In the Whirl of the Rising Part 3

Lamont was nothing if not downright, and would never say a thing he did not mean. Peters knew this, wherefore he began to feel mightily uncomfortable, and wished he hadn't brought the stranger along. But then Ancram had asked him point-blank if he could tell him where to find Lamont, who was a friend of his, and whom he had heard was settled somewhere in these parts; and he had received the question with a great roar of laughter, replying that no man in all Rhodesia was more fully qualified to give him that very information. But if this outsider's presence was going to prove a thorn in the side of his friend,--rather than do anything to annoy whom he would have cut off his right hand,-- why, the sooner they scooted him off the better, decided Peters. Aloud he said--

"Here's luck, Ancram. What would you have given for this jolly long drink when you were strolling about in the _doorstland_, hey?"

"Just about all I was worth," laughed the other, sending down the remains of his whisky-and-selzogene with infinite gusto.

"I'm afraid you'll find these quarters a bit rough, Ancram," said Lamont. "New country, you know, and all that kind of thing."

The other protested that he liked nothing better than roughing it, and how awfully jolly it was to run against Lamont again. But even he was conscious of a something which restrained him from making further reference to Courtland.

Outwardly Ancram was a tall, well-built fellow, several years younger than Lamont. He was good-looking, but the face was one of a very ordinary type, with nothing about it to stamp itself upon the recollection. As a fellow-guest at Courtland, Lamont had rather disliked him for his own sake, and still more because he had tried to get between himself and Violet. Moreover, Ancram had been among those who muttered against him on the bank of the frozen mere what time his _fiancee_ had put upon him that abominable and unmerited insult. And now the fellow turned up here, claiming his hospitality, and talking to him as if he was his dearest friend.

"Excuse my seeming inhospitality, Ancram," he said. "I must go and help give an eye to the off-loading, but if you like to go in there you'll find all the ingredients for a wash-up. We shall have supper directly."

"Oh, that's quite all right, old chap," was the airy reply, "By the way, I'll come with you."

Outside, by the light of three or four lanterns, several natives were busily unloading the donkey-carts and transferring their contents to the strongly-built hut which const.i.tuted the store-room: bags and boxes, and pockets of sugar, and packages of candles and soap--all sorts of necessaries and a few luxuries.

"Aha!" laughed Peters, shaking one case; "was beginning to think this had been forgotten. What'd become of us then, hey, Ancram?"

"Why, what is it?"

"Scotch. Pother's Squareface. Well, we're nearly through now, and I shan't be sorry to get my champers into a steak of that sable."

"Well, you won't be able to," said Lamont. "There's none left. But I went down into 'the poultry yard' and picked up a few pheasants."

"We call the river bank our poultry yard, Ancram," explained Peters, when they were seated at table discussing the products of the same.

"When we first came up here, Lamont and I, if we wanted a bird or two we just went to the door and shot it. Now you have to go away from the homestead a bit, but you can always get as many as you want. Are you fond of shooting?"

"Rather. I say, Lamont, d'you remember what jolly shoots we had at Courtland?"

"Are you fond of fighting, Ancram?" said Lamont.

The other stared. There was a grim directness in the question. Both were thinking the same thing. It seemed an odd question to be put by a man who had been publicly accused of cowardice. Its propounder was enjoying the other's confusion.

"Fighting?" echoed Ancram.

"Yes. Because if you are you've come to the right shop for it. You'll get plenty if you remain in the country, and that before very long too."

"Why? Who is there to fight?"

"The Matabele."

"But I thought they were all conquered--licked into a c.o.c.ked hat."

"So did, so do, a lot of other people who ought to know better. But they're not. Let this rinderpest go a little further, and when the Government has shot a few more of their cattle--then we shall see."

"By Jove! I had no idea of that."

"Or you wouldn't have come," Lamont could not help appending. He had detected a note of consternation in Ancram's tone. And Ancram was one of those who had stood by and endorsed the accusation of cowardice hurled against himself.

"Oh yes, I would," answered the other, with rather a forced laugh. "But I say, Lamont, what about you two fellows--and others in a lonely place like this? Where would you come in?"

"Nowhere, unless we got wind and scooted in time. But that's just the difficulty."

"Phew! But don't you take any precaution?"

"Not any. We take our chance instead. Chance is the name of a very great G.o.d up-country, as you'll find out if you stop out here long."

