At length
it spoke in a thick, guttural voice, using the tongue that seemed to
be common to this part of Africa and indeed to that branch of the
Bantu people to which the Zulus belong, but, as I thought, with a
foreign accent.
"So /you/ are the white men come back," it said slowly. "Let me
count!" and lifting one skinny hand from the ground, it pointed with
the forefinger and counted. "One. Tall, with a white beard. Yes, that
is right. Two. Short, nimble like a monkey, with hair that wants no
comb; clever, too, like a father of monkeys. Yes, that is right.
Three. Smooth-faced, young and stupid, like a fat baby that laughs at
the sky because he is full of milk, and thinks that the sky is
laughing at him. Yes, that is right. All three of you are just the
same as you used to be. Do you remember, White Beard, how, while we
killed you, you said prayers to One Who sits above the world, and held
up a cross of bone to which a man was tied who wore a cap of thorns?
Do you remember how you kissed the man with the cap of thorns as the
spear went into you? You shake your head--oh! you are a clever liar,
but I will show you that you are a liar, for I have the thing yet,"
and snatching up a horn which lay on the kaross beneath him, he blew.
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