Chapter Ten.Two Pacts.It will be remembered that my first impressions as regarded Beryl Matterson savoured somewhat of disappointment. By the time I had dwelt a week beneath the same roof I could only marvel how such could have been the case. Now I had dwelt beneath it a month, and the prospect of life apart from her presence seemed not worth contemplating. To such a pass had things come.What a time that had been—golden, idyllic! When I was not accompanying Brian or his father upon their rides or walks, on stock supervision or sport intent, I would inveigle Beryl forth on the plea of being putau courantwith the flora and fauna of the country. Nor was the plea a fictitious one, for I had always had a leaning towards natural history, albeit precious little time or opportunity for indulging the same; but now, with such a companion, and such a taste in common! Ah, those long rides, the glorious sense of freedom and glowing enjoyment, the exhilaration of the atmosphere, the deep unclouded blue of the heavens, the rolling bush country—earth, air, foliage, all athrill with pulsating life, animal or insect life, never silent, never for a moment still—small wonder that those days should go by as in a very dream of Paradise!But real life is not idyllic, only its episodes, and they but rarely; wherefore, fearing to outstay my welcome, I mooted the subject of moving on. Brian’s blank stare of amazement was something to behold.“Why, Holt, you’ve only just begun to know us,” he said, “and it would be affectation to suppose you are not enjoying your stay, because any one could see that you are, even if you hadn’t said so yourself. You can’t leave us yet. You mustn’t think of it—must he, dad?”“Certainly not,” declared Septimus Matterson with all his wonted decision. “Why, Iris would cry her eyes out. She’s quite fallen in love with you, Holt.”For the little girl had returned home, and her seaside adventure—with me in the rôle of rescuing hero—had been made known. She had bound Brian to secrecy on the subject during her absence, lest her amusements should be restricted and herself placed under an irksome surveillance. Further than that he refused to be bound, nor did she herself desire it. On receipt of which tidings I really have the most confused recollection of what was said to me by each and all, or of the banalities I stuttered out as the nearest approach to a “suitable reply.” The only definite thing that lives in my memory is the physical agony I strove to repress what time Septimus Matterson’s iron grip enclosed my own far from delicate paw, while he declared that his house was henceforth as much my home as it was that of his own children, whenever and as long as I chose to make use of it—a declaration which went far to neutralise the excruciating experience which emphasised it, remembering that the said home was that of Beryl also. Even George was graciously pleased to approve of me, and in the result ceased to play me monkey tricks or to make me the butt of his covert impertinence.“Man, Mr Holt, but that was fine!” he pronounced in reference to the episode. “Ja, I’d like to have been there! But I thought fellows from England couldn’t do anything of that sort.”“Let it be a lesson to you then, George,” I said with dignity, “that ‘fellows from England’ are not necessarily asses.”Then I felt foolish, for the remark savoured of a touch of complacent brag, and Beryl was a witness. But she seemed to read my inner confusion, and smiled reassuringly.“There was Trask,” went on the imp; “when he first came out he couldn’t hit a house unless he was shut up inside it. He couldn’t sit a horse either.Ja, we used to have fun out of Trask.”“I should sayMrTrask, George,” said Beryl.The correction was received with a lordly contempt, as the young rascal went on—“Can you sit a bucking horse, Mr Holt?”“Did you ever hear what the man said when he was asked if he could open oysters, George?” I said.“No. What?”“I’ve never tried.”He looked puzzled, then annoyed. Beryl and Iris broke into a peal of laughter.“Don’t see where any joke comes in,” he grunted. “But why not have a try now, Mr Holt? There’s Bontebok up in the stable. He always bucks when you first get on him. I’ll go and tell Sixpence to saddle him up just now.”“You’ll do nothing of the sort, George,” pronounced Iris decisively. “You’re a great deal too cheeky. I wonder Mr Holt stands it. Besides, we want him to go out with us.”That dear little girl! I was fond of her already, but more than ever now that she had come to my rescue in that whole-hearted and tactful fashion. For I did not want to make an exhibition of myself and furnish forth a circus entertainment with Beryl for audience; and it would have been difficult, unaided, to have backed out of what was in effect a challenge, without jeopardising my reputation.“Another time, George. Another time,” I answered loftily.“Right you are; I’ll tell them to keep Bontebok up,” came the ready response. “He’ll be livelier in the morning.”The young villain, you see, was not going to let me down so easily.“But I may not be. Those circus tricks are all very well for an unfledged young monkey like you, George, but a middle-aged buffer isn’t always on for that sort of game.”“Middle-aged buffer! That’s good,” jeered the young rascal. “Why, you and Brian were at school together.”“Oh, George, will you scoot?” interrupted Iris, emphasising the injunction with a far from gentle push. “You’re getting such a bore, you know. Go and make yourself useful in some way, if you can. Get the air-gun and go and shoot some mouse birds. Brian and dad both want some tails to clean their pipes with.”“Can’t. Dad’d object. It’s Sunday.”“Well, anyhow—scoot. I don’t want you. So long.”“I’m on for a swim in the dam,” was the answer. “I’ll go and rout out Brian.”Iris, you see, ruled the house, including George. Including me, I might add; but for me her rule was light. She was almost more grateful to me for keeping my own counsel upon it than for getting her out of her perilous predicament. Anyhow, we were great friends, and she teased me with the same freedom and whole-heartedness that she teased Brian, who idolised her; but in her bright, pretty, engaging little ways there was none of the covert impudence that characterised Master George’s attempts at banter.“I hear you are going to stay with us altogether, Mr Holt,” she broke out suddenly an hour later as we were resting, having gained the objective of our Sunday afternoon stroll—a beautiful spot deep down in a kloof, where a pile of rocks all festooned with maidenhair fern overhung a large water-hole, and on the lower side steep upsweeping slopes of foliage cut a sharp V of green and gold against the azure of an unclouded sky, while the varied call and whistle of birds kept up a continuous echo of melody. Whoever it was who gave rise to the saying that South African birds have no song is guilty of libel, for the varying and melodious cheeriness of the bird voices, at any rate in bush country, constitutes one of its greatest charms, and the very unfamiliarity of these is in effective keeping with the wildness of the surroundings.“Well, for some little time, at any rate,” I answered.“I’m glad. You’re rather a good chap, you know, Mr Holt.”Beryl and I exchanged glances, she intensely amused, while I laughed outright.“I didn’t know it, Iris; but am delighted to learn the fact on your indisputable authority,” I answered.She flung a handful of grass sprays at me, which she had been absently plucking.“Don’t use those beastly long words,” she said. “No, but really I am glad.”The straight glance of the pretty blue eyes full upon my face expressed all a delightful child’s genuine liking. I own to having felt in my innermost self considerably moved thereby.“I must take off my hat this time,” I said, suiting the action to the word with a sweep of mock elaboration. “Miss Matterson, will you second the resolution just proposed?” I added, turning to Beryl.“Ah, why do you always say ‘Miss Matterson’?” interrupted Iris decisively. “It’s so stiff. Why don’t you say ‘Beryl’?”“May I?” was the obvious rejoinder—indeed, the only possible one.“Why not, Mr Holt? I’m sure if there is anybody whom we have every reason to look upon as one of ourselves it is you.” Yet with the words, frank and friendly as they were, ever so slight a colour had come into the sweet calm face. But before I could make any reply Iris emitted a loud whistle.“Look at that, Beryl,” she cried derisively. “And then you call him ‘Mr Holt.’”“The very thing I was going to remark upon,” I said.“Very well, then,” said Beryl. “Then I won’t do it again.” This time the colour had disappeared, but I could have sworn I caught a momentary look in those soulful eyes that would have justified me, had I been alone, in throwing my hat in the air and hooraying, or executing any other frantic and maniacal manoeuvre indicative of delirious exaltation.“Then it’s a bargain,” I said.“Yes,” smiled Beryl.Now what had given rise to that dear child’s original remark was a certain conversation that had been held that morning over at the kraals at counting-out time.