“Glad to see you,” he said as they clasped hands. “Going to be hot, I think. Come inside.”
Then a hail having extracted a boy, from somewhere behind the house, Ratels was taken away to be off-saddled, and was soon seen, prancing and neighing in an adjoining paddock, as though in sheer delight at finding himself at home again. Then Edala appeared. Her greeting of the visitor was perfectly frank and self possessed, but Elvesdon was surprised to find himself feeling, for the moment, a trifle disappointed that there was not a little more cordiality about it. But the straight glance of her blue eyes was charming, so too was the lift of upper lip shewing the gleam of white teeth, in her welcoming smile.
“I’ve kept my resolution, Mr Elvesdon,” she said. “I haven’t been out by myself without a shot-gun since. In fact, I believe I’ve caught myself almost wishing another indhlondhlo would show up so that I might try conclusions with him, this time not at a disadvantage.”
“I wouldn’t like to insure the snake, Miss Thornhill,” laughed the other.
“Thanks. You know—old Tongwana was round here a day or two afterwards, and he was saying you must be tagati indeed to have escaped. In fact I don’t think he and the others who were with him more than half swallowed what had happened—a set of unbelieving Jews.”
“Well, do you know, it would make rather a tall story. It was so absolutely a case of poetic justice. I don’t believe I should get more than seven people in ten to swallow it myself—and snake stories always are received with prejudice.”
“Rather,” said Thornhill. “And yet more than one fact I have actually known in my up-country experience would knock out anything I’ve ever heard, or read in fiction for sheer incredibility of coincidence.”
Elvesdon pricked up his ears.
“I’d like to hear about those,” he said.
“Some day perhaps,” answered the other carelessly. “Edala dear, get Mr Elvesdon something after his ride. I believe he’d appreciate it, and I know I should—although I haven’t had a ride. It’s a ‘dry’ sort of morning. Then I move that we go and sit under the fig-trees, and smoke pipes.”