CHAPTER VI

THE FLINGING OF THE GAGE

"What god, then, bade those two stand forth and strive?" --C. S. CALVERLEY.

All the world of Slabbert's Poort was enclosed within the walls of "Lutwyche's." The funeral feast waxed noisier and noisier; there were the elements of discord trembling in the cup. Boer _v._ Briton was soon to be the order of the day, and the present company was largely composed of disappointed men--those who had come to clutch diamonds, and had found none. Their sense that the times were out of joint had been growing by degrees, in proportion as their prospects waned; and the war rumours were fanning it into flame. Visions of plunder danced before their eyes. They would have torn treasure from the bowels of the earth; if this was denied them, there was many a rich homestead for the sacking, much plunder scattered here and there over the wide land. This was what war meant to most of them. A few were English, but the great majority were Africanders. Amurrica was the only man of ability among them. He meant to throw in his lot with the winning side, "anyway"; but he had for days past been making highly inflammatory speeches, from the Boer point of view, in the saloon of the Vierkleur.

The festivities were well begun when Bert Mestaer walked in. He was not popular now. Most of those present were jealous of his possessions, and of his great physical strength. They thought him reserved, and nobody ever forgot that his mother was English. It was not considered certain which side he would take in the forthcoming struggle.

He was greeted with a clamour of welcome which held an underlying sneer. He took no notice; he was not quarrelling to-day. His courage and strength were facts too universally accepted for him to care to prove them. His grey eyes went like lightning about the room, till he discerned Millie, a large apron pinned over her black dress, staggering under the pile of plates which she was carrying to the wash-house. He pressed forward at once, as if nobody else had been present, took the girl's burden from her; and they went out of the room together, followed by laughter and jeers.

They reached the sink, already piled with unwashed dishes. Bert deposited those which he carried, looked around, spied a broken-backed chair, and brought it to the girl.

"Sit down!" he said.

Millie began to roll up her sleeves. "I got to wash these," she said.

"Sit down, I tell you," said Bert, in a low voice. He stood between her and her work. "Can't I see that you're just fit to drop in your tracks? Sit down! If there's washing-up to be done, where's the nigger girl?"

Millie did not sit down. She stood her ground: but she did a thing she had never done before--lifted her heavy lids, and looked up right into her lover's eyes. A wash of delicate carmine dyed her thin cheek-bones. "It keeps me out of the room--away from those swine," she said, with a note almost of appeal in her voice.

Bert felt his inmost being surge up wildly, as his whole heart went forth to her, in answer to her first confidence: the only word she had ever spoken which seemed to distinguish between him and "those swine." All that was best in him arose, and strove to meet and honour the favour she had shown.

"That's all right," he said, in tones of easy friendship. "You sit down an' tell me what to do. I'm on to this job."

In a second his coat was off and his sleeves rolled up. He had flashed a look round, spied a boiling kettle on a vilely-smelling paraffin stove, and filled the greasy washbowl. Millie subsided upon the chair with a resignation which, had he known her better, would have alarmed him. As things were, it filled him with a wild enthusiasm. But he determined to walk warily. His face glowed with enjoyment as he proceeded with his menial task. He buckled down to work in good earnest, methodically scraping the broken food off the dishes into the dog-trough set by for the purpose, and handling the crockery with skill which surprised the girl, who, sunk back in the chair, watched him without a word.

But he was human. After a while, it seemed to him that his strenuous efforts merited encouragement. He ventured greatly.

"Millie, if these Britishers write and ask you to come to them, shall you go?"

The girl started, as if his voice had roused her from stupor.

"What business is it o' yours?" she asked.

"I told you that the night your father died," said Bert, quite simply.

"Well, if you want to know, I shall go, whether they want me or whether they don't, so it won't make any difference to you," she replied coldly.

He bit back the oath that leapt to his lips.

"You've made up your mind to that?" he said; his voice was audibly unsteady.

"Think I'd stay here, with all the world to choose from?" said she scornfully. "Not if Slabbert's Poort was paved with diamonds! No, indeed; I do know enough to know that all the world's not like this. I'm going to see what it is like."

Bert had completed the washing-up and rinsed his big hands in clean water. He stood wiping them on the roller-towel, looking down upon her, so sudden a dilation in his heart and throat that for a space he was unable to articulate. He had forgotten the party in the room beyond as though it never existed.

"Millie, let me take yer! Marry me, Millie, and let's cut an' run together. Oh ... you don' know how good I could be to yer! Millie, little woman!"

"Drop it, Bert Mestaer! I can't stand it," gasped the girl, dragging herself to her feet. "You're always the same, if ever I trust myself with you for a minute alone. Why can't you hold your tongue?"

"Hold my tongue, an' lose you? Why, what d'you s'pose I got ter live for?" he cried out, stung through and through by the idea of his own impotence, his utter failure to arouse one spark of feeling in the girl.

He was shaking from head to foot. It seemed so enraging, so absurd, that he, whose great strength could compel this frail creature to anything, absolutely dare not touch her--was reduced to stammering, humiliated silence, by her unconcealed disdain. It always came to this between them. He stood, fighting his feeling, facing the blank wall of her indifference, when there was a sudden increase of sound from the scene of the revels--a door opened, a furious voice bellowed: "Millie!"

It was enough; he was by her side again at once. Snatching the pile of spoons and forks, he put them into her apron, picking up a pyramid of plates himself, and they went back to the supper-room.

They were received with a babel of derisive remarks, the pith of which seemed to be that Millie had been away with one young man, when she was going to be married to another.

"Come along, Millie!" said the deep, guttural voice of Oom Pieters, rumbling in his hairy throat; "we're only waiting for you, to drink your health."

