“Ay, I noticed her casting glances at you, Frank,” said Nick. “If she was one of Umboo’s wives, it is a good job that the royal eyes couldn’t see through the back of the head to which they belonged, or his Majesty might have ordered you both to be burned, or impaled, or disposed of after some pleasant fashion of the like description. But we will hope she was a princess, not a queen.”
“With all my heart,” said Frank, laughing. “Perhaps she was the Princess Royal and, in default of issue male, the heiress presumptive of the crown. It would be great promotion to become Crown Prince of the Namaquas. But here is Charles waiting to speak as soon as he can thrust a word in edgewise. Well, Charles, what is it?”
“Why, if you fellows have done chaffing, there is something of importance which I have to tell you.”
“Ay, indeed, and what may that be?” inquired Gilbert.
“Why, you know that I have had some conversations with Omatoko in Dutch?”
“Yes, we all know that.”
“But you, perhaps, did not know that I understand something of the Hottentot language also.”
“Certainly, none of us understood that,” observed Frank. “Why, Charles, how could you ever learn it? It seems to me nothing but a series of chicks, as though they were rattling castanets with their tongues.”
“I was laid up once with an accident on a shooting expedition, and was nursed by the Hottentots. I picked up enough of their lingo to understand generally what they say, though I don’t think I could talk it,” answered Charles.
“Why didn’t you tell Omatoko so? It would have saved some trouble?” asked Warley.