“Why don’t you?” I asked.

“Oh! for many reasons.  I have lost touch with all that and become half wild and I like this life and the sunshine and being my own master.  Also, if I did, things might be raked up against me, about that man’s death.  Also, though I daresay it will make you think badly of me for it, Mr. Quatermain, I have ties down there,” and he waved is hand towards the village, if so it could be called, “which it wouldn’t be easy for me to break.  A man may be fond of his children, Mr. Quatermain, even if their skins ain’t so white as they ought to be.  Lastly I have habits—­you see, I am speaking out to you as man to man—­which might get me into trouble again if I went back to the world,” and he nodded his fine, capable-looking head in the direction of the bottle on the table.

“I see,” I said hastily, for this kind of confession bursting out of the man’s lonely heart when what he had drunk took a hold of him, was painful to hear.  “But how about your daughter, Miss Inez?”

“Ah!” he said, with a quiver in his voice, “there you touch it.  She ought to go away.  There is no one for her to marry here, where we haven’t seen a white man for years, and she’s a lady right enough, like her mother.  But who is she to go to, being a Roman Catholic whom my own dour Presbyterian folk in Scotland, if any of them are left, would turn their backs on?  Moreover, she loves me in her own fashion, as I love her, and she wouldn’t leave me because she thinks it her duty to stay and knows that if she did, I should go to the devil altogether.  Still—­perhaps you might help me about her, Mr. Quatermain, that is if you live to come back from your journey,” he added doubtfully.

I felt inclined to ask how I could possibly help in such a matter, but thought it wisest to say nothing.  This, however, he did not notice, for he went on,

“Now I think I will have a nap, as I do my work in the early morning, and sometimes late at night when my brain seems to clear up again, for you see I was a sailor for many years and accustomed to keeping watches.  You’ll look after yourself, won’t you, and treat the place as your own?” Then he vanished into the house to lie down.

When I had finished my pipe I went for a walk.  First I visited the waggon where I found Umslopogaas and his company engaged in cooking the beast that had been given them, Zulu fashion; Hans with his usual cunning had already secured a meal, probably from the servants, or from Inez herself; at least he left them and followed me.  First we went down to the huts, where we saw a number of good-looking young women of mixed blood, all decently dressed and engaged about their household duties.  Also we saw four or five boys and girls, to say nothing of a baby in arms, fine young people, one or two of whom were more white than coloured.

“Those children are very like the Baas with the red beard,” remarked Hans reflectively.