He thanked me with a grave dignity which I had never seen in any Kaffir. As my eye fell on his splendid proportions I forgot all else in my admiration of the man. In his minister’s clothes he had looked only a heavily built native, but now in his savage dress I saw how noble a figure he made. He must have been at least six feet and a half, but his chest was so deep and his shoulders so massive that one did not remark his height. He put a hand on my saddle, and I remember noting how slim and fine it was, more like a high-bred woman’s than a man’s. Curiously enough he filled me with a certain confidence. “I do not think you will cut my throat,” I said to myself. “Your game is too big for common murder.” The store at Umvelos’ stood as I had left it. There was the sjambok I had forgotten still lying on the window sill. I unlocked the door, and a stifling smell of new paint came out to meet me. Inside there was nothing but the chairs and benches, and in a corner the pots and pans I had left against my next visit. I unlocked the cupboard and got out a few stores, opened the windows of the bedroom next door, and flung my kaross on the cartel which did duty as bed. Then I went out to find Laputa standing patiently in the sunshine. I showed him the outhouse where I had said he might sleep. It was the largest room in the store, but wholly unfurnished. A pile of barrels and packing-cases stood in the corner, and there was enough sacking to make a sort of bed. “I am going to make tea,” I said. “If you have come far you would maybe like a cup?” He thanked me, and I made a fire in the grate and put on the kettle to boil. Then I set on the table biscuits, and sardines, and a pot of jam. It was my business now to play the fool, and I believe I succeeded to admiration in the part. I blush to-day to think of the stuff I talked. First I made him sit on a chair opposite me, a thing no white man in the country would have done. Then I told him affectionately that I liked natives, that they were fine fellows and better men than the dirty whites round about. I explained that I was fresh from England, and believed in equal rights for all men, white or coloured. God forgive me, but I think I said I hoped to see the day when Africa would belong once more to its rightful masters.