“Friends!” echoed Verna in biting scorn. “Friends? Where, then, is he who was left behind yesterday, he who was our friend and therefore yours?”
Sapazani looked puzzled, then a light seemed to dawn upon him.
“Is it the man who collects snakes and—other things, Izibu?”
She nodded.
“Then of him I know nothing. Nor did I know even that he had been left behind, impela.”
“You swear it?”
“U’ Dingiswayo!” said the chief earnestly, invoking the name of the ancestral head of his tribe. And then for the first time a ray of hope came back into Verna’s life.
Then the dying man’s tone grew drowsy, and his head drooped forward. He was muttering words of counsel, of quick command, as though to his followers. Then he subsided to the ground. A sign or two and a groan. Sapazani was dead.
“Poor devil!” said Inspector Bray. “He’s a fine fellow when all’s said and done, and a plucky one.”
“Whatever else he may be, Sapazani’s a gentleman,” said Ben Halse, fully appreciative of the fact that the dead chief had observed the strictest secrecy with regard to such former transactions as have been alluded to.