"I 'm sorry," he answered, distinctly; "I can't understand what you say. You 'll have to speak English."
It was the voice of a negro, always vaguely musical, and running to soft full tones, but there was a note in it which made it remarkable and unfamiliar, some turn which suggested (to Paul, at any rate) that this was a man with properties even stranger than his speaking English. He thrilled with a sense of adventure, for this, of course, was the mad creature of the shepherd's tale, who sang to himself of nights when the moon rose on the veld. If a dog had answered him in set phrases, it would not have been more amazing than to hear that precise, aptly modulated voice reply in easy English from the mouth of a Kafir.
"I—I 've heard of you," he said, stammering.
"Have you?" He remembered how the old shepherd had spoken of the man's smile. He was smiling now, looking up at Paul.
"You 've heard of me—I wonder what you 've heard. And I 've seen you, too."
"Where did you see me? Who are you?" asked Paul quickly. The man was mad, according to the shepherd, but Paul was not very clear as to what it meant to be mad, beyond that it enabled one to see things unseen by the sane.
The Kafir turned over, and rose stiffly to his feet, like a man spent with fatigue.
"They 'll wonder if they see me sitting down while I talk to you," he said, with a motion to the group about the Cape Mounted Policeman. His gesture made a confidant of Paul and enlisted him, as it were, in a conspiracy to keep up appearances. It was possible to see him when he stood on his feet, a young man, as tall as the boy, with a skin of warm Kafir black. But the face, the foolish, tragic mask of the negro, shaped for gross, easy emotions, blunted on the grindstone of the races of mankind, was almost unexpected. Paul stared dumbly, trying to link it on some plane of reason with the quiet, schooled voice.
"What was it you were asking me?" the Kafir inquired.
But Paul had forgotten. "Don't you speak anything but English?" he demanded now.