I said “Poor Zenuta,” and each day I repeated the phrase with greater pity, for I had begun to pine for dear England and English faces with a true home sickness, and looked forward to every succeeding hour, hoping it might bring some chance to enable me to return, when I should be compelled to tell her that we must part for ever. It is true she had begged me to take her with me, saying she would never vex me, but work for me night and day; but whatever should I, Dick Galbraith, a poor seaman, do with a Kaffir girl in England? I respected the affection she displayed too much to have her treated with indignity as she might be in a strange and civilised land, and I could not have taken her home, so in all ways I saw it was best and kindest to leave her with her tribe, feeling sure among them she would soon get reconciled to the separation, and, no doubt, quickly marry after I left, as I intended to give her all my cows and other effects. The sequel will prove, however, how little I knew the really determined nature Zenuta possessed. That in intellect and sensibility she was far in advance of her people I had speedily become aware; but I never dreamed to what lengths her loving, humble devotion to one, who could only give her a friendly, pitying kindness in return, would carry her.
Chapter Seventeen.
Home Thoughts—The Drought and the Rain-Maker—I Receive Terrible News.
It was some time after the above that I sat just outside my hut enjoying a smoke, or rather I should not say enjoying, for I happened to be extremely sad at heart. I had now been nearly a year in Caffraria, and no doubt had long been supposed dead by my wife and friends, for the news of the wreck could not fail to have reached them by this time, accompanied no doubt by the sad intelligence that all the crew had perished.
I pictured to myself my wife’s despair on hearing it; how her pretty face would be bathed in tears; how she, in her great sorrow, might earnestly pray for death, till recalled from the wife’s grief, by the mother’s duties, she would clasp my children to her bosom, and, overcoming her heart-broken agony, resolve, if only for my sake, to live for them.
My little house, with its small comfortable parlour, all rose up clearly before me. There on the wall hung the curiosities I had brought from distant parts to Kate, and which she dusted so carefully every morning, while here on the mantelpiece stood the old clock, with its wooden case as black as ebony, supported right and left by a China shepherd and shepherdess, which were supported in their turn by little China vases containing spills ready for me, Dick Galbraith, when at home, to light my pipe as I sat on one side of the pleasant fire-grate, a glass of grog at my right hand, and Katie busily darning or mending the family linen opposite, chatting of village gossip—how Dan, the fisherman, had nearly been capsized in the last squall; or what a great haul he had had, which had put him into such a good humour that he had actually bought his missus a new gown; or, when not talking, listening so attentively to my yarns respecting the places I had visited and the people I had seen. Strange stories enough I should have to tell her this time!
A sigh escaped my lips as this reminded me how long it would be before I should smoke my pipe, if I really ever did again, in that comfortable, snug little parlour, with the smell of the briny sea in the air, and Katie by my side, while the children slumbered overhead, rocked to sleep, as their father had been before them, by the soothing lullaby of the ocean.
Such thoughts, as may be imagined, were not very conducive to the increase of my comfort where I was, and I felt in a very desponding mood, when, happening suddenly to raise my eyes, I became aware that Zenuta, carrying a gourd of corn she had been crushing to mix with amasi for my dinner, was standing motionless some little distance off, and gazing steadfastly, sadly upon me.