“How soon will you be ready, then?” he said at last, wearily pushing back his chair.
“On Monday morning—an hour before daylight.”
“Very well, then, that’s settled. I suppose a day won’t make any great difference after all. And you might turn the time to account by picking up three or four likely-looking fellows here. If you want any further information you’ll find me here all to-morrow. No rest for us public servants, not even on Sunday, since these confounded wars; I feel quite ashamed to look a parson in the face now—ha, ha, ha! Good-night!” and chuckling in a dispirited manner over his feeble jest, the official shook hands with Claverton and returned to grind away at his vouchers, and requisitions, and reports until midnight. And our new commandant of levies sallied forth, a flash of satirical mirth lurking in his eyes over his interlocutor’s parting suggestion. So likely that, on the last day he would spend with Lilian, he was going to bother himself recruiting a lot of dirty niggers among the grog-shops of Bog-na-fin (the popular name for a low quarter of Grahamstown).
But his fame must have spread very rapidly, for early the next morning before he was half-dressed, his faithful henchman came to tell him that a man was asking for him in the back-yard. “What does he look like, Sam?”
“An ugly Hottentot, Inkos. Big and strong, though.”
“All right, tell him to wait. And, Sam!”
“Inkos?”
“I shall take you with me to the front. So you’ll be able to try your hand at shooting Amaxosa.”
Sam jumped with delight at this. He could hardly believe his ears. The last time, he had begged and prayed to be allowed to go; but then his master had gone in the capacity of a private trooper, and couldn’t be encumbered with a servant. Now it was different, and subsequently Sam might be heard imparting his good news over the wall to the Hottentot groom belonging to the neighbouring house, winding up with his cherished formula—“Amaxosa nigga no good.”
In a few minutes Claverton went out to interview his intending recruit, as he supposed the visitor to be, and an almost imperceptible shade of annoyance came over his face as he saw before him the man whose sudden appearance yesterday had so sorely troubled Lilian during their ride. “Ghosts don’t talk!” said he to himself, sardonically and with meaning, “or this might be one.”