"'Ow pretty you talk English when you want to, Walty deer! 'Aven't you bin gittin' at me all along, makin' out ..."
He swore at her savagely, and she held her tongue, worshipping this new development of masterful brutality in a man whom she had regarded as a "big softy."
He went on:
"Now you shall know what to look for, and when the verdoemte explosives come, you will know them by the boxes and the letters 'A.O.S.'—and you will tell me—and the guns of our Staats Artillery will not shoot that way, for the sake of the little woman who is going to be a true Boer's vrouw by-and-by."
She threw her arms about his rascally neck, and laid her head upon his hulking shoulder, regardless of the hat she wrecked, and cried in ecstasy:
"I'll do it, deer! I'll do it, Walty! But why should there be any shootin', lovey? At 'Ome I never could abear to see them theayter plays what 'ad guns an' firin' in 'em; it made me 'art beat so crooil bad."
He grinned over the big hat into the darkness.
"All right! I will tell the men with the guns that you do not like to hear them, and they will not perhaps shoot at all. But you will look out for the boxes with the dynamite, and send me the message when it comes?"
"Course I will, deer! But 'ow am I to send the message?"
The shadowy right arm of Slabberts swept out, taking in the black and void and formless veld with a large free gesture.