At his entrance there was instant silence, for, secret as their conference must be, this half-caste, this Hottentot-Boer, must hear nothing and know nothing.  Not one of them but resented his being Byng’s servant.  Not one but felt him a danger at any time, and particularly now.  Once Barry Whalen, the most outwardly brusque and apparently frank of them all, had urged Byng to give Krool up, but without avail; and now Barry eyed the half-caste with a resentful determination.  He knew that Krool had heard Byng’s words, for he was sitting opposite the double doors, and had seen the malicious eyes light up.  Instantly, however, that light vanished.  They all might have been wooden men, and Krool but a wooden servitor, so mechanical and concentrated were his actions.  He seemed to look at nobody; but some of them shrank a little as he leaned over and poured the brown, steaming liquid and the hot milk into the bowls.  Only once did the factotum look at anybody directly, and that was at Byng just as he was about to leave the room.  Then Barry Whalen saw him glance searchingly at his master’s face in a mirror, and again that baleful light leaped up in his eyes.

When he had left the room, Barry Whalen said, impulsively:  “Byng, it’s all damn foolery your keeping that fellow about you.  It’s dangerous, ’specially now.”

“Coffee’s good, isn’t it?  Think there’s poison in it?” Byug asked with a contemptuous little laugh.  “Sugar—­what?” He pushed the great bowl of sugar over the polished table towards Barry.

“Oh, he makes you comfortable enough, but—­”

“But he makes you uncomfortable, Barry?  Well, we’re bound to get on one another’s nerves one way or another in this world when the east wind blows; and if it isn’t the east wind, it’s some other wind.  We’re living on a planet which has to take the swipes of the universe, because it has permitted that corrupt, quarrelsome, and pernicious beast, man, to populate the hemispheres.  Krool is staying on with me, Barry.”

“We’re in heavy seas, and we don’t want any wreckers on the shore,” was the moody and nervously indignant reply.

“Well, Krool’s in the heavy seas, all right, too—­with me.”

Barry Whalen persisted.  “We’re in for complications, Byng.  England has to take a hand in the game now with a vengeance.  We don’t want any spies.  He’s more Boer than native.”

“There’ll be nothing Krool can get worth spying for.  If we keep our mouths shut to the outside world, we’ll not need fear any spies.  I’m not afraid of Krool.  We’ll not be sold by him.  Though some one inside will sell us perhaps—­as the Johannesburg game was sold by some one inside.”

There was a painful silence, and more than one man looked at his fellows furtively.

“We will do nothing that will not bear the light of day, and then we need not fear any spying,” continued Byng.

“If we have secret meetings and intentions which we don’t make public, it is only what governments themselves have; and we keep them quiet to prevent any one taking advantage of us; but our actions are justfiable.  I’m going to do nothing I’m ashamed of; and when it’s necessary, or when and if it seems right to do so, I’ll put all my cards on the table.  But when I do, I’ll see that it’s a full hand—­if I can.”