Granville went before him without one word of remonstrance, much wondering what was likely to happen next, till he found himself suddenly driven into that noisome hut, where he was forced to enter ignominiously on all fours, like an eight months’ old baby.
By the light of the fire that burned dimly in the midst of his captor’s house he could see, as his eyes grew gradually accustomed to the murky gloom, a strange and savage scene, such as he had never before in his life dreamt of. In the pit of the hut some embers glowed feebly, from whose midst a fleecy object was sputtering and hissing. A second glance assured him that the savoury morsel was the head of an antelope in process of roasting. Two greasy black women, naked to the waist, were superintending this primitive cookery; all round, a group of unclad little imps, as black as their mothers, lounged idly about, with their eyes firmly fixed on the chance of dinner. As Granville entered, the husband and father, poking in his head, shouted a few words after him. Another native outside kept watch and ward with a spear at the door meanwhile, to prevent his escape against King Khatsua’s orders.
For two long hours the Englishman waited there, fretting and fuming, in that stifling atmosphere. Meanwhile, the antelope’s head was fully cooked, and the women and children falling on it like wild beasts, tore off the scorched fleece and snatched the charred flesh from the bones with their fingers greedily. It was a hideous sight; it sickened him to see it.
By—and—by Granville heard a loud voice outside. He listened in surprise. It sounded as though Barolong had another prisoner. There was a pause and a scuffle. Then, all of a sudden, somebody else came bundling unceremoniously through the hole that served for a door, in the same undignified fashion as he himself had done. Granville’s eyes, now accustomed to the gloom, recognised the stranger at once with a thrill of astonishment. He could hardly trust his senses at the sight. It was—no, it couldn’t be—yes, it was—Guy Waring.
Guy Waring, sure enough; as before, they were companions. The Kelmscott character had worked itself out exactly alike in each of them. They had come independently by the self-same road to the rumoured diamond fields of the Barolong country.
It was some minutes, however, before Guy, for his part, recognised his fellow-prisoner in the dark and gloomy hut. Then each stared at the other in mute surprise. They found no words to speak their mutual astonishment. This was more wonderful, to be sure, than even either of their former encounters.
For another long hour the two unfriendly English-men huddled away from one another in opposite corners of that native hut, without speaking a word of any sort in their present straits. At the end of that time, a voice spoke at the door some guttural sentences in the Barolong language. The natives inside responded alike in their own savage clicks. Next the voice spoke in English; it was Granville’s captor, he now knew well.
“White men, you come out; King Khatsua himself, him go to ‘peak to you.”
They crawled out, one at a time, in sorry guise, through the narrow hole. It was a pitiful exhibition. Were it not for the danger and uncertainty of the event, they could almost themselves have fairly laughed at it. King Khatsua stood before them, a tall, full-blooded black, in European costume, with a round felt hat and a crimson tie, surrounded by his naked wives and attendants. In his outstretched hand he held before their faces two incriminating diamonds. He spoke to them with much dignity at considerable length in the Barolong tongue, to a running accompaniment of laudatory exclamations—“Oh, my King! Oh, wise words!”—from the mouths of his courtiers. Neither Granville nor Guy understood, of course, a single syllable of the stately address; but that didn’t in the least disturb the composure of the dusky monarch. He went right through to the end with his solemn warning, scolding them both roundly, as they guessed, in his native tongue, like a master reproving a pair of naughty schoolboys.
As he finished, their captor stood forth with great importance to act as interpreter. He had been to the Kimberly diamond mines himself as a labourer, and was therefore accounted by his own people a perfect model of English scholarship.