Part 14 (2/2)

After our escape froon and his pious cree returned to our quarters in the palace and had a very good time The two Queens, the nobles and the people vied with each other in doing us honour and showering gifts upon us As for that painful little incident of the hippopotami it sank into oblivion, where ere quite content to leave it Every day deputations and individuals waited on us to exa, our chain shi+rts, and our instruhted In short, we becae, sothe Zu-Vendi began to copy the cut of so jacket One day, indeed, a deputation waited on us and, as usual, Good donned his full-dress uniform for the occasion This deputation seeenerally canificant men of an excessively polite, not to say servile, demeanour; and their attention appeared to be chiefly taken up with observing the details of Good's full-dress uniform, of which they took copious notes and measure that he had to deal with the six leading tailors of Milosis A fortnight afterwards, however, when on attending court as usual he had the pleasure of seeing solory of a very fair ied his ust It was after this, chiefly to avoid re out and had to be saved up, that we resolved to adopt the native dress; and a very coh I am bound to say that I looked sufficiently ridiculous in it, and as for Alphonse! Only Us; when his moocha orn out the fierce old Zulu rim and naked as his own battleaxe

Meanwhile we pursued our study of the language steadily andour adventure in the teniors presented themselves armed with manuscript books, ink-horns and feather pens, and indicated that they had been sent to teach us So, with the exception of U four hours a day As for Uaas, he would have none of that either He did not wish to learn that 'woman's talk', not he; and when one of the teachers advanced on him with a book and an ink-horn and waved them before hily shakes the offertory bag under the nose of a rich but niggardly parishi+oner, he sprang up with a fierce oath and flashed Inkosi-kaas before the eyes of our learned friend, and there was an end of the attes in useful occupation which grewas we proceeded, and the afternoons were given up to recreation Soold mines and another to the marble quarries both of which I wish I had space and ti buck with dogs trained for that purpose, and a very exciting sport it is, as the country is full of agricultural enclosures and our horses werethat the royal stables were at our command, in addition to which we had four splendid saddle horses given to us by Nyleptha

Soreat favour aenerally fly their birds at a species of partridge which is reht When attacked by the hawk this bird appears to lose its head, and, instead of seeking cover, flies high into the sky, thus offering wonderful sport I have seen one of these partridges soar up alht when followed by the hawk Still better sport is offered by a variety of solitary snipe as big as a small woodcock, which is plentiful in this country, and which is flown at with a very shly-trained haith an alhtning rapidity of the flight and htful one Another variety of the sa of a very sles; and it certainly is a reat bird soar and soar till he is nothing but a black speck in the sunlight, and then suddenly co buck that is hidden in a patch of grass fro eye Still finer is the spectacle when the eagle takes the buck running

On other days ould pay visits to the country seats at soreat lords' beautiful fortified places, and the villages clustering beneath their walls Herevineyards and corn-fields and well-kept park-like grounds, with such tiood tree There it stands so strong and sturdy, and yet so beautiful, a very type of the best sort of man How proudly it lifts its bare head to the winter stor has corand its voice is, too, when it talks with the wind: a thousand aeolian harps cannot equal the beauty of the sighing of a great tree in leaf All day it points to the sunshi+ne and all night to the stars, and thus passionless, and yet full of life, it endures through the centuries, co its sustenance from the cool boso the great enerations, outliving individuals, customs, dynasties--all save the landscape it adorns and hu battle and rejoices over a reclaiered work

Ah, one should always think twice before one cuts down a tree!

In the evenings it was customary for Sir Henry, Good, and myself to dine, or rather sup, with their Majesties--not every night, indeed, but about three or four times a week, whenever they had not much company, or the affairs of state would allow of it And I am bound to say that those little suppers were quite the s of their sort that I ever had to do with How true is the saying that the very highest in rank are always the most simple and kindly It is froet po very land between the old, out-at-elbows, broken-down county fa, purse-proud people who coreatest charenuine interest even in little things She is the simplest woman I ever knew, and where her passions are not involved, one of the sweetest; but she can look queenly enough when she likes, and be as fierce as any savage too

