It is not as a rule respectful for a native to address the superior white by his or her nickname. But “Izibu”—meaning water-lily—Verna considered rather pretty and poetic, and did not discourage its use. Moreover, she had been accustomed to natives all her life, and understood them thoroughly. She appreciated, too, the position of her father and herself among this once kingly race, where they dwelt in perfect security as to person and property, so much so that they never troubled to put a lock on anything, not even on the trading store. Now she laughed gaily at the compliment which had accompanied the use of the name, and went on chatting, easily, merrily, even banteringly—that to any one unaware of the stern and rigid line of demarcation in such matters, between white and coloured, which has ever saturated public opinion throughout South Africa, it might have seemed that she was carrying on a sort of mild flirtation with this splendid savage. The latter had produced his snuff-box, and was absorbing a portion of its contents in grave silence.
“But I am forgetting!” exclaimed Verna. “The day is hot, and a visitor must not go away without food and drink.”
“Why, as to the last it will be good,” answered the chief, with a sparkle in his fine eyes. “For the first, I am not hungry.”
Herein again in this detail the man differed from his up-to-date countryman, who will seldom, if ever, refuse anything offered.
Verna rose and went into the house, returning with a large bottle of the excellent ale they brew in Maritzburg, and a long glass.
“Good!” exclaimed the guest, as he drained the foaming brew. “Wou! Our people cannot make such tywala as this.” The while he had been noting, with calm approval, every movement of the girl: the fine erectness of her carriage, the firm walk, straight from the hips. As he talked he noted, too, the quick movements of her floury hands and arms, for she had resumed her occupation. At last he rose to take leave. The sun was getting low, he said, and he had still far to travel.
“Wait,” said the girl. Then she walked round to the store, returning immediately with a few unconsidered trifles, such as a large sheath-knife and belt, a packet of snuff and some brass buttons, also strings of beads.
“This is something that even a chief may find useful,” she said, handing him the knife, which he accepted with a pleasant murmur of thanks. “These,” she went on, handing him the smaller things, “will please Nonente and Malima,” naming two of Sapazani’s youngest and favourite wives.
These, too, he took. Verna, putting up both hands to adjust the pins in the large and rather untidy knot of brown hair at the back of her well-shaped head, stood contemplating him with a flash of roguish mischief in her eyes; the joke being that she was morally compelling so great a chief as Sapazani to carry something, however small, for a couple of mere women. But she reckoned without that potentate’s power of resource.
“Ho, Samhlu!” he called to the stable boy, who was passing, and now turned hurriedly, obsequiously.