The expression of the miserable man’s face, as he stared at his tormentor with a frozen, hopeless look of despair, was awful to behold, while he listened to the terrible doom which the other pronounced upon him. Not a gleam of relenting could he trace in that stern, impassive countenance.
“Mercy—mercy,” he moaned. “I will be your slave—your dog. I will kill the other man if you wish, only spare me,” and his dry, bloodless lips could hardly articulate his hopeless entreaty. “Only spare my life—it is yours—I deserve to die; but spare me,” and the miserable wretch grovelled on the earth.
Claverton contemplated him for a few moments with calm equanimity, unmoved by the extremity of his terror.
“Upon my word, Sharkey, I gave you credit for more gameness. Well, now, listen to me. It is as you say—you deserve to die, and your life is mine. Never mind about the other man, I won’t have him hurt for anything. Now for yourself. You have gone through all the bitterness of death in the last few minutes, as I intended you should. That is enough. I will spare your life—richly as you have deserved to lose it—but listen to me. You will go from here as a prisoner, and not be released from arrest till we have joined the others. I will make no conditions with you—first of all, because you are absolutely powerless to harm me, now, or at any future time—the very events of to-night prove that; secondly, because, if I did, you would not keep them. So I forgive you completely your plot to murder me, and you shall join the corps as if nothing had happened. One word of warning, though. I shall have my eye upon you always, and wherever you may be. And remember this, in case we go into action together—I’m not a bad shot, you know; and there’s no fear of my mistaking a Kafir for any one else, or any one else for a Kafir. Bear all this in mind, for if you are up to any more tricks, what you have just gone through is a mere joke compared with what’s in store for you. You know me.”
The prisoner looked at Claverton with a wild, superstitious awe. This man must be something more than mortal, and he shuddered as he reflected that he was indeed powerless to harm him. Then, as he realised that his life was spared, the look of relief returned to his livid features. He knew the other only too well, and that every word had been spoken in no mere spirit of empty threat, but in sober earnest. And now he felt like a man who has been reprieved from under the very gallows-tree itself. He had spoken the truth in his revelation in all good faith—indeed, he dared not have done otherwise—and had told all he knew, marvelling that he had been asked so few questions.
Claverton, meanwhile, was sitting opposite, watching his prisoner with a curious and thoughtful expression. By what stroke of luck had he been made to lose his way and brought to this place in time to overhear the plot against his own life? Who on earth could the other man be—the arch mover in the scheme? He had never seen him before; had never even heard his name; and then what the mulatto had said, about it being a question of money. Stay, could it be that some will existed of which he, Claverton, knew nothing, and under which the other would benefit in the event of his death? It seemed strange, certainly; but then his experience had taught him that nothing was too strange to be true. And then recurred to his mind, with all the force of a prophecy, the words which Lilian had spoken when first she discovered the ruffian was following them in the square at King Williamstown: “Have you no secret enemy? No one who would owe you a grudge?” and he had answered lightly in the negative; whereas, he was actually being dogged by two secret assassins—one of them no mere common ruffian like the cut-throat lying there before him, but a man apparently his equal in birth and station. With whom, however, he promised himself a full and complete reckoning, all in good time.
Then the recollection of Lilian’s words naturally recalled the image of Lilian herself. What was she doing then? Thinking of him ever—at that hour most likely praying for him—and he? With difficulty had he just restrained himself from an act of wild, lawless vengeance—justified, perhaps, but still vengeance—one which in earlier days he would not have shrunk from; and now, as he thought of her, his whole mood softened and he felt glad that he had spared the villain opposite, even though by doing so he might have jeopardised his own life. Not that he gave this side of the question a thought, for his experiences had made him a fatalist, and he really believed himself under a special protection for some purpose or other—be that purpose what it might. Thus musing, he fell into a doze; while the faithful Sam, having stabled the horses in the adjoining apartment, had barred up the door as well as he could, and sat, huddled in his blanket, smoking his pipe and keeping watch over the prisoner and over his master’s safety.
With the first ray of dawn they were astir. The horses being saddled, the prisoner’s feet were untied to allow him to walk.
“Yon dam Hottentot nigga?” said Sam, administering a sly kick to the crestfallen Sharkey, when his master’s back was turned. “You cheek my chief, eh? Now, you try to run away, I shoot—shoot you—so. My chief, he good shot, shoot you dead—ha, ha!”
With which salutary warning they set out. Sam, in his heart of hearts, hoping that it would be disregarded, and that the mulatto would really make an attempt at escape. But that worthy was wise in his generation, and the Natal native had no opportunity of showing his skill with the new Snider rifle wherewith a paternal Goverment had supplied him on the occasion of his joining “Claverton’s Levies.”