“That bears out what Teliso used to say. He always maintained that Ntesini was a bad egg.”
“M-yes. I wonder where the said Teliso is now. You know I hinted to you that he might require a little watching himself.”
“He’s been away a precious long time. By the way I wonder if he wrote that letter. He could talk some English but I don’t know about his ability to write any. He may have been murdered for all we know.”
“He may, or—he may not.”
Elvesdon was impressed. A qualm of misgiving came over him that he might have trusted Teliso too much. What, by the way, if he were at the bottom of their seizure? He might be. There was no trusting anyone. Decidedly there was something suspicious about the length of time Teliso had been away on his mission, and that without sending in any communication whatever.
Poor Teliso! His cracked and whitened bones lying in the lonely ravine beneath the krantz, picked clean by the tiger-wolves and jackals, could not now rise up under the stars to testify whether or not Nteseni was—as Elvesdon had put it—“a bad egg.”
The next morning to their intense relief they were allowed some measure of liberty. They could stroll about outside the kraal, for instance, but even then only in the open, and with groups of armed men constantly on their steps. If there was any considerable body gathered at the kraal those composing it must assuredly have kept within the huts; possibly sleeping off the heaviness of the feast the night before. Decidedly it was strange to these two, accustomed as they were when visiting or passing such places to meet with deference at every turn—now to find themselves actually obliged to obey orders from those over whom one of them at any rate had partially ruled. But the ruled now aspired to be the ruling, and, certainly, into far as they themselves were concerned, had succeeded.
They were threading their way among the huts when, from one of them there emerged suddenly a man—a black man—but not blacker than his coat, nor very much blacker than his dingy tie that had once been white. He had crawled through the low doorway, and stood upright before he was aware of their presence. The instant he became aware of it he brought his hand to his mouth with an ejaculation of amazement and dismay, and stood staring, surprised for the moment out of all self-possession. Both looked at him—Elvesdon especially—with an expression of aversion and contempt.
“So!” was all that Elvesdon said.
It seemed difficult to tell on which side the surprise felt was the greatest. In the fat, greasy features both the white men recognised the Rev. Job Magwegwe, the Ethiopian preacher.