“Why don’t you make up your mind to stop out here altogether, Holt?” Brian had said, as, the job aforesaid over, we were leaning against a gate watching the flocks streaming away to their respective pasture grounds. “You seem to take to the life, too. Man, you’ll never feel at home in one of those beastly stuffy offices again after this, grinding away at figures. Why don’t you cut loose from it all, and fix up out here? You can do it. Don’t you think he ought, dad?”“I think he might do worse,” was the answer. “As you say, he seems to take readily enough to it.”With the words an idea had flashed into my brain, an idea that was as a veritable illumination.“But before I could start on my own account I should want a precious deal more experience than I’ve got at present,” I said. “There are heaps of things I should have to learn.”“Yes, you would have a good deal to learn,” said Septimus Matterson, shading a match with his hands as he lit his pipe.“Look here, Mr Matterson,” I said, coming straight to the point. “Will you teach me—you and Brian? I am not a man of large means, but anything in the way of a premium that you may think fair, I shall be only too happy—er—er—that I am content to leave entirely to you,” I stuttered.Septimus Matterson had lit his pipe now, and stood emitting puffs of smoke slowly, while a queer smile deepened upon his strong handsome face. Then he said—“I don’t often swear, Holt, as I believe you’ll bear me out in saying. But in this case I’m going to make an exception. Premium be damned!”At this Brian threw back his head and roared, while I, puzzled, grinned idiotically.“What I mean is,” he went on, “in the first place it’s not likely I’d take any remuneration from you for giving me a helping hand. Even if you hadn’t saved my darling little girl’s life, as a friend of Brian’s you’re heartily welcome to any assistance I could give you. Wait a bit—” interrupting the protest I was trying to stammer forth. “In the next place, we don’t as a rule take premiums in this country for teaching a fellow to farm—the few who do are generally just the ones who can’t teach him anything at all. And, finally, every word I said to you the other day I meant. So if you’re inclined to stay on here and pick up your knowledge of the life and experience of the country by helping us, why this place is your home for just as long as ever you like to make it so.”“Rather,” appended Brian in his quietly emphatic way. “Give us a fill, dad,” reaching out a hand for the paternal pouch.I have but a confused idea of what I said in reply, probably something incoherent, as my way is when genuinely moved, possibly because that is a mental process I so seldom undergo. Anyhow, the matter was settled to the satisfaction of all parties, which was the main thing.
It will be remembered that my first impressions as regarded Beryl Matterson savoured somewhat of disappointment. By the time I had dwelt a week beneath the same roof I could only marvel how such could have been the case. Now I had dwelt beneath it a month, and the prospect of life apart from her presence seemed not worth contemplating. To such a pass had things come.
What a time that had been—golden, idyllic! When I was not accompanying Brian or his father upon their rides or walks, on stock supervision or sport intent, I would inveigle Beryl forth on the plea of being putau courantwith the flora and fauna of the country. Nor was the plea a fictitious one, for I had always had a leaning towards natural history, albeit precious little time or opportunity for indulging the same; but now, with such a companion, and such a taste in common! Ah, those long rides, the glorious sense of freedom and glowing enjoyment, the exhilaration of the atmosphere, the deep unclouded blue of the heavens, the rolling bush country—earth, air, foliage, all athrill with pulsating life, animal or insect life, never silent, never for a moment still—small wonder that those days should go by as in a very dream of Paradise!
But real life is not idyllic, only its episodes, and they but rarely; wherefore, fearing to outstay my welcome, I mooted the subject of moving on. Brian’s blank stare of amazement was something to behold.
“Why, Holt, you’ve only just begun to know us,” he said, “and it would be affectation to suppose you are not enjoying your stay, because any one could see that you are, even if you hadn’t said so yourself. You can’t leave us yet. You mustn’t think of it—must he, dad?”
“Certainly not,” declared Septimus Matterson with all his wonted decision. “Why, Iris would cry her eyes out. She’s quite fallen in love with you, Holt.”
For the little girl had returned home, and her seaside adventure—with me in the rôle of rescuing hero—had been made known. She had bound Brian to secrecy on the subject during her absence, lest her amusements should be restricted and herself placed under an irksome surveillance. Further than that he refused to be bound, nor did she herself desire it. On receipt of which tidings I really have the most confused recollection of what was said to me by each and all, or of the banalities I stuttered out as the nearest approach to a “suitable reply.” The only definite thing that lives in my memory is the physical agony I strove to repress what time Septimus Matterson’s iron grip enclosed my own far from delicate paw, while he declared that his house was henceforth as much my home as it was that of his own children, whenever and as long as I chose to make use of it—a declaration which went far to neutralise the excruciating experience which emphasised it, remembering that the said home was that of Beryl also. Even George was graciously pleased to approve of me, and in the result ceased to play me monkey tricks or to make me the butt of his covert impertinence.
“Man, Mr Holt, but that was fine!” he pronounced in reference to the episode. “Ja, I’d like to have been there! But I thought fellows from England couldn’t do anything of that sort.”
“Let it be a lesson to you then, George,” I said with dignity, “that ‘fellows from England’ are not necessarily asses.”
Then I felt foolish, for the remark savoured of a touch of complacent brag, and Beryl was a witness. But she seemed to read my inner confusion, and smiled reassuringly.
“There was Trask,” went on the imp; “when he first came out he couldn’t hit a house unless he was shut up inside it. He couldn’t sit a horse either.Ja, we used to have fun out of Trask.”
“I should sayMrTrask, George,” said Beryl.
The correction was received with a lordly contempt, as the young rascal went on—
“Can you sit a bucking horse, Mr Holt?”
“Did you ever hear what the man said when he was asked if he could open oysters, George?” I said.
“No. What?”
“I’ve never tried.”
He looked puzzled, then annoyed. Beryl and Iris broke into a peal of laughter.
“Don’t see where any joke comes in,” he grunted. “But why not have a try now, Mr Holt? There’s Bontebok up in the stable. He always bucks when you first get on him. I’ll go and tell Sixpence to saddle him up just now.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, George,” pronounced Iris decisively. “You’re a great deal too cheeky. I wonder Mr Holt stands it. Besides, we want him to go out with us.”
That dear little girl! I was fond of her already, but more than ever now that she had come to my rescue in that whole-hearted and tactful fashion. For I did not want to make an exhibition of myself and furnish forth a circus entertainment with Beryl for audience; and it would have been difficult, unaided, to have backed out of what was in effect a challenge, without jeopardising my reputation.
“Another time, George. Another time,” I answered loftily.
“Right you are; I’ll tell them to keep Bontebok up,” came the ready response. “He’ll be livelier in the morning.”
The young villain, you see, was not going to let me down so easily.
“But I may not be. Those circus tricks are all very well for an unfledged young monkey like you, George, but a middle-aged buffer isn’t always on for that sort of game.”
“Middle-aged buffer! That’s good,” jeered the young rascal. “Why, you and Brian were at school together.”
“Oh, George, will you scoot?” interrupted Iris, emphasising the injunction with a far from gentle push. “You’re getting such a bore, you know. Go and make yourself useful in some way, if you can. Get the air-gun and go and shoot some mouse birds. Brian and dad both want some tails to clean their pipes with.”
“Can’t. Dad’d object. It’s Sunday.”
“Well, anyhow—scoot. I don’t want you. So long.”
“I’m on for a swim in the dam,” was the answer. “I’ll go and rout out Brian.”
Iris, you see, ruled the house, including George. Including me, I might add; but for me her rule was light. She was almost more grateful to me for keeping my own counsel upon it than for getting her out of her perilous predicament. Anyhow, we were great friends, and she teased me with the same freedom and whole-heartedness that she teased Brian, who idolised her; but in her bright, pretty, engaging little ways there was none of the covert impudence that characterised Master George’s attempts at banter.
