He had long had some notion of Amayeka’s intercourse with the younger convict, or trader, as Amani, like the rest of his tribe, supposed the deserter to be, and he now gloated at his discovery.
Of the two, he hated Lee the most, for he could discriminate between the energy of the one and the passive sorrow stamped on the countenance of the other. Then Doda was an object of special abhorrence; for Doda, when he could, pleaded the white man’s cause. Amayeka, from her acquirements, invested her father with a power he would not otherwise have possessed; by her intelligence the wizard often found his plans forestalled, his prophecies doubted; but he had besides a deeper source of hatred against her, for a true Kafir she was not. Through her veins ran the blood of white forefathers; her ancestress was one of those unfortunates who had been stranded at the Umbeesam River when the Grosvenor was wrecked.
To her lineage Amayeka owed her soft, though short, and wavy hair, her complexion of fairer hue than is usual among the Amakosa race, her delicately-chiselled outline of feature, and her falling shoulders. Her limbs I have described as exquisitely moulded, and the voice musically sweet.
But although pleased to refer to her white ancestress, whom she faintly remembered, shrunk, bronzed, withered with age, and degraded to the state of a savage, Amayeka’s habits were those of the wild tribe to which she belonged; but tender-hearted, with something about her of the English attribute gratitude, unknown amongst Kafirs, some of those old associations, whose roots lie deepest in the human heart, had led her to take an interest in Lee and Gray when she first heard their voices in the midnight solitude of the Witches’ Krantz. Lee’s ungracious manner soon repelled her; but Gray’s dependence on her good offices as guide drew her towards him; and now, kindred, tribe, allegiance, all were forgotten in her passion for her white lover.
They sat together in silence for some moments, Amayeka resting her head on Gray’s shoulder, her dusky locks mingling with his brown hair, which had grown long during his exile, and would have given to his countenance an air of effeminacy, but for the moustache shading his upper lip.
Horrible wizard! what a contrast to these youthful beings must thou have presented, leaning thy clay-painted face from its green covert! Gall-bladders, jackals’ tails, and the polished teeth of monkeys, wolves, and tigers, made the head inconceivably hideous; and the great eyes glittering in the dusk would have startled the lovers had they looked up.
But they had no thought beyond their own vague destinies. The shades of night deepened, they could hear the girls and children chanting monotonously on their way to the kraals, the stream rippled past them unheeded, the guanas plashing merrily among the little pools, and the meercat nestled closer to Amayeka’s feet.
“They say, Amayeka,” whispered Gray, “that war is proclaimed in the colony, and that soldiers are marching towards the Kei.”
“Oute!” (“Hear!”) said Amayeka, who often used this Kafir prefix. “The white man’s word to kill has not yet gone forth. The red soldiers are scattered through the bush. The Amakosas sleep with an open eye, but are not yet up. Soon a voice will be heard on the mountains, and answered from the valleys, and the war-cry will fill the land.”
There was a pause.