30 Suspense and Thriller Masterpieces. Гилберт Кит Честертон

get lost if he had a compass, I let him go out alone. He didn't get much beyond a few klipspringer and bushbuck, but it was a good game area, and he lived in hopes of a kudu.

      Well, one evening as we were sitting at dinner beside our fire, I looked up to see Peter Pienaar standing beside me. It was not the Peter that you knew in the War, but Peter ten years younger, with no grey in his beard, and as trim and light and hard as an Olympic athlete. But he had the same mild face, and the same gentle sleepy eyes that you remember, and the same uncanny quietness. Peter made no more noise in his appearances than the change from night to morning.

      I had last heard of him in the Kalahari, which was a very good reason why I should expect to find him next on the other side of Africa. He ate all the food we could give him and drank two bottles of beer, which was his habit, for he used to stoke up like a camel, never being sure when he would eat or drink again. Then he filled a deep-bowled pipe with the old Transvaal arms on it, which a cousin had carved for him when a prisoner of war in Ceylon. I waited for him to explain himself, for I was fairly certain that this meeting was not accidental.

      'I have hurried to find you, Dick,' he said, 'for I think there is going to be dirty work in Makapan's country.'

      'There's sure to be dirty work when you're about, you old aasvogel,' I said. 'What is it this time?'

      'I do not know what it is, but I think I know who it is. It is friends of yours, Dick—very nasty friends.'

      'Hullo!' I said. 'Was it Arcoll who sent you? Are you after the trippers that we found on the road last week?'

      'Ja! Captain Jim sent me. He said, "Peter, will you keep an eye on two gentlemen and two ladies who are taking a little holiday?" He did not tell me more, and he did not know more. Perhaps now he knows, for I have sent him a message. But I have found out very bad things which Captain Jim cannot stop, for they will happen quickly. That is why I have come to you.'

      'But those four tourists can't do anything,' I said. 'One I know is a crook, and I think the other is, and they've got an ugly Portugoose with them that I swear I've seen before. But that's only three, and they are cumbered with two women.'

      'The vrows have gone back to the town,' said Peter solemnly. 'They will wait quietly there till the others return. They will make the whole thing seem innocent—naughty, perhaps, but innocent. But the three you speak of are not the only ones. By this time they have been joined by others, and these others are very great scoundrels. You say, how do I know? I will tell you. I am at home in Makapan's country and Makapan's people do what I ask them. They have brought me news which is surer and speedier than Captain Jim can get. There is very bad mischief brewing. Listen, and I will tell you.'

      The gist of Peter's story was that after they had got rid of the women Troth and Albinus had moved down from the scarp into the bush-veld. The third, the Portugoose, Peter knew all about. His name was Dorando, and Peter had come across his tracks in many queer places; he had done time for I.D.B. and for selling illicit liquor, and was wanted in Mozambique on a variety of charges from highway robbery to cold-blooded murder. An odd travelling companion for two innocent sight-seeing tourists! Down in the flats the three had been joined by two other daisies, one an Australian who had been mixed up in the Kruger Treasure business, and one a man from the Diamond Fields called Stringer. I opened my eyes when I heard about the last, for Jim Stringer was an ill-omened name at that time in South Africa. He was the typical 'bad man,' daring and resourceful and reputed a dead shot. I was under the impression that he had been safely tucked away for his share in a big Johannesburg burglary.

      'He came out of tronk last month,' said Peter, 'and your friends must have met him as they came up-country and arranged things. What do you say, Dick? Here are three skellums that I know well, and your two friends who are not good people. They have with them four boys, Shangaans whom I do not know, but they are Makinde's people, and Makinde's kraal is a dirty nest. What are they after, think you? They are not staying in the flats. They have already moved up into the Berg, and they are moving fast, and they are moving north. They are not looking for gold, and they are not hunting, and they are not admiring the scenery. Where are they going? I can tell you that, for I found it out before they joined Jim Stringer. The two English do not drink, or if they drink they do not babble. But Dorando drinks and babbles. One of Makapan's people, who is my friend, was their guide, and he heard Dorando talk when he was drunk. They are going to Mafudi's kraal. Now who is at Mafudi's kraal, Dick? They do not want to see old Mafudi in his red blanket. There is somebody else there.'

      'Haraldsen!' I exclaimed.

      'Ja! The Baas.' Peter always called Haraldsen the Baas, for he had often worked for him, as guide and transport-rider, and Haraldsen had more than once got him out of scrapes. Peter was a loyal soul, and if his allegiance was vowed to anyone alive it was to the old Dane.

      'But what on earth can they have to do with Haraldsen?' I demanded.

      'I do not know,' he said; 'but they have got it in for the Baas. Consider, Dick. He is not a young man, and he is up there alone, with his little band of Basutos and the Dutchman Malan, who is clever but not a fighter, for he has but the one arm. The Baas is very rich, and he is believed to know many secrets. These skellums have some business with him and it will not be clean business. Perhaps it is an old quarrel. Perhaps he has put it across your friends Troth and Albinus in old days. Or perhaps it is just plain robbery, and they mean to make him squeal. He cannot have much money with him, but they may force him to find them money. I do not know, but I am certain of one thing, that they mean to lay hands on the Baas—and he will not come happily out of their hands—perhaps not alive.'

      I was fairly flabbergasted by Peter's tale. At first I thought he was talking through his hat, for we were civilized folk in Rhodesia, and violence was more or less a thing of the past. But Peter never talked wildly, and the more I thought of it the less I liked it. Five desperadoes up in that lonely corner could do pretty much what they pleased with Haraldsen and his one-armed assistant. I remembered the old fellow's reputation for having hunted gold all his life and having struck it in a good many places. What more likely than that some hungry rogues should try to get him alone in the wilds and force out of him either money or knowledge?

      'What do you mean to do?' I asked.

      'I am going straight to Mafudi's,' said Peter. 'And I think you are coming with me, Dick.'

      Of course I couldn't refuse, but I felt bound to go cautiously. Would it not be better to get Arcoll and the police? I didn't relish the notion of a private scrap with people who would certainly not stick at trifles. Besides, could we do any real good? Haraldsen and Malan might be ruled out as combatants, and we three would be up against five hefty scallywags.

      Peter overruled all my objections in his quiet way. Arcoll was a hundred miles off. A native runner had been sent to him, but it was impossible for him to arrive at Mafudi's in time, for Troth and his little lot would be there by to-morrow morning. As for being outnumbered, we were five honest men against five rascals, and in all rascals he believed there was a yellow streak. 'I can shoot a little,' he said, 'and you can shoot a little, Dick.' He turned inquiringly to Lombard.

      'I can loose off at any rate,' said Lombard. He was looking rather excited, for this adventure was a piece of luck he had not hoped for.

      The upshot was that we had no rest that night. I sent off one of my boys with another message for Arcoll, giving him more details than Peter had given him, and suggesting a road in by the northwest which I feared he might not think of. I left Hendrik and the mules and the rest of the outfit to come on later—and I remember wondering what kind of situation they would find when they reached Mafudi's. The three of us took the road just after ten o'clock. Peter's boy accompanied us, a tough little Bechuana from Khama's country.

      I had travelled the route several times before, and Peter knew it well, but in any case it was not hard to find, for it kept to the open ground near the edge of the scarp, bending inland only to avoid the deep-cut kloofs. There was a wonderful moon which made the whole landscape swim in warm light—an African moon, which is not the pale thing of the north, but as masterful as the sun itself. When it set we were on high ground, a plateau of long grass and thorns, with the great hollow of the lower veld making