Thornhill was getting desperate. For hours he would lie awake at night devising some scheme for ridding himself of his oppressor. If only that plan had been carried out on the mountain that day! If only old Patolo had arrived upon the scene half a minute later! It was no murder, he decided. A blackmailer was a pest to the human race. Extermination was only the just fate of such. This one was robbing him of his peace, therefore his destruction was as nothing to the price he had paid to purchase that peace. One day Manamandhla said:
“Nkose, my brother’s son is paying lobola for a girl, over there, in Zululand. He still needs two cows to complete the price, but the son of a richer man has offered one cow and a goat beyond the price he can pay. Shall he not therefore have the two cows—as Nkose has known me so long and is as our father?”
The outrageous impudence of this demand hardly surprised Thornhill, who, of course, was fully aware that the needs of the ‘brother’s son’ did not exist. He gazed fixedly at the Zulu for some moments and the faces of both men were like stone.
“I think I will give you the two cows, Manamandhla, but you can take them away yourself and—not come back. Do you hear—not come back?”
The speaker’s expression was savage and threatening. He felt cornered.
“Au! Not come back?” repeated the Zulu, softly.
“Not come back. Go all over the world, but this place is the most deadly dangerous spot in it—for you. I solemnly advise you not to return to it. This evening I will give you the two cows—for your brother’s son’s lobola”—he interpolated with a sneer, “and you can go back to Zululand and stay there.”
“Nkose!”
This conversation took place at the back of the house and the concluding remarks were overheard by Edala. She had never heard her father’s voice raised in that tone for many years, and now as she connected the circumstance a dreadful suspicion came into her mind. This Zulu knew too much, and now he was being bribed and threatened in about equal proportions in order in induce him to make himself scarce. Her father’s reply that the man was useful, had struck her as hollow and half-hearted at the time it was made.
“I have a bit of good news for you, child,” said Thornhill that evening. “Your aversion, Manamandhla, is going—if he hasn’t already gone.”