“Rather awkward,” replied Stephen. “There are no express trains to Beza, and if there were we couldn’t be sure that Brother John would take one of them. I suppose there is a Brother John?” he added reflectively. “To me he seems to be—intimately connected with Mrs. Harris.”
“Oh! there is, or there was,” I explained. “Why couldn’t the confounded ass wait quietly for us at Durban instead of fooling off butterfly hunting to the north of Zululand and breaking his leg or his neck there if he has done anything of the sort?”
“Don’t know, I am sure. It’s hard enough to understand one’s own motives, let alone Brother John’s.”
Then we sat down on our stools again and stared at each other. At this moment Hans crept into the hut and squatted down in front of us. He might have walked in as there was a doorway, but he preferred to creep on his hands and knees, I don’t know why.
“What is it, you ugly little toad?” I asked viciously, for that was just what he looked like; even the skin under his jaw moved like a toad’s.
“The Baas is in trouble?” remarked Hans.
“I should think he was,” I answered, “and so will you be presently when you are wriggling on the point of a Mazitu spear.”
“They are broad spears that would make a big hole,” remarked Hans again, whereupon I rose to kick him out, for his ideas were, as usual, unpleasant.
“Baas,” he went on, “I have been listening—there is a very good hole in this hut for listening if one lies against the wall and pretends to be asleep. I have heard all and understood most of your talk with that one-eyed savage and the Baas Stephen.”
“Well, you little sneak, what of it?”