“No, Inkos.”
He went away with a spring to his walk. I turned to Maurice and spoke as steadily as I could.
“Do you not think you should tell the Company and have an expedition sent?”
“No!” he said abruptly. “I shall take Makapi and go alone. They would get wind of an expedition—you can’t keep anything dark from kaffirs for long—and then they would kill Kinsella as sure as a gun. After holding him so long they know well enough that some one will have to pay when he is released, and they’ll think nothing of killing him off and denying that there was ever any one there at all. We can’t risk that. I must go alone and very quickly. There will be nothing unusual in a police inspector setting off alone, and they will suspect nothing. We won’t give them time to suspect.”
“I think you should tell the Company,” I persisted. There was something terrifying and awful to me in letting my husband go off alone on this dangerous mission to bring back the man I loved.
“Of course I shall tell the Company—as much as is good for them to know. I must get my chief on the wire at once, and get leave to go off on urgent secret inquiry work. There are any amount of reasons to go secretly to the kraals, now that the natives are so unsettled. He’ll be glad enough to have me visit the Matoppo kraals and see what is going on.” He turned on me suddenly. “Do you grudge me this work to do for you?” he said strangely, and I knew not how to answer him, but at last I faltered:
“For us, Maurice. I think it is splendid of you to offer to go. It will be no child’s play, but a brave, big thing. Whether you succeed or not no one will be prouder of you than I. It is the going that counts. But I know you will succeed.”
And indeed I had always known that I should see Anthony Kinsella again before I died.
Maurice and I were closer in spirit during the next few hours than we had ever been. They were hours of unceasing occupation, swift consideration and selection.