The Claw Part 37

When I opened the door a wild blast tore in, lifting my cloak to the roof, and in a moment the front of my night-gown was like a wet rag, and my body streaming with wet. It was no use attempting to take a light.

I stumbled among the trees, in the thick darkness; blinding lightning flickered across my eyeb.a.l.l.s like liquid fire, but it showed the way, and at last I reached the door I knew to be Maurice's and battered on it. Silence!

"Maurice! Maurice!"

Silence again. Nothing but the flacking rain and pealing thunder.

Within, all was darkness and silence; evidently Maurice was fast asleep, and Snowie too. My worry had been about nothing. How foolish to be so disturbed by a dream, I thought, as I beat my way back, and once more sought my bed. Still, I was glad I had gone and set my mind at rest.

By one of those extraordinary lapses of memory that sometimes occur, I woke in the morning with no recollection of the night's adventure. I had slept it all away. The only thought in my mind as I jumped out of bed was that if I did not make double-quick time Maurice would be at the breakfast table before me, a thing I never allowed to happen since he had taken to rising for breakfast. I flew through my dressing, and was still five minutes to the good when I ran across the yard in the morning air of a world washed, and fresh, and glittering like crystal.

To my astonishment Maurice was not only at the table, but had finished his breakfast.

"But why so early?" I cried in surprise.

"I had a message from Ringe to say that he wants me at the court early."

As he finished speaking Mango entered to say that Sergeant Locke was outside, wanting to speak to the master. Maurice rose hastily, putting his serviette to his lips, and as he did so I saw upon the back of his right hand three long deep scratches. In an instant he had whipped his hand into his pocket. He gave me a searching glance which I noticed but vaguely, for at that moment the whole of my last night's dream and adventure in the rain had come flashing back, brought to memory by the sight of those deep new scratches on the back of his hand. While I sat thinking I heard Sergeant Locke's voice saying:

"Major Ringe went off at four this morning, sir, with Mr Malcolm--they got news last night of a lion out at Intanga. As they rode by the camp the Major called me up to ask you to see about Masefield's boy at the court this morning. It is the only case there is."

"All right, Locke."

Then how could Maurice have received a message from Ringe? Why had he got up so early and finished his breakfast before--What was that scratch?

As these questions flashed one after the other through my mind, I sprang up and ran to the door. He was just flicking the reins on his horse's neck for it to start. He hardly ever wore gloves, but he had a pair on this morning, and the scratch was hidden.

"Maurice," I cried out, "where is Snowie?"

He turned on his horse without stopping it and regarded me with surprised eyes.

"Snowie?"

"Yes--my kitten?"

"Why, haven't you seen her around the place this morning? She was in the dining-room a few minutes ago."

"Oh!" I cried, and my heart nearly burst with relief. I waved to him, gladness in my smile, and ran back into the dining-room calling the kitten. "Snowie--Snowie--Snow--ie."

Later I went into the yard, and all round the huts, still calling. But she did not come running with her little tail erect and her little pink mouth open. There was no sign of her. I turned to the boys, but their faces were blank walls. No one had seen her that morning. I questioned Mango. He had not noticed her, he said. Doubtless if the _Inkos_ said so, she must have been in the dining-room, but he had not happened to notice her.

The other boys seemed to be observing me closely, but when I returned their searching gaze they dropped their mysterious dark eyes to the ground, after the manner of kaffirs. None of them had seen Snowie since the evening before, when I had crossed to the drawing-room with her on my shoulder, after dinner.

Maurice came home very gay and hungry to lunch. He had easily disposed of the one case, he said; but he and Clarke, the magistrate's clerk, had had a great morning hunting a wild-cat that had taken refuge under the courthouse, and refused to budge. It was imperative to get her as she had been after Clarke's canaries.

"At last we smoked her out," he related, "and she came for me like a red-hot devil. If I hadn't put up my hand she'd have had my eyes out.

Look what she did to me."

He held out for my inspection the hand with the long deep scratch I had seen at the breakfast table! I stared at it speechless. He withdrew it and proceeded with his lunch. Presently he related to me several bits of news he had heard in town that morning. He was, for him, extraordinarily talkative.

"And who do you think have just arrived here?--the Valettas. They've taken that big thatched place that Nathan, of the Royal Hotel, has just put up. Mrs Valetta is very sick--fever and complications--never been right since Fort George, Valetta says. He's brought her here from their mine, to get some good nursing before he can take her home."

I was silent as the dead.

"Valetta has struck it rich somewhere to the north of Buluwayo, and is going home to float a company as soon as his wife is well."

"Maurice, Snowie cannot be found. We have searched everywhere for her."

He put down his coffee cup.

"But that is strange! I tell you she was in the room here when you came in this morning. I had just given her a piece of bacon."

I looked away from him. It was not good to watch his eyes when he was lying. It seemed to me that I saw something in them black and naked jibbering at me like a satyr.

"What made her cry out last night--in your hut?--"

"Last night?--in my hut? She didn't stay with me, you know. The little brute was so ill-tempered and vixenish, and so determined not to stay, that I opened the door and threw her out about half an hour after I left you."

"Into the storm?"

"Oh, the storm! Pooh! cats know how to look after themselves. _She_ evidently did, for she was as lively as a cricket in here this morning.

What are you worrying about, my dear girl? She'll come sidling in when it pleases her. She's gone off on a hunting trip like Ringe. All the cats in this country are more than half wild."

I got up and left the table, my heart like a stone: not only for my little s...o...b..lly cat with her winning ways, but for myself. At that moment I terribly hated life.

"I'm going to ride out and see if Ringe got that lion," he called after me. "Will you come?"

"No!"

I had planned to go ferning that afternoon to a creek near by. The ground of my grotto was all prepared for the new plants, but I could not bring myself to start. I kept wandering up the kopje side, and among the zinias. At last, as I came to the huts again, I heard the boys wrangling outside the kitchen.

Mango was a Zanzibar boy and always at variance with the Mashonas.

Maurice's servant, Sixpence, a shrewd-looking fellow of about seventeen, was squatting on his haunches opposite the door, fiercely and monotonously demanding soap; some clothes lay beside him on the ground.

He must go to the river and wash, he announced. But Mango replied that all the washing was done the day before yesterday, and declined to hand out soap. Coffee was backing up Sixpence, and telling him that as the master's boy he had a right to ask for what he wanted, and get it.

Makupi, who in spite of curses and blows was quite one of the domestic staff, though he never did any work, was turning over the soiled linen with his foot when I came up.

"But it is not washing day, Sixpence," I objected. He arose quickly and gathered up the things he proposed to wash, muttering imprecations on Makupi for spreading them out. He rolled them hastily, but a little too late, into a ball. I had seen what he wanted to wash--a suit of pale blue pyjamas with fresh stains of blood all over them.

"The master told me I must go and wash to-day," he repeated sullenly.

"Give him soap, Mango," I said dully and walked away. It was no use looking for Snowie any longer!

For three days I did not speak to Maurice. I saw to his house and food, but I would not sit at meals with him, and I would not speak to him. He bore all with a cheerful air. I often heard him whistling. On the third day he wrote a note and sent it to my hut by Sixpence:

Would I be so extremely kind and condescending as to grace his table that evening? A rather important man from Salisbury was in, and coming to dinner. Of course I was full of imaginary grievances against him (the writer) but perhaps for the sake of appearances I would be so exceedingly gracious as to forget them for an hour or two. He had not the slightest objection to my going back to my sulks afterwards.--Mine effusively, Maurice Stair.