He flung down a pair of boots that he was haggling over, flung it violently onto the counter, so that one of the pair almost hit her, using the while loud and violent language. But he was out of his reckoning.
There crashed forth a loud report, and with a whizz and a scatter of splinters the bullet pierced the wall planking, but so near that the aggressive ruffian felt the breath of it on his arm.
“That for a warning, ishinga,” (rascal), said the girl. “The next carries death.”
The startled savage stood as though petrified. He stared at the tall, fine, commanding figure. He took in every detail—the compression of the lips, the hard glint in the dilated eyes, the uncommonly dangerous-looking “bull-dog” revolver, held in a firm grip without a tremor, and pointing direct at his chest. Then he uttered a single word—subdued, respectful—
“Inkosikazi!”
Verna looked him steadily in the face for a moment. Then she said—
“Now go. Go, do you hear, before I change my mind. People who insult me are not safe. Go.”
And he went.
Some time afterwards she mentioned the incident to Sapazani, quite in a light, casual way. The chief was strangely angry, far more so than the occasion seemed to warrant, she had thought, with a mild, passing astonishment.
“I would I had known of this at the time, Izibu,” he had said. “That ishinga might have found some difficulty in returning to his own part of the country. He is not one of our own people, he belongs to Induba. But those coast dwellers—Hau! They are only half men. All the man is burnt out of them among the sugar canes and the fever.” Then, with bitterness, “But what is a chief in these days? I am no chief. Every white man is chief now, if he is sent by Government—every white boy, rather. There are no chiefs left in the land of Zulu. Even those of our people who act as dogs to the courts of the white magistrates think they are chiefs over us. Hau!”