Afterwards, all wise people let the story of "the dangerous friendship" die and be buried, as all things that are dead as nails ought to be buried and put out of sight. And no one but a few scandal-lovers talked of anything but the speedily approaching marriage. The men of Salisbury made Bernard Carr’s life a torment to him, accusing him of being busier than a hen with a tin chicken getting Maryon Hammond’s trousseau ready, while they went into the matter of that same trousseau with profane and particular detail. For Carr was Jonathan to Maryon Hammond’s David, and his love for his friend was outrageous and notorious, passing all bounds. Like the mother of Asa he had made an idol in a grove; and the name of the idol was Hammond. The other friend and partner of Maryon Hammond was Girder, a dry, lean fellow of cynical disposition, professing affection for neither man, woman, nor dog; but throughout the long sun-smitten days and rain-soaked nights of that wet, hot January, he was the only man who refrained from joining in the general ribaldry at Carr’s expense, just because Carr, the perfect friend, neglected his own affairs to put Hammond’s in order, so that the latter might in due time marry and leave the country. While Hammond, gay of heart and wonderfully brilliant of face considering he had no looks, irreproachable always in white duck riding-kit--grande tenue for Salisbury—​idled away the sunlit, starlit hours with the moon of his desire that knew no wane.

Strange that the affair of Maryon Hammond’s trousseau should occupy the minds and tongues of his friends far more than the threatened rising of the natives! But that was ever the way of Rhodesians in '96. "Take care of the affairs of your neighbour," ran their motto, "and the affairs of the country will take care of themselves." Besides, the natives had threatened so often; it was absurd to be disturbed about them.

The growing restlessness and insolence of the Mashona tribes kraaled in the Salisbury, Mazoe, and Lomagundi districts—​that is, within a sixty-mile radius of the capital was in fact notorious, and many of the outlying farmers and miners professed uneasiness; but the Native Commissioners whose business it was to know such things scoffed at their fears. The notion of a rebellion amongst a tribe of people long down-trodden and brow-beaten by the fierce Matabele, and now for the first time enjoying prosperous and unharried life under the white man’s rule found the Commissioners sneering incredulously.

"Makalikas show fight!" scoffed Brebner, Head of the Native Department and terror of every black face from Vryberg to Blantire. "Great Lord of War! There is not one `liver' among the whole fifty thousand of them. But of course they’re cheeky—​all niggers are when they get fat, and it takes only one good season with the crops for that. Moreover you must remember that it is now about six years since the Matabele knocked annual spots off them, and they are beginning to forget who it was stopped that by smashing the Matabele. Therefore they are cheeky, also inclined to think they are great. But you give me ten men and three Cape `boys' and I’ll settle the hash of any ten thousand of them in this blessed country."

This last to the Administrator for whose permission he was nagging to go and "remonstrate" with the ringleaders of a tribal fight down Victoria way. The Administrator smiled at the word. He was aware that Brebner invariably "remonstrated" with a riding-whip, but being a wise man and one who had lived a great part of his life amongst natives he was also aware that Brebner’s mode of argument was the best and only one properly appreciated by "our poor black brothers in South Africa" as they are fancifully described at Exeter Hall.

So, eventually, Brebner and suite were allowed to depart upon their hash-settling expedition. They rode out one pink dawn and the veld swallowed them up; thereafter peace fell upon Salisbury, and all talk of a native rising was dismissed. The discussion on Hammond’s trousseau was resumed at the Club.

Only Hammond himself did not think it good enough to stay on with his bride in a country which seemed to him unsettled and breathing of war, and he did not hesitate to state his intentions in spite of jeers.

"Why, hello, Marie!" they mocked him at the Club, and quoted remarks from the Gadsbys:

"White hands cling to the bridle rein!"

"You may carve it on his tombstone, you may cut it on his card, That a young man married is a young man marred," etc.

"That’s all right," laughed Hammond serenely. "But I’ll take a year off for my honeymoon just the same, and you fellows can put things straight with the niggers. Afterwards, I’ll come back and congratulate you and bring up the new machinery for the Carissima."

The Carissima Gold Mine belonged to Hammond and Carr and Girder, and looked like panning out wealth untold in the near future.

"Oh, you’re crazy, Marie," said Billy Blake, Head of the Mounted Police, striving to be patient with the renegade. "Love has gone to your head. There isn’t going to be any row with the natives. Compose yourself, my son."

Hammond composed himself as requested in a large lounge chair, his feet on another. Leisurely, and with obvious enjoyment of his pipe he explained that in his opinion Love and War were each good and great and highly desirable things, but he preferred them separate.

"They don’t mix," said he; "so we’ll divide them this time. You can have the war all to yourself, Blake, and I’ll--" he flushed under his copper skin and added gravely, for he made and took no jests on the subject of his amazing happiness, "It’s a long time since I’ve seen Kentucky—​I’ll take a trip home."

"Oh, you ought to take medicine, Marie--"

"Take a rest--"

"Take a drink--"

"Man, I tell you--"

"Show me the chief of these tin-pot Makalikas who has got the gall to fight--"

"Why, you’ve got nerve to clear out--"

They clamoured and jeered about him, but he remained cool. His personal courage was too well known for there to be any doubt of it. He had more than earned his laurels as the most daring of scouts in the Matabele trouble of '93, and many another "little war," and could afford, if so inclined, to trim himself from top to toe with white feathers without likelihood of being misunderstood. So he left them to wrangle it out among themselves, and it being after dinner and a whole three hours and a half since he last saw Diane, he went to call on her at the house of Mrs Tony Greville, and Boston, as usual, slouched beside him.

Now Boston as a dog and a gentleman deserves a few words to himself. He was a large, dust-coloured bull-terrier whom Hammond had raised from puppyhood, and in whose muscular carcass the man had by rigid training developed many of his own physical characteristics—​that is to say, though Boston was of large ungainly build and always appeared to flounder rather than to walk, he was really as speedy as a greyhound, brave as a lion, and silent in his movements as Fate herself. He could track down anything, and scout with the best man in the country (who happened to be his master), but he spent most of his time tracking that same master; for it was one of the practical jokes and never-failing joys of Salisbury to hide Hammond from his dog. Boston would go through fire and water to regain his love—​even the great Ice Barrier wouldn’t have stopped him long—​but the moment he had Hammond in sight he would assume an air of cynical indifference, and with his hands in his pockets, so to speak, lounge up and sling himself down with a weary air as though he’d given up all idea of finding what he was searching for,-- certainly not Hammond at all! As for Hammond, he loved his dog as he loved few men; it is doubtful whether, if asked to choose between Boston and his best friend for company in exile, he would have chosen the man.

Knowing full well for what destination his master was now bound, Boston presently went ahead, and before Hammond had reached the house of Tony Greville, where Miss Heywood was staying because Tony Greville was Jack Heywood’s best friend, Boston had returned to report that Miss Heywood was not in her usual place in the verandah. Neither was she in the drawing-room; and search by the servants found her absent also from her bedroom. It was only when Boston set his blunt nose towards the Gymkhana Ground that Mrs Greville remembered to have seen Diane strolling off in that direction directly after dinner.

"She’s not quite herself this evening, I think, Marie. There were a lot of women here when she got in from her ride with you, and I fancy she overheard something she didn’t like. That wretched little gossip Mrs Skeffington Smythe was here."