Between Snow and Fire — page 77: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 te a ‘ .* ‘ . 2 “AH, LOVE, BUT A DAY!. and yet keeping his hands clenched tightly in hers as gh she would hold him at arm’s length but could not. MPastace ! !mydarling! How isitgoingtoend? How?” The very thought which had passed unspoken through his own mind. “Dearest, think only of the present. For the future— who knows! Did we not agree just now—life is full of éé Att / hd thop Both started. Eanswyth could not repress a little scream, while even E\ustace realised that he wastaken at a disad- vantage, as he turned to confront the owner of the deep bass voice which had fired off the above ejaculation. It proceeded from a tall, athletic Kafir, who, barely ten _yards off, stood calmly surveying the pair. His grim and “massive countenance was wreathed into an amused smile. His nearly naked body was anointed with the usual red ochre, and round the upper part of his left arm he wore a splendid ivory ring. He carried a heavy knob-kerrie and several assegais, one of which he wastwisting about in easy, listless fashion in his right hand. , At sight of this extremely unwelcome, not to say formidable, apparition, Eustace’s hand instinctively and with a quick movement sought the back of his hip—a movement which a Western man would thoroughly have understood. But he withdrew it—empty. For his eye, familiar with every change of the native countenance, noted that the expression of this man’s face was good humoured rather than aggres- sive. And withal it seemed partly familiar to him. “Who are you—and what do you want ?” he said shortly. Then as his glance fell upon a bandage wrapped round the barbarian’s shoulder: “ Ah. I know you—Hlangani.” “Keep your ‘little gun’ in your pocket, Ixeshane,” said the Kafir, speaking in a tone of good humoured banter. “Tam not the man to be shot at twice. Besides, lam not your enemy. If I were, I could have killed you many times over already, before you saw me; could have killed you both, you and the /rkostkast.” This was self-evident. Eustace, recognising it, felt rather small. He to be taken thus ata disadvantage, he, who had constituted himself Eanswyth’s special protector against GComiecboo cS (eco) mn b J