incident to Sapazani, quite in a
light, casual way. The chief was strangely angry, far more so than the
occasion seemed to warrant, she had thought, with a mild, passing
astonishment.

"I would I had known of this at the time, Izibu," he had said. "That
_ishinga_ might have found some difficulty in returning to his own part
of the country. He is not one of our own people, he belongs to Induba.
But those coast dwellers--_Hau_! They are only half men. All the _man_
is burnt out of them among the sugar canes and the fever." Then, with
bitterness, "But what is a chief in these days? _I_ am no chief. Every
white man is chief now, if he is sent by Government--every white _boy_,
rather. There are no chiefs left in the land of Zulu. Even those of
our people who act as dogs to the courts of the white magistrates think
they are chiefs over us. _Hau_!"

And Verna had answered consolingly--

"No one, in all the land of Zulu--white or not--could mistake Sapazani
for anything but a chief."

Now, her customers having retired outside, and there being no sign of
others arriving, Verna betook herself outside too. The rich glow of
sunshine filled the air, seeming to envelop the fine form of this
splendid daughter of the wilderness in its sensuous embrace. She stood
for a moment gazing forth--her clear eyes dilating upon the glories of
the far-spreading landscape. Then her glance rested upon her father,
who, seated under a tree a little way distant, was engaged in apparently
earnest converse with a single Zulu.

The latter she recognised as one Undhlawafa, a man she knew well, and
the favourite and trusted induna of Sapazani. What were they talking
about? she wondered. Well, whatever it was she would not interrupt
them, so she passed on into the dwelling-house.

Undhlawafa, who up till then had been talking preliminary commonplace,
half turned to make sure she was safely out of earshot. Then he went on
to expatiate on a very large koodoo bull that was always to be met with
of late in the same haunts down yonder in the Lumisana forest. And now
the moon was nearly at full. Horns? Such horns, went on Undhlawafa.
_Whau_! Horns of such a size had never been seen. His listener was
vividly interested.

The matter touched Ben Halse on two points of his character--love of
sport, and love of money-making. For the first, he, an old up-country
man, resented the restrictions as to the killing of game that had come
in wit