beautiful wife in the land. She is my daughter, though not that of the
Worn-out-Old-Cow; her mother died when she was born, on the night of the
Great Storm. You should ask Saduko there who Mameena is," he added with
a broad grin, lifting his head from the gun, which he was examining
gingerly, as though he thought it might go off again while unloaded, and
nodding towards someone who stood behind him.

I turned, and for the first time saw Saduko, whom I recognised at once
as a person quite out of the ordinary run of natives.

He was a tall and magnificently formed young man, who, although his
breast was scarred with assegai wounds, showing that he was a warrior,
had not yet attained to the honour of the "ring" of polished wax laid
over strips of rush bound round with sinew and sewn to the hair, the
"isicoco" which at a certain age or dignity, determined by the king,
Zulus are allowed to assume. But his face struck me more even than his
grace, strength and stature. Undoubtedly it was a very fine face, with
little or nothing of the negroid type about it; indeed, he might have
been a rather dark-coloured Arab, to which stock he probably threw back.
The eyes, too, were large and rather melancholy, and in his reserved,
dignified air there was something that showed him to be no common
fellow, but one of breeding and intellect.

"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?"