“Then there was a bore of a fellow—Jim Steele—who was rather screwed, and wanted me to fight him, silly ass! Of course I wasn’t going to do that there, under any circumstances, but he—and the other idiots who thought I was afraid of him—little dreamt how they were trying to dig their own graves. For our worthy schemer Qubani would have thought me grotesque with a swelled eye, and you are bound to sustain some such damage in a rough-and-tumble with a big powerful devil like Steele. It was important then that Qubani should not think me grotesque.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve heard about that affair. There’s very little that doesn’t get round to us, in a small place like this, Mr Lamont. And you told him you’d meet him later—I know all about it, you see. Well, you mustn’t. It’s not at all worthy of grown men to act like a lot of overgrown schoolboys. It’s undignified.”
“Oh, I very much more than quite agree with you there. But then I promised the chap. Now, how can I go back on a promise?”
More than ever now did her brother-in-law’s insinuations with regard to this man come back to Clare. And it struck her that he did not plead that cowardice might be imputed to him if he failed—only that having made a promise he ought to keep it. “He isn’t a bad chap at bottom, Jim Steele,” went on Lamont, “except when he’s squiffy, and then he gets quarrelsome. Probably he’ll have forgotten all about everything by the time he wakes, or if not will recognise that he’s made an ass of himself.”
“I should hope so, indeed. But we are getting away from the witch-doctor. Why did you let him go?”
“Instinct, pure instinct. Natives are queer animals, and you don’t always know quite how to take them. If we had kept old Qubani, the township might have been rushed this very night. By turning him loose, full up with what I told him—well the move is justified by results, or you and I would not be talking together up here comfortably at this moment. Now this one has taken on a sort of respect for me—they do that, you know. I asked him what he thought would happen if I gave away for what purpose he was there. He wilted at that. Then I told him I gave him his life, and he must not be less generous. He talked round and round for a little, then said that I had better begin to move with my things at a time of the moon I reckoned out at somewhere about a fortnight hence. So now you see why I want you to get Fullerton to take you in to Buluwayo.”
“But, he won’t do it. He might if you were to put it to him.”
“That’s just when he wouldn’t. You know what they’d say, Miss Vidal ‘Lamont’s got ’em again’—meaning the funks.”
This was said with little bitterness, rather with a sort of tolerant contempt. Clare felt ashamed as she remembered all the remarks to which she had listened, reflecting on this man’s courage, and all because he did not take kindly to some low, pothouse brawl. She kindled.
“How can anyone say such a thing—such a wicked thing—when you have saved the whole settlement from massacre?”