“Who? Oh, Manamandhla! Not for long, I should think. Do you know, child, he’s rather an interesting chap to talk to and has become quite civil. He asked me to let him stop on here a bit, and he’d help with the cattle now we’re short-handed.”
“Well, we shall be more so soon, for old Patolo can’t stand him. He’ll be clearing next, you’ll see.”
“Not he. They’ll strike it off all right. Patolo has been cattle-herd-in-chief to me nearly all your life, and knows where he’s well off. And Manamandhla may prove useful in other ways.”
The object of their talk, and the girl’s animadversion, had just emerged from one of the huts. For a moment he stood gazing at the weather, then drawing his ample green blanket close around his tall form, he strode away over the veldt.
“Why have you got such a down on him, child? He’s respectful and civil enough to you, isn’t he?”
“Oh yes—at least for the present.”
“Why should he not continue to be?” went on her father.
“I don’t know. No, I don’t. I suppose it’s—instinct.”
She still stood gazing out of the window, and her face was troubled, even resentful. She could not forget the expression that had come upon her father’s face, fleeting as it had been, when they had first met this man yonder on the summit of Sipazi mountain. It was not his first meeting either, for he had brought home the story of the Zulu’s insolence on that other occasion. She felt puzzled—even suspicious, and therefore resentful.
It was a grey, drizzling afternoon, and the splendour of forest and mountain, lovely in the sparkle of blue sky and dazzling sun, was blotted out by rain and mist, with dreary and depressing effect. Low clouds swept along the base of the heights, whirling back now and then to display some great krantz such as the face of Sipazi, its altitude, multiplied by the dimness, looming up in awful grandeur, to fade again into the murk.