“We’d have got there to-day, only we’ve come out of our way to warn Tewson. We’ll strike his place directly.”
Then Ancram broke forth. So they had come out of their way, and run their heads into this perilous hobble when by now they might have been safe and sound at Gandela—and all for this! What had they got to do with warning other people! Hadn’t they enough to do to save their own lives! Who was this Tewson, when all was said and done? Some beastly cad, he supposed.
“He’s a white man,” answered Lamont, “and he’s got womenkind and children at his place.”
But Peters was boiling over.
“You infernal, selfish, cowardly swine,” he began. “Let me tell you that we help each other in this country. And if it wasn’t that we were in the hobble we are, I’d have pleasure in punching that silly, selfish, rattletrap noddle of yours till your own mother wouldn’t know it from a rotten pumpkin.”
Let it not be supposed this was all Peters said, but then his remarks were not for publication—in toto, whereas the record of the same—in parte—is.
The fierce tone and threatening attitude cowed Ancram, and he shrunk back, staring apprehensively.
“Ease off, Peters. Ease off,” muttered Lamont. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s half off his chump with tire and scare.”
This was no more than the truth. Ancram was almost used up. Totally unaccustomed to roughing it or swift emergency, physically in the poorest possible training, his experiences of the last two days—the sight of bloodshed, the forced marches afoot over rough ground, perils real or imaginary dogging every step, had about done for him, and had brought out all the worst that was in him. Peters growled like a savage dog baffled of a bone, and relapsed into sullen silence.
At no great distance now they made out a homestead, right above the high river bank. Still and peaceful it looked in the early morning, too still it seemed to two out of the three, who with a quickening of the pulses wondered if they were too late. No sign of life was there about the place. No smoke rose from the chimney, and the native huts behind the house had a deserted look. Well, the family might have received warning, and escaped.