"Well, if you don't want your head punched, you had better say nothing against Blunt," the trooper grumbled, "either in my hearing or out of it."
The recruit turned away and occupied himself in grooming his horse.
"This is a rum start," he said to himself. "Who would have thought of meeting Captain Mervyn out here? I saw in one of the papers, soon after I came out, the account of his trial. I wonder how I should have felt if I had been standing in his place? So he has changed his name. I suppose he arrived at the Cape when I was up the country, and must have enlisted at once, for it's nearly three months since I joined the depôt, and a draft had only sailed the day before. At any rate it's not likely he will know me; not that he could do me any harm if he did, still it's always useful to know a man and to know something against him, especially when he doesn't know you. If I ever get into a row I can put the screw on nicely."
As the recruit, who had enlisted in the name of Jim Smith, had expected would be the case, Ronald Mervyn's eye showed no signs of recognition as it fell upon his face. He thought the new recruit was a strapping fellow, and would be a good man to have beside one in a hand-to-hand fight with the Kaffirs; but beyond this he gave him no further thought.
A considerable number of the Fingo allies had now arrived at King Williamstown. They had no idea whatever of discipline, and looked every bit as wild as their Kaffir foes. But there was no doubt they were ready to fight, for they were eager to be led against the Kaffirs, who had so long kept them in slavery. They had been armed with muskets, and each carried a heavy knobkerrie. At present they had nothing to do but to sleep and eat, to dance war dances, and to get drunk whenever they could obtain sufficient money to indulge in that luxury.
They were accompanied by their wives, who not only waited upon and cooked for them, but earned money by going out into the woods and bringing in bundles of faggots. Numbers of Hottentot women were engaged upon the same work, while the men of the same tribe looked after the great herds of cattle, furnished drivers for the waggons, helped in the commissariat stores, and, so far as their lazy nature permitted, made themselves useful.
"If I were the General," Ronald said one day to Sergeant Menzies, "I wouldn't have a Hottentot about the place. I believe that they are all in league with the enemy. Look how they all went over from the missionary stations, and the farmers tell me they left in the majority of cases on the day before the massacre. It's quite evident that the Kaffirs somehow always get information of our movements. How could they have laid that ambush for us at Keiskamma River if they had not known the column was going that way? How was it they were ready to attack the detachments that went with provisions to the Forts? It could not have been from their own people, for not a Kaffir has been near us since the troubles began. I believe it's these hateful little Hottentots."
"They are hateful," the sergeant said, "whether they are traitors or not. Except the Bushmen, I do believe that they are the most disgusting race on the face of the earth, with their stunted bodies and their yellow faces, and their filthy and disgusting ways. I don't know that I should turn them out of the camp if I were the General, but I should certainly order them to be washed. If you get half-a-dozen of them on the windy side of you, it's enough to make you sick."
"I wonder the Kaffirs didn't exterminate the little brutes," Ronald Mervyn said. "I suppose they would have done if it had not been for the Dutch first and us afterwards. The missionaries made pets of them, and nice pets they have turned out. It is just the same thing in India. It's the very dregs of the people the missionaries always pick up with."