"Don't think I 'm not shocked, because I am," it uttered distinctly. "Kissing! I saw you. An' if anybody had told me that a lady of your looks would take on a Kafir, I wouldn't ha' believed it."
The face heaved and rose and lifted to corroborate it the cast-off clothes of Christian du Preez, enveloping the person of Boy Bailey. He shuffled to a sitting position on the edge of the wall, and it was a climax to his appearance that his big and knobly feet were bare and wet. He had been taking his ease with his feet in the water while they talked below, a hidden audience to their confidences. He shook his head at them.
"Dam walls have got dam ears," he observed. "You naughty things, you."
Margaret turned helplessly to Kamis for light.
"What is it?" she asked.
He had jumped to his feet and away from her at the first sound, and now turned a slow eye upon her. The negro countenance is the home of crude emotions; the untempered extremes have been its sculptors through the ages. Its mirth is a guffaw, its sorrow is a howl, its wrath is the naked spirit of murder. He looked at her now with a face alight and transfigured with slaughterous intention.
"Go away," he said, in a whisper. "Go away now. He must have heard. I 'll deal with him."
"Don't," said Margaret. She rose and put a hand on his arm. "Will you speak to him, or shall I?"
"Not you," he answered quickly. "But—" he was breathless and his face shone as with a light sweat. "He 'll tell," he urged, still whispering. "You don't know—it would be frightful. Go quickly away and leave me with him."
"They 're at it still," sounded the voice above them. "Damme, they can't stop."