“It was all I could do to keep my hands off him,” he said. “Nothing but the thought that he’d certainly use his assegais and I should have to shoot him dead in self defence kept me from pounding him between the shoulders with the butt of the gun as he swaggered along.”
“And this was quite near your house, you say?”
“Yes. Right bang on the spot where you so pluckily saved my girl’s life, Elvesdon. I’ve heard all full details now.”
Elvesdon reddened slightly, but he was secretly pleased.
“Oh, come now,” he protested. “I don’t know that it requires much pluck to crack a whip at a snake. And if it comes to that, I think it was your daughter who showed the pluck. I told her to cut and run while I drew the brute off. D’you think she would? Not a bit of it. She had picked up a whacking big stone and was standing there ready to heave it. I tell you it was a magnificent sight. Suggested a sort of classical heroine up-to-date. But—I say. Do you think it’s altogether safe for a girl to go about so much alone round here?”
“Round here I do. The people have known her since she was a little thing and take a sort of proprietary interest in her. For the rest, she can use a six shooter—and that quickly and straight. I taught her.”
Elvesdon was on the point of observing that she was not provided with that opportune weapon at the critical moment of a few days previous, but an instinctive warning that it might seem a little too much like taking the other to task caused him to refrain. But he said:
“What of that swaggering impudent swine we were talking about? Supposing he were to pay your place a visit in your absence?”
“There are four great kwai dogs who’d pull down the devil himself at a word from either of us—you saw them, Elvesdon. As an alternative Edala would drill him through and through—with no toy pistol, mind you, but real business-like lead, if he made the slightest act of aggression. Besides, a Zulu from beyond the river, and a head-ringed one at that, wouldn’t. So, you see, she’s pretty safe.”
“Oh, he’s a Zulu from beyond the river, is he?”