Chapter Ten.
On Thorns.
When Maurice Sellon awoke the next morning it took him some little while to remember exactly where he was.
The cool delicious air was wafting in at the open window—the murmur of leaves, and the plash of running water—the half-rasping, half-whistling call of the yellow thrush, and the endless chattering of finks—the lowing of cattle, and the deep bass hum of Kafir voices—all struck upon his ears as strange after the exhausting heat; the treeless, waterless wastes, the burnt-up silent plains so destitute of bird and animal life, which were the leading features of the scene of his late sojourn. Then with all the strong animal rejoicing of a mercurial temperament combined with a sound constitution, he leaped out of bed, and snatching up a towel, sallied forth in quest of a convenient place for a swim.
It was early yet, but the household was astir—seemed to have been for some time. Sellon spied his host in the cattle kraal, giving a supervising eye to the milking and other operations therein going forward.
“Want to swim, eh?” said the latter. “Well, follow that fence a couple of hundred yards till you come to a big tree-fern on the hedge of the bush; turn in there and you’ll find a grand hole.”
Away went Sellon, looking about him as he walked. What a fine place this was, he thought, and what a rattling good time of it he was going to have. The shooting must be splendid. It was a lovely morning, and the man’s spirits rose over the prospect of present enjoyment, and a brightening future. And there was another cause at work tending to send up the mercury, as we shall see anon.
He had no difficulty in finding the water-hole—a fine ‘reach’ of the river about a hundred yards by twenty, thickly shaded with overhanging scrub. In he went with a header and a splash, and after a couple of vigorous swims up and down was just coming out when something caught his eye.
A long rakish narrow object lying along the almost horizontal trunk of a half-fallen tree, not more than a yard from the ground—so motionless that were it not for the scintillation of the eye you could hardly have told the creature was alive. The squab, clinging paws, the hideous crocodile head, the long tapering tail, seemed all exaggerated in the half-gloom of the thick scrub, and in the start which the sight inspired in the beholder.
Sellon stood transfixed, and a cold chill of horror and repugnance ran through him. In his newness to the country it occurred to him that the river might contain a fair population of alligators. Anyway, the beast looked hideous and repulsive enough—even formidable. And it lay almost between himself and the spot where he had left his clothes.
Just then he could have sworn he heard a smothered splutter of laughter. The reptile must have heard it too, for it raised its head to listen. Then a crack and a puff of smoke. The creature rolled from the trunk, and lay snapping and writhing, and making every effort to reach the water.
“Stop him, Mr Sellon. Don’t let him get into the water,” cried a shrill boy’s voice, and the youthful shooter came crashing through the brake, armed with a saloon rifle, and followed by another youngster about the same age.
“Stop him! How am I to stop him, you young dog?” growled Sellon, who was standing up to his middle in water.
But the boys had wrenched up a stout stick, and deftly avoiding alike snapping jaws and lashing tail, managed to hold the great lizard on the bank where he lay, until his struggles had entirely ceased.
“Gave you rather a schrek, didn’t it, Mr Sellon?” said the elder of the two, maliciously, with a wink at his brother, and there was a broad grin on each face that made Sellon long to cuff the pair. For the average colonial urchin has scant respect for his elders as such; scantier still if those elders happen to be “raw Englishmen.”
“An ugly brute, anyhow,” he answered, wading out to look at the carcase. “What is he, eh?”
“Only an iguana, Mr Sellon. My! but he’s a big un; five feet at least, I expect. I don’t wonder you took him for a crocodile.”
“Took him for—You cheeky young dog, how do you know what I took him for?”
“Come now, that’s good!” retorted the urchin, unabashed, “My! Mr Sellon, but if you could only have seen yourself standing there in the water in a blue funk!” and both cubs thereupon burst into shrill and undisguised laughter.
“I tell you what, youngster, that was an uncommonly good shot of yours,” said wily Sellon, on the principle of agreeing with his adversary quickly, for he guessed the young scamps would presently go in full of the story, and equally was conscious of having truly been in something of a funk, as they had said. “But how did you manage to get it in?”
“Oh, we spotted him long before you did; Fred cut back for the saloon gun while I waited here. My, though, but he’s about the biggest lygovaan (Iguana) I’ve ever seen.”
