"Oh, you were, were you?" exclaimed Oscar, who stood in front of the fire, with his hat pushed on the back of his head and his hands thrust deep into his pockets. "And you did all you could to help it along, didn't you?"
McCann started, and tried to look surprised, but only succeeded in confirming the suspicions that had already been formed in the mind of his employer.
His face grew red and white by turns, and he could not meet the boy's eye.
"You are not only a coward—a most contemptible coward—but you are a scoundrel as well," continued Oscar. "When I return to the coast I shall post you far and wide. You never shall impose upon anybody else as you have imposed upon me, if I can help it. You dare not go any further into the wilderness with me, you are too big a coward to go back to Zurnst alone, and you are determined to make me go back with you. You told those Boers that I am an Englishman and a trader, hoping in that way to excite their hatred and jealousy of me. You tried to lose me on the plain, and to lead me out of my way, so that I could not find water; and when you learned that I was able to travel without any help from you, by referring to a map Mr. Lawrence had given—— Aha!" exclaimed Oscar as McCann's face flushed guiltily, "you thought you would stop me by tearing up my map, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Preston," stammered McCann. "Indeed I don't."
"Don't you, though? Look at that!" cried Oscar, pulling from his pocket the pieces of paper he had found on the plain, and holding them close in front of the man's face. "Look at that!" he repeated as he rubbed the pieces violently up and down over McCann's nose.
This was almost too much for even a coward to stand. McCann jumped to his feet with an angry exclamation, and drew his clenched hand back as if he were about to strike.