To my surprise she answered me in the same tongue, spoken, it is true, with a peculiar accent which I could not place, as it was neither Scotch nor Irish.
“Thank you,” she said. “I, sir, was frightened. Your friends look——” Here she stumbled for a word, then added, “terrocious.”
I laughed at this composite adjective and answered,
“Well, so they are in a way, though they will not harm you or me. But, young lady, tell me, can we outspan here? Perhaps your husband——”
“I have no husband, I have only a father, sir,” and she sighed.
“Well, then, could I speak to your father? My name is Allan Quatermain and I am making a journey of exploration, to find out about the country beyond, you know.”
“Yes, I will go to wake him. He is asleep. Everyone sleeps here at midday—except me,” she said with another sigh.
“Why do you not follow their example?” I asked jocosely, for this young woman puzzled me and I wanted to find out about her.
“Because I sleep little, sir, who think too much. There will be plenty of time to sleep soon for all of us, will there not?”
I stared at her and inquired her name, because I did not know what else to say.
“My name is Inez Robertson,” she answered. “I will go to wake my father. Meanwhile please unyoke your oxen. They can feed with the others; they look as though they wanted rest, poor things.” Then she turned and went into the house.
“Inez Robertson,” I said to myself, “that’s a queer combination. English father and Portuguese mother, I suppose. But what can an Englishman be doing in a place like this? If it had been a trek-Boer I should not have been surprised.” Then I began to give directions about out-spanning.
We had just got the oxen out of the yokes, when a big, raw-boned, red-bearded, blue-eyed, roughly-clad man of about fifty years of age appeared from the house, yawning. I threw my eye over him as he advanced with a peculiar rolling gait, and formed certain conclusions. A drunkard who has once been a gentleman, I reflected to myself, for there was something peculiarly dissolute in his appearance, also one who has had to do with the sea, a diagnosis which proved very accurate.
“How do you do, Mr. Allan Quatermain, which I think my daughter said is your name, unless I dreamed it, for it is one that I seem to have heard before,” he exclaimed with a broad Scotch accent which I do not attempt to reproduce. “What in the name of blazes brings you here where no real white man has been for years? Well, I am glad enough to see you any way, for I am sick of half-breed Portuguese and niggers, and snuff-and-butter girls, and gin and bad whisky. Leave your people to attend to those oxen and come in and have a drink.”
