He sat above them against the sky, beaming painfully, always with a wary apprehension at the back of his regard.
"You won't go away?" demanded Kamis suddenly. "You won't? You know I can't do it if you 're here. Then I 'm going to pay."
"You shan't," retorted Margaret. "I won't have it, I tell you. I don't care what he does."
"I 'm going to pay," repeated Kamis. "It 's that or--you won't go away?"
"Then I 'm going to pay." He turned from her. "I 'll give you twenty pounds," he called to Bailey.
"Double it," replied Boy Bailey promptly; "add ten; take away the number you thought of; and the answer is fifty pounds, cash down, and dirt cheap at that. Put that in my hand and I 'll clear out of here within the hour and you 'll never hear of me again."
Kamis nodded slowly. "If I do hear of you again," he said, "I 'll come to you. Paul will bring you the money to-morrow morning, and then you 'll go."
"Right-O." Mr. Bailey rose awkwardly to his feet and made search for his boots. With them in his hands, he looked down on the pair again.
"It's your risk," he warned them. "If that cash don't come to hand, you look out; there 'll be a slump in Kafirs."
He went off along the wall, disappearing in sections as he descended its shoulder. His gray head in its abominable hat was the last to disappear; it sailed loftily, as became the heir to fifty pounds.
"What an absurd business," she cried. "Supposing he had told and there had been a row--it would have been better than this everlasting stagnation. It would have been more like life."
The Kafir sighed. "Not life," he answered gently. "Not your life. It meant a death in life--like mine."
His embarrassed and mournful look passed beyond her to the Karoo, spreading its desolation to the skies as a blind man might lift his eyes in prayer.
The deplorable hat which shielded Mr. Bailey from the eye of Heaven traveled at a thoughtful pace along the path to the farmhouse, cocked at a confident angle upon a head in which faith in the world was re-established. Boy Bailey had no doubt that the money would be forthcoming. What he had heard of the conversation between Margaret and Kamis had assured him of the Kafir's resources and he felt himself already as solvent as if the minted money were heavy in his pockets. A pleasant sense of security possessed his versatile spirit, the sense that to-morrow may be counted upon. For such as Mr. Bailey, every day has its price.