A shadow darkened the light. Both looked up quickly as a slim, well-made native, standing in the doorway, raised his hand above his head and sang out lustily, “Inkos!”
“Hallo, Sam!” cried Claverton, not best pleased with the interruption. “How are you getting on?”
The native showed a double row of dazzling “ivories” as he grinned in genuine delight at seeing his master back again.
“Did you kill many—very many of the Amaxosa, my chief?” he asked, in the Zulu tongue.
“H’m. Many of those who got in front of my gun-barrels up there, met with bad accidents,” replied his master, drily.
Sam chuckled and grinned. His exultation could hardly contain itself.
“Ha, Missie Liliane,” he said, in his broken English, “Sam he tell you so. Inkos, he kill lots, lots of Amaxosa nigga. He shoot, shoot them—so, so,” and he began snapping his fingers vehemently, and otherwise pantomiming the sharp-shooting of a body of skirmishers. “Sam, he tell you so, Missie Liliane. Amaxosa nigga no good! They no can hurt Inkos. Sam, he tell you so. Inkos, he shoot, shoot them instead. Amaxosa nigga no good. Haow!”
“Sam, you rascal, shut up that,” cried Claverton, good-humouredly. “Cut found to the stable and look after the horse; I’ve ridden the poor brute nearly to death. Give him a good rub down, and see that he’s cool before he drinks. D’you hear?”
“Teh bo ’Nkos,” answered Sam, and he disappeared; and they could hear him as he passed beneath the open window, humming to a sort of chant of his own: “Aow! Amaxosa nigga no good—no good.”
“Has that chap behaved himself while I’ve been away, darling?” asked Claverton.