“What is in the water down there, Ukozi?” I said. “Not a crocodile. What then?”
He was in no hurry to reply. He took snuff.
“Who may tell?” he answered, having completed that important operation. “Yet, Iqalaqala, are you still inclined—you and Umsindo—to continue swimming there, and diving nearly to the bottom—ah-ah! nearly to the bottom?”
He had put his head on one side and was gazing at me with that expression of good-humoured mockery which a native knows so well how to assume. I, for my part, was owning to myself that it would take a very strong motive indeed to induce me to adventure my carcase again within the alluring depths of that confounded tagati pool, for so it now seemed. Moreover I knew I should get no definite enlightenment from him—at any rate that day—so thought I might just as well try him on the subject of Miss Sewin’s loss. But as I was about to put it to him he began:
“That which you seek is not down there.”
“Not down there?” I echoed. “But, what do we seek, father of the wise?”
“It shines.”
The thing was simple. He had found it and planted it somewhere, with a view to acquiring additional repute, and—incidentally—remuneration.
“I think we shall recover your coin, Miss Sewin,” I said.
“Ah. He can find it for us then? If he does I shall become quite a convert to witch doctorism, for want of a better word.”