The Zulu grinned. “Oh, yes, sar!”
Jim hailed another rickshaw, and the four travellers boarded them and trotted off. Never was there to be seen anything so proud as the boys’ Zulu. He had evidently made up his mind that he belonged to them, and had betrayed some anxiety until certain that they were to be his passengers; but when this point was satisfactorily decided, he gave vent to the pride that was in him, and pranced off like a high-stepping circus horse—throwing out his feet, resplendent in a new coat of white paint, with his head well back, his feathers streaming, and his whole bearing full of vainglory.
“He looks as if he wanted to say ‘Bayété!’—whatever that means. And he certainly thinks he owns the road,” Wally said, watching the magnificent figure.
“I wish he’d moderate his transports,” Jim said, laughing. “He’s making every one look at us—and I prefer not to attract undue attention with a pair of black eyes like these—to say nothing of much sticking-plaster. However, I suppose it’s no good talking to him in English, and I don’t want to hurt the poor chap’s feelings—but this sort of thing makes one feel like a circus procession. One only needs a band and an elephant, to be complete!”
The “boy,” however, calmed down presently, and merely showed the depth of his emotion by going at such a pace that the other rickshaw steed fell far in the rear, and was justly indignant at his compatriot’s unreasonable energy. They raced through the town, and for a time followed the streets through which the boys had strolled the day before; but instead of turning into the poorer quarter, a turn brought them to a wide road where many mule-carts and shabby rickshaws blocked the way. Before a big building was a collection of smarter rickshaws—but their Zulu attendants were nowhere to be seen.
“That the market?” Jim called to his “boy.”
The Zulu paused.
“No sar—that eating-house. Gen’lemen like to see it? Market next door.”
“We might as well,” Jim said. “Wait for us.” Mr. Linton and Norah appeared, and they dismounted.
Within the big building Kaffirs squatted on the ground, working with wire at the native bangles that every South African traveller knows. Some were plaiting the wire into sjambok handles, in intricate patterns, laying the bands of wire among strands of raw-hide, or capping the finished handle with an elaborate “Turk’s head”; others had piles of bangles on the ground beside them, in all sizes, from those fitted for babies’ wrists to the big circlets worn above the knee. The work was wonderfully fine.