“Who are you?” he said, looking the other in the eyes.
“Nkumbi-ka-zulu, son of Sirayo, the king’s induna,” replied the youth, with a haughty toss of the head, denoting surprise that anybody should require to be informed of his identity. “Give me the gun; I want to look at it,” he continued, again stretching forth his hand.
Gerard realised the delicacy of the situation. There was a greedy sparkle in the young Zulu’s eye as it lighted upon the weapon, which caused him to feel anything but sure that it would be returned to him again. On the other hand, Dawes, he remembered, had a poor opinion of Sirayo and his clan, and he did not want to offend the chief’s son, if he could help it. His command of the language beginning to fail him, he summoned Sintoba to the rescue.
“Ask him if, he wants to trade, because, if so, the Baas (Master) will be back soon. Here is some snuff for him, meanwhile.”
Nkumbi-ka-zulu condescended to accept the snuff, then, through the driver, he explained that his father had sent the black ox as a present to “Jandosi”—for such was John Dawes’s name among the natives, being of course a corruption of his own—and he, the speaker, had come to do a little trade on his own account. First of all, he wanted that gun, and as many cartridges as he could have. What was the price?
Gerard replied that the gun was not for sale. It was wanted to shoot buck and birds during their trip further up-country.
“Au!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “You are so near the border, you can easily send back for another gun. I will give five oxen for it. Ten, then,” he added, as Gerard shook his head in dissent. Still Gerard refused.
“Hau! Does he want all the Zulu country?” muttered the others, forgetting good manners in their impatience and eagerness to possess the weapon, and for this, Sintoba, who was of Zulu descent and a ringed man at that, rebuked them sternly.
“Since when has the son of a chief learnt to talk with the loud tongue and windbag swagger of the Amabuna?” (Boers) he said. “Have you come here to trade or to play the fool?”
“Hau, listen to the Kafula!” cried the young Zulus, springing to their feet and rattling their assegais threateningly. “Since when is the son of a chief to be reviled by a Kafula, who is doing dog at the heels of a travelling white man?”