Cool and at ease they sat there chatting. Had she been a clairvoyante a vision might have been vouchsafed to Nidia—the vision of a man, crouching in a thicket of “wacht-een-bietje” thorns, his face and hands lacerated, his clothes torn—a hunted man, with the look of some recent horror stamped upon his pale, set face; the last degree of desperation, of despair, yet of resolution, shining from his eyes; his hand grasping a sword-bayonet, already foul with the dried stains of human blood; and flitting through the brake, their dark forms decked with cowhair and other fantastic adornments, glistening in the sun, a band of armed savages bent on the shedding of blood. But not being blessed—or the reverse—with the faculty of clairvoyance, all she did see was the eminently peaceful scene around her—the two men lazily smoking their pipes beneath the shade of the great tree, while the third moved about attending to some of the hundred and one details of his farm business; the figure of her hostess, her head protected by an ample white “kapje,” coming forth to see that four of her young, disporting themselves in the open in front of the house, were not getting into more mischief than usual, and retiring precipitately within to assuage the yells of the fifth, and haply to attend to some household duty, “Where he is now?” repeated Moseley. “Why, he can’t be far from here. He’s Native Commissioner of Sikumbutana. I don’t suppose his place can be more than twenty or twenty-two miles off. Eh, Dibs?”
“About that,” assented Tarrant, laconically.
“I should so like to see him again,” pursued Nidia.
“Nothing easier, Miss Commerell. Get Hollingworth to send over a boy with a note, or a message to that effect, and I predict Ames will be here like a shot.”
“I’m sure he would,” assented Nidia, in such a genuinely and naturally pleased tone as to set Tarrant the cynic, Tarrant the laconic, Tarrant the incipient admirer of herself, staring. “We were great friends down at the Cape, and made no end of expeditions together. Yes; I would like to see him again.”
“Phew!” whistled Tarrant to himself, not entirely deceived by her consummate ingenuousness. “Lucky Ames! Well, there’s no show for me in that quarter, that’s manifest.”
“Isn’t he that rather good-looking chap who was sitting at our table the day I had lunch with you at Cogill’s?” said Moseley.
“Yes. That’s the man. We soon got to know him, and saw a great deal of him.”
“And thought a great deal of him?”
“Well, yes. I can see that you’re trying to tease me, Mr Moseley, but I don’t care. I don’t know when I’ve seen a man I liked better.”