stuff was enough to
constitute an attempt on old Zavula's life, there's nothing to be gained
by stirring up any mud over the job. He's cute enough, and obviously
able to take care of himself. The jolly old boy sent me quite an
affectionate message only the day before yesterday--no--it was the day
before that."

The grisly side to this statement lay in the fact that on the day named
the said `jolly old boy' was lying in his unknown grave in the rock
cleft--had been for some time--and the whole of the Amahluzi tribe was
in a simmering state of incipient rebellion.

"You see a good deal of the Thornhills, don't you, Elvesdon?" said the
doctor, changing the subject.

"Yes. I like them too. It's a jolly lucky thing, I reckon, to find a
man like Thornhill at one's elbow in a place like this. He's such a
rational, level-headed chap--cultured too, and rattling good company."

"And the girl--what do you think of her?"

"She's charming--so unconventional, and high bred to the finger tips, as
the French say, or, to put it literally, `to the ends of the nails.' I
don't mind telling you, Vine, that she's clean outside my experience."

The older man smiled queerly.

"Yes. She's a nice girl," he said, "but--peculiar."

Now Elvesdon had just reached that stage with regard to Edala that this
damning of her with faint praise rather jarred upon him.

"Well but--isn't she?" he retorted, unwittingly sharply. "Nice--I
mean."

"I said so," answered the other.

Still Elvesdon was not satisfied. There was something infernally,
provokingly, shut-up-like-an-oyster about the tone. He felt moved to
`draw' the utterer.

"Peculiar, you said," he went on. "Yes, that I can believe. Do you
know, Vine, the first Sunday I went over there, I had a queer
experience. You know that big mountain on their place just opposite the
house--Sipazi it is called?" The doctor nodded. "Well then, they took
me up there in the afternoon to show me the view. You'll remember that
tremendous krantz that literally overhangs the valley?" Again the other
nodded. "Well there's a beast of a tree that grows out from its brink,
horizontally at first, then upwards. There's just room for one--fool, I
was nearly saying--or one and a half, to sit on it. Well what does the
young lady do but climb down and sit on it as if she was in an armchair
on the stoep at home. It turned me nearly sick to see her do it, I can
tell you."

"I daresay."

"That's