"How do you do, sir?" Ishmael jerked out at last. "You are an early visitor, and find me somewhat unprepared. If I had known that you were coming I would"--then suddenly he remembered his attire, or the lack of it, also his companion who was leaning on his shoulder, and peeping at the white man over it. Drawing the kaross tightly about him, he gave the poor girl a backward kick, and with a Kaffir oath bade her begone, then went on hurriedly: "I am afraid my dress is not quite what you are accustomed to, but among these poor heathens I find it necessary to conform more or less to their ways in order to gain their confidence and--um--affection. Will you come into the hut? My servant there will get you some tywala (Kaffir beer)--I mean some amasi (curdled milk) at once, and I will have a calf killed for breakfast."
Mr. Dove could bear it no longer.
"Ishmael, or Smith, or Ibubesi--whichever name you may prefer," he broke out, "do not lie to me about your servant, for now I know all the truth, which I refused to believe when my daughter and Nonha told it me. You are a black-hearted villain. But yesterday you dared to come and ask Rachel to marry you, and now I find that you are living--oh! I cannot say it, it makes me ashamed of my race. Listen to me, sir. If ever you dare to set foot in Ramah again, or to speak to my wife and daughter, the Kaffirs shall whip you off the place. Indeed," he added, shaking his sjambok in Ishmael's face, "although I am an older man than you are, were it not for my office I would give you the thrashing you deserve."
At first Ishmael had shrunk beneath this torrent of invective, but the threat of violence roused his fierce nature. His face grew evil, and his long black hair and beard bristled with wrath.
"You had best get out of this, you prayer-snuffling old humbug," he said savagely, "for if you stop much longer I will make you sing another tune. We have sea-cow whips here, too, and you shall learn what a hiding means, such a hiding that your own family won't know you, if you live to get back to them. Look here, I offered to marry your daughter on the square, and I meant what I said. I'd have got rid of all this black baggage, and she should have been the only one. Well, I'll marry her yet, only now she'll just take her place with the others. We are all one flesh and blood, black and white, ain't we? I have often heard you preach it. So what will she have to complain of?" he sneered. "She can go and hoe mealies like the rest."