Therefore he proposed to trek away alone.
I answered that I should have thought he had done enough solitary travelling in this veld, seeing how his last expedition had ended.

He replied that he had, indeed, but everyone here was so bitter against him that no choice was left.

Then he added with an outburst of truth: "Allemachte! Mynheer Quatermain, do you suppose that it is pleasant for me to see you making love all day to the maid who was my betrothed, and to see her paying back the love with her eyes?
Yes, and doubtless with her lips, too, from all I hear." "You could leave her whom you called your betrothed, but who never was betrothed to anyone but me with her own will, to starve in the veld, mynheer.

Why, then, should you be angry because I picked up that which you threw away, that, too, which was always my own and not yours?
Had it not been for me, there would now be no maid left for us to quarrel over, as, had it not been for me, there would be no man left for me to quarrel with about the maid." "Are you God, then, Englishman, that you dispose of the lives of men and women at your will?
It was He Who saved us, not you." "He may have saved you, but it was through me.

I carried out the rescue of these poor people whom you deserted, and I nursed you back to life." "I did not desert them; I went to get help for them." "Taking all the powder and the only horse with you! Well, that is done with, and now you want to borrow goods to pay for cattle--from me, whom you hate.