“I fear I am too late with my business,” she answered. “I came to warn you against the Sheik Ibrahim, who passed my hut a little while ago on his way to visit you at your camp. But you have already seen him, have you not?”
“Yes, Bakhita; but how do you know that?”
“Oh!” she replied evasively; “I heard his angry voice coming down the wind from the top of yonder hill. I think that he was threatening and cursing you.”
Rupert nodded.
“I am sorry. I have known this man from childhood and his father before him, for he has done much hurt to my people, and would do more. That is why I live here; to watch him. He is a very evil man, cruel and full of the spirit of revenge. Also, it would have been well to speak him soft, for his tribe is strong and he may give trouble to the Government. It is true, as he says, that the soldiers did handle him with roughness, for one of them had grudges against him.”
“What is said, is said,” answered Rupert indifferently. “But tell me, mother, how do you come to know so much—about many things?”
“I? Oh! I sit by the river and listen, and the river tells me its tidings—tidings from the north, tidings from the south; the river tells me all. Although you white men cannot hear it, that old river has a voice for those whose ears are opened.”
“And how about tidings from east and west where the river does not run?” asked Rupert, smiling.
“Tidings from the east and west? Oh! thence and thither blow the winds, and those whose eyes are opened, see more in them than dust. They have their voices too, those old, old winds, and they tell me tales of the kings of my people who are dead, and of the loves and wars of long ago.”
Rupert laughed outright.