“Certainly not, and it is not so useful. No: Tant is not handsome, but she can cook, and I don’t believe that Venus could have fetched water from the spring in two buckets half so well.”
“Don’t suppose she could, or made fires either,” said Dyke, laughing.
“Very good, then, little un. Tant is quite good-looking enough for us.—Hi! there, old girl, take these and keep them cool. Cook one for dinner.”
The woman nodded, took the net, swung it over her back, and the next minute the creamy-white eggs were seen reposing on the dark skin.
After seeing to the horses, Dyke made some remark to his brother about wanting his corn too, and he went quietly round to the back, where Tant was busy over the fire, preparing one of the eggs by cooking it au naturel, not boiling in a saucepan, but making the thick shell itself do duty for one.
She looked up and showed her teeth as Dyke came in sight, and then went on with her work, which was that of stirring the egg, whose treatment was very simple. She had chipped a little hole in one end, big enough to admit a stick, and had placed the other end deep down in the glowing dry cake ashes, squatting down on her heels on one side of the fire, while Jack sat in a similar position on the other, watching his wife as she kept on stirring the egg with the piece of wood.
“Oh there you are, Jack,” said Dyke; “we’ve shot a big lion.”
“Baas kill?”
“Yes. You’re coming with us to skin it this evening?”
The Kaffir shook his head, and then lowered it upon one hand, making a piteous grimace.