Forging the Blades Part 30

Sapazani received the gift in the same dignified fashion, and they instructed him how to find the focus. He tried it on various objects and then handed it to an attendant.

"It is good," he said. "I will remember."

But to the proposal to snapshot him he returned a decided negative, polite but firm. Denham was disappointed.

"Couldn't he show us his hut?" he said. "I should like to see what the hut of a big chief is like inside."

This was readily acceded to. Sapazani rose and led the way. Then Denham was even more struck by the tall, magnificently-proportioned form, the great muscles showing through the brown satiny skin as the man walked, easily, leisurely, straight as a pine-tree, with head slightly thrown back. Verna could not help noticing that the two men, standing upright together, were of exactly the same height and build, the savage chieftain and the up-to-date English gentleman.

Denham admired the interior of the cool, s.p.a.cious hut, with its polished floor of hard, black clay, and the bowl-like fire-place in the centre, the a.s.segais disposed on pegs around the walls, and the clean, rolled-up mats against one side. The place was a model of coolness and cleanliness, he decided.

When they got outside again several of the chief's wives, convened by Verna, were standing waiting for them. To these she distributed various things she had brought, chatting and joking familiarly with them. They were fine, merry-faced girls, and here again Denham found a keen bit of character study. Sapazani accompanied his visitors to the gate of the kraal--he was a stickler for old-time Zulu etiquette, as Ben Halse and Verna, of course, knew, wherefore they had hitched up their horses outside and bade them farewell.

"Well, and what do you think of our 'show' chief now, Alaric?" said Verna, as they started on their homeward ride.

"He's a splendid-looking fellow, and his manners are perfect," he answered. But to himself he was thinking that had Sapazani been a white man he would have resented the way in which the chief had looked at Verna more than once. Being a native, of course, any such idea was absurd, preposterous, out of the question. But he wondered whether Ben Halse had noticed it.

And Sapazani, looking after them, was saying to himself--

"The trap is set, and yonder is the bait--_au_! yonder is the bait--_impela_."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

BLUFF--AND COUNTERBLUFF.

When they reached home they found a visitor awaiting them, in the shape of Harry Stride. Ben Halse, for all his hospitable instincts, secretly and within himself wished him at the devil. Verna would rather he had not come--just then; but Denham, of the trio, was the least concerned.

So secure was he in his own happiness that he could not but be sorry for the man who had failed to draw his at the same source. But as far as any outward manifestation of lack of welcome was concerned the new arrival had no cause of complaint.

During the evening they talked generalities, the state of the country, the day's visit to Sapazani, and so forth. But Stride, while not manifesting the former instinctive hostility towards Denham, did not fail to notice, with jealous eyes, the perfect understanding which seemed to prevail between him and Verna. Were they engaged? he wondered. They must be, judging from a look which, more than once, he saw pa.s.s between them. Well, he had a card up his sleeve, but he would not throw it until the morning. So he went on chatting about things in general, and Verna was especially kind to him. Denham too, with ready tact, refrained from anything that might be construed into bordering on an air of proprietorship! out of consideration for the poor fellow's feelings; and when Verna went out with Stride for a quarter of an hour or so to look at the night, he remained chatting with Ben Halse.

"You won't be shooting each other in the night, will you, Denham?" said the latter drily. The point of the joke was that, accommodation being somewhat limited, the two men would have to share the same room.

"I'll try not to return the fire; but, on the whole, perhaps I'd better stick a dummy in the bed, and slip outside. Poor chap! n.o.body could be more sorry for him than myself."

"I'm sure of that. Well, every man must take his chance, and Harry's young yet. He's a good sort of boy, but I don't believe he'll ever do much for himself."

"Perhaps he's never had a show."

"That's the worst of it. A lot of these young fellows come drifting up to this country knowing nothing about it, and think they're going to pick up gold under every stone. That prospecting business is just foolery. They'd much better settle down to some steady job. And yet, and yet--where'd I have been myself if I hadn't let out and chanced it?

