Grit Lawless Part 41

"You'll fancy yourself an Indian Brave when you wear my wig on your watch-chain," he cried.

Van Bleit scowled yet more fiercely, and consoled himself with planning future vengeance against this impudent impostor to whom he owed his downfall. If ever fortune played into his hands he would have Tom Hayhurst's life.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

Lawless had during a chequered career spent many an eventful night round a camp fire, but no more strange experience had he pa.s.sed through than on that night, guarding Van Bleit on the open veld.

The night was cold, with a fresh wind blowing. The Kaffir, who remained greatly against his will, but dared not openly refuse to stay for fear of the baas of the scarred face and compelling eye, gathered wood and made a fire, before which Lawless sat with his revolver at his hand, and Van Bleit stretched himself on the cushions that had been taken from the cart and flung down on the veld. He feigned slumber, but did not actually close his eyes throughout the night. He watched his captor incessantly, hoping that sleep would overtake him; but Lawless sat wakeful and alert, with his eyes upon the flames, only moving at long intervals when he rose to throw fresh wood upon the fire.

There was nothing to eat, and only a small quant.i.ty of spirit in Van Bleit's flask. The Kaffir had a pocketful of mealies which he chewed before the fire. Close by their uitspan was a watercourse from whence he fetched water in small quant.i.ties in the empty flask.

Van Bleit complained of hunger. He also complained of cold, and of the tightness of the rope that bound his wrists. In common humanity, Lawless loosened the knots. He had no fancy to torture the man. But if Van Bleit had hoped by this means to slip his bonds he was doomed to disappointment. They were more comfortable, but none the less secure.

He lay still afterwards for a long while feigning sleep; and Lawless, watching intently, observed by the uncertain flickering light, that now leapt upward in a tongue of brilliant flame, and again died down to a dull red glow that left all beyond the immediate circle round the fire in absolute darkness, that with every interval of obscurity Van Bleit drew himself stealthily nearer the fire. When he lay quite close to the hot embers with his bound hands among them, Lawless rose, flung on fresh wood to make a blaze, and leisurely approaching the rec.u.mbent figure, stirred it with his boot.

"Get back," he said. "I don't mind you blistering your hands, that's your look out; but I object to you trying to burn that rope."

Van Bleit rolled back on his cushions without replying, and lay still again; and Lawless sat as before, smoking his pipe to solace his empty stomach, with his revolver beside him, and his eyes on the leaping flames. Only the Kaffir slept, and his rest was tranquil and unbroken, in strange contrast with the silent conflict that was going on close by him on the opposite side of the fire.

The stars sloped to the westward, and the night grew darker, with the heavy blackness that precedes the dawn. The wind died away. Cold and still and strangely pure was the feel of the air. Lawless kicked the fire into a blaze and looked down at Van Bleit.

"Want a smoke?" he asked.

"Yes."

Van Bleit's tone was sulky. Lawless took his pipe from his pocket and filled it for him. He put the stem in his mouth and held a match to the bowl. Van Bleit was not gracious. He wanted to smoke badly or he would have refused the offer.

"Makes a man feel a precious fool," he said.

"Makes him look one," Lawless answered.

He returned to his place and sat silent and still, watching for the dawn. It came with a faint breath of wind in the trees, just a whispering stir among the leaves. Then silence again, and the light broke like a white line drawn horizontally upon the blackboard of the sky. Lawless watched it broaden, grow brighter, till it dispersed the surrounding blackness, and objects and landmarks familiar in the daylight began to take definite shape and form. He stretched himself wearily and looked about him. His glance fell on Van Bleit, pallid, red-eyed, obviously suffering, observing him with the baleful look of some savage captive beast.

He got up and took a few short rapid turns to circulate his blood. It was cold in the dawn, and the fire was dying. There was no more wood to throw on. He had spent nights like this in the Boer lines during the war, but he had never been told off single-handed to guard a prisoner.

He kept a watchful eye on the east for the first flushing of the clouds.

Never had he welcomed the sun more gratefully than when it lifted itself indolently from the rose clouds that veiled its rising and soared above them into the blue of the morning sky. Van Bleit stirred, stretched himself to the warmth as an animal does, and sat up.

"Blast you!" he snarled. "When are you going to make a move out of this? I want some breakfast. I'm famished... And I've got a chill.

My clothes are wet through with the dew."

Lawless looked at his watch.

"There's lots of time yet," he answered cheerfully. "You won't hurt for a little fasting. When a man habitually overfeeds it's good for his stomach to give it a rest."

"How long are you for keeping me here?" Van Bleit asked, his voice quivering with repressed rage.

"I'm giving Tom his chance to get to the Bank," Lawless answered.

"After that, I've no further interest in your movements."

Van Bleit eyed him calculatingly. His courage had returned to a certain degree since he had suffered no personal violence. He felt rea.s.sured on that point. But his respect for his captor was no greater on that account. Had their relative positions been reversed he would have acted very differently.

"My arms are numb," he grumbled. "Can't you put me on parole and undo this cord? It's the very devil I'm suffering in my wrists."

