Chapter Twenty.
Drumsticks and Lions.
Chicory came back the next day, for his brother’s assegais, having lost his own, as he said, sticking in an ostrich’s back.
“Bring him back soon,” he said, as he sat down and ate tremendously for about an hour, after which he lay down and went to sleep by his wounded brother, and did not awake till his father came back with a little bok slung over his shoulder, and stirred him with his foot.
Chicory sprang up as if pricked, and in reply to his father’s angry words in the Zulu tongue, the boy made a reply which calmed the General’s wrath directly, and then went away.
When breakfast was ready the next morning, and Dinny brought a number of skewers of wood laden with hot sputtering venison cutlets, to place before each hungry meal-seeker, Chicory was not visible; and on being asked, Coffee said his brother had gone as soon as the lions had left off roaring; but he came back before evening in a wonderful state of excitement, begging Dick and Jack to mount their horses and come to fetch in the ostrich he had speared.
“Where is it?” cried Dick.
The Zulu boy pointed towards the east, and just then Mr Rogers came up.
“He has speared an ostrich, father,” cried Dick eagerly.
“Indeed! How did you manage it, Chicory?” said Mr Rogers.