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Morico, more accustomed to foreign sounds in the woods than she, was the first to detect the approach of Grégoire, whom he went out hurriedly to meet, glad of the relief from the supposed necessity of entertaining his puzzling visitor.
Morico fussily preceded her into the house and placed a great clumsy home-made rocker at her disposal, into which she cast herself with every appearance of bodily distress. He then busied himself in tidying up the room out of deference to his guest; gathering up the scissors, waxen thread and turkey feathers which had fallen from his lap in his disturbance, and laying them on the table.
“Sacré imbécile,” muttered Grégoire, between his teeth, and vouchsafed him no other answer, but nodded to Morico and turned away. Fanny followed with a freedom of movement quite unlike that of her coming. Morico went into the house and coming back hastily to the door called to Joçint: “Bring back that flask of whisky that you took off the table.” “You’re a liar: you know I have no use for whisky.
Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on until reaching a small clearing among the pines, in the center of which stood a very old and weather beaten cabin. Here she dismounted, before Morico knew of her presence, for he sat with his back partly turned to the open door.
During the reign of Chaka, 1813-1828, whose history has been sketched in a previous chapter, one of his most famous generals, Mosilikatze, surnamed the Lion, seceded from him with a large number of his soldiers, and striking up in a north-westerly direction, settled in or about what is now the Morico district of the Transvaal.
Not seeing her he proceeded to make inquiry of the servants; first appealing to Betsy. “I don’ know whar Miss T’rèse,” with a rising inflection on the “whar.” “I yain’t seed her sence mornin’, time she sont Unc’ Hi’um yonda to old Morico wid de light bread an’ truck,” replied the verbose Betsy. “Aunt B’lindy, you know whar Miss T’rèse?”
But no with renewed effort he begins again his slow retreat, till at last a sigh of relief comes from the whole watching multitude. Morico with his burden has reached a spot of safety. What will he do next? They watch in breathless suspense. But Morico does nothing. He only stands immovable as a carved image.
He was conscious of an inward repulsion which this action of Grégoire’s awakened in him, much the same as a feeling of disgust for an animal whose instinct drives it to the doing of violent deeds, yet he made no difference in his manner towards him. Thérèse was deeply distressed over this double tragedy: feeling keenly the unhappy ending of old Morico.
“Ah, this is quite the handsomest you have made yet, Morico,” she said addressing him in French, and taking up the fan that he was curiously fashioning of turkey feathers.
She thrust out her hand to ward it away as though it had been a reptile that menaced her with its sting. Morico looked nonplussed and a little abashed: but he had much faith in the healing qualities of his remedy and urged it on her anew. She trembled a little, and looked away with rather excited eyes. “Je vous assure madame, ça ne peut pas vous faire du mal.”
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