"Well, it would be a jolly good job if we did have a war," rejoined Ancram airily. "Give us lots of fun. I should enjoy it."

Peters looked quickly up.

"Fun! Enjoy it!" he repeated. "D'you hear that, Lamont? Wonder how much _fun_ he'd have voted it--how much he'd have _enjoyed_ it--if he'd been along with us on the retreat from the Shangani."

"Oh, d.a.m.n the retreat from the Shangani!" burst forth Lamont. "Ain't you sick of that sick old yarn yet, Peters? Because I am."

Ancram stared. There seemed nothing to warrant the ill-tempered outburst--unless--Ah, that was it. Lamont had hoisted the white feather in some way while on the expedition referred to, and of course was shy of hearing it mentioned. But, strangely enough, Peters didn't seem to resent the tone or the brusque interruption. On the contrary he inclined to the apologetic.

"Oh, keep your hair on, Lamont," he answered deprecatingly. "You know, Ancram, I shouldn't be here now if it hadn't been for--"

"Will you have another whisky-and-selz, Ancram, or will you try some black tea?" interrupted Lamont, speaking quickly. "Can't offer you any milk with it because of the drought, except tinned, and that makes it entirely beastly."

"I should think so," answered Ancram, again wondering at the rudeness of the pointed interruption. "But isn't it the deuce on the nerves? Keeps you awake, and all that."

"In civilisation it would. Not up here. I've often, while lying out in camp, polished off three big beakers of it--black as ink, mind--and dropped off fast asleep when only half through my first pipe."

"By Jove! that knocks a good old superst.i.tion endways, anyway."

"Good job if they were all knocked endways. Now here's another--" And then Lamont, fastening on to another topic proceeded to thresh it out, and, in fact, for him, became quite voluble, so much so that Peters could not have got a word in edgeways even if he had wanted to, which he did not. At him Ancram stole more than one glance, expecting to descry an offended look. But he descried nothing of the sort. Peters went on placidly with his supper, nodding occasional a.s.sent to the other's remarks. But Lamont had got what he wanted; he had got clean away from the retreat from the Shangani. There was no possibility of reopening that subject, short of dragging it in by the tail. All of which set the new arrival wondering still more.

"Then if these Matabele chaps were to rise," went on Ancram, "you--we-- should all get our throats cut?"

"From ear to ear," supplied Lamont, with grim uncompromising crispness.

"Oh, come. I say, Lamont, you're getting at a fellow, don't you know."

"No, I don't. But if you don't believe me ask Peters."

"The Captain's--er--oh!--ah!--I mean Lamont's right," declared Peters, half briskly, half deprecatorily, as he noted the positive scowl which wrinkled his friend's dark brows. The reason wherefor was that the latter, having held a subordinate command during the war of occupation, had experienced much trouble in convincing Peters and others that they were not to call him 'Captain' ever after. That sort of tin-pot aping of military rank was bad enough while they were on active service, he declared--afterwards it was simply poisonous, and there were enough 'captains' and 'majors' and 'colonels' knocking about Matabeleland to stock a whole Army Corps with, if they had been genuine.

Again Ancram wondered. What the deuce did it all mean, he tried to unravel, that a tough, hard-bitten frontiersman, such as he had already estimated Peters to be, should care twopence for the frown or smile of a fellow like Lamont, whom he himself had seen show the white feather on an occasion when there was the least possible excuse of all for it-- indeed, he wished he himself had been at hand at the time, instead of arriving on the scene just after the rescue had been effected? Yet, somehow, there was something very solid, very square, about this, as even he realised, involuntary host of his, sitting there the very embodiment of self-possession, devil-may-care-ishness, even masterful dominance. It did not fit in, somehow, with that scene in the falling dusk, by the frozen mere at Courtland, on Christmas Eve.

"But," he persisted, "do you really and seriously mean, Lamont, that if these chaps were to break out to-night they would cut all our throats?"

"Really and seriously, Ancram. But didn't I tell you that the great G.o.d Chance was a ruling factor up here? You'll soon tumble to his little ways. Here--try some of this Magaliesburg," pus.h.i.+ng a large two-pound bag towards him.

"Er--thanks. I think I'll stick to my mixture. The fellows at Pagadi gave me some of that the other night, and I didn't care for it."