“That’s luck,” I said, astonished, “but extremely strange. How do you explain it, Mr. Marnham?”
He shrugged his shoulders and answered—
“As every one knows, you are a much greater expert in native habits and customs than I am, Mr. Quatermain.”
“There are only two things that I can think of,” I said. “One is that for some reason or other they thought the wagon tagati, bewitched you know, and that it would bring evil on them to touch it, though this did not apply to the oxen. The other is that they supposed it, but not the oxen, to belong to some friend of their own whose property they did not wish to injure.”
He looked at me sharply but said nothing, and I went on to tell them the details of the attack that had been made upon us, adding—
“The odd part of the affair is that one of those Basutos called out to us that some infernal scoundrel of a white had warned Sekukuni of our coming and that he had ordered them to take our guns and cattle. This Basuto, who was wounded and praying for mercy, was drowned before he could tell me who the white man was.”
“A Boer, I expect,” said Marnham quietly. “As you know they are not particularly well affected towards us English just now. Also I happen to be aware that some of them are intriguing with Sekukuni against the British through Makurupiji, his ‘Mouth’ or prime-minister, a very clever old scamp who likes to have two stools to sit on.”
“And doubtless will end by falling between them. Well, you see, now that I think of it, the wounded Kaffir only said that they were ordered to take our guns and oxen, and incidentally our lives. The wagon was not mentioned.”
“Quite so, Mr. Quatermain. I will send some of our boys to help your servants to bring everything it contains up here.”
“Can’t you lend me a team of oxen,” I asked, “to drag it to the house?”