“Oh well, Mr Thornhill,” said the other shamefacedly. “I should like to, you know. Er—may I come and try for a bushbuck someday?”
“Why of course you may, man, any mortal time you feel inclined, or can. By the way, how do you like your new chief?”
“No end. He’s—er—he’s such a gentleman.”
There was a world of admiration—of hero worship in the young man’s tone, and colonial youth is by no means prone to such.
“Ah,” replied Thornhill. “Well, I agree with you, Prior. Good-bye.”
Chapter Five.
The Ethiopian Emissary.
The kraals of the chief, Babatyana, lay sleeping. So brilliant was this starlight, however, that the yellow domes of the thatch huts could be distinguished from the ridge—even counted. The latter operation would have resulted in the discovery that the collection of kraals, dotted along the wide, bushy valley, numbered among them some three hundred huts; but these, of course, represented only a section of the tribe over which Babatyana was chief.