“I have many things of which to tell thee, Simi,” she said, “for I have been speaking long with the wife of the man Krause, and——”
I told her that it would please me better if she first ate something. She at once obeyed, but instead of sitting at the table with me she seated herself on a mat near me, and Pai waited upon her whilst big Tepi attended to me. Only once did she speak during the meal, when she asked me if I had had any recurrence of either fever or ague, and she was undoubtedly pleased when I said that I had not, and that another coarse or two of her medicine would, I believed, care me. She smiled, and told me she would make more of the mixture that evening.
After eating a very slight sapper she made herself a cigarette and sat and smoked until I had finished my pipe. Then she came a little nearer to me, and I felt ashamed of myself for not having asked her if her neck gave her much pain, for I now noticed that the neck and front of her dress were blood-stained. She made light of the wound, however; said it was but skin deep, and would be healed in a few days. But I insisted upon her letting me see for myself. She consented somewhat unwillingly, and I saw that she had had a very narrow escape, the heavy bullet from Krause's Derringer having scored her neck pretty deeply and made a wound nearly two inches long. She had, however, she told me, had it attended to by Mrs. Krause, who had done the very best thing that could have been done to a superficial injury of the kind—painted it liberally with Friar's Balsam, which though causing intense pain for a few minutes, had quickly stayed the flow of blood and prevented any inflammation from setting in.
“Is Mrs. Krause well, Niàbon?” I asked as I readjusted the bandage.
“She is well.”
“And she knows how her husband died?”
“She knows how he died, but knows not whose were the hands that dealt the blows. And, Simi, it is well that she does not know, for I am her friend, and it would grieve her did she know all.”
I thought a moment or two before answering—
“How can the truth be kept from her, Niâbon? There are many people who know 'twas thee and Tematau who slew him.”
“She will never know, Simi,” she asserted earnestly; “there is but one man who could tell her, and him she will not ask.”