“Ah, now we shall be all right,” said Mrs Sewin, who was seated on a pile of goods for want of a chair. “I must say these savages are rather alarming.”
“They’ll go home directly, Mrs Sewin. I’ve talked them into a better frame of mind.”
“Go home?” echoed Falkner. “But, confound it all—what about our hunt?”
“You won’t get one of them to stir in that now,” I said, “and if they did you wouldn’t be well advised to go with them.”
“Well, I think there’s considerable overweight of fuss being made because a silly old nigger puts his back up and walks off in a huff,” answered Falkner, sullenly.
“Look here, Sewin,” I said, fast beginning to lose my temper. “That ‘silly old nigger’ is one of the most influential chiefs in Natal. Added to which he’s a Zulu of high breeding, that is to say one of the proudest of men—and you’ve put upon him the biggest insult you could have thought out, and that in the presence of a number of his people—who moreover were sent up here by his orders to help your day’s amusement I say nothing of it having been done on my place—but, incidentally, your monkeyish and schoolboy prank has been the means of frightening the ladies somewhat.”
“Here, I say, Glanton. I don’t take that sort of talk, you know,” he answered, colouring up.
“Glanton’s quite right,” struck in the Major decisively, and with some sternness. “You’ve made an ass of yourself, and got us into a nice mess—which we don’t seem out of yet,” he added, as again the voices outside rose high.
I went out again. Ivuzamanzi came forward.
“We will not hunt with your friends, Iqalaqala. We are going home. As for the igcwane—let him look well on all sides of him.”