This reasoning seemed perfectly incomprehensible to Tugela; and I thought, with some trepidation, that if it were so with him, who had lived in white settlements, how might the chief Metilulu take my rejection of his offer.
“Tugela,” I said, “you are aware that it is our custom, our religion, to marry but one wife; therefore, I pray you, tell your chief how sincerely I feel his kindness, but how impossible it is for me to obey.”
He promised to do so, but added, as if he thought, perhaps, the information might make me change my mind, “The Great Eagle knows that you are poor—that you have no cows to give—so says he will purchase you a wife himself.”
This additional generosity quite overpowered me. Metilulu must be bent upon the fulfilment of his desire indeed; nevertheless I could only reiterate my thanks and refusal.
So, finding me in this humour, Tugela left to bear my answer to the chief, while I, extremely anxious as to the consequences, awaited the result.
A Kaffir wife! Oh, horror! Even if I had been a bachelor, and no dear Katie was in the way, the thought would have been quite as revolting in my idea. I felt that the comforts I thought I might expect during my compulsory stay in Caffraria were growing beautifully less; indeed, that at any moment, through such unforeseen causes as the present, the chief’s anger might be drawn upon me, to my ruin. So I inwardly resolved, did any danger threaten, to try to escape, though I had again to take to the bush.
I did not then know half my trouble, and was ignorant that my unfortunate self had, unknowingly, inspired with the soft passion the heart of a young Kaffir girl.