“Not so,” said the chief. “We are not at war with the English.”
“I am glad of that. Now listen. You asked me why I came into your country. I did not come into it; I was brought into it.”
“Brought into it?” repeated the chief in some astonishment. “By whom?”
“By Ingonyama’s people. Those, who call themselves Igazipuza.”
“Hau! Igazipuza!”
The astonishment, emphatic and unfeigned, with which his statement was echoed, not by the chief only, but by the whole group, might well strike Gerard.
“You know him—you know them?” he said.
A humorous flash flitted across each dark face, the corners of every mouth turned down grimly. Sobuza proceeded to take snuff.
“Tell us about it,” he said. “Begin at the very beginning, Jeriji, for this is no light matter.”
Then Gerard began his tale—from the very outset of their enforced visit to the fastness of that redoubtable clan, throughout the period during which their condition had become one of open and undisguised captivity, down to his own headlong dash for liberty and succour, their untiring and persistent pursuit of him, and his perilous hiding-place on the river-bank. His feat in slaying the alligator caused great sensation; and Sobuza having ordered the rifle, on which was still spliced the broken knife, to be brought, he and his assembled chiefs examined this cleverly devised weapon with the greatest interest. Gerard went up a hundred per cent, in their estimation.