Since the irruption of diamond-seekers into the pastoral district, the temperate Boer habits had sadly altered. Peach brandy was on the table in generous quantity, and many of the more old-fashioned sort, following a bad fashion, had partaken, and not being used to such things, were not perfectly under their own control.

Amurrica was seated on Tante Wilma's right, leaning back in his tilted chair, and sending out smoke rings from a mouth which wore a gratified smile.

"Goin' to marry Otis," was bandied from lip to lip. "He's bought a share in the Vierkleur from Maarten Brandt, and he says, when Millie's a bit fatter she'll do fine in the bar. Goin' to sit up together to-night."

This in allusion to the old Boer custom which decrees that an engaged couple shall ratify their troth by sitting up all night together, and burning candles.

"Sh! Hold your tongue," said Millie, in a low voice to Bert, who was about to explode. "They're all drunk; what's the good of noticing?"

"They're all goin' to clear out o' this before I'm much older," growled Bert, shaking with fury.

He broke off; for, to his amazement, Amurrica had risen, and was calling for silence.

As the man stood up, his long, sinewy frame, with a subtle twist in the carriage, outlined against the dark, smoky background, swaying slightly on his feet, as a result of his potations--the humorous curve on his thin lips which fascinated women and made Bert hate him--he would have made a study for the brush of Franz Hals. One thing which the Boers admired about him, was his mastery of the Taal. The man was a born linguist; he chose that language now.

He said he had the happiness to announce that he was the accepted suitor of Miss Lutwyche, and the marriage was to take place the following day. "Their esteemed Predikant"--then present, and somewhat blear-eyed--"had promised to unite them, in view of which festivity, he invited them all to a supper at the Vierkleur Hotel to-morrow. It had been suggested that the English minister, Mayne, had been left guardian of Miss Lutwyche. But this was to be set aside. If it were so, he had doubtless obtained such power by exerting undue influence over the dying man's conscience, and for his own sinister reasons. Vrouw Lutwyche was going to law about it. But in any case, possession was nine points of the law, and when he was the husband of Miss Millie he didn't quite know where the Britisher was coming in; not into his house, he was almighty sure about that."

There was a deep silence all the time he was speaking. Bert Mestaer stood up motionless, just opposite, behind the row of seated guests, and Millie stood quite near him. He was both hungry and thirsty, and he had, immediately upon entering, helped himself to coffee from a big pot on a side-table. He stood holding the untasted drink in his hand while he listened to the unfolding of Amurrica's plot. The moment he had finished, before he had time to sit down, Bert flung the hot contents of his cup full in the orator's face.

Amurrica was for the moment blinded by this unexpected shot. The coffee streamed down him, into the bosom of his shirt, and all over his clothes; and the words he used were not pretty.

There was a general stampede; but before the noise began--before the men took up the shout for a fight--even before Amurrica began to swear--Bert's ear had caught a sound that was to him like the bugle to a war-horse; the short, musical sound of Millie's applauding laugh.

He turned to her.

"Good-night!" he said. "We'll soon settle the question of his sitting up to-night or getting married to-morrow; and Mayne'll be back the day after. But listen to what I say; keep out of Tante Wilma's way to-night."

She gave her usual contemptuous answer: "I'm not afraid."

"No," he said; "but I am."

It was in his heart to plead for something to hearten him for the fray, if it were only a hand-shake; but he forebore. She should not be able to say again that he claimed a price for serving her.

He strode out radiantly to the battle. He was perfectly sober, and had a white heat of passion to inspire him. Amurrica, though usually a formidable adversary, had eaten heavily, and drunk too much. When they had taken away his revolver, he was an easy prey. Bert's object was to put him out of the running for the next few days, but not to injure him seriously. He went into the thing scientifically, and it was a sorry-looking object which was finally carried off the field by its backers; while the two great Lutwyche boys, who had been eager spectators of the fray, ran back home as fast as they could, to tell their mother what had chanced.

The victor was pleased, but gory. It was imperative that he should go to his own place and change. Amurrica was settled for the present, he had warned Millie, and felt that he might now give himself an hour or two off duty without anxiety. All the way home he was wondering to himself how Amurrica had known that Mayne was going away.

Anna, who had not been bidden to the revels at Lutwyche's, was in an evil temper, and said she had provided no supper. Hadn't he had his bellyful down there, where all the swine were swilling? Bert turned upon her, with the flame in his eye, the gall on his tongue, which everybody feared. She would wish, a week hence, he told her, when she found herself bundled out to get her own living, that she had kept a civil tongue in her head. Then he went and washed himself elaborately clean, and put on a clean shirt--an English superstition which he had inherited from his mother, with other vain observances which filled Anna with contempt. He had neither eaten nor drunk since morning, and he knew that, if he was to mount guard at Lutwyche's till late at night, he must fortify himself. As he sat at table, the door open, devouring cold meat and bread, he saw something move behind the fence. He watched steadfastly until the thing rose more fully into view, revealed itself as the tow head and flushed face of one of the small Lutwyches, beckoned him furtively, and disappeared again.

Bert got up and went out. He looked down over the fence, and said "Hullo!" His heart meanwhile misgave him.

The child, grinning up at him, said she had a message from sister Millie, and she was to give it to him his very own self. The message was: "Would he meet Millie at the sign-post corner at nine o'clock that evening?" She was to take back word.

"What's she want to do there?" asked Bert suspiciously.

"She wouldn't say; but I expect she wants to run away. Mother she's promised her a hiding."

"Then you'll go to your mother with the tale."

"No fear; I'm on Millie's side."

Bert thought a while carefully.

"All right!" he said, after a minute. "Tell her I'll be there."

"Certain sure?"

"That's me." The tow head nodded and disappeared.