," he said, but not resentfully.

Verna laid a hand upon his arm.

"No, you're not," she said. "Only--your luck is elsewhere. You'll find it some day sooner or later, and remember my words."

Then she looked at him in astonishment, for a scowl had come over his face. Following his glance she saw the reason. Denham was walking along the path which led to the house. He must have seen them, but looked as if he had not, and pa.s.sed on without any attempt to join them.

Verna's astonishment was dispelled, but she made no remark as to it or its cause. Tactfully she led Harry Stride on to other topics, and his jealous eyes noted that she made no excuse to return to the house, in fact, she drew him off down a little-used path under the trees; nor was it until an hour after that they returned, a little late for lunch, Verna declaring, publicly, that they had had a most delightful walk.

Yes, but for all that, she and Denham would be for weeks beneath the same roof, thought poor Stride. How lucky some men were, how unlucky others. This one apparently had not a care in the world, and now he was going to rob him, Stride, of all that made life worth living. How he hated him, sitting there beside Verna, chatting easily to her.

"What's the matter with your appet.i.te, Mr Stride?" remarked the hostess, noticing that he sent everything away almost untouched.

"Oh, I don't know, Mrs Shelford. It's too hot, I suppose. Or it may be that I tried a new concoction at the club that some fellow left them a recipe for. It's supposed to be an appetiser, but I thought it vile.

Heard any more about Shelford coming back, by the way?"

"I'm expecting him next week."

"Sorry, because I shall miss seeing him. Am starting back to-morrow."

The other smiled faintly to herself. She thought she knew what was wrong with Stride's appet.i.te.

"You're making a short stay this time," she said.

Harry mumbled something about "rough on Robson being left alone," which caused the smile to deepen.

"How are the n.i.g.g.e.rs out your way, Stride?" asked a man who had only arrived that morning.

"Getting b.u.mptious. A boy of ours came at me with a pick-handle the other day because I threatened to hammer him. Only threatened, mind!

hadn't started in to do it. I did it then, though--had to, you know."

"I should think so," said the hostess emphatically. "They want all the hammering they can get."

"Rather. Well, we cleared this dev--er--this chap out. When he got to a safe distance he turned round and sang out that it didn't matter now, all the whites in the country were going to be made meat of directly, and he and some others would take particular care of _us_. I got out a rifle, but that didn't scare him. He knew I daren't fire."

"Quite right. Mustn't take the law into your own hands, Stride," said Inspector James humorously. "Only, if you do, see that you abolish the _corpus delicti_."

"Talking of _corpus delicti_," said the man who had first spoken. "Is there anything in this rumour that a white man has been killed in the Makanya forest? I heard that something had been found that pointed to it, but not the remains of the chap himself."

"You mustn't swallow every yarn you hear," said James.

"We've been killed at least three times this year already on those terms," said Ben Halse.

"I suppose I shall be included in the fourth," laughed Denham, alluding to his approaching visit.

Stride, however, had suddenly grown silent.

The Ezulwini Club was not large, as we have said; however, it would sometimes get lively at night, but not always. To-night it was lively, very; the circulation of whiskies-and-sodas brisk.

"Anything more been heard about that yarn from the Makanya?" began the man who had sprung the subject at the hotel table. Others asked, "What yarn?"

"_You_ ought to know something of it, Hallam," went on the first speaker, the point of the emphasis being that the man addressed was an official holding an important post.

"Why?" curtly.

"Because you're in a position to."

This was all the other wanted.

"Exactly," he retorted. "But if I'm in a position to know, I'm in a position not to tell. See?"

There was a laugh, in which the offender, who at first looked resentful, joined.

"What's the joke?" asked James, who at that moment entered.

"Joke? Oh, Slingsby's putting up idiotic questions," answered Hallam shortly. "Here, Mabule," to the Bar-keeper, "set 'em up again--you know every one's pet poison. What's yours, Mr Denham? You'll join?"

"Thanks. All right," answered Denham, who had come to the conclusion that the hospitality of this club required a strong head, which, fortunately, he possessed. But Harry Stride, less fortunate, did not.

"I can tell you all about that yarn," he broke in. "Slingsby's not so wide of the mark either. Some one has come to grief in the Makanya, and a white man too, for I picked up a saddle in the Bobi drift, and it had a bullet hole through the flap, an unmistakable bullet hole."

"You picked it up?" said some one, while Inspector James, who was "in the know," muttered to himself, "d.a.m.ned silly young a.s.s!"

Then followed a considerable amount of questionings and discussion.

When was this, and where, and how would it have happened, and what had he done with the saddle, and so forth? Hallam, it might have been noticed, stood out of the discussion altogether. Perhaps he was "in the know" also; at any rate, as an official, he was instinctively averse to making public property of this kind of thing. But Harry Stride had got outside of quite as many whiskies-and-sodas as were good for him, and the effect, coming on top of his then state of frothy mental tension, was disastrous. Now he said--

"You must have crossed just above the Bobi drift, Mr Denham. I hear you came through the Makanya that way."

"Yes, I shouldn't wonder if it was somewhere about there," answered Denham easily. "But, you see, I didn't know any of the names of drifts and so on. I just 'drifted' on."

"Were you alone?" queried Stride, with a marked emphasis on the last word, and looking the other full in the face.

There could be no possible mistake as to the meaning. A scarcely perceptible start ran through those present. This was getting too thick altogether, was the general opinion.