“And I’ll kill four!” was the infuriated reply. “Baléka, do you hear—quick—sharp—at once, or you’re dead men!”
“Don’t do anything so foolish, Tom,” said a voice at his side, and a hand was stretched out as though to arrest the aim of the threatening piece. “For God’s sake, remember. We are not at war—yet.”
“That be hanged!” came the rough rejoinder. “Anyway, we’ll give these fellows a royal thrashing. We are two to three—that’s good enough odds. Come along, Eustace, and we’ll lick them within an inch of their lives.”
“We’ll do nothing of the sort,” replied the other quietly and firmly. Then, with an anxiety in his face which he could not altogether conceal, he walked his horse over to the prostrate Kafir. But the latter suddenly staggered to his feet. His left shoulder was streaming with blood, and the concussion of the close discharge had stunned him. Even his would-be slayer looked somewhat relieved over this turn which affairs had taken, and for this he had to thank the plunging of his horse, for it is difficult to shoot straight, even point blank, with a restive steed beneath one, let alone the additional handicap of being in a white rage at the time.
Of his wound the Kafir took not the smallest notice. He stood contemplating the two white men with a scowl of bitter hatred deepening upon his ochre-besmeared visage. His three countrymen halted irresolute a little distance—a respectful distance, thought Carhayes with a sneer—in the background, as though waiting to see if their assistance should be required. Then he spoke:
“Now hear my words, you whom the people call Umlilwane. I know you, even though you do not know me—better for you if you did, for then you would not have wounded the sleeping lion, nor have aroused the anger of the hooded snake, who is swift to strike. Ha! I am Hlangani,” he continued, raising his voice to a perfect roar of menace, and his eyes blazed like live coals as he pointed to the shot wounds in his shoulder, now black and hideous with clotted blood. “I am Hlangani, the son of Ngcesiba, a man of the House of Gcaléka. What man living am I afraid of? Behold me here as I stand. Shoot again, Umlilwane—shoot again, if you dare. Hau! Hear my ‘word.’ You have slain my dog—my white hunting dog, the last of his breed—who can outrun every other hunting dog in the land, even as the wind outstrippeth the crawling ox-wagon, and you have shed my blood, the blood of a chief. You had better first have cut off your right hand, for it is better to lose a hand than one’s mind. This is my ‘word,’ Umlilwane—bear it in memory, for you have struck a chief—a man of the House of Gcaléka.”
(Umlilwane: “Little Fire”—Kafirs are fond of bestowing nicknames. This one referred to its bearer’s habitually short temper.)
“Damn the House of Gcaléka, anyway,” said Carhayes, with a sneer as the savage, having vented his denunciation, stalked scowlingly away with his compatriots. “Look here, isidenge,” (fool), he continued. “This is my word. Keep clear of me, for the next time you fall foul of me I’ll shoot you dead. And now, Eustace,” turning to his companion, “we had better load up this buck-meat and carry it home. What on earth is the good of my trying to preserve the game, with a whole location of these black scum not ten miles from my door?” he went on, as he placed the carcase of the unfortunate steinbok on the crupper of his horse.
“No good. No good, whatever, as I am always telling you,” rejoined the other decisively, “Kafir locations and game can’t exist side by side. Doesn’t it ever strike you, Tom, that this game-preserving mania is costing you—costing us, excessively dear.”
“Hang it. I suppose it is,” growled Carhayes. “I’ll clear out, trek to some other part of the country where a fellow isn’t overrun by a lot of worthless, lazy, red Kafirs. I wish to Heaven they’d only start this precious war. I’d take it out of some of their hides. Have some better sport than buck-hunting then, eh?”