“And the chiefs—who are they?”
“Vunisa and Pahlandhle. They have been massing their men for days. Now they are ready.”
“And how have you known this, here, under arrest.”
The Kafir smiled and shook his head.
“I was not a prisoner the day before yesterday, Great One,” he answered.
“If you ran such risks for the benefit of your countrymen yesterday, how is it you will give them into our hands to-day?” asked the Commandant.
“You are my ‘father,’ Great One, whom I have lived to serve. I go to my death, but I do not want you to meet yours. To the whole of the Gudhluka Reserve the Amapolise here are as a mouthful, if taken unprepared—if taken unprepared,” he repeated.
Among the young officers there was a stir of sensation. The whole story, in their opinion, was an impudent cook-up. The fellow had invented it to save his life. Surely the Chief would not be humbugged by any such yarn as that. But then they remembered that its inventor had not even asked for his life. In their whispered remarks Inspector Chambers and the two other Inspectors took no part. They had unbounded confidence in the judgment of their Chief.
The latter sat, stroking his long beard as he gazed thoughtfully at the prisoner. A lifelong experience had taught him that no white man ever got thoroughly to the bottom of the innermost workings of a Kafir’s mind. He might think he did, only to find that it was just the moment when he did not. He himself was partial to the natives, and no man was more appreciative of the good points in the native character. He knew, too, that a native is very much a creature of irresponsible impulse. This boy, who would cheerfully have sacrificed them all yesterday, felt now concerned at the possible risk to his Chief. He had accompanied the latter on many a collecting expedition in pursuit of his natural history studies, and had entered into these with enthusiasm and zest; here, then, was a motive, here a presumption that his weighty warning might be a true one. None knew better than himself either, the marvellous, if mysterious, methods which these people had of flashing news from point to point almost with telegraphic swiftness, wherefore he had no reason to doubt that this one knew what he was talking about.
“Attend now, Jacob,” he said. “You made a grave attempt yesterday against the safety of all here, and it did not succeed. To-day you are, as you say, making an attempt to ensure our safety. If that succeeds it will wash out the other attempt.” Then to those who custodied him, “Take him to the guard-hut, iron his legs at any rate, and put two sentries on guard—until further orders.”