"King Khatsua say this," he continued, in a very amused tone. "You
stop here plenty days, very good, in Barolong land. King Khatsua
give you hut; King Khatsua give you claim; Barolong man bring spear
and guard you. No do you any harm for fear of Governor. Governor keep
plenty guns in Cape Town. You two white man live in hut together,
dig diamonds together; get plenty pebbles. Keep one diamond you
find for yourself; give one diamond after that to King Khatsua.
Barolong man bring you plenty food, plenty drink, but no let you
go back. You try to go, then Barolong man spear you."
The playful dig with which the savage thrust forward his assegai
at that final remark showed Granville Kelmscott in a moment this
was no idle threat. It was clear for the present they must accept
the inevitable. They must remain in Barolong land; and he must
share hut and work with that doubly hateful creature--the man who
had deprived him of his patrimony at Tilgate, and whom he firmly
believed to be the murderer of Montague Nevitt. This was what
had come then of his journey to Africa! Truly, adversity makes us
acquainted with strange bedfellows!
CHAPTER XXXIII.
TIME FLIES.
Eighteen months passed away in England, and nothing more was heard
of the two fugitives to Africa. Lady Emily's cup was very full
indeed. On the self-same day she learned of her husband's death
and her son's mysterious and unaccountable disappearance. From that
moment forth, he was to her as if dead. After Granville left, no
letter or news of him, direct or indirect, ever reached Tilgate.
It was all most inexplicable. He had disappeared into space, and
no man knew of him.
Cyril, too, had now almost given up hoping for news of Guy. Slowly
the conviction forced itself deeper and still deeper upon his mind,
in spite of Elma, that Guy was really Montague Nevitt's murderer.
Else how account for Guy's sudden disappearance, and for the fact
that he never even wrote home his whereabouts? Nay, Guy's letter
itself left no doubt upon his mind. Cyril went through life now
oppressed continually with the terrible burden of being a murderer's
brother.
And indeed everybody else--except Elma Clifford--implicitly shared
that opinion with him. Cyril was sure the unknown benefactor shared
it too, for Guy's six thousand pounds were never paid in to his
credit--as indeed how could they, since Colonel Kelmscott, who
had promised to pay them, died before receiving the balance of the
purchase money for the Dowlands estate? Cyril slank through the
world, then, weighed down by his shame, for Guy and he were each
other's doubles, and he always had a deep underlying conviction
that, as Guy was in any particular, so also in the very fibre of
his nature he himself was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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