“Well, we must be going. Good day to you,” he said, shaking hands with the trader. “Good day, Marshall. Are you coming?”
“N-no; I think I’ll rest a bit longer.”
Just then the whole party, numbering perhaps a dozen, walked up to Thompson, the injured individual in advance. The latter, in an insulting and aggressive tone, demanded a sovereign in satisfaction for his wrongs.
Calmly eyeing the braggart and the muttering group behind him, the storekeeper lighted his pipe and repeated his order to quit.
“No, we won’t!” roared the savage. “We’ll roast you in your own winkel (shop) before long. Only wait a bit.” And then the others began all talking at once, louder and louder, and in a threatening and excited way, pressing closer and closer upon the two white men.
“Got a revolver, Joe? That’s right; so have I. Always carry it in these troublous times. Now then, Umsila; off you go—you and all the rest of them.”
The Kafirs, who saw that both the white men were armed, drew back, and, still muttering and threatening, they began to depart. Then, with loud jeering laughter and many threats, they started off at a trot along the plain, sending forth a long, resounding whoop upon the evening air. It was taken up by the kraals on the hillsides, and echoed farther and farther, fainter and fainter, till it died in the distance. The two men looked at each other.
“I say, Thompson, if I were you I should pack up my traps and clear out of this,” said Marshall.
Lilian was rather silent as they rode away from the place. The sight of that fierce-looking, loud-talking group of angry savages confronting the two white men had frightened her, and then the voices rose more violent in tone.
“Don’t be afraid, dear,” said her companion, tenderly, “Those two are perfectly well able to take care of themselves, and Jack Kafir barks a great deal more than he bites. They’re all right.”