For instance, never shall I forget that scene when I for the first time was sure that she was really in love with Curtis It cah Good's weakness for ladies' society When we had been e Zu-Vendi, it struck Master Good that he was getting rather tired of the old gentlemen who did us the honour to lead us in the way that we should go, so he proceeded, without saying a word to anybody else, to inform them that it was a peculiar fact, but that we could not n language unless ere taught by ladies--young ladies, he was careful to explain In his own country, he pointed out, it was habitual to choose the very best-looking and ers who happened to coentlemen sed open-mouthed There was, they admitted, reason in what he said, since the conteht, induced a certain porosity of mind similar to that produced upon the physical body by the healthful influences of sun and air Consequently it was probable that we ue a little faster if suitable teachers could be found Another thing was that, as the feained in the viva voce departravely assented, and the learned gentle him that their orders were to fall in with our wishes in every way, and that, if possible, our views should be ust ofthe room where ere accusto, we found, instead of our usual venerable tutors, three of the best-looking young woood deal--who blushed and save us to understand that they were there to carry on our instruction Then Good, as we gazed at one another in bewilder that it had slipped his entle, that it was absolutely necessary that our further education should be carried on by the other sex I was overwhelmed, and appealed to Sir Henry for advice in such a crisis

'Well,' he said, 'you see the ladies are here, ain't they? If we sent thes, eh? One doesn't like to be rough, you see; and they look regular _blues_, don't they, eh?'

By this tiun his lessons with the handsoh I yielded That day everything went very well: the young ladies were certainly very clever, and they only smiled e blundered I never saw Good so attentive to his books before, and even Sir Henry appeared to tackle Zu-Vendi with a renewed zest

'Ah,' thought I, 'will it always be thus?'

Next day ere ly interspersed with questions about our native country, what the ladies were like there, etc, all of which we answered as best as we could in Zu-Vendi, and I heard Good assuring his teacher that her loveliness was to the beauties of Europe as the sun to the moon, to which she replied with a little toss of the head, that she was a plain teaching wo else, and that it was not kind 'to deceive a poor girl so' Then we had a little singing that was really chars areOn the third day ere all quite intimate Good narrated some of his previous love affairs to his fair teacher, and so led with his own

I discoursed with irl, upon Zu-Vendian art, and never saw that she aiting for an opportunity to drop a specimen of the cockroach tribe down overness appeared, so far as I could judge, to be going through a lesson frareat educational principles laid down by Wackford Squeers Esq, though in a very modified or rather spiritualized form

The lady softly repeated the Zu-Vendi word for 'hand', and he took hers; 'eyes', and he gazed deep into her brown orbs; 'lips', and--but just at thatlady dropped the cockroach downI loathe more than another it is cockroaches, andat her i on and threw it after her Iine then my shame--my horror, and uards only, in walked _Nyleptha_

The cushi+on could not be recalled (it uards on the head), but I instantly and ineffectually tried to look as though I had not thrown it Good ceased his sighing, and began to murder Zu-Vendi at the top of his voice, and Sir Henry whistled and looked silly As for the poor girls, they were utterly dumbfounded

And Nyleptha! she drew herself up till her frauards, and her face went first red, and then pale as death

'Guards,' she said in a quiet choked voice, and pointing at the fair but unconscious disciple of Wackford Squeers, 'slay ht

'Will ye do ain in the same voice, 'or will ye not?'

Then they advanced upon the girl with uplifted spears By this time Sir Henry had recovered hiedy

'Stand back,' he said in a voice of thunder, at the sairl 'Shame on thee, Nyleptha--shaood reason to try to protect her Thou couldst hardly do less in honour,' answered the infuriated Queen; 'but she shall die--she shall die,' and she stamped her little foot

'It is well,' he answered; 'then will I die with her I am thy servant, oh Queen; do with me even as thou wilt' And he bowed towards her, and fixed his clear eyes contemptuously on her face

'I could wish to slay thee too,' she answered; 'for thou dostthat she waswhat else to do, she burst into such a storm of tears and looked so royally lovely in her passionate distress, that, old as I a her It was rather odd to see hi what had just passed--a thought that seemed to occur to herself, for presently she wrenched herself free and went, leaving us all uards returned with a irls that they were, on pain of death, to leave the city and return to their homes in the country, and that no further harly they went, one of the philosophically that it could not be helped, and that it was a satisfaction to know that they had taught us a little serviceable Zu-Vendi Mine was an exceedingly nice girl, and, overlooking the cockroach, I made her a present of my favourite lucky sixpence with a hole in it when she went away After that our former masters resureat relief