A lovely woman, truly; and yet there was something not quite pleasing about that beautiful face; something, notwithstanding its childlike outline, which reminded me of a flower breaking into bloom, that one does not associate with youth and innocence. I tried to analyse what this might be, and came to the conclusion that without being hard, it was too clever and, in a sense, too reflective. I felt even then that the brain within the shapely head was keen and bright as polished steel; that this woman was one made to rule, not to be man’s toy, or even his loving companion, but to use him for her ends.
She dropped her chin till it hid the little, dimple-like depression below her throat, which was one of her charms, and began not to look at, but to study me, seeing which I shut my eyes tight and waited. Evidently she thought that I was still in my swoon, for now she spoke to herself in a low voice that was soft and sweet as honey.
“A small man,” she said; “Saduko would make two of him, and the other”–who was he, I wondered–“three. His hair, too, is ugly; he cuts it short and it sticks up like that on a cat’s back. Iya!” (i.e. Piff!), and she moved her hand contemptuously, “a feather of a man. But white–white, one of those who rule. Why, they all of them know that he is their master. They call him ‘He-who-never-Sleeps.’ They say that he has the courage of a lioness with young–he who got away when Dingaan killed Piti [Retief] and the Boers; they say that he is quick and cunning as a snake, and that Panda and his great indunas think more of him than of any white man they know. He is unmarried also, though they say, too, that twice he had a wife, who died, and now he does not turn to look at women, which is strange in any man, and shows that he will escape trouble and succeed. Still, it must be remembered that they are all ugly down here in Zululand, cows, or heifers who will be cows. Piff! no more.”
She paused for a little while, then went on in her dreamy, reflective voice:
“Now, if he met a woman who is not merely a cow or a heifer, a woman cleverer than himself, even if she were not white, I wonder–”
At this point I thought it well to wake up. Turning my head I yawned, opened my eyes and looked at her vaguely, seeing which her expression changed in a flash from that of brooding power to one of moved and anxious girlhood; in short, it became most sweetly feminine.
“You are Mameena?” I said; “is it not so?”
“Oh, yes, Inkoosi,” she answered, “that is my poor name. But how did you hear it, and how do you know me?”
“I heard it from one Saduko”–here she frowned a little–“and others, and I knew you because you are so beautiful”–an incautious speech at which she broke into a dazzling smile and tossed her deer-like head.
“Am I?” she asked. “I never knew it, who am only a common Zulu girl to whom it pleases the great white chief to say kind things, for which I thank him”; and she made a graceful little reverence, just bending one knee. “But,” she went on quickly, “whatever else I be, I am of no knowledge, not fit to tend you who are hurt. Shall I go and send my oldest mother?”
“Do you mean her whom your father calls the ‘Worn-out-old-Cow,’ and whose ear he shot off?”
“Yes, it must be she from the description,” she answered with a little shake of laughter, “though I never heard him give her that name.”
“Or if you did, you have forgotten it,” I said dryly. “Well, I think not, thank you. Why trouble her, when you will do quite as well? If there is milk in that gourd, perhaps you will give me a drink of it.”
She flew to the bowl like a swallow, and next moment was kneeling at my side and holding it to my lips with one hand, while with the other she supported my head.