“Talk of the devil!” he quoted. “Inxele is their name for Bully Rawson.”
Chapter Eighteen.
Entering the Toils.
“Hi—Yup, friends. Glad to see another white man or two in this sooty, flame of fire sort of hole,” sung out the new arrival in rough geniality, as he slid from his pony. “Why, if it isn’t Joe Fleetwood! Hullo, Joe, but I’m glad to see you again; that I am.”
Fleetwood tried to appear as though that sentiment were reciprocated, as they shook hands. Then he introduced Wyvern.
“Glad to meet you, Mister,” extending a great gnarled paw. In taking it an intense and unconquerable aversion came upon Wyvern, an aversion which he believed would have been there in any case, and apart from the doubtful character Fleetwood had just given. Rawson, for his part, was appraising Wyvern. So this was the man he had been instructed to “take care of”; and sizing him up he thought the job would not be a difficult one. True, the object of such attention was tall and broad and strong—for the matter of that, Bully himself was no weakling. But he had a confiding, unsuspicious look which seemed to relieve the undertaking of nine tenths of its difficulties.
“Going through to Swaziland, I suppose, Joe? You’ll not trade a knife to skin a dog with round here, and, if there was any trade—well, you see, old man—this is my pitch.”
For all the boisterous geniality of the tone, there was a distinct note of “warning off” underlying.