keeping. That unqualified ruffian, his present
entertainer, was repulsive enough in all conscience, but he seemed to
become ten times more so, when viewed in the light of his domestic
arrangements: under which circumstances the fact that he was a white man
seemed to have sunk him immeasurably below the level of the savage.

The two women, who were seated together on the ground, looked up quickly
as the new arrivals entered. The better favoured of the two,
Nkombazana, the Zulu girl, smiled approvingly as her glance rested on
Wyvern, and then said something to her companion in a low tone. He, of
the two, was clearly the one that aroused their interest Bully Rawson
emitted a loud guffaw, true to his programme of keeping up a certain
boisterous geniality.

"There you are, Wyvern. Women are the same all the world over, you see.
Now these are agreeing that they don't see a thundering fine chap like
you every day of the week."

"Which is the one related to the boy you just kicked so unmercifully?"
said Wyvern.

"That one, Nompai. She ain't much to look at, but I'll swear she ain't
the worst of the two. That other one, Nkombazana, she's a regular
vixen--a spitfire I can tell you. I often wish I could clear her out
I'd let her go cheap. Oh, see here Wyvern--" as a bright idea struck
him, and then he stopped short. Bully Rawson, with all his faults, had
the saving grace of perceptiveness, wherefore the bright idea remained
unpropounded.

"Well what?"

"Oh nothing. I forget now what I was going to say," with a furtive wink
at Fleetwood.

"But why can't you clear her out?" asked Wyvern. "I thought among
savages they did what they liked with their womenkind."

There was a dry irony about the tone, that the other may have remarked,
but for his own purposes preferred not to notice or resent. He guffawed
good-humouredly instead.

"Did you? Well then Wyvern, you've got a lot to learn about the manners
and customs of this country yet. Nkombazana's father's a pretty strong
chief, and Joe there'll tell you what a hornet's nest I should bring
about my ears if I bunked her back to her people." Fleetwood nodded.
"Oh well, damn the women," went on Bully. "I think we've yarned enough
about them. So we'll get into the store hut where it's cool and have a
drink."

The hut wherein Rawson kept his trade goods was a larger one than the
rest, and differed from them in that it had a door through which you
need only stoop