“I hear you are going to stay with us altogether, Mr Holt,” she broke out suddenly an hour later as we were resting, having gained the objective of our Sunday afternoon stroll—a beautiful spot deep down in a kloof, where a pile of rocks all festooned with maidenhair fern overhung a large water-hole, and on the lower side steep upsweeping slopes of foliage cut a sharp V of green and gold against the azure of an unclouded sky, while the varied call and whistle of birds kept up a continuous echo of melody. Whoever it was who gave rise to the saying that South African birds have no song is guilty of libel, for the varying and melodious cheeriness of the bird voices, at any rate in bush country, constitutes one of its greatest charms, and the very unfamiliarity of these is in effective keeping with the wildness of the surroundings.
“Well, for some little time, at any rate,” I answered.
“I’m glad. You’re rather a good chap, you know, Mr Holt.”
Beryl and I exchanged glances, she intensely amused, while I laughed outright.
“I didn’t know it, Iris; but am delighted to learn the fact on your indisputable authority,” I answered.
She flung a handful of grass sprays at me, which she had been absently plucking.
“Don’t use those beastly long words,” she said. “No, but really I am glad.”
The straight glance of the pretty blue eyes full upon my face expressed all a delightful child’s genuine liking. I own to having felt in my innermost self considerably moved thereby.
“I must take off my hat this time,” I said, suiting the action to the word with a sweep of mock elaboration. “Miss Matterson, will you second the resolution just proposed?” I added, turning to Beryl.
“Ah, why do you always say ‘Miss Matterson’?” interrupted Iris decisively. “It’s so stiff. Why don’t you say ‘Beryl’?”
“May I?” was the obvious rejoinder—indeed, the only possible one.
“Why not, Mr Holt? I’m sure if there is anybody whom we have every reason to look upon as one of ourselves it is you.” Yet with the words, frank and friendly as they were, ever so slight a colour had come into the sweet calm face. But before I could make any reply Iris emitted a loud whistle.
“Look at that, Beryl,” she cried derisively. “And then you call him ‘Mr Holt.’”
“The very thing I was going to remark upon,” I said.
“Very well, then,” said Beryl. “Then I won’t do it again.” This time the colour had disappeared, but I could have sworn I caught a momentary look in those soulful eyes that would have justified me, had I been alone, in throwing my hat in the air and hooraying, or executing any other frantic and maniacal manoeuvre indicative of delirious exaltation.
“Then it’s a bargain,” I said.
“Yes,” smiled Beryl.
Now what had given rise to that dear child’s original remark was a certain conversation that had been held that morning over at the kraals at counting-out time.
“Why don’t you make up your mind to stop out here altogether, Holt?” Brian had said, as, the job aforesaid over, we were leaning against a gate watching the flocks streaming away to their respective pasture grounds. “You seem to take to the life, too. Man, you’ll never feel at home in one of those beastly stuffy offices again after this, grinding away at figures. Why don’t you cut loose from it all, and fix up out here? You can do it. Don’t you think he ought, dad?”
“I think he might do worse,” was the answer. “As you say, he seems to take readily enough to it.”
With the words an idea had flashed into my brain, an idea that was as a veritable illumination.
“But before I could start on my own account I should want a precious deal more experience than I’ve got at present,” I said. “There are heaps of things I should have to learn.”
“Yes, you would have a good deal to learn,” said Septimus Matterson, shading a match with his hands as he lit his pipe.
“Look here, Mr Matterson,” I said, coming straight to the point. “Will you teach me—you and Brian? I am not a man of large means, but anything in the way of a premium that you may think fair, I shall be only too happy—er—er—that I am content to leave entirely to you,” I stuttered.
Septimus Matterson had lit his pipe now, and stood emitting puffs of smoke slowly, while a queer smile deepened upon his strong handsome face. Then he said—
“I don’t often swear, Holt, as I believe you’ll bear me out in saying. But in this case I’m going to make an exception. Premium be damned!”
At this Brian threw back his head and roared, while I, puzzled, grinned idiotically.
“What I mean is,” he went on, “in the first place it’s not likely I’d take any remuneration from you for giving me a helping hand. Even if you hadn’t saved my darling little girl’s life, as a friend of Brian’s you’re heartily welcome to any assistance I could give you. Wait a bit—” interrupting the protest I was trying to stammer forth. “In the next place, we don’t as a rule take premiums in this country for teaching a fellow to farm—the few who do are generally just the ones who can’t teach him anything at all. And, finally, every word I said to you the other day I meant. So if you’re inclined to stay on here and pick up your knowledge of the life and experience of the country by helping us, why this place is your home for just as long as ever you like to make it so.”
“Rather,” appended Brian in his quietly emphatic way. “Give us a fill, dad,” reaching out a hand for the paternal pouch.
I have but a confused idea of what I said in reply, probably something incoherent, as my way is when genuinely moved, possibly because that is a mental process I so seldom undergo. Anyhow, the matter was settled to the satisfaction of all parties, which was the main thing.
Chapter Eleven.The Objectionable Trask.Now as I sat there, that still and radiant afternoon, in the sylvan wildness of our shaded resting-place, whose cool gloom contrasted well with the golden warmth of the sunlight beyond, I was rather more disposed for silence than speech. I was thinking, and the subject matter of my thoughts was all unalloyed with any misgiving of foreboding that should tarnish its brightness. I was realising Beryl’s presence, and all that it meant to me. There she was, within a couple of yards of me, and the mere consciousness of this was all-sufficing. I was contrasting, too, this wondrous change which had come into my life—such a joy of living, such a new awakening to its possibilities. It seemed I was hardly the same man. I who had hitherto gone through life in a neutral-tinted sort of way, content to exist from day to day among neutral-tinted surroundings, with, as I thought hitherto, a happy immunity from all violent interests or emotions. And now, by an almost magical wave of a wizard wand, I had been transported to this fair land, to sunlight from gloom, to a golden awakening from a drab slumbrous acquiescence in a bovine state of existence, which supplied the physical wants, leaving all others untouched. And the magic which had wrought this upheaval—“Well? A penny for your thoughts.”I turned to the speaker. It was perhaps as well that the child was with us, or I don’t know what I might have been led into saying, probably prematurely, and would thus have tumbled down my own bright castles in the air.“He’s thinking of his pipe,” said Iris mischievously. “Brian always gets into a brown study too when he’s plunged in smoke. Beryl, I think we must make him put it out.”“Don’t be a little barbarian, Iris,” I answered, knocking the ashes out of the offending implement. “The fact is, I was thinking of what a blessed instrument of Providence was the prow of theKittiwakewhen it knocked my sculling boat to matchwood in mid-Channel and brought me here. That was all.”“Oh yes. You were thinking you’d like to be back in that smoky old London of yours, and how slow we all are,” retorted Iris. “Trask’s always crowding London down our throats. I hate the very sound of its name. It must be a beastly hole. I always ask him why he doesn’t go back there if he’s so fond of it.”“I should sayMrTrask, Iris,” I said, with a sly glance at Beryl.