“Then perhaps it is not all right, as you say. They may have the same suspicion that led him here. Why the deuce don’t they go off home? I don’t like their hanging about so long.”
“I tell you, Shames, it ish all right. We have only to get rid of the spy. He must never see the fools who own him, again. What ish we to do with him?”
“Send a bullet through his body,” said the man who had been left in charge of the giraffes.
“Yes; he must be killed in that way or some other, certainly,” said James; “but which of us is to do it? It’s a pity we did not shoot him down while he was running. Then was the time. I don’t like the thing, now that I’ve cooled down.”
Bad as the ruffians were, none of them liked to commit a murder in cold blood. They had determined that Congo must die, yet none of them wished to act as the executioner.
After a good deal of discussion and some wrangling, a bright idea flashed across the brain of Van Ormon’s brother. He proposed that their prisoner should be taken to a pool that was some distance down the gorge; that he be tied to a tree by the side of the pool, and left there for the night.
“I see de spoor of lion dare every mornin’,” said he, grinning horribly as he spoke. “I’ll bet mine life we find no more of dis black fella ash a few red spots.”
This plan was agreeable to all; and at sundown the Kaffir was released from his fastenings, conducted down the narrow valley, and firmly spliced to a sapling that stood close to the edge of the pool.
To provide against any chance of his being heard and released by a stray traveller, a stick was stuck crosswise in his mouth, the bight of a string made fast over each end of it, and then securely knotted at the back of his head.