"Kate will like that man," she said to herself, and then she shivered a little. "I wonder if Kate will take him away from me?"
CHAPTER IV
THE BEACH BY MOONLIGHT
White-Man's-Trouble was abominably frightened during that night march along the beach to Malla-Nulla, and did not mind showing it. Indeed, the fact that he screwed up his determination sufficiently to make the trip at all, says a great deal for his admiration of Carter.
Carter, on the other hand, though he was fully alive to the desperate risks that lay ahead, felt himself to be the white man in command, and adjusted his demeanor accordingly. To look at him one might have thought that he was merely taking exercise and the evening air for the general good of his health.
Had there been cover he would have taken it, but there was none. The beach was the only path; the bush which walled it on one side was impassable, and though the sea might have been considered an alternative route, they had only cotton-wood dug-outs at the Smooth River factory, and it would have taken at least a surf-boat to get out over the Smooth River bar, to say nothing of landing, when the time came, through the rollers which crashed always on Malla-Nulla beach. So he marched along where the sand was wet and hard, just above the cream of surf, and he carried the twelve-bore, hammers downwards, over his shoulder, with his forefinger on the trigger guard above. He was very grateful for those past days of rabbit shooting in Upper Wharfedale which had taught him to be so quick and deadly on a sudden mark.
The surf on one side, and the night noises of Africa on the other, roared in their ears as they marched, and every now and again they came into a cloud of fireflies, which switched their tiny lamps in and out with inconceivable rapidity, and left them quite blinded during the intervals of darkness.
So that on the whole, as Carter realized very fully, if the King of Okky had set men to waylay them, these could scarcely be incompetent enough to miss their mark. But he did not admit this knowledge to White-Man's-Trouble. When that Krooboy stated things exactly as they were, Carter pooh-poohed his deductions lightly enough, and stormed at the man because he was ignorant of the most approved method of pipe-claying shoes.
An African moon floated cleanly overhead, and great African stars punctured the purple roof of heaven, and to Carter's chilled fancy he and the Krooboy were as conspicuous as two actors strutting under lime light. But there were two things he overlooked, and these I believe must have been the salvation of the pair of them. The thick night mists were steaming out of the forest, and from the surf the thick white sea smoke drove in on the land breeze to meet them. This translucent fog, though it might not be very apparent to the eyes of the walkers themselves, would be quite enough to screen them from the gaze of hostile pickets who, after the manner of Africans, were already half scared out of their dusky skins by the fear of ghosts.
They had made the journey out to Smooth River in five and a quarter hours; they completed the journey back to Malla-Nulla in four, which meant good travelling; and because a heavy march like this may not be undertaken without physical payment in the stewy climate of the Coast, Carter felt certain premonitory symptoms which told him that a good thumping dose of fever would be his when once he slackened his efforts and gave it a chance to take charge. But he was not much alarmed at the circumstance. As he told himself coolly enough, either by the time the fever came on he would have rejoined Mr. Smith at Malla-Nulla, who in that case was perfectly capable of looking after him, or he would have rejoined Mr. Smith in the Shades Beyond, and a fever owing to his body left behind on earth would not matter. As it happened neither of these alternatives had to be bargained with.