r thorn enclosure within
which rose the yellow domes of half a dozen grass huts.

Two native girls--well-formed as to frame, and with faces that would
have been pleasing only that the bare sight of Bully Rawson was not
calculated to bring a pleasant expression into any human countenance--
were squatted on the ground. Both wore the _impiti_, or reddened cone
of hair rising from the scalp, together with the apron-like _mutya_
which denotes the married state. They were, in fact, his two wives.

"Where is Pakisa?" he said.

"He? Away at the wood-cutting," answered one.

"You two then, go and pick up the `pictures' I have scattered."

"And the meat I am roasting--what of it?" said the one who had answered.

"You, Nompai," turning to the other, "You go--_au_! _tyetya_!"

This one got up and went out without a word--taking care not to pass
this manly specimen any nearer than she could help. As she rose she
slung an infant on to her back--an infant far lighter in colour than the
lightest native.

"You, Nkombazana, you are rising to the heavens," he sneered. "You are
growing too tall for me. Now I think some hard stick laid about thy
bones will keep thee from growing so over fast."

The woman's eyes glittered, and a sort of snarl just revealed the fine
white teeth. But she did not move. She only said:

"The Snake-doctor--_whau_! his _muti_ is great and subtle."

The white man, in the voice of a wild beast's growl, fired off a storm
of expletives, mixing up Anglo-Saxon where the Zulu fell short of lurid
enough blasphemy. But Nkombazana answered nothing, and still did not
move.

He made a step towards her, then stopped short. The allusion was one he
perfectly understood, and it seemed--yes, it seemed almost to cow him.
With her he knew well it would not do to go too far. She was a Zulu,
and the daughter of a fairly influential chief; the other, Nompai, was a
Swazi and the daughter of nobody in particular, wherefore Nompai came in
for her own share of kicks, and most--not all--of Nkombazana's too. He
had a lively recollection of a sudden and unaccountable illness--an
internal illness--which had seized upon him on a fairly recent occasion,
and which for hours had put him through the torments of the damned.
This had followed--it might have been a coincidence--right upon a
terrific thrashing he had administered to Nkombazana, and his awful
convulsions had only been allayed by the treatment of a certain
_isanu