"The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing all round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down at each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder and redder: and all he could say was, 'My Gawd! my Gawd!' I thought he'd burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as though he didn't see a soul of us all there."
"What did the Captain do?"
"Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good as Halket himself. And when he'd finished and got sane a bit, he said Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the nigger. And he gave orders that if the big troop didn't come up tonight, that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was to shoot him."
The Englishman started: "What did Halket say?"
"Nothing. He's been walking there with his gun all day."
The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket's head appeared and disappeared.
"Is the nigger hanging there now?"
"Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything to eat or drink all day: but--" The Colonial glanced round where the trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, "This morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain's coloured boy to ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and the poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the water out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had become of my mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the Captain's tent, before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody nigger drink out of my mug.
The riem was so tight round his neck he couldn't drink but slowly, and there was Halket holding it up to him! If the Captain had looked out!
W-h-e-w! I wouldn't have been Halket!"
"Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?" asked the Englishman.
"Of course he will. He's the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a fuss about it, or it'll be the worse for him."
"His time's up tomorrow evening!"
"Yes, but not tomorrow morning. And I wouldn't make a row about it if I was Halket. It doesn't do to fall out with the authorities here. What's one nigger more or less? He'll get shot some other way, or die of hunger, if we don't do it."
"It's hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs," said the Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a little.
"Oh, they don't feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I've seen a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling like that!--without a sound. They've no feeling, these niggers; I don't suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you know."
The Englishman's eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which Halket's head appeared and disappeared.
"They have no right to order Halket to do it--and he will not do it!" said the Englishman slowly.
"You're not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?" said the Colonial, looking curiously at him. "It doesn't pay. I've made up my mind never to speak whatever happens. What's the good? Suppose one were to make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he's made to shoot the nigger against his will; what would come of it? There'd be half-a-dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted--not to speak of a fellow like that"--turning his thumb in the direction of the sleeping trooper--"who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on the Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one's wires are edited before they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through. There are many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us are there, do you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making anything in Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he had a real row with the Company? I've a great liking for Halket myself, he's a real good fellow, and he's done me many a good turn--took my watch only last night, because I was off colour; I'd do anything for him in reason. But, I say this flatly, I couldn't and wouldn't fly in the face of the authorities for him or anyone else. I've my own girl waiting for me down in the Colony, and she's been waiting for me these five years. And whether I'm able to marry her or not depends on how I stand with the Company: and I say, flatly, I'm not going to fall out with it. I came here to make money, and I mean to make it! If other people like to run their heads against stone walls, let them: but they mustn't expect me to follow them. This isn't a country where a man can say what he thinks."
The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. "And the Union Jack is supposed to be flying over us."
"Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company," laughed the Colonial.
"Do you ever have the nightmare?" asked the Englishman suddenly.
"I? Oh yes, sometimes"; he looked curiously at his companion; "when I've eaten too much, I get it."
"I always have it since I came up here," said the Englishman. "It is that a vast world is resting on me--a whole globe: and I am a midge beneath it.
I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under it--and let it crush me!"
"It's curious you should have the nightmare so up here," said the Colonial;
"one gets so little to eat."
There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
"Mind you," the Colonial said at last, "I don't say that in this case the Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He's never been quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night out on the kopje. When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of dead sleep; we couldn't wake him; yet it wasn't cold enough for him to have been frozen.
He's never been the same man since; queer, you know; giving his rations away to the coloured boys, and letting the other fellows have his dot of brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of apart to himself, you know.
