resentful
muttering. White men? Mere dogs, dogs whom they would soon send
howling back to their own kraals--was the gist of it. But the old chief
continued his rebuke. Let them go home, he concluded, if they could not
behave otherwise than as half-grown boys.

"I see before me, my friend, Kulondeka," he added. "Now I am going to
talk with a _man_."

"Eulondeka"--meaning "safe"--was the name by which Harley Greenoak was
known to all the Bantu tribes south of the Zambesi. The latter greeted
the old chief with great cordiality, and in a moment they were deep in
conversation.

"I say, I rather like the look of that old chap," said Dick Selmes, who
had skipped up on to the stoep again--he had clean forgotten his late
_protege_ now. "Hanged if I won't stand him a drink. Give him a good
big one, MacFennel."

"He wouldn't touch it, Mr Selmes; no, not if you gave him twenty cows,"
answered the innkeeper, with a laugh. "He's got such an awful example
before him in the shape of his big chief, old Sandili. That old soaker
would think nothing of mopping up a whole bucketful of grog, and as much
more as you liked to stack under his nose."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Dick. "We'll give him a yard of 'bacco instead--
no--give him a whole roll, I'll stand the racket."

"Ah, that'll fetch him," said the other, going inside to find the
required article.

"I say, Greenoak. Introduce me," sang out Dick. "First time I've seen
a chief, and I must have a jaw with him--through you, of course."

The old man, who wore about him no insignia of chieftainship, unless it
were a very old and well-worn suit of European clothes, smiled kindly at
the young one; and remarked that he must be the son of a very great man
in his own country, for he looked it. Then, as Dick handed him the big
roll of Boer tobacco which MacFennel just then brought, he fairly
beamed.

"Oh, MacFennel, I wish you'd give him a lot of beads and things out of
your store," went on Dick, "also on my own account, they'll do fine for
his wives. I expect he's got about twenty."

"All right, Mr Selmes. He may have more though."

"Well, give him a good lot for each one. How many has he got,
Greenoak?"

This was put, Greenoak explaining that it was the desire of the son of
the great English chief to make a present to each, and in the result it
transpired that the old Gaika had less than twenty, but certainly more
than one.

So they chatted on, Harley Greenoak not