"Siyakubona" (that is, "we see you," anglice "good morrow") "Saduko," I
said, eyeing him curiously. "Tell me, who is Mameena?"
"Inkoosi," he answered in his deep voice, lifting his delicately shaped
hand in salutation, a courtesy that pleased me who, after all, was
nothing but a white hunter, "Inkoosi, has not her father said that she
is his daughter?"
"Aye," answered the jolly old Umbezi, "but what her father has not said
is that Saduko is her lover, or, rather, would like to be. Wow! Saduko,"
he went on, shaking his fat finger at him, "are you mad, man, that you
think a girl like that is for you? Give me a hundred cattle, not one
less, and I will begin to think of it. Why, you have not ten, and
Mameena is my eldest daughter, and must marry a rich man."
"She loves me, O Umbezi," answered Saduko, looking down, "and that is
more than cattle."
"For you, perhaps, Saduko, but not for me who am poor and want cows.
Also," he added, glancing at him shrewdly, "are you so sure that Mameena
loves you though you be such a fine man? Now, I should have thought that
whatever her eyes may say, her heart loves no one but herself, and
that in the end she will follow her heart and not her eyes. Mameena the
beautiful does not seek to be a poor man's wife and do all the hoeing.
But bring me the hundred cattle and we will see, for, speaking truth
from my heart, if you were a big chief there is no one I should like
better as a son-in-law, unless it were Macumazahn here," he said,
digging me in the ribs with his elbow, "who would lift up my House on
his white back."
Now, at this speech Saduko shifted his feet uneasily; it seemed to me
as though he felt there was truth in Umbezi's estimate of his daughter's
character. But he only said: "Cattle can be acquired."
"Or stolen," suggested Umbezi.
"Or taken in war," corrected Saduko. "When I have a hundred head I will
hold you to your word, O father of Mameena."
"And then what would you live on, fool, if you gave all your beasts to
me? There, there, cease talking wind. Before you have a hundred head of
cattle Mameena will have six children who will not call you father.
Ah, don't you like that? Are you going away?"
"Yes, I am going," he answered, with a flash of his quiet eyes; "only
then let the man whom they do call father beware of Saduko."
"Beware of how you talk, young man," said Umbezi in a grave voice.
"Would you travel your father's road? I hope not, for I like you well;
but such words are apt to be remembered."