pressionless, but his
thick lips parted, and his strong yellow teeth showed in his thick brake
of beard. With the caution of one who knows that a single glowing
match-end dropped among dry vegetation may cause a devastating
conflagration, he blew out the lingering flame, and rolled the little
charred stick between his tough-skinned fingers before he threw it down.
Then he raised himself up, and stepped over the dying creature, and went
upon his way, humming a dance-tune he liked. He was not changed. It was
still a joy to him to have feebler beings in his power, and taunt and
torture and use them at his will.

He had assumed the skin of the man from Diamond Town in the well-paid
service of that bright boy of Brounckers', who had, it may be remembered,
a plan.

The plan involved a feint from the eastward, and an attack upon that
weakest spot in the girdle of Gueldersdorp's defences, the native stad.
The Barala might be incorruptible; the weak spot was the native village,
nevertheless. And the business of the man from Diamond Town was to lounge
about its neighbourhood, using those sharp light eyes of his to excellent
purpose, and storing his retentive memory--for it would not do for a
stranger to be caught putting pencil to paper in a town under Martial Law,
and bristling with suspicion--with the information indispensable for the
putting in effect of young Schenk Eybel's ingenious plan.

The jackal had had to yield his bone to the hungry lion. Still, it was
wise to be in good odour with the Republics; that was why Van Busch had
taken on the job. He had not been impelled to risk his skin, and get shut
up in this stinking, starving hole by anything the sharp-eyed little
Englishwoman, so unpleasantly awake at last regarding the genuine aims and
real character of the chivalrous Mr. Van Busch of Johannesburg, had
dropped. Hell, no! That unripe nectarine had been plucked and eaten years
ago. And yet how the ripe fruit allured him to-day, seen against its
background of dull green leaves, its smooth cheeks glowing under the
kisses of the sun.

The swell English officer had kissed them too. As she meant, the sly
little devil, slipping away for her bit of fun. Grown a beauty, too, as
anybody but a thundering, juicy, damned fool might have known she would!
He swore bitterly, thinking what a gold-mine a face and figure like that
might have proved to an honest speculator up Johannesburg way.

His case, he thought, was somewhat sim