“I see,” he sneered, “you want to be a peeress one day, no doubt.  Well, you never shall if I can help it.  Perhaps, too, this fine gentleman of yours will not be so particularly anxious to marry you when he learns that you are the daughter of a murderer.”

That word was like a bombshell bursting among us.  We looked at each other as people, yet dazed with the shock, might on a battlefield when the noise of the explosion has died and the smoke cleared away, to see who is still alive.  Anscombe spoke the first.

“I don’t know what you mean or to what you refer,” he said quietly.  “But at any rate this lady who has promised to marry me is innocent, and therefore if all her ancestors had been murderers it would not in the slightest turn me from my purpose of marrying her.”

She looked at him, and all the gratitude in the world shone in her frightened eyes.  Marnham stepped, or rather staggered forward, the blue vein throbbing on forehead.

“He lies,” he said hoarsely, tugging at his long beard.  “Listen now and I will tell you the truth.  Once, more than a year ago, I was drunk and in a rage.  In this state I fired at a Kaffir to frighten him, and by some devil’s chance shot him dead.  That’s what he calls being a murderer.”

“I have another tale,” said Rodd, “with which I will not trouble this company just now.  Look here, Heda, either you fulfil your promise and marry me, or your father swings.”

She gasped and sank together on the seat as though she had been shot.  Then I took up my parable.

“Are you the man,” I asked, “to accuse others of crime?  Let us see.  You have spent several months in an English prison (I gave the name) for a crime I won’t mention.”

“How do you know—­” he began.

“Never mind, I do know and the prison books will show it.  Further, your business is that of selling guns and ammunition to the Basutos of Sekukuni’s tribe, who, although the expedition against them has been temporarily recalled, are still the Queen’s enemies.  Don’t deny it, for I have the proofs.  Further, it was you who advised Sekukuni to kill us when we went down to his country to shoot the other day, because you were afraid that we should discover whence he got his guns.” (This was a bow drawn at a venture, but the arrow went home, for I saw his jaw drop.) “Further, I believe you to be an illicit diamond buyer, and I believe also that you have again been arranging with the Basutos to make an end of us, though of these last two items at present I lack positive proof.  Now, Dr. Rodd, I ask you for the second time whether you are a person to accuse others of crimes and whether, should you do so, you will be considered a credible witness when your own are brought to light?”

“If I had been guilty of any of these things, which I am not, it is obvious that my partner must have shared in all of them, except the first.  So if you inform against me, you inform against him, and the father of Heda, whom your friend wishes to marry, will, according to your showing, be proved a gun-runner, a thief and a would-be murderer of his guests.  I should advise you to leave that business alone, Mr. Quatermain.”