“You are in my house,” he said, wiping the blood from his beard, “and an old man, so I can’t kill you as I would anyone else. But you have made me your enemy now, you fool, and others can. I have protected you so far for your daughter’s sake, but I won’t do it any longer. You think of that when your time comes.”
“My time, like yours, will come when God wills,” answered Mr. Dove unflinchingly, “not when you or anyone else wills. I do not fear you in the least. Still, I am sorry that I struck you, it was a sin of which I repent as I pray that you may repent.”
Then he mounted his horse and rode away from the kraal Mafooti.
When Mr. Dove reached Ramah he only said to Rachel that what she had heard was quite true, and that he had forbidden Ishmael the house. Of course, however, Noie soon learnt the whole story from the Kaffir guides, and repeated it to her mistress. To his wife, on the other hand, he told everything, with the result that she was very much disturbed. She pointed out to him that this white outcast was a most dangerous man, who would certainly be revenged upon them in one way or another. Again she implored him, as she had often done before, to leave these savage countries wherein he had laboured for all the best years of his life, saying that it was not right that he should expose their daughter to the risks of them.
“But,” answered her husband, “you have often told me that you were sure no harm would come to Rachel, and I think that, too.”
“Yes, dear, I am sure; still, for many reasons it does not seem right to keep her here.” She did not add, poor, unselfish woman, that there was another who should be considered as well as Rachel.
“How can I go away,” he went on excitedly, “just when all the seed that I have sown is ripening to harvest? If I did so, my work would be utterly lost, and my people relapse into barbarism again. I am not afraid of this man, or of anything that he can do to my body, but if I ran away from him it would be injuring my soul, and what account should I give of my cowardice when my time comes? Do you go, my love, and take Rachel with you if you wish, leaving me to finish my work alone.”
But now, as before, Mrs. Dove would not go, and Rachel, when she was asked, shrugged her shoulders and answered laughing that she was not afraid of anybody or anything, and, except for her mother’s sake, did not care whether she went or stayed. Certainly she would not leave her, nor, she added, did she wish to say goodbye to Africa.