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Updated: June 16, 2025
Though the British poured a terrific fire after the flying battery of one gun, there was something so splendid in the episode; the horses were behaving so gallantly, horses of one of their own batteries daringly taken by Krool under the noses of the force that there was scarcely a man who was not glad when, at last, the gun made a sudden turn at a kopje, and was lost to sight within the Boer lines, leaving behind it a little cloud of dust.
Stafford suddenly stooped and whispered a word in Wallstein's ear, and then said: "Gentlemen, if you will allow me, I should like a few words with Krool before Mr. Byng comes. I think perhaps Krool will see the best course to pursue when we have talked together. In one sense it is none of my business, in another sense it is everybody's business. A few minutes, if you please, gentlemen."
Presently, as Al'mah stood still in the hush which was infinitely more grateful to her than any applause, she saw Krool advancing hurriedly up the centre aisle. He was drawn and haggard, and his eyes were sunken and wild. Turning at the platform, he said in a strange, hollow voice: "At the mine an accident. The Baas he go down to save he not come up." With a cry Jasmine staggered to her feet.
She wiped the tear away, hastily, as there came a slight tapping at the door, and Krool entered, his glance enveloping them both in one lightning survey like the instinct of the dweller in wild places of the earth, who feels danger where all is most quiet, and ever scans the veld or bush with the involuntary vigilance belonging to the life.
This valet was Krool, a half-caste Hottentot and Boer whom he had rescued from Lobengula in the Matabele war, and who had in his day been ship-steward, barber, cook, guide, and native recruiter. Krool had attached himself to Byng, and he would not be shaken off even when his master came home to England.
He looked rather dejected or stormy, I don't quite know which." "Does it matter which? I didn't see Mennaval today." "Then no wonder he looked dejected and stormy. But what is the history of this instrument of torture?" she asked, holding up the sjambok again. "Krool." "Krool! Jasmine, you surely don't mean to say that you " "Not I it was Rudyard. Krool was insolent a half-caste, you know."
This was Byng's last day at Brinkwort's Farm, to which he himself had come to-day lest Rudyard should take note of his neglect, and their fellow-officers should remark that the old friendship had grown cold, and perhaps begin to guess at the reason why. "You say the Baas sent for you?" he asked presently. "Yes." "To sjambok you again?" Krool made a gesture of contempt.
"Useful person, eh?" he said, meaningly, in an undertone to Barry Whalen. "I don't think he's at home in England," rejoined Barry, as meaningly and very stubbornly: "He won't like your not going to South Africa." "Am I not going to South Africa?" Byng asked, mechanically, and looking reflectively at Krool. "Wallstein's a sick man, Byng. You can't leave London.
"You know I come and go you say me that?" said Krool, with a sudden look of vague fear and surprise. He had not foreseen this. "You accuse yourself. You saw this person and that go out, and you think to hold them in your dirty clutches; but you had more reason than any for killing Mr. Fellowes." "What?" asked Krool, furtively. "You hated him because he was a traitor like yourself.
Krool had haunted the room, desiring the end of it all; but he had been disarmed by a smiling kindness on Jasmine's part, which shook his purpose again and again. It had all been a problem which Krool's furtive mind failed to master.
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