The Triumph of Hilary Blachland Part 20

I'll go. You're quite safe here. Stay, do you hear?"

She turned in surprise. Her companion was quite agitated.

"Why, it's safe enough!" she said with a laugh, but still wondering.

"I'm not in the least afraid of snakes. I've killed several of them.

Come along."

And answering Fred's shouts she led the way through the gra.s.s and stones at an astonis.h.i.+ng pace, entirely disregarding his entreaties to allow him to go first.

"There! There!" cried Fred, his fist full of stones, pointing to some long gra.s.s almost hiding a small boulder about a dozen yards away.

"He's squatting there. He's a big black ringhals. I threw him with three stones--didn't hit him, though. Man, but he's 'kwai.' Look, look! There!"

Disturbed anew by these fresh arrivals, the reptile shot up his head with an ugly hiss. The hood was inflated, and waved to and fro wickedly, as the great coil dragged heavily over the ground.

"There! Now you can have him!" cried Fred excitedly, as Blachland stooped and picked up a couple of large stones. These, however, he immediately dropped.

"No. Let him go," he said. "He wants to get away. He won't interfere with us."

"But kill him, Mr Blachland. Aren't you going to kill him?" urged the boy.

"No. I never kill a snake if I can help it. Because of something that once happened to me up-country."

"So! What was it?" said the youngster, with half his attention fixed regretfully on the receding reptile, which, seeing the coast clear, was rapidly making itself scarce.

"That's something of a story--and it isn't the time for telling it now."

But a dreadful suspicion crossed the unsophisticated mind of the boy.

Was it possible that Blachland was afraid? It did not occur to him that a man who had shot lions in the open was not likely to be afraid of an everyday ringhals--not at the time, at least. Afterwards he would think of it.

They went back to where they had been sitting before, Fred chattering volubly. But he could not sit still for long, any more than he had been able to before, and presently he was off again.

"You are wondering why I let that snake go," said Blachland presently.

"Did you think I was afraid of it?"

"Well, no, I could hardly think that," answered Lyn, looking up quickly.

"Yet I believe you thought something akin to it," he rejoined, with a curious smile. "Listen now, and I'll tell you if you care to hear--only don't let the story go any further. By the way, you are only the second I have ever told it to."

"I feel duly flattered. Go on. I am longing to hear it. I'm sure it's exciting."

"It was for me at the time--very." And then he told her of the exploration of the King's grave, and the long hours of that awful day, between two terrible forms of imminent death, told it so graphically as to hold her spellbound.

"There, that sounds like a tolerably tall up-country yarn," he concluded, "but it's hard solid fact for all that."

"What a horrible experience," said Lyn, with something of a shudder.

"And now you won't kill any snake?"

"No. That _mamba_ held me at its mercy the whole of that day--and I have spared every snake I fell in with ever since. A curious sort of grat.i.tude, you will say, but--there it is."

"I don't wonder the natives had that superst.i.tion about the King's spirit pa.s.sing into that snake."

"No, more do I. The belief almost forced itself upon me, as I sat there those awful hours. But, as old Pemberton said, there was no luck about meddling with such places."

"No, indeed. What strange things you must have seen in all your wanderings. It must be something to look back upon. But I suppose it will go on all your life. You will return to those parts again, until--"

"Until I am past returning anywhere," he replied. "Perhaps so, and perhaps it is better that way after all. And now I think it is time to round up Fred, and take the homeward track."

"Yes, I believe it is," was all she said. A strange unwonted silence was upon her during their homeward ride. She was thinking a great deal of the man beside her. He interested her as n.o.body ever had. She had stood in awe of him at first, but now she hoped it would be a long time before he should find it necessary to leave them. What an ideal companion he was, too. She felt her mind the richer for all the ideas she had exchanged with him--silly, crude ideas, he must have thought them, she told herself with a little smile.

But if she was silent, Fred was not. He talked enough for all three the rest of the way home.

CHAPTER SIX.

CONCERNING THE UNEXPECTED.

"How do, Earle?" cried George Bayfield, pulling up his horses at the gate of the first named.

"So, so, Bayfield. How's all yourselves? How do, Miss Bayfield? Had a cold drive? Ha--ha! It must have been nipping when you started this morning. Just look at the frost even now," with a comprehensive sweep of an arm terminating in a pipe over the dew-gemmed veldt, a sheeny sparkle of silver in the newly risen sun. "But you--it's given you a grand colour anyway."

"Yes, it was pretty sharp, Mr Earle, but we were well wrapped up,"

answered Lyn, as he helped her down. Then, as an ulster-clad figure disentangled itself from the spider--"This is Mr Blachland, who is staying with us."

"How do, sir? Pleased to meet you. Not out from home, are you?" with a glance at the other's bronzed and weather-beaten countenance.

"No. Up-country," answered Bayfield for him. "Had fever, obliged to be careful,"--this as though explaining the voluminousness of the aforesaid wrapping.

"So? Didn't know you had any one staying with you, Bayfield."

"By Jove! Didn't I mention it? Well, I wrote that _brievje_ in a cast-iron hurry, I remember."

"That's nothing. The more the merrier," heartily rejoined Earle, who was a jolly individual of about the same number of years as Blachland.

"Come inside. Come inside. We'll have breakfast directly. Who's this?" shading his eyes to look down the road.

"That's Fred and Jafta, and a spare horse. The youngster won't be in the way, will he, Earle? I don't let him shoot yet, except with an air-gun, but he was death on coming along."

"No--no. That's all right. Bring him along."

Their hostess met them in the doorway. She was a large, finely built woman, with a discontented face, but otherwise rather good-looking. She was cordial enough, however, towards the new arrivals. They const.i.tuted a break in the monotony of life; moreover, she was fond of Lyn for her own sake.

"Let's have breakfast as soon as you can, Em," said Earle. "We want to get along. I think we'll have a good day. There are three troops of guinea-fowl in those upper kloofs, and the _hoek_ down along the _spruit_ is just swarming with blekbuck."

During these running comments a door had opened, and someone entered.

"How d'you do, Mrs Fenham?" said Bayfield, greeting the new arrival cordially. He was followed by Lyn, somewhat less cordial. Then arose Earle's voice:

"Mrs Fenham--Mr--There now, I believe I didn't quite catch your name--"