“It is agreed.”
So the two girls went to the entrance of the tent,
and Noie with a swift motion tossed up the hairs.
As it happened one of those little eddies of wind
which are common in South Africa, caught them, causing
them to rise almost perpendicularly into the air.
At a certain height, about forty feet, the supporting
wind seemed to fail, that is so far as the hair from
Noie’s head was concerned, for there it floated
high above them like a black thread in the sunlight,
and gently by slow degrees came to the earth just
at their feet. But the hair from Rachel’s
head, being caught by the fringe of the whirlwind,
was borne upwards and onwards very swiftly, until
at length it vanished from their sight.
“It seems that I stay,” said Noie.
“Yes,” answered Rachel. “I
am very glad; also if any evil comes of it we are
not to blame, the wind is to blame.”
“Yes, Lady, but what makes the wind to blow?”
Again Rachel shrugged her shoulders, and asked a question
in her turn.
“Whither has that hair of mine been borne, Noie?”
“I do not know, Lady. Perhaps my father’s
spirit took it for his own ends. I think so.
I think it went northwards. At any rate when mine
fell, it was snatched away, was it not? And yet
they both floated up together. I think that one
day you will follow that hair of yours, Lady, follow
it to the land where great trees whisper secrets to
the night.”
THE MESSAGE OF THE KING
So it chanced that Noie became a member of the Dove
household. For obvious reasons she changed her
name, and thenceforward was called Nonha. Also
it happened that Mr. Dove abandoned his idea of settling
as a missionary in Zululand, and instead, took up
his residence at this beautiful spot. He called
it Ramah because it was a place of weeping, for here
all the family and dependents of Seyapi had been destroyed
by the spear. Mrs. Dove thought it an ill-omened
name enough, but after her manner gave way to her
husband in the matter.
“I think there will be more weeping here before
everything is done,” she said.
Rachel answered, however, that it was as good as any
other, since names could alter nothing. Here,
then, at Ramah, Mr. Dove built him a house on that
knoll where first he had pitched his camp. It
was a very good house after its fashion, for, as has
been said, he did not lack for means, and was, moreover,
clever in such matters. He hired a mason who had
drifted to Natal to cut stone, of which a plenty lay
at hand, and two half-breed carpenters to execute
the wood-work, whilst the Kaffirs thatched the whole
as only they can do. Then he set to work upon
a church, which was placed on the crest of the opposite
knoll where the white man, Ishmael, had appeared on
the evening of their arrival. Like the house,
it was excellent of its sort, and when at length it
was finished after more than a year of labour, Mr.
Dove felt a proud man.
