“Good mornin’, Baas?” said the new arrival, with his eyes keenly fixed on the other’s face.
“Morning,” replied Claverton, shortly. “What d’you want with me?”
“I want to join your levies, Baas.”
“Oh, do you? What’s your name?”
“Vargas Smith, Baas,” replied the fellow, who spoke English fluently, narrowly watching the effect of his words. But the said effect was simply nil.
“Queer name that. Where d’you come from?”
“I’ve bin up Zanzibar way—three, four, five years ago—up the river,” answered the fellow, in a tone full of significance, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the supposed direction of that locality. Then sinking his voice to a whisper: “Don’t you know me, Baas?”
“Never saw you before in my life,” replied Claverton, looking him up and down with a cold stare of astonishment.
The coolness of this rejoinder fairly staggered Smith, who, for a minute, stood dumbfoundered. Then he said, still in a would-be significant whisper:
“They used to call me ‘Sharkey,’ Baas, up yonder.”