"No—unless it was a corpse," he answered. "I don't really blame them; they must have been horribly suspicious of me. At the first kraal I came to—the first village, that is—I tried to make myself known to a splendid old chap, sitting over a little fire, who seemed to be in charge. That was awfully queer. Every man, woman and child in the place stood round and stared and made noises of distrust—that's what they sounded like; and the old chap just squatted in the middle and blinked up at me without a word. I 'd heard that most of the Kafirs about here could understand a little English, so I just talked away and tried to look innocent and useful and I hoped I was making the right impression. The chap listened profoundly till I had quite done, looking as though he were taking in every word of it. Then he lifted both arms, with exactly the movement of a cock when it 's going to crow, and two young fellows behind him leaned down and took hold of them and helped him very slowly to his feet. I made sure I 'd done the trick and that he was getting up to shake hands or something. But instead of that he groped about with his right hand in a blind, helpless kind of way, till one of his private secretaries put a knobherry, a bludgeon with a knob on the end, into it. And then, the poor old thing who had to be helped to his feet took one quick step in my direction and landed me a bang on the head with the club. I just remember that all the others burst into screams of laughter; I must have heard them as I went down."
"What a horrible thing!" exclaimed Margaret.
He smiled again, his teeth flashing brilliantly in his black face.
"It was awkward at the time," he admitted. "I came to later on the veld where they dragged me, with a lump on my head the size of my fist. And sore—by Jove! I was sore. Still, it's just possible I might have gone back for another try, if the first thing I saw hadn't been a tall black gentleman sitting at the entrance to the kraal with an assegai—a spear, that is—ready for me. I concluded it was n't good enough!"
"No!" Margaret agreed with him. "I should think not. But why should they receive you like that?"
"Perhaps," he suggested, "they learned it from the white men!"
("He means to look ironical," Margaret thought. "It isn't a leer; it 's irony handicapped by a negro face. Poor thing!")
"Then you had a bad time somewhere else?" she asked aloud. "Would you mind telling how? If you would, please don't tell me. But I 'd like to hear."
"Then you shall. Of course you shall." The look that tried to be ironical vanished. "If you could only know how grateful I am for—for this—for just your politeness. For you being what you are—"
"Please," interrupted Margaret. "Please don't. I want to hear. Just tell me."