“Ach!” exclaimed the child disgustedly, throwing a handful of grass stalks at me.After all, we were only enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, talking nonsense, as people will at such times—anyhow, indulging in no rational conversation worth chronicling. And Beryl and I would engage in a playful argument on some unimportant trifle, and Iris, with child-like restlessness, would wander about, now throwing a stone into a water-hole to scare a mud turtle floating with its head on the surface, or peer about from bush to bush trying to discover a bird’s nest; and at last as the afternoon wore on we started to retrace our steps homeward.It will always linger in my memory, that peaceful, utterly uneventful stroll. The flaming wheel of the westering sun was drawing down to the farther ridge as we came in sight of the tree-embowered homestead, with a soft blue smoke-reek or two curling up into the still air. The bleat of the returning flocks was borne to us from the distance; and, approaching along a bush path which should converge with ours, came half a dozen Kafirs of both sexes, walking single file, the red ochre colouring their blankets and persons harmonising not uneffectively with the prevailing green of the surroundings, while the full tones of their melodious language—the deep bass of the males and the rich pleasing inflection of women’s voices as they conversed—added an additional note of completeness to the closing beauty of a typical African day. And within my mind was the all-pervading thought that this day was but the beginning of many such; that the next, and the morrow, and the day after, that would be brightened and illuminated by the same sweet companionship—even that of her who was now beside me; that each day’s occupation would be sweetened and hallowed by the thought that we were dwellers beneath the same roof—and then—and then—who could tell? Ah, it was one of those periods that come to some of us at a time in our lives when imagination is fresh, and heart and mind unseared by shattered illusions, and the corroding gall of latter days not even so much as suspected then.“Hullo!” I exclaimed, catching sight of a third figure strolling beside Brian and his father, “Who’s that? Looks like Trask.”“Yes, it is,” assented Beryl.The appearance of the stranger seemed to mar the harmony of the situation to my mind. I did not like Trask. He was one of those men who, wherever they find themselves, never give any one a chance of forgetting their presence; no, not even for a moment. When Trask appeared at Gonya’s Kloof—which, by the way, was the name of the Mattersons’ farm—why, there was no possibility of overlooking the fact, for he simply monopolised the whole conversation. He was a man of about my own height and build, and three or four years my senior, on the strength of which, and of having about that amount of colonial experience, he chose to assume towards my humble self a good-humouredly contemptuous and patronising manner, which to me was insufferable. Not infrequently, too, he would try his hand at making me a butt for his exceedingly forced and laboured wit, which is a thing I don’t take. He was a neighbour of twelve miles or so, where he farmed—or was supposed to farm—his own place, and was reputed well off. To crown his other offences in my eyes, he was a bachelor, and was a precious deal too fond of coming over to Gonya’s Kloof on any or no pretext.Turning from his greeting to the girls—a greeting to my mind dashed with a perfectly unwarrantable tone of familiarity—he opened on me.“Ha, Holt, getting more into the way of things now, I suppose? You’ll soon know your way about. Things take a little getting into at first—ha-ha!”This in a sort of bray, accompanied by a condescending expression.Catching Brian’s eye, I discerned a killing twinkle therein.“Why, Trask,” he said in his quiet way, “Holt’s got into the way of things about twice as quick as any imported man I ever knew.”“Yes. Twice as quick,” repeated Beryl, in emphatic assent.I fancy Trask didn’t like this—he looked as if he didn’t; but I did, though of course I made no sign either way. Now all this was petty, and by every rule I ought to have been superior to any such trivial annoyances. But bear in mind that I make no claim to be a hero; indeed, I propose in this narrative to set down my own weaknesses with a candid and impartial hand. And I intensely disliked Trask.The latter proceeded to make himself at home. Of course he was going to stay the evening, equally of course when we sat down to table he must needs plant himself on the other side of Beryl, and the only thing that kept him from entirely monopolising her was that he could not bring himself to allow the attention of any one else in the room to stray for many moments from himself, and as usual the conversation consisted of Trask, with an occasional monosyllable of assent or dissent interjected elsewhere. So hidebound was the self-complacency of Trask that even George found it profitless to cheek him with any effect, although in justice to George I am bound to say he tried his level best.“What stay are you making, Holt?” brought out Trask, by way of varying the conversation.Now this sort of query propounded to a guest right in the eye of his entertainers has always struck me as the very acme of idiotic tactlessness, and about on a par with asking an acquaintance of twenty minutes’ standing whether he’s married. Yet nothing is more common to encounter than both forms of foolishness. But before I could frame an adequate reply Brian answered for me.“He’s staying on altogether, Trask. We’re going to put him up to the ropes.”“Eh? Altogether? What? Going to fix up in this country then?”I nodded, for I could not speak. I had just caught Brian’s eye, and the expression therein was too much for my feelings. I should have exploded had I attempted speech, for the blank astonishment on Trask’s face was too comical. He looked about as happy under the announcement as though somebody had just begun to open fire upon him with shrapnel. But he said something about “the more the merrier,” which, I fear, was not a genuine expression of sentiment in the present instance.“Pass the quince jam, please, Kenrick.”Clear and unconcerned rose Iris’ voice. Every one stared, while Brian emitted a subdued whistle.“Hullo, young woman, you’re getting on,” he said.The little girl grinned with mischievous delight, showing two extremely pretty rows of white teeth.“Oh, it’s all right,” she said. “We’ve arranged all that. He’s my big brother now, hey, Kenrick?”“Why, certainly,” I confirmed gravely, but with more inward merriment over Trask’s expression of countenance. Indeed, the possible implication conveyed by the statement was calculated to evolve some sensation all round. Even Brian looked puzzled for a moment, but only for a moment.“And when did you confer that supreme honour upon him, Iris?” he said.“This afternoon. He’s much too good a chap to go on mistering him,” answered this impudent child, with a decisive nod of her pretty head. “Anyhow, we’re not going to do it, are we, Beryl?”“I say, Iris, you’re making me blush like the mischief, you know,” I put in. “Well, it’s consoling to know that one’s trumpeter isn’t dead.”“Ha-ha-ha! May I ask, Miss Matterson, whether you are included in this newly formed—ha—fraternity?” said Trask in his most asinine tones; but then he was always a tactless fool.“Call it the Confraternity of the Shipwrecked Mariners,” said Brian, possibly in order to save Beryl the trouble of answering the idiotic question. And as though to render the diversion more complete still, something between an exclamation and a groan escaped from the master of the house at the other end of the table.“Why, what is it, father?” cried Beryl, half starting up in alarm.“Nothing, dear. Only this confounded rheumatism. Am all ache from head to foot. Sharper twinge than usual—couldn’t help singing out. Must have caught a chill on top of it.”“Father, you must go to bed at once,” said Beryl decisively. “Brian and I will come and look after you.”“Well, I think I will. Good-night everybody. Trask, you’ll excuse me.”Septimus Matterson was, as he said, anything but well, and his early retirement rather put a damper on the evening from Trask’s point of view, especially as Beryl was out of the room looking after her father. Moreover, Trask prided himself on his capacity for singing comic songs, which he accompanied himself, and, to give the devil his due, uncommonly well. But under the circumstances there was no demand for this form of entertainment to-night, and it was rather earlier than usual when we found ourselves alone together, he and I, for he had needed no pressure to be induced to stay the night, and had been allotted a shakedown in the same room with me.Now, Trask was one of those men—of whom there are plenty, and women too—who are entirely different when there is no gallery to play to; in a word, Trask alone with one was entirely different to Trask showing off before a crowd, and in fact might have been taken for an ordinarily decent fellow, before you became alive to a little trick he had of engaging you in what would seem at the time quite an interesting conversation or discussion, only to reproduce with variations any idea you might so have expressed, in order to turn you into ridicule when he should next get an audience. But I, who had already experienced this idiosyncrasy, confined conversation with its exploiter to the merest commonplace, wherefore conversation soon languished. Trask was asleep, and I was just drowsing off, when a tap at the door and Brian’s voice started me wide awake again.“What’s the row? Anything wrong?” I said.“Wrong? Yes, very much wrong,” was the answer, and striking a match he proceeded to light my candle.
