“Not a word,” said Hicks. “He just said he had been down here, and a couple of slouching Dutchmen had looked in and tried to take a rise out of him, but didn’t manage it.”
“Well, he is a rum stick and no mistake. What’s in the wind now?” and as the trampling of hoofs fell upon the speaker’s ear, he got up hastily and made for the door, knocking over a wooden chair in his progress, and treading on the tail of a mongrel puppy which had sneaked in and was lying under the table, and which now fled, yelling disconsolately. “Here come two chaps,” he went on, shading his eyes from the sun’s glare and looking out into the veldt. “Dutchmen—no—one is—David Botha, I think; t’other’s Allen—no mistaking him. Wheu-uw! Now for some fun, Hicks, my boy. We’ll make him help us with the bees’ nest, and if you don’t kill yourself with almighty blue fits, call me a nigger.”
The two drew near. The Boer with his stolid, wooden face, slouch hat (round which was twined a faded blue veil), and bob-tailed and ancient tail-coat, was an ordinary specimen of his class and nation. The Englishman, however, was not. He was rather a queer-looking fellow, tall and loosely-built, with a great mop of yellow hair and an absent expression of countenance. His age might have been five or six-and-twenty. He had not been long in the colony, and was theoretically supposed to be farming. On horseback Allen was quaint of aspect. His seat in the saddle would not have been a good advertisement to his riding-master, putting it mildly, and he invariably rode screws. Moreover, he was great on jack-boots and huge spurs.
“Good day, David,” said Armitage, as the Boer extended a damp and uncleanly paw. “Hallo, Allen! you’re just in the nick of time. We are just going to get out a bees’ nest, and you must come and bear a hand.”
“But—er—I’m not much use at that sort of thing. Botha will help you much better.”
“Won’t do, old chap—won’t do,” said Armitage, decisively. “In the words of the poet, ‘Not to-day, baker!’ So come along.”
Allen’s jaw fell. If there was one thing on this earth he hated, it was depriving the little busy bee of the hard-earned fruits of his labours, not on humanitarian grounds—oh, no—but the despoiled insects had a knack of buzzing viciously around the noses and ears of the depredators and their accomplices in a way that was highly trying to weak nerves, to say nothing of the absolute certainty of two or three stings, if not half-a-dozen. He glanced instinctively towards David Botha as though mutely to ask: “Why the deuce won’t he do?” But that stolid Boer sat puffing away at his pipe, and showed no inclination to come to the rescue.
“Hicks, give Allen one of those big tins to put the honey in while I hunt up some brown paper to make a smoke with,” said Armitage, as they went into the house. It had been arranged that Allen should hold the receptacle for the honey, otherwise he would inevitably have sloped off.
They went down to the river bank, Armitage leading the way. A keg fixed in the fork of a small tree constituted the hive, and the busy insects were winging in and out with a murmuring hum. Armitage divested himself of his coat so that the bees shouldn’t get up the sleeves, as he said, and slouched his hat well over his face and neck; then with a chisel he removed the head of the keg, while Hicks ignited the brown paper and made the very deuce of a smoke.
“Not much in it—quite the wrong time of year to take it,” said Armitage, as the waxen combs in the hive were disclosed to view. “Never mind, they’ll make a lot more. Oh-h!” as one of the outraged insects playfully stung him on the ear. “Come a little nearer, Allen;” and he threw a couple of combs into the tin dish, while Hicks stood close at hand plying the smoke with all the energy of a Ritualistic thurifer.