This was a situation which, we may be sure, strongly appealed to Wyvern, who reflected, whimsically enough, that he himself was much in the same position. He accordingly took a great fancy to Mtezani, and the young Zulu seemed to attach himself to him more than to Fleetwood. He would invariably be with him when a hunt was afoot in the wild and broken forest country they were then traversing; and for more than one successful find of koodoo or impala, Wyvern had to thank Mtezani.
They fell in with no more contending impis. Now and again armed runners would fetch up at their outspan, and when pressed for news would give evasive replies, but these became fewer as, at last, through the great tumbled, rolling forests, the precipitous savage rise of the Lebombo range came into view.
“We are getting there at last, Wyvern,” said Fleetwood one day. “But there’s one thing I must tell you that I hadn’t bargained for, and a most infernal nuisance it is too. I learn that almost bang on the scene of our operations, a particularly obnoxious sweep named Rawson—Bully Rawson—a white man, of course, has planted himself down. Now this fellow is likely to prove a considerable thorn in our side, to give us trouble, in fact.”
“Why? Who is he?”
“Oh, as to that nobody knows, strictly, which likely enough is just as well for him. He’s nominally a trader like myself, but actually he’s a chiefs white man, and that spells gun-runner.”
“Yes? But why should he interfere with us?”
“Well, it’s this way. Being in my own line himself, he knows devilish well that no sane being—and he knows me well enough to credit me with sanity—is going to bring a couple of trade waggons up to a remote and almost uninhabited part of the country, that, too, where trekking with the same is more than pain and grief, as you’ve seen—for trade purposes. No. Well, then, having come to that conclusion, the first thing he’ll say to himself will be—what the devil we’re up here for at all. See?”
“Yes. But what the same devil is he doing up here himself, then, on those terms? You don’t think he has any inkling of Hlabulana’s yarn? Eh?”
“No. I don’t see how he could have,” answered Fleetwood. “He’s cutting timber in the Lumisana forest, and shipping it to the coast, which in all probability spells gun-running for Hamu.”
“For Hamu? Oh, this is Hamu’s country, then?”