“Oh, Macumazahn,” she said, appearing to notice no one else, “how pleased I am to see you after a whole long year!”
I stared at her and my jaw dropped. Then I recovered myself, thinking she must have made a mistake and meant to say “week.”
“Twelve moons,” she went on, “and, Macumazahn, not one of them has gone by but I have thought of you several times and wondered if we should ever meet again. Where have you been all this while?”
“In many places,” I answered; “amongst others at the Black Kloof, where I called upon the dwarf, Zikali, and lost my looking-glass.”
“The Nyanga, Zikali! Oh, how often have I wished to see him. But, of course, I cannot, for I am told he will not receive any women.”
“I don’t know, I am sure,” I replied, “but you might try; perhaps he would make an exception in your favour.”
“I think I will, Macumazahn,” she murmured, whereon I collapsed into silence, feeling that things were getting beyond me.
When I recovered myself a little it was to hear Mameena greeting Saduko with much effusion, and complimenting him on his rise in life, which she said she had always foreseen. This remark seemed to bowl out Saduko also, for he made no answer to it, although I noticed that he could not take his eyes off Mameena’s beautiful face. Presently, however, he seemed to become aware of Masapo, and instantly his whole demeanour changed, for it grew proud and even terrible. Masapo tendered him some greeting; whereon Saduko turned upon him and said:
“What, chief of the Amasomi, do you give the good-day to an umfokazana and a mangy hyena? Why do you do this? Is it because the low umfokazana has become a noble and the mangy hyena has put on a tiger’s coat?” And he glared at him like a veritable tiger.
Masapo made no answer that I could catch. Muttering some inaudible words, he turned to depart, and in doing so—quite innocently, I think—struck Nandie, knocking her over on to her back and causing the child to fall out of her arms in such fashion that its tender head struck against a pebble with sufficient force to cause it to bleed.