There is, we believe, in the heart of every being a little germ of justice which men call conscience! If that be so, there must have been in the heart of the white man that night some uneasy movement—the first life-throb of the thought which one who had not yet written has since set down:
“Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the living God that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”
The following afternoon I received an ultimatum. We had just returned from the town when from a group of boys squatting round the fire there stood up one big fellow—a stranger—who raised his hand high above his head in Zulu fashion and gave their salute in the deep bell-like voice that there was no mistaking, “Inkos! Bayete!”
He stepped forward, looking me all over, and announced with calm and settled conviction, “I have come to work for you!” I said nothing. Then he rapped a chest like a big drum, and nodding his head with a sort of defiant confidence added in quaint English, “My naam Makokela! Jim Makokel’! Yes! My catchum lion ’live! Makokela, me!”
He had heard that I wanted a driver, had waited for my return, and annexed me as his future ‘baas’ without a moment’s doubt or hesitation.
I looked him over. Big, broad-shouldered, loose-limbed, and as straight as an assegai! A neck and head like a bull’s; a face like a weather-beaten rock, storm-scarred and furrowed, rugged and ugly, but steadfast, massive and strong! So it looked then, and so it turned out: for good and for evil Jim was strong.
I nodded and said, “You can come.”
Once more he raised his head aloft, and, simply and without a trace of surprise or gratification, said:
“Yes, you are my chief, I will work for you.” In his own mind it had been settled already: it had never been in doubt.