He lay until the keen frost chilled him to the bone. Then he arose and began to search for fuel, which he found without any difficulty. Then he drew a little of the tinder-dry grass from the roof, and by means of his flint, steel, and touchwood, soon lit a fire on the cold and barren hearth. The hut was in a fearfully dilapidated and dirty state, but with a broom extemporised out of a small bush which he plucked outside, he swept the place out. Amongst the rubbish he found several of the little clay oxen which Mampitizili had made for Kungayè, and the sight of these formed a small nucleus of hope in his mind, around which shreds of comfort began to gather. No doubt, he thought, Mampitizili and the old man had, for good and sufficient reasons, removed to Manciya’s or to some other part of the location. To-morrow he would, no doubt, find them. To-night he felt far too weary, after the shock of his disappointment, to seek them even at Manciya’s kraal. All the fatigues of the previous five days seemed to creep into his bones at once, and he felt, for the time being, completely crushed.
Sobèdè cooked a portion of the goat-flesh, ate it, and then laid himself down, wrapped in his blanket, at the side of the fire. The wind had completely died away, and the frosty night seemed tense with utter silence.
With the keen senses of his race Sobèdè became aware of an approaching footstep. It was not so much that he heard any sound, as that he felt a slight rhythmic tremor of the ground beneath him. The footstep drew nearer, and then the sound of sobbing could be heard. Sobèdè did not move; he was not in the slightest degree alarmed, and was far too weary and heartsore to feel interested in anything just then. Then he heard a cry and a sound as of some one falling heavily to the ground.
He arose, seized a burning stick from the fire, and went outside. He saw a woman crouching to the ground, with her face hidden in her hands. Clinging to her was a little child, who gazed up at Sobèdè with wide, terror-strained eyes. Sobèdè bent down and touched the woman on the shoulder, telling her to arise and have no fear. At the sound of his voice the woman looked up quickly with a start of recognition and a cry of joy, and Sobèdè saw that her face was the face of Mampitizili. Then he flung down the spent firebrand, and clasped his wife and son in a long, silent embrace.
Soon the three were sitting together in the hut, where the fire was now again blazing cheerfully;—the man and the woman with hearts too full for speech, and the child looking with wonder at the big stranger who did not treat him unkindly.
Mampitizili and Kungayè were faint from hunger, so the goat-flesh was soon cut into strips, roasted upon the embers, and eaten as a sort of sacrament of reunion. Then Sobèdè fetched water in a broken earthen pot from the little streamlet that babbled down the gully at the side of the ledge, and they washed out their mouths, Kafir fashion, and drank of the icy-cold water, which seemed to taste more delicious than the best calabash-milk.
It was long before they could find words to express all that made big their hearts. Sobèdè heard of the death of his father with equanimity; the natives, with true philosophy, look upon the visitation of death to the old and infirm without regret. Bit by bit—the little boy sleeping peacefully at their feet as they talked—the whole shameful story of Manciya’s conduct was told. But Sobèdè was too happy to be angry for long even under this provocation. His wife and child were safe with him, and he knew that Manciya dared not refuse to give up his cattle,—the headman and the magistrate would see to that. They decided to remain at the old kraal, and to commence repairing the huts on the following day.
Of all the myriad dwellings of men upon which the snowy peaks of the Drakensberg glanced down that night in cold disdain of man and his destinies, none held such happy human hearts as did this hut without a door, with the wall falling down in ruin, and through the gaping roof of which the frost fell from a wintry sky.