“Silly old man; he’s quite poetical,” she said, looking pleased all the same.
“Indhlovukazi!”
“Now he’s calling you a female elephant.”
“Oh, the horrid old wretch. That is a come down, Mr Driffield.”
“Yes, it sounds so, but it’s a big word of sibongo, or praise, with them.”
“Oh well, then I must forgive him.”
“Intandokazi!”
“What’s that?” said Clare, but Driffield had cut short the old man’s rigmarole and was talking to him about something else. He did not care to tell her that she was being hailed as his—Driffield’s—principal—or rather best-loved—wife. Two white men, standing near, and who understood, turned away with a suppressed splutter.
There was the usual request for tobacco, and then, Qubani glancing meaningly in the direction of the bar tent, remarked that he had travelled far, and that the white man made better tywala than the Amandabeli, as, indeed, what could not the white men do.
“A bottle of Bass won’t hurt him,” declared Driffield, sending across for it.