"You 're a doctor," said Ford to the Kafir. "Can you do anything with this?"
"This" was Dr. Jakes. Kamis made an inspection of him and lifted one of the tight eyelids.
"I can make him conscious," he answered, "and sober in a desperate sort of fashion. But he won't be fit for anything. You mustn't trust him."
"Will he be able to doctor Miss Harding?" demanded Ford.
"No," answered Kamis emphatically. "He won't."
"Then," said Ford, "what the deuce are we to do?"
The Kafir was still giving attention to Dr. Jakes, and was unbuttoning the neck of his shirt. He looked up.
"If you would let me see her," he suggested, "I 've no doubt I could do what is necessary for her."
Ford ran his fingers through his short stiff hair in perplexity.
"I don't see what else there is to do," he said, frowning.
The trooper had not yet spoken since he had entered the room. He and his revolver had had no share in events. He had been a part of the background, like the bottles and the soot, forgotten and discounted. Not even his prisoner, whose life hung on the pressure of his trigger-finger, had spent a glance on him. But at Ford's reply to the suggestion of the Kafir he restored himself to a central place in the drama.
"There will be none of that," he remarked in his drawling nasal voice.
Both turned towards him, the Kafir to meet the pistol-barrel pointing at his chest. The trooper's mouth was twisted to a smile, and his Punchinello face was mocking and servile at once.
"None of your taking this nigger into women's bedrooms. He 's my prisoner."
"I 'll take all responsibility," said Ford impatiently.
The trooper's smile was open now. He had Ford summed up for such another as Margaret, a person who held lax views in regard to Kafirs and white women. Such a person was not to be feared in South Africa.
"No," he said. "Can't allow that. It isn't done. This nigger 'll stay with me."
"Look here," said Ford angrily. "I tell you--"
"You look here," retorted the other. "Look at this, will you?" He balanced the big revolver in his fist. "That Kafir tries to get up those stairs, and I 'll drill a hole in him you could put your fist in. Understand?"
He nodded at Ford with a sort of geniality more inflexibly hostile than any scowls.