“Au! I thought not. I thought not,” was the muttered answer. “And Jojo (George)?”
“He is with his father,” said Beryl eagerly. “Why?”
The old man muttered something quickly to himself. Then aloud—
“They have not returned? That is well. Inkosikazi, take horse, and go and tell them the way home is dark to-night—dark, dark. Let them sleep where they are, and return beneath the sun.”
“Dark?” I interrupted, like an idiot. “Dark? Why it’s nearly full moon.”
Dumela glanced at me impatiently, eke somewhat contemptuously.
“Au!” he said. “I have not been away for nothing. Why did I leave here? Why did I fill up the ears of my father with a tale? Why did I take away my cattle and my wives? Because the ears of Kuliso are large”—meaning open—“but I wanted mine to be so, too. So I went no further than the further border of Kuliso’s location, giving out that I had a grievance against my father, whose milk and corn I had eaten for nearly the half of my lifetime; giving out, too, that I wanted it not to be known to those I had left, that I was dwelling beneath the shadow of Kuliso. Then the people of Kuliso feared not to talk within my hearing. Say, Inkosikazi, why has not your father—and mine—sent the boy away?”
Beryl’s face went ghastly white.
“Why, Dumela,” she said. “The compensation cattle have been paid, and Kuliso has assured us the unfortunate affair was settled. He is the chief. We have his word.”
“You have his word. But the fathers of the children have not the compensation cattle—no, not any of them. Kuliso’s hands are large. That which is poured into them does not overflow and fall out. The fathers of the children who were killed have no compensation, and—the boy was not punished. Justice—the white man’s justice—has not been done, they say. Why was he still kept here?”