Well, it's a world of pitch and toss, after all."

Stride was the first to turn in, and when his companion followed he had rolled himself in his blanket as though asleep. But he was wide awake enough in reality. He hated that other so intensely that he could not trust himself to speak now that they were alone together. Some people had all the advantages of life and others none; and here this stranger, solely because he was a rich man, or was reputed to be, must have a free walk over; must come here and rob him of all that made life worth living--hope, to wit. Well, to-morrow he would fire the first sh.e.l.l.

And he did.

Just after breakfast, but before they got up from table, Stride produced a square envelope.

"I took a few snapshots down in the Makanya the other day," he said, drawing out some prints. "What d'you think of that, Mr Denham?"

handing one across the table to him.

Denham took it, and it was all he could do not to let it drop. The ghastly face staring at him from the glazed paper, hideous and bloated through immersion and decomposition, was that of the head which Sergeant d.i.c.kinson had been at such pains, and trouble, and risk to photograph.

There was a frightful fascination about it, and he continued to gaze, aware the while that Stride was fixing his face with a pitiless glance.

"Well, what d'you think of it?" said the latter, growing impatient.

"Think? Why, that it's a good study of a dissecting-room subject, but a beastly thing to spring upon any one just after breakfast. Where did you get it?" handing it back.

"It was taken below the Bobi drift. A head was found sticking in the bushes, also some clothes, with things in the pockets. I, before that, found a saddle with a bullet hole through the flap."

"Yes; you told us that at the club the other night, I remember. So they've found more?"

Stride was puzzled. He thought to have knocked the enemy all of a heap, but the said enemy had never wilted, beyond what a man might naturally do who had an unusually ghastly and repulsive picture suddenly sprung upon him, as Denham had said, just after breakfast.

"But isn't it our turn to be let into the mystery?" suggested Verna sweetly.

"Oh, I don't know. No; I won't show it to you," answered Stride. "It is rather nasty, isn't it, Mr Halse?" handing it on to him.

"Looks so. Ugly-looking Jew, I should say. Wonder what the devil he was doing down there. I suppose they shot him for plunder. Zulus are not what they were. Time was when a white man was perfectly safe in any part of this country. Who took the photo, by the way?"

"d.i.c.kinson, at Makanya."

"Oh yes, the police sergeant. Well, have they investigated?"

"Rather. They've got at his ident.i.ty, too. He was a Jo'burg Jew named Hyam Golding. The next thing is to find out what induced him to travel that way at all. It doesn't lead anywhere in particular."

"Let me see it," said Verna. "I'm not of the hysterical, 'fainting-female' order, am I? Thanks," as it was handed to her. "What a horrid-looking man he must have been. I mean apart from the conditions under which this was taken. Let's see some of the others."

He complied. One he kept out, and handed it to Denham.

"Do you recognise it?" he asked. "You came through it, I think you said."

"Did I? I think not, considering I didn't know one drift from the other. However, it's just possible I may have; but one drift is very like another, especially in photography."

"It's the Bobi."

Somehow Verna's instincts were instantly on the alert. There was more than a subtle something in Stride's manner and remarks, a sort of "making a dead set" smack about them. She became cold and hostile towards him at once. He saw this, and realised he had make a mistake.

So he left the subject of the head, and drew attention to the other prints.

His plan had failed. He had thought to induce Denham to give himself away before the others, and that completely. But he had reckoned without the cool nerves of Denham. Well, the next card to play was bluff.

An opportunity was not easy to find. Most of the morning they sat in the shade, and smoked and chatted. But later, when Verna was busy indoors, and something had taken Ben Halse away, Stride said--

"I've got something to tell you. How about taking a bit of a stroll, where no one'll hear us?"

"All right. Let's."

They strolled off together a little way. Suddenly Stride said--