The woman nodded.
“No top. Come back along, baas. Make fire, make cake, make milk.”
“Make yourself useful, eh?” cried Dyke, to whom the woman’s presence was a wonderful relief.
“Come top baas.”
Tanta Sal picked up one of the buckets standing just inside the door, and nodded as she turned to go.
“Look here!” cried Dyke; “you can stay, but I’m not going to have Jack back.”
“No! no!” cried the woman fiercely; and banging down the bucket, she went through a pantomime, in which she took Dyke’s hand and placed it upon the back of her woolly head, so that he might feel an enormous lump in one place, a cut in another; and then with wondrous activity went through a scene in which she appeared to have a struggle with some personage, and ended by getting whoever it was down, kneeling upon his chest, and punching his head in the most furious way.
“Jack tief!” she cried, as she rose panting, and took up the pail.
“Yes, I understand,” said Dyke; “but you must not go near the cow. That lioness is there.”
The woman laughed.