No Joeboy appeared, and in the dusk of evening we went across the yard, had a good look at our horses, stopped patting and caressing them for some time, then went back to the hospital unquestioned and, I believe, unseen, with the coils of raw-hide rope. From that time everything seemed to me so delightfully easy that it prognosticated certain success.
The doctor came at dusk and had a chat; then the Sergeant looked us up to tell us that he had seen nothing of Joeboy, but that the butcher told him he had missed some strips of beef hung up in the sun to make biltong, and that he believed the black had taken them.
“Why?” I asked sharply.
“Because he was so fond of eating; and he said the black would be found curled up amongst the stones somewhere in the kopje among the baboons, sleeping off his feed.”
“It isn’t true,” I said warmly. “Joeboy wouldn’t steal unless he knew we were starving, and then it would be to bring it to his master and his master’s friend.”
“That’s what I like in you, Val,” said Denham as soon as the Sergeant had left us. “You always stick up for a friend when any one attacks him behind his back.”
“Of course,” I replied angrily.
“Don’t be cross, old man,” he cried. “I didn’t mean to insult you by calling a black fellow your friend.”
“That wouldn’t insult me. Joeboy is a humble friend, who would give his life to save mine.”
“I wish he was with us, then, so as to make a present of it to somebody if we should be in very awkward quarters.”