“Hallo, Falkner!” I hailed, deeming the puff of smoke from among the rocks above and opposite must be his work. “Look out I’m here. D’you hear, man?”
But no answer came, not immediately that is. In a minute however, one did come, and that in the shape of another bullet, which banged up the dust just about the same distance on the other side of me. My first impulse was that Falkner was playing one of his idiotic practical jokes at my expense, but with the idea I seemed to feel sure that it was not Falkner—and that, in short, I had better withdraw from this very uncanny spot.
As I hastened to carry this judicious resolve into practical effect I won’t pretend that I felt otherwise than uncomfortable and very much so. Whoever it was up there could shoot—confound him! an accomplishment rare indeed among the natives of Zululand in those days. Clearly too the exact nicety with which both distances had been judged seemed to point to the fact that both shots had been fired by way of warning. That I had at any rate accepted such I trusted I had made clear to the giver of it, as I walked—I hoped without undue haste but rapidly—to where I had left my horse.
Nothing further occurred, although until clear of the heights I kept an uncommonly sharp look out. Once clear of them however, the incident left no great impression on my mind. I had unwittingly stumbled across something unusual and had been about to pry into what didn’t concern me, and it had been resented. The Abaqulusi were an independent and warlike clan who would be sure to resent such. I had received a hint, and a pretty forcible one, to mind my own business, and I concluded that in future I would mind it, at any rate while in these parts. That was all.
Chapter Nineteen.
Concerning a Letter.
Evening was closing in wet and gloomy. The lowering clouds swept along the high ground which shot in the great hollow, causing the cliffs to seem three times their real height in the ghostly murk. Added to this it was raw and cold, which had the effect of causing the inhabitants of the big kraal to hug their firesides. Here and there a form swathed in an ample green blanket might be seen moving from one hut to another, quickly to dive within the same, for your savage is a practical animal, and sees no fun in foregoing any of his comforts when no necessity exists for doing so—and the interior of the huts was warm and dry, and, without, it was neither.
I was alone at the waggons, Falkner not having yet returned. For this I was not sorry, for although Falkner and I had grown accustomed to each other, yet there were times when I could cheerfully accept a holiday from his presence.