FOOTNOTE:

[2] A term of deference frequently used in addressing one of the royal
family.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LINDELA.

A woman, young, tall, perfectly proportioned, light of colour, and with
the bright and pleasing expression common among the well-born of the
Ba-gcatya maidens, enhanced by large lustrous eyes, lips parted in a
smile half-startled, half-coquettish, revealing a row of teeth of
dazzling whiteness of unrivalled evenness. She wore a _mutya_ or skirt
of beautiful bead-work, and a soft robe of dressed fawn-skin but half
concealed the splendid outlines of her frame. Withal there was an aspect
of dignity in her erect carriage, and the pose of her head, which the
Grecian effect of the _impiti_, or cone into which her hair was gathered
above the scalp, went far to enhance. She was not alone--two other young
women, also attractive of aspect, being in attendance upon her, though
these held somewhat in the background.

"Greeting, Nyonyoba," she began, in a sweet and musical voice. "I was
startled for a moment--here where I expected to find none."

"To thee, greeting, daughter of the great," returned Laurence, for this
girl was a princess of the highest rank in the nation, being, in fact, a
daughter of Nondwana the king's brother--that same chief whose son's
accession to manhood was to be the occasion of his own departure to
another sphere. Nor was it, indeed, the first time these two had talked
together.

"And why are you sad and heavy of countenance, Nyonyoba? Was the hunt
bad--the game scarce?" she went on, with a quick searching glance into
his eyes.

"Not so," he answered. "Those who are with me bring on much ivory for
the king's treasury. For yourself, Lindela, I found a bright-plumaged
and rare bird, which I will stuff and set up for you."

The girl uttered a cry of delight, and her face brightened. It so
happened that Laurence was something of a taxidermist, and had already
stuffed a few birds and small animals for the chief's daughter, who was
as delighted with her increasing "museum" as any child could have been.
Now, in her unfeigned glee over the prospect of a new specimen, Lindela
looked extremely attractive; and noting it, an unconscious softness had
crept into the man's tone. Even the girls behind noticed it, and
whispered to each other, sniggering:

"_Hau! Isityeli!_ Quite a wooer! Nyonyoba is hoeing up new land."

"Withdraw a little from these, Lindela," he said in a lowered to