The boy grinned slyly.
“U Jobo is preaching around the locations. Whau! but he is telling news to the people—great news.”
This, as we have said, was the native name of that estimable Ethiopian apostle the Rev. Job Magwegwe. Thornhill had heard of him.
“Why does not the Government send the police after him, Nkose?” went on the other. “Or are the ears of the Government stopped? Or those of Ntwezi?”
Thornhill laughed.
“You are not a kolwa (Christian native) then, Gomfu?”
The other clicked contemptuously.
“I am not a fool, Nkose, The Abafundisi (Missionaries) preach to us what they do not believe themselves. They say that their God made all men equal, black and white, but what is that but childishness? Equal? Nkose—who ever heard of a white man becoming the servant of a native, but it would take years to count the natives in all the land who are the servants of white men. Equal? Whau!”
“That is so, Gomfu.”
“Nkose. Again. What if the son of—I do not say a common man but of a chief such as Tongwana, or Zavula, were to send lobola for the daughter of an umfundisi, and many of them have daughters—what would be the answer? Would it not be anger at a native presuming to dream of marriage with the daughter of a white man?—of a white man who preaches that black and white are all equal? Certainly it would, and rightly. And we natives who are not fools know this. We want no Abafundisi telling as childishness, particularly Amafengu, such as U Jobo. Equal! Hau!”