“Let me hear all,” she said, in a dull voice, sitting back in a low cane chair on the stoep, one in which he had often sat. “No. I don’t want anything,” as her father besought her to let him fetch something in the shape of a restorative. “It’s deeper than that. Only, my heart is broken at this moment. Well, tell me everything.”
Le Sage was gulping with his own voice—in fact, could not command it.
“Tell me. Tell me,” she went on. “How much longer am I to wait?”
“It’s this way, Miss Lalanté,” struck in Warren, who having pulled himself together, now judged it high time to come to the rescue. “There was a scrimmage up there between the King’s party—the Usutus—those who favour Cetywayo’s restoration, you know—and the other faction—those who don’t. Somehow Wyvern and his friend—Fleetwood the other man’s name was—got between the two and were—killed. I have it from an eye-witness, another up-country trader, who, however, managed to escape.”
“Who is he?”
“A man named Bexley—Jim Bexley. He’s a rough customer but a reliable one. I’m afraid, in this case, too reliable.”
“And he saw it done?”
Warren nodded.
“Could I see him?”
“Certainly. But—had you better? It will take a few days to get hold of him, but it shall be done if it would give you the smallest atom of comfort, as indeed what should not?”