At length the great day of the trial dawned, and with it came the beaming face of ’Manthla’s father with his irrepressible ‘Allee right!’ He marched in and billeted himself upon us for about six days. I am not aware whether this was owing to prolonged litigation or to the enjoyment of living at some one else’s expense. At all events, when the week expired, the _babba_ vouchsafed the information that the case had gone against him, and that he had to restore the bullocks, at the same time cheerily adding: ‘It’s allee right, allee right!’ Nevertheless, he went away very downcast, after another ineffectual attempt to collect Capelle’s wages in advance. A day or two afterwards, the cattle were returned to Indebbelish with a bad grace; but Umhlassu gave Babba Pank eight oxen, with a promise of other two at some future period; and the heart of the old man rejoiced. The sympathies of my wife had been aroused in favour of Indebbelish; but her interest instantly vanished when she found that ‘the poor, forsaken young man,’ long previous to his ‘courtship’ of ’Manthla, was already possessed of three wives! When Indebbelish received back the oxen from the _babba_, he simply drove them off to another kraal, and purchased an ebony virgin to complete his connubial quartet.
About eighteen months afterwards, I happened to be amongst the Saturday morning throng on the Market Square of Maritzburg. Hundreds of people—English, Dutch, Indian, and Kaffir—were moving about the dusty expanse of ground, which was covered with auctioneers’ stands, bullock-wagons, sacks of produce, cows and horses on sale, and large quantities of the miscellaneous household goods which find their way to colonial marts. At one part of the ground, a number of Kaffir wives were squatted alongside heaps of firewood, which they had conveyed into town, and were now selling. As I observed them, my boy Capelle suddenly drew my attention to a woman who was walking towards the group. She carried a great load of firewood in long lengths poised upon her head, and a baby slung behind her in a blanket. I dimly recollected her face; Capelle told me her name, and ran forward to speak to her. It was none other than the heroine of the love-match—poor ’Manthla!