“Really. There won’t be a vestige of a row, so don’t be in the least afraid. Look. What do you think old Sandili is saying?”
“What?”
“That he never saw a white woman who was really pretty until this moment. And faith, I agree with him.”
Lilian laughed, and flushed softly; not so much at the old savage’s compliment as at her lover’s endorsement of it.
“Eh—what?” cried Claverton, who was listening to something Sandili was saying. “Fancy spoiling that pretty speech. The old brute?”
“What does he say?”
“He says that you haven’t given him anything, and must give him sixpence. I told him you would do nothing of the sort.”
“But I will. I should like to, just for the fun of the thing,” she laughed. “Only, tell him he mustn’t drink it; he must buy tobacco or something else with it. He looks awfully tipsy already.”
This Claverton duly translated, and the old savage nodded assent—of course as a mere matter of form—and Lilian gave him the sixpence with her own hand. Then he looked up at Marshall and made the same request; but that worthy, who had been watching the proceedings with disapproval, growled out, with something very like an oath, that “the old blackguard would get nothing out of him.”
“He’s going away now,” said Claverton. “We’ll watch him start. I imagine there’ll be some difficulty in getting him under weigh.”