But Lawless was wholly unmoved.

"When we part company," he said, "I'll free them--which is more than you did for me. As for your parole! ... I wouldn't place greater trust in your word than I would in that of a Kaffir."

Van Bleit controlled himself with an effort.

"You're armed, and I'm not," he sneered.

"Yes, I'm armed. But I'm not going to put myself to the trouble of sitting with my finger on the trigger."

Van Bleit got up and walked about. He was stiff and hungry, and his head ached. He believed he had a touch of fever. He was subject to intermittent attacks, and lying out all night with no protection from the heavy dews was sufficient to bring on an attack. He cursed volubly as he tramped about, and swore swift and dire vengeance on his enemy, who, exercising also with his hands in his coat pockets, was keeping a steady watch on his movements.

The Kaffir awoke after a while, and, rolling over, stared about him as if wondering how he came to be amid his present surroundings. Then his eye encountered the terrible eye of the strange baas with the scar upon his face, and he scrambled to his feet and grinned nervously.

"In an hour's time I shall want the horses inspanned, John."

"Ja, baas."

The Kaffir made off. There was in the woolly head instructed at the Mission-station a suspicion that the tall, stern-faced baas with the eye that pierced through one, and the ugly scar along his jaw, was, if not the Devil himself, a very near relation. Had he suddenly disappeared in smoke with his captive, though it would have terrified the black man, it would not greatly have astonished him.

As he moved rapidly away to where the horses were hitched to the pole of the cart he came upon one of his former G.o.ds, a strange-looking insect that, after the manner of the chameleon, took on the shade of the gra.s.s upon which it fed. It closely resembled in form a forked blade of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s. With a surrept.i.tious look about him to make certain he was not observed, the Kaffir bowed before his one-time G.o.d and uttered a weird invocation in his native tongue for protection against the white man's Devil. Then in order to square the white man's G.o.d he looked up at the blue sky in the hope that the great mysterious Being, who was somewhere behind the clouds, was not conversant with the Kaffir language, and so had failed to understand his lapse into idolatry, and cried aloud, parrot-fashion, a prayer he had been taught in English when he became a convert at the Mission, because his brother Klaus had joined the Mission, and had a blanket given him, and plenty good things when he was zwak. But the chance encounter with the little gra.s.s-G.o.d, which, being tangible, was easier of comprehension, did more to rea.s.sure him than the prayer sent into the blue distance which, having such a long way to travel, might never reach.

The Kaffir's idea of time was vague. He went by the sun. One hour the sun him so much higher. He rubbed down the horses as best he could, having nothing to groom them with save handfuls of gra.s.s, and led them away to the watercourse to drink. He did not hasten to return, but kept an observant eye on the sun, fearful of incurring the baas' anger by overstaying the limit. When he judged the hour up he returned to the uitspan and proceeded to harness the horses. The baas still stood with his hands in his pockets; but he no longer watched the other baas, who was reclining again on the cushions of the cart, a huddled inert ma.s.s of misery. The game was up, and he had lost finally. He felt like a man who has toiled honestly and laboriously and been scandalously defrauded of the rewards of his industry.

The Kaffir finished harnessing the horses, and then came up for the cushions. Lawless spoke to Van Bleit, and he got up sullenly, kicking the native savagely as he stooped and reached out a dusky hand. The Kaffir shot a venomous glance at him, but uttered no verbal protest. He gathered up the cushions and carried them away and arranged them in the cart. Then he mounted to his seat and sat with the reins in his hands, waiting.

Lawless again addressed himself to Van Bleit.

"Turn round," he said curtly, "and I'll unfasten your wrists."

Van Bleit's arms were so cramped when eventually they were released that for some time he could only work them gently, moving his wrists and fingers and relaxing his stiffened muscles. The inconvenience and the pain in them did not improve his temper. And when it became clear to him there was no room in the cart for him, that he must walk many miles before he could get a conveyance or break his fast, his rage was beyond control.

"You devil!" he shouted. "You dirty low cad of a Kaffir! Look out for your skin, that's all. I keep my word regardless of consequences, and I say that for this you shall pay--and pay dearly, you hired spy who does another man's dirty work."

"Drive on," said Lawless indifferently; and the Kaffir promptly whipped up his horses and drove off at a furious rate.

The little schoolmaster was seated at breakfast when the Cape cart clattered noisily up the sunny street, and Lawless, descending from it, entered the hotel. He went to his room, stripped, bathed, and changed his clothes; then he repaired in all haste to the dining-room, and nodding to Mr Burton, sat down at the end of the table.

"I'm famished," he said. "But if you'll give me a little time in which to take the brunt off an appet.i.te that seems as though it would never be satisfied, I'll be ready to accompany you as we arranged."

The mild eyes behind the gla.s.ses blinked their surprise and their pleasure in equal degrees.

"Oh! plenty of time! plenty of time?" he a.s.serted, and quietly pushed the b.u.t.ter and rolls and fruit nearer the new-comer's hand. "It's early... I am glad to see you. I was afraid you might not be returning."