Now as I sat there, that still and radiant afternoon, in the sylvan wildness of our shaded resting-place, whose cool gloom contrasted well with the golden warmth of the sunlight beyond, I was rather more disposed for silence than speech. I was thinking, and the subject matter of my thoughts was all unalloyed with any misgiving of foreboding that should tarnish its brightness. I was realising Beryl’s presence, and all that it meant to me. There she was, within a couple of yards of me, and the mere consciousness of this was all-sufficing. I was contrasting, too, this wondrous change which had come into my life—such a joy of living, such a new awakening to its possibilities. It seemed I was hardly the same man. I who had hitherto gone through life in a neutral-tinted sort of way, content to exist from day to day among neutral-tinted surroundings, with, as I thought hitherto, a happy immunity from all violent interests or emotions. And now, by an almost magical wave of a wizard wand, I had been transported to this fair land, to sunlight from gloom, to a golden awakening from a drab slumbrous acquiescence in a bovine state of existence, which supplied the physical wants, leaving all others untouched. And the magic which had wrought this upheaval—
“Well? A penny for your thoughts.”
I turned to the speaker. It was perhaps as well that the child was with us, or I don’t know what I might have been led into saying, probably prematurely, and would thus have tumbled down my own bright castles in the air.
“He’s thinking of his pipe,” said Iris mischievously. “Brian always gets into a brown study too when he’s plunged in smoke. Beryl, I think we must make him put it out.”
“Don’t be a little barbarian, Iris,” I answered, knocking the ashes out of the offending implement. “The fact is, I was thinking of what a blessed instrument of Providence was the prow of theKittiwakewhen it knocked my sculling boat to matchwood in mid-Channel and brought me here. That was all.”
“Oh yes. You were thinking you’d like to be back in that smoky old London of yours, and how slow we all are,” retorted Iris. “Trask’s always crowding London down our throats. I hate the very sound of its name. It must be a beastly hole. I always ask him why he doesn’t go back there if he’s so fond of it.”
“I should sayMrTrask, Iris,” I said, with a sly glance at Beryl.
“Ach!” exclaimed the child disgustedly, throwing a handful of grass stalks at me.
After all, we were only enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, talking nonsense, as people will at such times—anyhow, indulging in no rational conversation worth chronicling. And Beryl and I would engage in a playful argument on some unimportant trifle, and Iris, with child-like restlessness, would wander about, now throwing a stone into a water-hole to scare a mud turtle floating with its head on the surface, or peer about from bush to bush trying to discover a bird’s nest; and at last as the afternoon wore on we started to retrace our steps homeward.
It will always linger in my memory, that peaceful, utterly uneventful stroll. The flaming wheel of the westering sun was drawing down to the farther ridge as we came in sight of the tree-embowered homestead, with a soft blue smoke-reek or two curling up into the still air. The bleat of the returning flocks was borne to us from the distance; and, approaching along a bush path which should converge with ours, came half a dozen Kafirs of both sexes, walking single file, the red ochre colouring their blankets and persons harmonising not uneffectively with the prevailing green of the surroundings, while the full tones of their melodious language—the deep bass of the males and the rich pleasing inflection of women’s voices as they conversed—added an additional note of completeness to the closing beauty of a typical African day. And within my mind was the all-pervading thought that this day was but the beginning of many such; that the next, and the morrow, and the day after, that would be brightened and illuminated by the same sweet companionship—even that of her who was now beside me; that each day’s occupation would be sweetened and hallowed by the thought that we were dwellers beneath the same roof—and then—and then—who could tell? Ah, it was one of those periods that come to some of us at a time in our lives when imagination is fresh, and heart and mind unseared by shattered illusions, and the corroding gall of latter days not even so much as suspected then.
“Hullo!” I exclaimed, catching sight of a third figure strolling beside Brian and his father, “Who’s that? Looks like Trask.”
“Yes, it is,” assented Beryl.
The appearance of the stranger seemed to mar the harmony of the situation to my mind. I did not like Trask. He was one of those men who, wherever they find themselves, never give any one a chance of forgetting their presence; no, not even for a moment. When Trask appeared at Gonya’s Kloof—which, by the way, was the name of the Mattersons’ farm—why, there was no possibility of overlooking the fact, for he simply monopolised the whole conversation. He was a man of about my own height and build, and three or four years my senior, on the strength of which, and of having about that amount of colonial experience, he chose to assume towards my humble self a good-humouredly contemptuous and patronising manner, which to me was insufferable. Not infrequently, too, he would try his hand at making me a butt for his exceedingly forced and laboured wit, which is a thing I don’t take. He was a neighbour of twelve miles or so, where he farmed—or was supposed to farm—his own place, and was reputed well off. To crown his other offences in my eyes, he was a bachelor, and was a precious deal too fond of coming over to Gonya’s Kloof on any or no pretext.
Turning from his greeting to the girls—a greeting to my mind dashed with a perfectly unwarrantable tone of familiarity—he opened on me.
“Ha, Holt, getting more into the way of things now, I suppose? You’ll soon know your way about. Things take a little getting into at first—ha-ha!”
This in a sort of bray, accompanied by a condescending expression.
Catching Brian’s eye, I discerned a killing twinkle therein.
“Why, Trask,” he said in his quiet way, “Holt’s got into the way of things about twice as quick as any imported man I ever knew.”
“Yes. Twice as quick,” repeated Beryl, in emphatic assent.
I fancy Trask didn’t like this—he looked as if he didn’t; but I did, though of course I made no sign either way. Now all this was petty, and by every rule I ought to have been superior to any such trivial annoyances. But bear in mind that I make no claim to be a hero; indeed, I propose in this narrative to set down my own weaknesses with a candid and impartial hand. And I intensely disliked Trask.
The latter proceeded to make himself at home. Of course he was going to stay the evening, equally of course when we sat down to table he must needs plant himself on the other side of Beryl, and the only thing that kept him from entirely monopolising her was that he could not bring himself to allow the attention of any one else in the room to stray for many moments from himself, and as usual the conversation consisted of Trask, with an occasional monosyllable of assent or dissent interjected elsewhere. So hidebound was the self-complacency of Trask that even George found it profitless to cheek him with any effect, although in justice to George I am bound to say he tried his level best.
“What stay are you making, Holt?” brought out Trask, by way of varying the conversation.
Now this sort of query propounded to a guest right in the eye of his entertainers has always struck me as the very acme of idiotic tactlessness, and about on a par with asking an acquaintance of twenty minutes’ standing whether he’s married. Yet nothing is more common to encounter than both forms of foolishness. But before I could frame an adequate reply Brian answered for me.
“He’s staying on altogether, Trask. We’re going to put him up to the ropes.”
“Eh? Altogether? What? Going to fix up in this country then?”
I nodded, for I could not speak. I had just caught Brian’s eye, and the expression therein was too much for my feelings. I should have exploded had I attempted speech, for the blank astonishment on Trask’s face was too comical. He looked about as happy under the announcement as though somebody had just begun to open fire upon him with shrapnel. But he said something about “the more the merrier,” which, I fear, was not a genuine expression of sentiment in the present instance.
“Pass the quince jam, please, Kenrick.”
Clear and unconcerned rose Iris’ voice. Every one stared, while Brian emitted a subdued whistle.
“Hullo, young woman, you’re getting on,” he said.
The little girl grinned with mischievous delight, showing two extremely pretty rows of white teeth.
“Oh, it’s all right,” she said. “We’ve arranged all that. He’s my big brother now, hey, Kenrick?”
“Why, certainly,” I confirmed gravely, but with more inward merriment over Trask’s expression of countenance. Indeed, the possible implication conveyed by the statement was calculated to evolve some sensation all round. Even Brian looked puzzled for a moment, but only for a moment.
“And when did you confer that supreme honour upon him, Iris?” he said.
“This afternoon. He’s much too good a chap to go on mistering him,” answered this impudent child, with a decisive nod of her pretty head. “Anyhow, we’re not going to do it, are we, Beryl?”
“I say, Iris, you’re making me blush like the mischief, you know,” I put in. “Well, it’s consoling to know that one’s trumpeter isn’t dead.”
“Ha-ha-ha! May I ask, Miss Matterson, whether you are included in this newly formed—ha—fraternity?” said Trask in his most asinine tones; but then he was always a tactless fool.