But although by the time they returned home Sellon and the boys had become great friends; a number of swimming dodges which he taught them having in a measure established him in their respect; yet when he appeared at the breakfast-table he found the joke public property already. But he was a man who could stand chaff—which was fortunate—for he was destined to hear enough of it on the subject of the iguana episode.
But he had matters to think of this morning beside which the above incident was the merest thistledown for triviality; an undertaking on hand, the key to which lay snug in his pocket in the shape of the tiniest of notes; slipped into his hand, deftly and surreptitiously, though under everybody’s nose, during the process of exchanging good-nights the evening before. Thus it ran—
“To-morrow. The garden. Middle of the morning. Watch me.—V.”
The barest outline, but sufficient for all purposes. It had come, too, just at the right time. He had felt nettled, annoyed, sore, at Violet’s light-heartedness. She had treated him as the merest stranger, and when she talked to him, had rattled away at the veriest commonplaces. All her captivating glances, all her dangerous modulations of tones, he had kept for Fanning. Fanning it was who had engrossed the lion’s share of her attention throughout the evening. He had mentally cursed Fanning. He could not make it out. He began to hate Fanning. Then, sore and angry, that tiny bit of paper had come in the nick of time, and he had slept soundly and risen in the best of spirits, as we have seen.
Yet as the time drew near his spirits sustained a check. That Violet would find her opportunity he had no sort of doubt. Let her alone for that. But would he be equally fortunate?
After breakfast he was taken possession of by his host. With accurate instinct he realised that at any rate during the earlier half of the morning, when the ladies were busy with household details, the presence of a man and a stranger whom they would feel more than half bound not to neglect, could be nothing other than an unmitigated nuisance. So he submitted to his host’s “showing around” with the best grace he could muster, and the three men hindered forth, strolling around in that easy, pleasant, dawdling fashion, dear to the heart of the prosperous colonial farmer who can afford to take it easy from time to time when he has a congenial guest and an appreciative listener—and Christopher Selwood had both on his hands that morning.
Yes, it was pleasant enough wandering around in the sunshine, looking at this and looking at that, stopping every now and then for a lounge against a wall, or in some shady nook while fresh pipes were filled and lighted. It was all pleasant enough, but by the time they had inspected the stables and the kraals, the garden and the cultivated lands, and had visited certain traps and spring-guns placed along the fences of the latter for the benefit of invading bucks or porcupines, and had, moreover, talked stock and wild sport unlimited, it was uncommonly near the “middle of the morning,” and they were some distance from the house. Sellon began to feel at his wits’ end.
“The middle of the morning. Watch me. V.” It was already the first, and as for the second, how could he watch her when he was nearly a mile away, pinned fast on the top of a stone wall, listening to an otherwise interesting disquisition from his host upon the habits of certain wild game? Renshaw it was who came to the rescue.
“I expect we are boring Sellon to death, with all the ‘shop’ we’ve been talking,” he said, noting the “cornered” expression in the latter’s face.
“Not a bit—not in the least,” was the hurried reply; “quite the contrary. Only—the fact is, though I don’t like owning to it, I’m a trifle headachy this morning.”
“Well, you were out rather early, which I dare say you’re not much used to,” said Christopher. “Look here, now, Sellon. If you’re tired cut off to the house and take it easy. You’ll find the drawing-room cool and quiet, and there’s a lot of stuff to read in the shelves.”
“Well, I think I will, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind—mind? No. Make yourself at home, man—make yourself at home. That’s what you’ve got to do here,” was the hearty reply.
Now, skirting the way our artful manoeuvrer has to travel is a high quince hedge, and in this hedge is a gate, and not very far inside this gate is a rustic bench, and upon this rustic bench is a cool, tasteful dress of light material, surmounted by a very broad-brimmed straw hat. There is also upon the said bench a book, but it is not altogether lying on it, for it is still held by a well-shaped little hand. But for the thoroughfare aforesaid the spot is a secluded one, as it certainly is a pleasant one, and shady withal; thanks to the foliage of the large, well-grown fruit trees. Now, what does our manoeuvring scamp do but steal softly up behind this attractive figure, and throw both arms around it, while with equal want of ceremony the scampish countenance is inserted beneath that very broad-brimmed straw hat, and there it remains during the few moments of faint, because feigned, scuffle in which its wearer sees fit to indulge.
“At last, my darling!” he exclaims gleefully, seating himself on the bench beside her. “At last!”