Yes, life would flow pleasantly enough in this unruffled fashion, thought Claverton, as they were all strolling in the garden towards sundown. After the stirring events of the day, the quiet and rest of a perfect evening seemed more than ordinarily grateful. All was so still, and calm, and soothing, and such sound as reached them seemed so softened and mellowed by distance as to harmonise rather than to disturb. A dove cooed softly from an adjacent thorn-brake, and bees returning to the old basket hive set in a nook in the wall, made a tuneful hum upon the sensuous air. Yonder a dragon-fly zigzagged on gauzy wing above the glassy surface of the dam, seeking its prey among the gnats whose chrysalids were hatched beneath the overhanging weeds. Suddenly this idyllic scene was invaded by a brace of Kafirs. They were Xuvani and Tambusa, and they began to accost Claverton.
“What on earth do they want? Something to do with that eternal bull, I suppose. I wish the brute had found its way into some butcher’s shop long ago! Here, Hicks I come and interpret, there’s a good fellow!”
“He says Tambusa is his sister’s child, and that you saved his life,” interpreted Hicks; “that is to say you saved his—Xuvani’s life, Kafir way of putting it, you know—and not only did you save his life, or rather both their lives,” went on Hicks, manfully unravelling the native’s long-winded oration; “but you nearly lost your own.”
“That all?”
“No—don’t interrupt him. He says that they are grateful—both he and the boy. That the future is uncertain, and that we never know what turn events will take—”
“He never spoke a truer word than that, anyhow.”
“And that if ever at any time he or Tambusa can render you any service they will do so, even should it be at the risk of their lives—a life for a life—and that they are glad to have looked upon such a howling big swell,” concluded Hicks, with the result that Ethel was obliged to turn away to stifle her laughter.
“Bosh, Hicks! He didn’t say that, you know.”
“He did, upon my word. At least, to be more literal, he said he was glad to have looked upon so great a chief. But my rendering was more euphonious—more poetical, don’t you see?”
Then Tambusa knelt down and kissed his rescuer’s foot, and the two Kafirs withdrew. Claverton looked after them with a curious expression.