Read "The Shadow of the Past" by Ethel Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Butter Tom was busy outside the rondavel shaking the dust from the skin mats which covered the floor. He glanced up at Honor's approach, and smiled with a cautious deference that concealed his vague distrust of her more effectually than it hid his nervousness. The missis with the face of a lily in the moonlight possessed the cunning of a devil. Already she had worked evil towards the baas he served. Her appearance now he believed portended further evil. He was afraid of her with the unreasoning fear of a man who realises his inability to resist a superior will. If she commanded him to do a thing, he would do it because he dared not refuse. He likened her to the fleet-footed powers of evil which outdistanced the chameleon, the tardy messenger of the gods, who failed through its dilatoriness to deliver the World from the ills which afflict mankind. She came towards him swiftly, as evil travels, with the speed of the wind, and halted beside him, warmly flushed and panting for breath.
Butter Tom gathered up his mats, and, grinning nervously, prepared to retreat with them; but Honor stayed him with a gesture.