I ask no wages, only a bit of food and a handful of
tobacco, and the light of your face and a word now and again of the
memories that belong to both of us. I am still very strong. I can
shoot well--well, Baas, who was it that put it into your mind to aim
at the tails of the vultures on the Hill of Slaughter yonder in
Zululand, and so saved the lives of all the Boer people, and of her
whose holy name must not be mentioned? Baas, you will not turn me
away?"
"No," I answered, "you can come. But you will swear by the spirit of
my father, the Predikant, to touch no liquor on this journey."
"I swear by his spirit and by that of the Holy One," and he flung
himself forward on to his knees, took my hand and kissed it. Then he
rose and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "If the Baas can give me two
blankets, I shall thank him, also five shillings to buy some tobacco
and a new knife. Where are the Baas's guns? I must go to oil them. I
beg that the Baas will take with him that little rifle which is named
/Intombi/ (Maiden), the one with which he shot the vultures on the
Hill of Slaughter, the one that killed the geese in the Goose Kloof
when I loaded for him and he won the great match against the Boer whom
Dingaan called Two-faces.
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