Soon the cracking of whips and an increased buzz of voices without announced the arrival of the waggons, and we all went out to the place of outspan. The sun was sinking behind the high ridge which bordered the great basin, and the plain in front of the kraal was dappled with homing herds, and on these I looked with the eye of a connoisseur and especially on the little fat, black Zulu oxen, which always fetch a good price for trek purposes. The shrill shout and whistle of the boy herds, blended with the trample and mooing of the cows brought in for the evening milking—but the chief interest on the part of the denizens of the great kraal was centred around the waggons. However it was too late to unload for trade purposes that evening, so beyond getting out a few things for gifts to Majendwa and some of the principal men of the place, I left everything undisturbed.
“Here’s our hut, Falkner,” I said, presently, as we returned within the kraal. “We’re going to sleep here.”
“Sleep here?” he echoed. “Don’t know. I’d much rather sleep at the waggons. How about crawlers,” surveying doubtfully the interior, wherein Tom was depositing the few things we should require for the night.
“Oh, that won’t trouble us. Beyond a few cockroaches of the smaller sort a new hut like this is clean enough. You see Majendwa’s an old friend of mine, and he wouldn’t take it in good part if we didn’t sleep in his kraal, at any rate for a night or two. Now we’re going to dine with him. Look they’ve just killed a young beast in honour of our arrival.”
And dine with him we did, and Falkner himself was fain to own that the great slabs of grilled beef, cut from the choicest part, down the back to wit, which were presently brought in, flanked by roasted mealies, and washed down by unlimited tywala constituted a banquet by no means to be sneezed at. What though a clean grass mat did duty for a plate, and a skewer of wood for a fork, even he admitted that we might have fared much worse.
I did not talk much as to the state of the country with our entertainers that night—that I could get at better by degrees, and later. But they chuckled mightily as I described the scrap with Dolf Norbury.
“Udolfu!” Oh yes, they knew him well, used to trade with him at one time, but they didn’t want such whites as him in the Zulu country, they said. I could understand this the more readily, for I knew that he had tried on his bounce even to the verge of attempted blows with Ngavuma, Majendwa’s eldest son, who was from home just now, and for his pains had got a broad assegai into his ribs which had kept him quiet on the flat of his back for a matter of three or four months or so. So chatting—and translating for the benefit of Falkner—even he agreed we had got through an uncommonly jolly evening, and that the real Zulu was a real brick, by Jove! Then we turned in.
I have a knack of shutting my eyes and going sound off about thirty seconds after my head touches the pillow, or whatever does duty for one, and that night made no exception to my general practice. I heard Falkner fumbling about and cussing because he couldn’t get his blankets fixed up just as he wanted them, and so on; then I recollect my half-smoked pipe dropping from my mouth just as usual, and then I recollect no more, till—
I woke—not at all as usual when there was nothing to wake me. The moonlight was streaming in through the interstices of the wicker slab that constituted the door, throwing a fine silver network upon the floor of the hut. Striking a match I looked at my watch. It was just after one. But as the light flickered and went out I became aware of something else. I was alone in the hut. What the deuce had become of Falkner?
Raising myself on one elbow I called his name. No answer. I waited a little, then got up and crawled through the low doorway.