“Call it the Confraternity of the Shipwrecked Mariners,” said Brian, possibly in order to save Beryl the trouble of answering the idiotic question. And as though to render the diversion more complete still, something between an exclamation and a groan escaped from the master of the house at the other end of the table.
“Why, what is it, father?” cried Beryl, half starting up in alarm.
“Nothing, dear. Only this confounded rheumatism. Am all ache from head to foot. Sharper twinge than usual—couldn’t help singing out. Must have caught a chill on top of it.”
“Father, you must go to bed at once,” said Beryl decisively. “Brian and I will come and look after you.”
“Well, I think I will. Good-night everybody. Trask, you’ll excuse me.”
Septimus Matterson was, as he said, anything but well, and his early retirement rather put a damper on the evening from Trask’s point of view, especially as Beryl was out of the room looking after her father. Moreover, Trask prided himself on his capacity for singing comic songs, which he accompanied himself, and, to give the devil his due, uncommonly well. But under the circumstances there was no demand for this form of entertainment to-night, and it was rather earlier than usual when we found ourselves alone together, he and I, for he had needed no pressure to be induced to stay the night, and had been allotted a shakedown in the same room with me.
Now, Trask was one of those men—of whom there are plenty, and women too—who are entirely different when there is no gallery to play to; in a word, Trask alone with one was entirely different to Trask showing off before a crowd, and in fact might have been taken for an ordinarily decent fellow, before you became alive to a little trick he had of engaging you in what would seem at the time quite an interesting conversation or discussion, only to reproduce with variations any idea you might so have expressed, in order to turn you into ridicule when he should next get an audience. But I, who had already experienced this idiosyncrasy, confined conversation with its exploiter to the merest commonplace, wherefore conversation soon languished. Trask was asleep, and I was just drowsing off, when a tap at the door and Brian’s voice started me wide awake again.
“What’s the row? Anything wrong?” I said.
“Wrong? Yes, very much wrong,” was the answer, and striking a match he proceeded to light my candle.
Chapter Twelve.Pursuit.“The Kafirs have walked off the whole of thebontespan and three horses,” went on Brian.“Is that all?” I said, intensely relieved.“That all? Man alive! but those are our best trek oxen. A full span of sixteen. ‘That all’!”“Oh, I don’t mean it that way. My first thought was that your father was worse. You know how seedy he was this evening.”“I see!” was the answer. “No, he’s no worse—fast asleep, in fact. I wouldn’t disturb him about this, but—Holt, we must go after them at once.”“Go after who?” interrupted Trask, sitting up and yawning, for we had been talking in a low tone and he had not awoke at once. “What’s the row, anyhow?”Brian repeated what he had just been telling me. “The cheek of the brutes!” he went on. “Mind, this thing was done in broad daylight. I suppose they thought that as it was Sunday none of us would be about. Dumela came upon the fresh spoor as he was out looking after that sick cow down in the kloof by Aasvogel Krautz. They simply collected them, and swept off the lot. In broad daylight, too.”“I’m your man, Matterson,” said Trask, briskly, having nearly got into his clothes. “I’ll take a hand in this game.”“Thanks. I was going to ask you. George and Kleinbooi are getting up the horses now. We must start as soon as ever they are here.”“What gees have the niggers taken, Brian?” I asked.“Why, Beryl’s horse, Meerkat, for one, the bay colt, and the third’s uncertain.”Beryl’s horse! Here was an additional incentive to the undertaking, I thought.“Dumela spoored them easily to Sand Drift,” went on Brian, “and then it got too dark. If the old fool had come straight back at once and told us, we should have saved several hours; but not he. One of Stoffel Pexter’s people told him they’d seen three mounted Kafirs and two on foot go through just above the drift with a span of largebonteoxen. So we’d better go straight there and start on the spoor from there. One thing, we can’t miss it. It’s as broad as a waggon road.”“Think they’ll show fight if we come up with them, Brian?” I said.“Don’t know. We’ll take our guns in case of accidents. John Kafir has more respect for an armed crowd than for an unarmed one. Now—if you fellows are ready, we’ll lose no time getting under way. They are bringing up the horses now,” as a trampling was heard without. “Put a few extra cartridges in your pocket, Holt, while I find a shooter for Trask.”I came out on the stoep and—from another door so did Beryl.“It’s too bad to rout you out of bed to start off like this on a midnight foray,” she said.The other two were inside, presumably arming. The fresh cool breaths of the midnight veldt, the circumstance of our projected undertaking, the knowledge that I was in a way rendering personal service to her who stood there, lent a curious dash of excitement and romance to the situation. The air was sharp, and the wrapper which she had thrown over her head framed and set forth the calm sweet face, and the lustrous eyes seemed to take on a softer expression in the starlight. I believe I nearly made a fool of myself then and there.“Too bad?” I echoed. “Why, I would not have missed this for anything; especially as it holds out the additional attraction of being able to do something for you in particular.”She looked puzzled. “For me in particular,” she repeated wonderingly. Then with the flash of a smile, “No, I give it up. Explain.”“To recover your horse.”“Who, Meerkat? Have they stolen him, then? Brian—” as the other two now reappeared, “you never told me that Meerkat was one of the horses that are gone.”“Oh, hang it! I’ve let the cat out of the bag,” I said disgustedly. “I ought to kick myself.”“Don’t do that. Bring back Meerkat instead,” said Beryl, in her sweet, even way.Of course I pledged myself to do so or die in the attempt, and all the rest of it—but my protestations were ruthlessly broken in upon by Brian’s voice. Brian has a brisk, healthy decisiveness about him when carrying out any responsible matter, which seldom fails to secure attention, wherefore now his reminder that it was time to start was effectual in cutting my farewells rather short.“Man, I wish I was going,” said George grumpily, as he watched us mount. “It’s a beastly shame I can’t.”Nobody took any notice of this, but Trask must needs sing out—“So long, Miss Matterson. We’ll bring back the spoil, never fear.”“Oh, great Caesar!” said Brian. “Why don’t you blow a trumpet while you’re about it, Trask—or fire a few shots by way of letting the whole countryside know we’re on the move?”Decidedly Brian was in a “commandeering” vein. But the reproof was deserved.Yes, it was exciting, that midnight going forth—exciting and enjoyable, as we moved on through the gloom, now riding abreast and talking, though in a low tone, as to the chances that lay before us, now falling into single file as our way narrowed into a cattle track through the bush. A brief off-saddle, then on again, and just as the first suspicion of dawn appeared in the east we descended a steep rocky path into a river valley. A Dutch farmhouse, rough of aspect, stood on an open space beyond the drift, and hard by it a few tumble-down sheep kraals and two or three native huts.“That’s all right,” said Brian, having satisfied himself as to the identity of three human figures engaged in converse in front of the house. “Revell has been able to come. I was afraid Dumela wouldn’t find him at home.”We rode through the drift, which was very low at that time of year, and as we dismounted I saw before me a swarthy Dutchman—who was the Stoffel Pexter before alluded to; an Englishman, whose hair and beard simply flamed at you, so fiery and red were both—this was Revell; the third, a Kafir, being, in fact, old Dumela, our cattle herd.“Daag, Matterson,” began Pexter. “Are you on the spoor of your oxen? One of myzwaartgoedtold me he’d seen them go through last night, so they’ve got a good start. He says it isn’t Kuliso’s schepsels this time—more likely Mpandhlile’s.”“Likely. But let’s have some coffee, Stoffel, for we’ve only half an hour to off-saddle—not a minute more,” returned Brian decisively. “Awful good of you to turn out, Revell. Hardly expected to find you at home.”“Man, that’s nothing,” said the other, whom I had met before, and who albeit a bit rough was rather a good fellow. His weakness was an intense susceptibility as to the “warmth” of his summit, and he had been known to thrash more than one of his Kafirs to an unmerciful degree simply by reason of overhearing the use among them of his native name, “Ibomvu” (red). “Why, what’d we do in a country like this if we didn’t turn out and help each other? Eh, Holt?”