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I drank the soup, which was very good, and as I handed back the gourd, answered "Kaatje has told me that the lady Heddana is dead. Can the dead make soup?" She considered the point while she threw some bits of meat out of the bottom of the gourd to the dog, Lost, then replied "I do not know, Macumazahn, or indeed whether the dead eat as we do.
As I was returning towards the Tugela who should I meet but friend Goza, he who had escorted me from the Black Kloof to Ulundi before the outbreak of war, and who afterwards escorted me and that unutterable nuisance, Kaatje, out of the country.
Well can I recall how much I enjoyed the first whisky and soda that I had tasted since I left "the Temple," and the good English food by which it was accompanied. Presently I remembered Kaatje, whom I had left outside with some native women, and went to see what had happened to her.
The rest of our journey was uneventful, except for more misunderstandings about Kaatje, one of which, wherein a clergyman was concerned, was too painful to relate. At last we reached Maritzburg, where I deposited Kaatje in a boarding-house kept by another half-cast, and with a sigh of relief betook myself to the Plough Hotel, which was a long way off her.
But she only smiled and, shaking her head in a fascinating way that was peculiar to her, remarked that I could not deceive her as I did the Kaffirs. After this the solid Kaatje brought the food and we breakfasted very heartily, or at least I did.
Next time my Spirit visits me I will make inquiry and tell you the answer. But I do know that it is very strange that you, who always turn your back upon the truth, are so ready to accept falsehoods. Why should you believe that the lady Heddana is dead just because Kaatje told you so, when I who am still alive had sworn to you that I would protect her with my life? Nay, speak no more now.
"Oh! what a terrible-looking man," she murmured, "if he is a man." The maid Kaatje saw him also and uttered a little cry. "Don't be frightened, dear," said Anscombe, "he is only an old dwarf." "I suppose so," she exclaimed doubtfully, "but to me he is like the devil." Nombe slid past us.
Here, being very tired, I went to sleep, and that is all." And quite enough too, thought I to myself. Then I put her through a cross-examination, but Kaatje was a stupid woman although a good and faithful servant, and all her terrible experiences had not sharpened her intelligence.
I called to Nombe and asked where Kaatje was, whereon she smiled and said that she had gone away, taking the bag with her. This pained me, for I had always found Kaatje quite honest " "Which she is," I remarked, "for those jewels are now in a bank at Maritzburg."
So the night wore away, till at length I woke to see the gleam of dawn penetrating the smoke-hole and dimly illuminating the recumbent form of Kaatje, which to me looked most unattractive. Presently I heard a discreet tapping on the doorboard of the hut which I at once removed, wriggling swiftly through the hole, careless in my misery as to whether I met an assegai the other side of it or not.
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