The boy disappeared and soon the retreating hoofs of his undersized pony could be heard splashing through the sludgy surface of the saturated veldt. The dogs growled again, presumably because having seen the same postboy appear regularly twice a week and go away again those sagacious animals must needs sustain their world-wide reputation for sagacity by doing something, though quite unnecessary—or possibly to vary the monotony of a wet and very dismal day. Anyhow they growled.
“You wanted to know about this new and distant relative,” said Thornhill, coming back into the room. “Well, I can’t tell you anything about her personally, because, as she says, she was too much of a kid to remember me, and I, for my part, just remember her as an ordinary kid, usually smeared with jam or some other sticky form of nastiness. Just that and nothing more.”
“But this mother she talks about—who was she?” went on Edala.
“Poor Mary Carden. Oh, we got rather friendly. She was a bit older than me though. I had something to do with the settling up of her affairs when she was left a widow—not that there was much to settle up, poor thing. By the bye, and yet this girl writes in rather an independent way, and dates from the Royal at Durban. Well, you know, hotels in this country aren’t cheap, and the Royal isn’t one of the cheapest by any means, although it’s good. They may have had a windfall since I knew them; probably have, since she seems to be out here for fun.”
“How old would she be, father?”
“Let me think now. Let me think back. She must be some years older than you, child. But it’ll be a good thing for you to have a companion for a time, who isn’t an old fogey. Of course we are both talking round our hats, as neither of us have the ghost of a notion what she’s like, and won’t have till we see her.”
“Well, we’ll chance it,” said Edala.
“That’s the best way. And now I think I’ll get on a horse and take a turn round. Old Patolo may be letting his cattle stray in this mist.”
Manamandhla the Zulu strode over the sopping veldt quite indifferent to the rain which beat down upon his bare head, and strove to permeate the thick folds of his green blanket, and while he walked he was thinking out a plan.