“That’s so,” I answered; and now we adjourned to the house where Stoffel Pexter’svrouwhad laid out cups of scalding hot coffee andkoekjes. The worthy Boer was exceedingly cordial towards us, for the expedition we were on appealed more than anything to his sympathies, and to those of his class. The same thing might happen to himself at any time. The Kafirs were thieving, murdering dogs in his estimation, not a shade better than wild beasts—in short, our natural enemies. So he wished us every success; and further, pressed upon us a bag of biltong, which he thought might come in handy before we got back. And we thought so too.We took up the spoor at the place where the stolen animals were seen to cross the river. It was indeed as broad as a waggon road, as Brian had predicted, even to a tyro such as myself, for the ground was studded with fresh hoof marks; but the marauders were evidently old hands at the game, for avoiding steep hills which might blow the animals, they had made use of a narrow cattle track winding along through a deep rugged ravine, but ever ascending. We, however, had managed to travel much faster, and very soon halted to blow the horses on the heights overlooking the river valley, where, like a toy house in the distance, we could see the dwelling we had recently left. Here we came up with Dumela, who had started on ahead, and had made the distance in most excellent time.Now we commanded a new view of country. Before us unfolded a panorama of wide rolling plain and bushy kloof, stretching away to further heights—dark, forest-clad and beautiful—but, on our then errand, forbidding. At these Dumela gazed fixedly, as he said, in his roundabout native way—“Only if they are strong enough to keep it do those who steal an ox flaunt its skin in everybody’s face. It is there you will find the oxen.”“How do you know that, Dumela?” said the irrepressible Trask, in Dutch, when this had been translated to us. The Kafir grinned with, I thought, a touch of contempt, and which wholly amused Brian, as he muttered to himself—“Some white people are like women—always asking things they ought to know.” But out loud he said: “Why should I deceive you? I have nothing to gain by the oxen being stolen. They are my master’s—that is,mine; for they were under my care.”Dumela was to leave us here, but before he started upon his homeward way, he said to Brian, “Inkose, you will find what you seek, but whether you will obtain possession of it, I know not, for the people over yonder are numerous and fierce and reckless, and they love not the whites—wherefore keep your eyes open.”“That’s the dickey part of the whole situation,” said Brian, as we moved forward. “If we come to blows and had a free hand, why we’d probably be all right. As it is, it’s like fighting with one hand tied behind you. There’s no actual war on—not yet—though if things go on much longer like this there soon will be. If we start shooting to kill—or even shooting at all—ten to one it means a Circuit Court trial; but if they cut all our throats, not one of them’ll be any the worse for it—for even if the right men were ever dropped upon, it would be ruled that they acted in self-defence, and that armed parties of farmers had no right raiding into native locations.”“Quite right, Matterson,” assented Revell. “They’d jaw about taking the law into our own hands, and what did the Colony keep up an expensive Police Force for, and so on. Fat lot you’d see of your oxen by the time you put that machinery to work. Why, the Kafirs’d have scoffed the whole span long before and started out to rake in more.”Now, all this was no more than the bare truth. The unrest and bold and predatory propensities of our turbulent neighbours of late had been the cause of a growing uneasiness on the frontier, and more than one armed collision between settlers and the natives had occurred—arising out of just such provocation as had brought us hither. One indeed, quite recently, had been something of acause célèbrein that to the frantic indignation of the presiding judge a frontier jury had unhesitatingly and obstinately refused to convict certain individuals of their own class and colour who had used fire-arms with fatal effect, but beyond all doubt in defence of their own lives.“We may find ourselves in a rotten tight place, or we may not,” pronounced Brian, when we had discussed the whole position fore and aft. “If we do we must use judgment, and on no account loose off a shot unless we are absolutely and unequivocally obliged. Is that understood, you fellows?”“Certainly,” was the answer on the part of myself and Revell. But Trask was not so unanimous.“Do you mean to say, Matterson, that I’m to let a nigger cut my throat before I pull trigger on him? Because if so, I’m lowed if I do, and that’s all about it,” he said.There was a queer look in Brian’s face as he answered—“I mean to say nothing so idiotic. But, all things considered, Trask, perhaps you’ll oblige me by going home, and leaving us three to straighten out this worry. Now do. We shall get on so much better that way.”“What the very devil do you mean, Matterson?” blustered Trask.“What I say—no more, no less. I’m bossing this undertaking. I’m obliged to you for volunteering, but if you think you’ve got a better plan than mine, why we shan’t get on. That’s all.”“Oh, blazes, man. I didn’t mean that. I’ll do anything you like,” answered Trask, after a moment’s hesitation, during which all hands thought the row might end in blows. “I’m not going to turn tail and go back now—not much.”“It’s no question of turning tail, but of using ordinary and sound judgment,” rejoined Brian. “We shall be glad enough of your help on those terms.”“Oh, all right, old chap. Say no more about it,” conceded the other with a sort of bluff, would-be good-natured growl—and the difference thus patched up, we resumed our way.But I, in my heart of hearts, most devoutly wished we were through with it, for in marching into the nest of fierce and truculent barbarians which was our objective, it seemed to me we were placing ourselves between the very sharp horns of a bad dilemma. In sheer savagery, and trusting in the immunity which a paternal Government would be sure to extend to them, the sportive barbarians aforesaid might incontinently massacre the lot of us, or, if in defending ourselves any of our enemies got hurt, why then under the laws of our country we might have to stand our trial for murder. But the third solution of the difficulty, that we should return with whole skins and clean hands, and that for which we had come out, viz., the recovered stock, seemed to me just then rather too good to be hoped for.
“The Kafirs have walked off the whole of thebontespan and three horses,” went on Brian.
“Is that all?” I said, intensely relieved.
“That all? Man alive! but those are our best trek oxen. A full span of sixteen. ‘That all’!”
“Oh, I don’t mean it that way. My first thought was that your father was worse. You know how seedy he was this evening.”
“I see!” was the answer. “No, he’s no worse—fast asleep, in fact. I wouldn’t disturb him about this, but—Holt, we must go after them at once.”
“Go after who?” interrupted Trask, sitting up and yawning, for we had been talking in a low tone and he had not awoke at once. “What’s the row, anyhow?”
Brian repeated what he had just been telling me. “The cheek of the brutes!” he went on. “Mind, this thing was done in broad daylight. I suppose they thought that as it was Sunday none of us would be about. Dumela came upon the fresh spoor as he was out looking after that sick cow down in the kloof by Aasvogel Krautz. They simply collected them, and swept off the lot. In broad daylight, too.”
“I’m your man, Matterson,” said Trask, briskly, having nearly got into his clothes. “I’ll take a hand in this game.”
“Thanks. I was going to ask you. George and Kleinbooi are getting up the horses now. We must start as soon as ever they are here.”
“What gees have the niggers taken, Brian?” I asked.
“Why, Beryl’s horse, Meerkat, for one, the bay colt, and the third’s uncertain.”
Beryl’s horse! Here was an additional incentive to the undertaking, I thought.
“Dumela spoored them easily to Sand Drift,” went on Brian, “and then it got too dark. If the old fool had come straight back at once and told us, we should have saved several hours; but not he. One of Stoffel Pexter’s people told him they’d seen three mounted Kafirs and two on foot go through just above the drift with a span of largebonteoxen. So we’d better go straight there and start on the spoor from there. One thing, we can’t miss it. It’s as broad as a waggon road.”
“Think they’ll show fight if we come up with them, Brian?” I said.
