Matheson swung himself out of the saddle.
“Well, I’m hungry, and that’s a fact, Butter Tom,” he said.
The Kaffir gazed at him reproachfully the while he took the reins in his hand.
“Me not fat,” he said seriously, rebuke in his tones and a grave anxiousness in his questioning eyes.
Matheson did not attempt an explanation of the mistake: the native ear was confused with the unfamiliar English. He looked closely at the well-knit figure and smiled.
“No; so I see,” he said. “You get me supper pretty quick, Butter Tom. I’m plenty hungry.”
Whereat Butter Tom laughed quietly. To be plenty hungry was something he did understand.
Matheson entered the rondavel and took a survey of his temporary quarters. Everything was as Nel had left it, neat and orderly; the bed behind the reimpe curtain was made as though in preparation for immediate use: the atmosphere and appearance of the hut suggested a recent occupant. There were a pair of boots, which did not belong to Nel, which were not only smaller but more fashionable in make, under a chair; and on the brightly polished surface of the circular table lay a familiar object—a meerschaum pipe, with quaintly carved bowl, which he remembered to have seen Holman smoking innumerable times. The pipe had lain on the desk beside his hand during their last interview in the dingy office at Johannesburg. It was intolerable presumption, he reflected, that this German whom Herman Nel held in such deep abhorrence should make free with the tatter’s possessions, and pollute in its owner’s absence his home with his treacherous presence.
On the appearance of Butter Tom he made inquiries, and elicited the information that Baas Holman did occasionally use the rondavel, though he had not been there for some days.
“If he come again,” the Kaffir announced sturdily, setting a dish of buttered mealies gently down upon the snowy cloth, “me tell him this baas come from my baas. I serve this baas only. Baas Holman come with the missis two moons since.”