We shall see.
Guided by Manamandhla by short cuts across the veldt, the traveller was not long in reaching his destination. His arrival had been momentarily expected, and with the first distant sounds of his horse’s hoofs, the carcase of a recently slaughtered goat had been quartered up and placed upon a fire of glowing embers. The preacher rubbed his fat hands together with anticipatory delight as his broad nostrils snuffed from afar the savoury odour of the roast.
“Ah brother, the people are ever hospitable to those who bring them tidings of the Cause,” he remarked, complacently.
“And to those who do not,” rejoined the Zulu.
Assuredly the emissary had no reason to complain of the substantial nature of his reception, and so decided that worthy himself, as he sat within the chief’s hut, tearing the juicy meat from the ribs with his teeth, and washing it down with huge draughts from the bowls of tywala which had been brought in. Ah, it was good to live like this. Meat—everywhere—plenty of it, wherever he went—meat—fresh, and succulent and juicy, as different as day from night to the dried up, tasteless, insipid stuff to which he sat down when in civilisation. Tywala too—newly brewed, humming, and, above all, plentiful. Yes, it was good! He had taken off his black coat and waistcoat, mainly with the object of preserving them from grease. Indeed had he followed his own inclination it is far from certain that he would not have taken off everything else. It was a disgusting spectacle, this fat, smug, black preacher, sitting there in his shirt, his white choker all awry, tearing at the steaming bones like a dog, his face and hands smeared with grease; a revolting sight, immeasurably more so than that of the ring of unclothed savages who were his entertainers and fellow feasters.
Nothing was heard but the champ of hungry jaws. Such a serious matter as eating must not be interfered with by conversation. At last there was very little left of the carcase of the goat but the bones, and one by one the feasters dropped out and leaned back against the walls of the hut.
The latter was lighted by two candles stuck in bottle necks, a device learned from the white man. Babatyana and several others started pipes, also an institution learned from the white man. But Manamandhla, the conservative Zulu, confined himself to the contents of his snuff-horn. Secretly, in his heart of hearts, he held his entertainers in some degree of contempt, as became one of the royal race. Babatyana was an influential chief, but only so by favour of the whites. What was he but a Kafula (term of contempt used by Zulus for Natal natives)? But Manamandhla was far too shrewd to impair the success of his mission by suffering any of his secret feelings to appear.
All the same, although he lived on the wrong side of the river from the other’s point of view, there was very little admixture of baser blood in Babatyana’s system. His father had been a Zulu of pure blood and his mother very nearly so. They had crossed into Natal as refugees, after Nongalaza defeated Dingane, and had there remained. Seen in the dim light of the candles, Babatyana was an elderly man, with a shrewd, lined face; in fact there was no perceptible difference in his aspect or bearing from that of those who affected to despise him. Now he turned to his guest.
“The news, brother, what is it?”