“We did it between us, Baas,” he said, and the answer moved Wyvern the more to let him down easy, though fully alive to the bad policy of doing so, for he appreciated the fact that the fellow had not tried to save himself by throwing the blame on his accomplice.
They had reached the place where Wyvern had left his horse, and now as he mounted he said:
“Now walk on in front of me, Sixpence. I shall think seriously over what I shall do about you. You would get ever so many years in the tronk you know, for coming at me with the knife—and that apart from what you’d get for ‘slaag-ing’ the sheep. I expect the other fellow is dead by this time. The snake struck him again and again.”
“Nkose!” murmured the Kafir deprecatorily, then relapsed into silence. Before they had gone far Wyvern said:
“Go back to your flock, Sixpence. I expect it has straggled a good bit by this time. But—” impressively—“don’t attempt to run away. You are sure to be caught if you do, and then you will have thrown away your last chance.”
“Nkose!” murmured the Kafir again, and bending down he kissed his master’s foot as it rested in the stirrup. Then he walked away.
“Poor devil,” said Wyvern to himself, gazing after him as he rode on. “Well, we are all poor devils—I the most of the lot. I believe I could almost bring myself to envy that ochre-smeared scion of Xosa. He doesn’t need much, and gets it all, while I—?”