“Keep cool, Wyvern,” Fleetwood took the opportunity of saying in an undertone. “We don’t know, of course, what that young schelm may have been up to.”
“What a sickening sweep!” was Wyvern’s reply, with a set face.
“Well, that young brute’s got what he won’t forget in a hurry,” cried Rawson, rejoining them. “Skulked away from his job directly my back was turned, and slunk up here to cadge some tywala. One of my wives is his sister, you know.”
“One of your what?” said Wyvern.
“Wives,” shouted Bully, with an evil grin, enjoying the other’s look of disgust. “Wives. I’ve only two of ’em at present—I’ve had lots in my time—and I shall have to lick one of ’em for this, too.”
“You seemed rather—well, rough on your brother-in-law,” answered Wyvern, with a sneer he could no longer repress.
“You’ve got to be. Look here, Wyvern,” waxing familiar, “I take it you’re one of them raw, out from home Britishers who think the way to baas niggers is to soft sawder them. You may take it from me then that it ain’t. Oh, Joe there’ll tell you exactly the same for that matter.”
“Is he a Zulu?” with a jerk of the hand in the direction of the vanishment of the licked one.
“Zulu? Not much. He’s a Swazi.”
“I wonder you’re not afraid of them poisoning you.”