Kafir Stories | Page 8

and he at once declared his intention of entering the ministry. He took to theological study with the greatest avidity, and for several years was looked upon as the coming man of the mission. Suddenly he again changed; his moral conduct remained free from reproach, but his faculty for serious study appeared to have left him. He brooded deeply, taught the junior pupils in an irregular and, on the whole, very perfunctory manner, and seemed to be consumed by a deep and abiding sadness. It was afterwards noticed that this change dated from about a year after Miss Blake had taken up her residence at the mission.
Samuel possessed A rich, full baritone voice, and he seemed to regain his old vigour and enthusiasm only on those occasions when he sang in the choir. There his voice rang out clear above the others as he led; his eye flashed, and his countenance lit up. He was a tall and strongly built man, with a face unlike the usual Kafir type. His lips were thin, his nose narrow and prominent, and his eyes large and somewhat protruding. In point of physiognomy, he somewhat resembled a North American Indian.
III.
It was on a warm night in late Spring that Miss Elizabeth Blake sat under the verandah which ran along the whole front of the mission house. A slight thunderstorm had just passed, and another was following on its trail. Summer lightnings were gleaming through the soft haze, and distant thunders muttered from time to time. Brown, furry beetles dashed themselves violently against the windows of the dining-room, where a lamp still burned, and the pneumoras wailed their melancholy love-songs from the willow trees along the water-furrow. The junior teacher was seeing her charges to bed, for prayers were just over, and Miss Blake was enjoying a few moments' rest in the mild air before taking up her task of preparing the next day's work. The missionary and his wife were away, visiting at the next-neighbouring mission, and were not expected back until the following afternoon.
Hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, Miss Blake looked round, and saw Samuel Gozani approaching. He came slowly up the steps, and stood silently before her, leaning against one of the verandah poles.
"Good evening, Samuel," she said.
"Good evening, Miss Elizabeth; you do not often take a rest."
"I seldom have time."
Samuel remained silent, and the girl regarded him intently. She had long noticed his demeanour, and had often wondered as to what was on his mind.
"Samuel," she said, sympathetically, "why have you been so strange of late? Is anything the matter with you?"
Samuel cleared his throat as if to speak, shifted his feet, but said nothing.
"Do you not know," she continued, "that your class is going backward, that you often forget to set the lessons, and that half the time you are teaching you appear as if you do not know what you are doing? Tell me, is there anything on your mind? Have you done anything you are sorry for?"
Samuel again cleared his throat, shifted his feet, and with an evident effort replied:
"I have not committed any sin, but I know my work is done badly. My heart is so heavy that I can hardly bear the weight."
"What is this heaviness?"
Samuel did not reply, but after a pause asked this question:
"Miss Elizabeth, do you believe that all men, white and black, are equal?"
The girl paused for a moment. In her heart of hearts she knew she did not think so, but the fundamental axiom weighed heavily on her, the well-worn arguments of the missionary arose and threatened her, pointing with skinny fingers at the abyss which lay in the road of the opposite view, so she muffled her answer up carefully in a platitude, and handed it to her hearer, trusting that the muffler would somewhat conceal its nakedness.
"Of course," she said, "the bad are not equal to the good; but if God holds that otherwise all men are equal, it would be wrong of any one to think differently."
"But white people never really think that we blacks are equal to them," said Samuel, speaking in a strained tone, "no matter what they say."
Miss Blake felt unable to reply, so after a short pause Samuel continued:
"When a black man walks in the ways of the whites, he becomes a stranger to his own kind, and he has really no friends. The white man says 'Come here to us,' and when the black man comes as near as he can, there is still a gulf that he cannot pass. I am a lonely man, Miss Elizabeth; I have left my own people, and there is no one that I can call a friend. Even you only tolerate me because you think it pleasing to God that you should do so; but