"Let's ride over and pay a surprise visit to Sapazani this afternoon,
father. We promised to show him to Alaric, you know, and he hasn't been
here for a long time."
"All right. But how d'you know he's at home?"
"I got it from some of the people this morning. He has been away a long
time, but he's back now."
"Yes, he has," said the trader meaningly. "He'll get into trouble if he
doesn't watch it. How about the store, though?"
"Oh, we can lock it up for once in a way. Nobody's likely to come, or
if they do it'll only be for a tenpenny knife. Trade's too dismally
slack for anything just now."
"That's a grand idea," said Denham. "I had begun to think I was never
going to see this `show' chief of yours."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"By Jove! what a beautifully built kraal!" exclaimed Denham, as they
came upon it suddenly, over the lip of the hollow. "Rather different
from those wretched, slovenly-looking affairs you see further down."
"Yes; Sapazani is an intense Conservative," said Ben Halse; "wherefore
he isn't beloved by those in authority. But the old-time kraals were
all built like this one, except in the open country where there was no
bush to make fences of. They used stone walls instead, and still do."
They found the chief sitting in the shade of a dried bullock-skin just
against the fence of the central open space. He gave them greeting in a
dignified way, as between equals, but did not rise. That was a European
custom, and therefore abhorrent to his conservative soul. But he called
to an attendant to rig up a similar bullock-skin and to spread mats, not
even rugs, for his visitors.
"Case of doing in Zululand as Zulus do, Alaric," laughed Verna. "You'll
have to learn the native art of squatting. It's all right when you get
used to it."
"Of course. I say, this is an uncommonly fine-looking chap. Do you
think he'd let me fire the kodak at him? I put it in my pocket on
spec."
"We'll try presently, but I doubt it."
Meanwhile Sapazani was asking Halse who his guest was. He knew
perfectly, but still he asked. Denham the while was watching him with
intense interest. He had seen two or three chiefs at Ezulwini, looking
thorough "slouches" in waistcoats and shirt-sleeves and ragged smasher
hats. But this was a splendid specimen in every way. He looked every
inch a chief, they did not, every inch a king, even. He hardly liked to
present this dignified-looking savage with a superfluous pair of
binoculars, by no means new, which he had brought along to that end.
But Verna, consulted, set his doubts at rest on that score.
"What is he yarning about?" he asked.
"Oh, just commonplaces. He wouldn't talk about anything else in the
presence of a mere woman," laughed Verna. "If father and he were alone
together it would be different. Would you like to say anything to him?
I can translate."
"Yes, dear. Tell him I'm sorry I can't talk to him myself, but that you
can do it much better for me."
"No, I won't put it that way." She put the remark, however, and
Sapazani smiled, showing his splendid white teeth, his lustrous eyes
moving from the one to the other.
"A splendid-looking chap, by Jingo!" pronounced Denham again. "A real
type of the Zulu I've heard about or read about."
The last remark Verna translated. The chief smiled again.
"I don't know who the strange _Inkosi_ is," he answered. "He looks like
one great in his own country. Perhaps the day will come when he will be
able to speak with those who are great in his own country for those who
were once great in ours."
To this Denham answered that he would certainly do so if ever there was
occasion for it.
Now some women appeared bringing _tywala_. The vessels were
scrupulously clean, and the pinkish, hissing brew looked uncommonly
inviting in its black clay bowls. Denham had tried it before, but had
never been able to take to it. This, however, looked different.
"Try again, Alaric," said Verna. "You'll find this a superior brew. I
know I'm dying of thirst."
A portion was set before each of them, with the _punga_, or preliminary
sip, which custom required on the part of the entertainers. Denham did
try it, and voted it excellent, and then took a very long pull indeed.
"Now you're initiated, dear," said Verna merrily, "once you've learnt to
drink _tywala_."
"I call this uncommonly jolly," pronounced Denham, looking around.
"These chaps must have a good time of it."
The domed huts within their ring fences shone yellow and picturesque in
the sunlight. A few men were seated in groups chatting in a bass
undertone, and the red top-knots of women showed above the thorn fence,
gazing curiously at the visitors.
"Sapazani would tell you `must have _had_ a good time of it,'" said Ben
Halse. "He's a man of the past."
"Discontented?"
"Rather."
"Tell him I want to give him this, Halse," producing the binoculars.
"To remember my visit by."
Sapazani received the gift in the same dignified fashion, and they
instructed him how to find the focus. He tried it on various objects
and then handed it to an attendant.
"It is good," he said. "I will remember."
But to the proposal to snapshot him he returned a decided negative,
polite but firm. Denham was disappointed.
"Couldn't he show us his hut?" he said. "I should like to see what the
hut of a big chief is like inside."
This was readily acceded to. Sapazani rose and led the way. Then
Denham was even more struck by the tall, magnificently-proportioned
form, the great muscles showing through the brown satiny skin as the man
walked, easily, leisurely, straight as a pine-tree, with head slightly
thrown back. Verna could not help noticing that the two men, standing
upright together, were of exactly the same height and build, the savage
chieftain and the up-to-date English gentleman.
Denham admired the interior of the cool, spacious hut, with its polished
floor of hard, black clay, and the bowl-like fire-place in the centre,
the assegais disposed on pegs around the walls, and the clean, rolled-up
mats against one side. The place was a model of coolness and
cleanliness, he decided.
When they got outside again several of the chief's wives, convened by
Verna, were standing waiting for them. To these she distributed various
things she had brought, chatting and joking familiarly with them. They
were fine, merry-faced girls, and here again Denham found a keen bit of
character study. Sapazani accompanied his visitors to the gate of the
kraal--he was a stickler for old-time Zulu etiquette, as Ben Halse and
Verna, of course, knew, wherefore they had hitched up their horses
outside and bade them farewell.
"Well, and what do you think of our `show' chief now, Alaric?" said
Verna, as they started on their homeward ride.
"He's a splendid-looking fellow, and his manners are perfect," he
answered. But to himself he was thinking that had Sapazani been a white
man he would have resented the way in which the chief had looked at
Verna more than once. Being a native, of course, any such idea was
absurd, preposterous, out of the question. But he wondered whether Ben
Halse had noticed it.