“What are you going to launch out in next? I know you’re a reticent chap, Wyvern, but we’re old pals, and if there’s any sort of way in which I can ever give you a leg up, you know you can rely upon me. I don’t ask with any notion of poking my nose into your private affairs, you know.”
“Well, first of all I’m going to Natal to look up a former friend of mine. We served together in the Zulu War; in fact, we raced neck to neck off that infernal Hlobane Mountain, through thousands of raging devils, and made rather more than a nodding acquaintance with grim old Death that day.”
“By Jove! I should think so. Who is he, by the way?”
“He’s trading in Zululand. He thinks I might join him with advantage.”
“I see,” said Warren, secretly foiled in that he had not got the name. But he was nothing if not cautious. He could get at that later, while not seeming too curious. “Well, I hope you’ll have luck—and return triumphant. By the way, didn’t you have a bit of a breeze with old Le Sage the other day?”
“Now how the devil did you get hold of that for a yarn, Warren? I haven’t opened my head about it to any living soul—not even a nigger.”
The other smiled knowingly.
“There’s very little I don’t get hold of, old chap. What if Le Sage told me himself?”
“Did he?”
“Yes. He abused you so infernally that I had to tell him to stop—reminding him you were a pal of mine. Then he abused me, but that I didn’t mind. We do a lot of business together. You can stand a good deal from anybody on those terms.”