“Arno. D’you hear? Come here, sir. Damn you. D’you hear!”
The growls increased to a sort of thunder roll.
“Whau!” said Mundúla. “That is a strange sort of dog to own—a dog that will not come, but growls at his master when he calls him instead.”
“I have not had him long enough to know me thoroughly,” said Dolf. “Those two, who stole him from me, have taught him better.”
“Call him in the other direction, Falkner,” I said.
This he did, and the dog went frisking after him as he ran a little way out over the veldt, and back again, both on the best understanding with each other in the world.
“Au! the matter is clear enough,” pronounced Untúswa. “The dog himself has decided it. He is not yours, Udolfu. Yet, Iqalaqala, may it not be that those with whom you last saw the dog may have sold him?”
“That is quite impossible, leader of the valiant,” I answered. “From those who own him no price would buy him. No, not all the cattle in the kraals of the Great Great One. Further, he has not even got the sound of the dog’s name right,” and I made clear the difference between the “l” and the “n” which the other had substituted for it.
“Au! That is a long price to pay for one dog, fine though he is,” said Untúswa with the same comical twinkle in his eyes. “Well, it is clear to whom the dog belongs. You,” with a commanding sweep of the hand towards the riotous crowd who had first molested us, “go home.”
There was no disputing the word of an induna of the King. The former rioters saluted submissively and melted away. Dolf Norbury, however, remained.