Half an hour afterwards they all foregathered at table, and it seemed, in the snug, warm, lighted room, as though the ghastly peril of the afternoon were but a passing adventure, calculated to give an additional feeling of snugness and security to the wind-up of the day. But the dull roaring of the flood was borne in to them through it all upon the dripping stillness of the rainy night.
And Warren, listening to it, and knowing that others heard it, felt more elate than ever. He began to see the goal of his hopes more than near.
Chapter Twenty One.
“Take Care of him.”
Wyvern found some difficulty in concealing the growing disgust that was upon him as he entered Rawson’s kraal. He had by this time been in several native kraals and felt quite at home there: but this—well, somehow it was out of keeping. That unqualified ruffian, his present entertainer, was repulsive enough in all conscience, but he seemed to become ten times more so, when viewed in the light of his domestic arrangements: under which circumstances the fact that he was a white man seemed to have sunk him immeasurably below the level of the savage.
The two women, who were seated together on the ground, looked up quickly as the new arrivals entered. The better favoured of the two, Nkombazana, the Zulu girl, smiled approvingly as her glance rested on Wyvern, and then said something to her companion in a low tone. He, of the two, was clearly the one that aroused their interest Bully Rawson emitted a loud guffaw, true to his programme of keeping up a certain boisterous geniality.
“There you are, Wyvern. Women are the same all the world over, you see. Now these are agreeing that they don’t see a thundering fine chap like you every day of the week.”
“Which is the one related to the boy you just kicked so unmercifully?” said Wyvern.