."

"Why, as to the last it will be good," answered the chief, with a
sparkle in his fine eyes. "For the first, I am not hungry."

Herein again in this detail the man differed from his up-to-date
countryman, who will seldom, if ever, refuse anything offered.

Verna rose and went into the house, returning with a large bottle of the
excellent ale they brew in Maritzburg, and a long glass.

"Good!" exclaimed the guest, as he drained the foaming brew. "_Wou_!
Our people cannot make such _tywala_ as this." The while he had been
noting, with calm approval, every movement of the girl: the fine
erectness of her carriage, the firm walk, straight from the hips. As he
talked he noted, too, the quick movements of her floury hands and arms,
for she had resumed her occupation. At last he rose to take leave. The
sun was getting low, he said, and he had still far to travel.

"Wait," said the girl. Then she walked round to the store, returning
immediately with a few unconsidered trifles, such as a large
sheath-knife and belt, a packet of snuff and some brass buttons, also
strings of beads.

"This is something that even a chief may find useful," she said, handing
him the knife, which he accepted with a pleasant murmur of thanks.
"These," she went on, handing him the smaller things, "will please
Nonente and Malima," naming two of Sapazani's youngest and favourite
wives.

These, too, he took. Verna, putting up both hands to adjust the pins in
the large and rather untidy knot of brown hair at the back of her
well-shaped head, stood contemplating him with a flash of roguish
mischief in her eyes; the joke being that she was morally compelling so
great a chief as Sapazani to carry something, however small, for a
couple of mere women. But she reckoned without that potentate's power
of resource.

"Ho, Samhlu!" he called to the stable boy, who was passing, and now
turned hurriedly, obsequiously.

"Thou wilt bear these behind me," said Sapazani, handing him the other
things. Then, unconcernedly belting the knife round his own exalted
person, he took a pleasant farewell of his very attractive entertainer,
and, followed by the boy, who was one of his own people, strode away
over the veldt.

Verna, looking after him, laughed to herself. Her guest had not
merely--and readily--cut the knot of his own dilemma, but had turned the
tables on her by depriving her of the services of her boy for the rest
of the day. But she thoroughly