“What is it?” I asked, amazed.
“Sir,” said Brother John, sometimes he used this formal term when excited, “it is the most marvellous Cypripedium in the whole earth, and, sir, I have discovered it. A healthy root of that plant will be worth £20,000.”
“That’s better than gold mining,” I said. “Well, have you got the root?”
Brother John shook his head sadly as he answered:
“No such luck.”
“How’s that as you have the flower?”
“I’ll tell you, Allan. For a year past and more I have been collecting in the district back of Kilwa and found some wonderful things, yes, wonderful. At last, about three hundred miles inland, I came to a tribe, or rather, a people, that no white man had ever visited. They are called the Mazitu, a numerous and warlike people of bastard Zulu blood.”
“I have heard of them,” I interrupted. “They broke north before the days of Senzangakona, two hundred years or more ago.”
“Well, I could make myself understood among them because they still talk a corrupt Zulu, as do all the tribes in those parts. At first they wanted to kill me, but let me go because they thought that I was mad. Everyone thinks that I am mad, Allan; it is a kind of public delusion, whereas I think that I am sane and that most other people are mad.”
“A private delusion,” I suggested hurriedly, as I did not wish to discuss Brother John’s sanity. “Well, go on about the Mazitu.”