“You wouldn’t like to be seated on the ‘aerial throne’ then, eh?” laughed Elvesdon.
“No, indeed. Look. There’s a fine shooting star.”
A streak like a falling rocket, and the phenomenon disappeared. Elvesdon gratefully admitted to himself that this homeward ride through the soft dews of falling night was wholly delightful. Yes, but—would it have been equally so were he alone, or with any other companion at his side—his host for instance; who had lingered behind to light a pipe, and had not taken the trouble to catch them up again? He was constrained to own to himself that it would not. This girl was of a type wholly outside his experience, so natural, so absolutely unconventional. Her ways and ideas struck him somehow as peculiar to herself—and then her appearance—as striking as it was uncommon. He had not begun to fall in love with her, but could not ignore the possibility that he might, and in that case Heaven help him, for he felt pretty sure he would meet with no reciprocity.
Meanwhile, there was nothing to be gained by discounting potentialities, wherefore he laid himself out to make the most of the present time, and succeeded admirably well. If his host was rather abstracted and silent throughout the evening, Edala more than made up for it. She chatted away on every subject under the sun; and played and sang—both well—so that by the time he went to bed Elvesdon had come to the conclusion that he had never enjoyed himself so much—or got through such a jolly day in his life.
Chapter Ten.
A Chief—out of Date.
Zavula sat in his hut smoking, and—blinking.
Zavula was an old man. There were wisps of white beneath and above the dull, uncared for head-ring, for being a Natal native he did not keep his head scrupulously shaved, as the way of the ringed Zulu is. But his eyesight was very weak, wherefore he sat—and blinked. And he was alone.