The look of hunted terror in the man’s face would have moved his bitterest foe to pity. He sat down helplessly on an empty packing-case which was lying where it had been flung, just outside the door, and looked at Nathan with haggard eyes. Nathan had ceased from his letter-writing and come to the doorway, because he did not care to be alone inside with Koos, after his last night’s experience of being gripped. He stood in the doorway, whistling, and with his hands in his pockets. Then, after a pause—
“Well, Koos, old man, you look chippy to-day. What’s up, eh?”
Koos stood up and again laid his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. Nathan, however, had been prepared for this, so he slipped like an eel from under the huge hand that threatened to crush him, darted away to a distance of a few yards, and then wheeled round facing Koos, who was limping heavily after him with murder in his eye. He determined to risk something. He had planned out moves for the game he had to play. Here, in the full light of day and within sight of the whole of Namies, was the place to begin the struggle.
“Look here, Koos Bester,” he said in a low tone, “if you think you are going to paw me about as you would a blasted Bushman, you are very much mistaken. Understand me now, once and for all—if ever you lay that leg-o’-mutton hand of yours on me again, I’ll—I’ll—Well, I won’t say exactly what I’ll do, but you can just look out for yourself—mind that.”
Koos at once collapsed into abjectness. Nathan pursued his advantage—
“One would think it was I that had booted a blooming nigger to death. Where do you think you’d be if I were to split, eh?”
Here he attempted a somewhat conventional representation of the legal tragedy which follows the donning of the black cap by a certain high judicial functionary. In it his tongue, the whites of his eyes, his left hand, and the butt of his ear played conspicuous parts. Koos gasped and murmured unintelligibly. Nathan resumed—
“Now, look here, I’m not going to split—this is, if you are a good boy and do as you’re told, and keep your paws to yourself. See?” Koos made a dismal attempt to smile, as though he regarded this as a pleasantry. He was now completely cowed, and would have set his neck under the foot of the man before him had he been told to do so.
He came close up to Nathan, cleared his throat, and whispered hoarsely—
“What did he tell your brother?”