“Don’t know. We’ll take our guns in case of accidents. John Kafir has more respect for an armed crowd than for an unarmed one. Now—if you fellows are ready, we’ll lose no time getting under way. They are bringing up the horses now,” as a trampling was heard without. “Put a few extra cartridges in your pocket, Holt, while I find a shooter for Trask.”
I came out on the stoep and—from another door so did Beryl.
“It’s too bad to rout you out of bed to start off like this on a midnight foray,” she said.
The other two were inside, presumably arming. The fresh cool breaths of the midnight veldt, the circumstance of our projected undertaking, the knowledge that I was in a way rendering personal service to her who stood there, lent a curious dash of excitement and romance to the situation. The air was sharp, and the wrapper which she had thrown over her head framed and set forth the calm sweet face, and the lustrous eyes seemed to take on a softer expression in the starlight. I believe I nearly made a fool of myself then and there.
“Too bad?” I echoed. “Why, I would not have missed this for anything; especially as it holds out the additional attraction of being able to do something for you in particular.”
She looked puzzled. “For me in particular,” she repeated wonderingly. Then with the flash of a smile, “No, I give it up. Explain.”
“To recover your horse.”
“Who, Meerkat? Have they stolen him, then? Brian—” as the other two now reappeared, “you never told me that Meerkat was one of the horses that are gone.”
“Oh, hang it! I’ve let the cat out of the bag,” I said disgustedly. “I ought to kick myself.”
“Don’t do that. Bring back Meerkat instead,” said Beryl, in her sweet, even way.
Of course I pledged myself to do so or die in the attempt, and all the rest of it—but my protestations were ruthlessly broken in upon by Brian’s voice. Brian has a brisk, healthy decisiveness about him when carrying out any responsible matter, which seldom fails to secure attention, wherefore now his reminder that it was time to start was effectual in cutting my farewells rather short.
“Man, I wish I was going,” said George grumpily, as he watched us mount. “It’s a beastly shame I can’t.”
Nobody took any notice of this, but Trask must needs sing out—
“So long, Miss Matterson. We’ll bring back the spoil, never fear.”
“Oh, great Caesar!” said Brian. “Why don’t you blow a trumpet while you’re about it, Trask—or fire a few shots by way of letting the whole countryside know we’re on the move?”
Decidedly Brian was in a “commandeering” vein. But the reproof was deserved.
Yes, it was exciting, that midnight going forth—exciting and enjoyable, as we moved on through the gloom, now riding abreast and talking, though in a low tone, as to the chances that lay before us, now falling into single file as our way narrowed into a cattle track through the bush. A brief off-saddle, then on again, and just as the first suspicion of dawn appeared in the east we descended a steep rocky path into a river valley. A Dutch farmhouse, rough of aspect, stood on an open space beyond the drift, and hard by it a few tumble-down sheep kraals and two or three native huts.
“That’s all right,” said Brian, having satisfied himself as to the identity of three human figures engaged in converse in front of the house. “Revell has been able to come. I was afraid Dumela wouldn’t find him at home.”
We rode through the drift, which was very low at that time of year, and as we dismounted I saw before me a swarthy Dutchman—who was the Stoffel Pexter before alluded to; an Englishman, whose hair and beard simply flamed at you, so fiery and red were both—this was Revell; the third, a Kafir, being, in fact, old Dumela, our cattle herd.
“Daag, Matterson,” began Pexter. “Are you on the spoor of your oxen? One of myzwaartgoedtold me he’d seen them go through last night, so they’ve got a good start. He says it isn’t Kuliso’s schepsels this time—more likely Mpandhlile’s.”
“Likely. But let’s have some coffee, Stoffel, for we’ve only half an hour to off-saddle—not a minute more,” returned Brian decisively. “Awful good of you to turn out, Revell. Hardly expected to find you at home.”
“Man, that’s nothing,” said the other, whom I had met before, and who albeit a bit rough was rather a good fellow. His weakness was an intense susceptibility as to the “warmth” of his summit, and he had been known to thrash more than one of his Kafirs to an unmerciful degree simply by reason of overhearing the use among them of his native name, “Ibomvu” (red). “Why, what’d we do in a country like this if we didn’t turn out and help each other? Eh, Holt?”
“That’s so,” I answered; and now we adjourned to the house where Stoffel Pexter’svrouwhad laid out cups of scalding hot coffee andkoekjes. The worthy Boer was exceedingly cordial towards us, for the expedition we were on appealed more than anything to his sympathies, and to those of his class. The same thing might happen to himself at any time. The Kafirs were thieving, murdering dogs in his estimation, not a shade better than wild beasts—in short, our natural enemies. So he wished us every success; and further, pressed upon us a bag of biltong, which he thought might come in handy before we got back. And we thought so too.
We took up the spoor at the place where the stolen animals were seen to cross the river. It was indeed as broad as a waggon road, as Brian had predicted, even to a tyro such as myself, for the ground was studded with fresh hoof marks; but the marauders were evidently old hands at the game, for avoiding steep hills which might blow the animals, they had made use of a narrow cattle track winding along through a deep rugged ravine, but ever ascending. We, however, had managed to travel much faster, and very soon halted to blow the horses on the heights overlooking the river valley, where, like a toy house in the distance, we could see the dwelling we had recently left. Here we came up with Dumela, who had started on ahead, and had made the distance in most excellent time.
Now we commanded a new view of country. Before us unfolded a panorama of wide rolling plain and bushy kloof, stretching away to further heights—dark, forest-clad and beautiful—but, on our then errand, forbidding. At these Dumela gazed fixedly, as he said, in his roundabout native way—
“Only if they are strong enough to keep it do those who steal an ox flaunt its skin in everybody’s face. It is there you will find the oxen.”
“How do you know that, Dumela?” said the irrepressible Trask, in Dutch, when this had been translated to us. The Kafir grinned with, I thought, a touch of contempt, and which wholly amused Brian, as he muttered to himself—
“Some white people are like women—always asking things they ought to know.” But out loud he said: “Why should I deceive you? I have nothing to gain by the oxen being stolen. They are my master’s—that is,mine; for they were under my care.”
Dumela was to leave us here, but before he started upon his homeward way, he said to Brian, “Inkose, you will find what you seek, but whether you will obtain possession of it, I know not, for the people over yonder are numerous and fierce and reckless, and they love not the whites—wherefore keep your eyes open.”
“That’s the dickey part of the whole situation,” said Brian, as we moved forward. “If we come to blows and had a free hand, why we’d probably be all right. As it is, it’s like fighting with one hand tied behind you. There’s no actual war on—not yet—though if things go on much longer like this there soon will be. If we start shooting to kill—or even shooting at all—ten to one it means a Circuit Court trial; but if they cut all our throats, not one of them’ll be any the worse for it—for even if the right men were ever dropped upon, it would be ruled that they acted in self-defence, and that armed parties of farmers had no right raiding into native locations.”
“Quite right, Matterson,” assented Revell. “They’d jaw about taking the law into our own hands, and what did the Colony keep up an expensive Police Force for, and so on. Fat lot you’d see of your oxen by the time you put that machinery to work. Why, the Kafirs’d have scoffed the whole span long before and started out to rake in more.”
Now, all this was no more than the bare truth. The unrest and bold and predatory propensities of our turbulent neighbours of late had been the cause of a growing uneasiness on the frontier, and more than one armed collision between settlers and the natives had occurred—arising out of just such provocation as had brought us hither. One indeed, quite recently, had been something of acause célèbrein that to the frantic indignation of the presiding judge a frontier jury had unhesitatingly and obstinately refused to convict certain individuals of their own class and colour who had used fire-arms with fatal effect, but beyond all doubt in defence of their own lives.
“We may find ourselves in a rotten tight place, or we may not,” pronounced Brian, when we had discussed the whole position fore and aft. “If we do we must use judgment, and on no account loose off a shot unless we are absolutely and unequivocally obliged. Is that understood, you fellows?”
“Certainly,” was the answer on the part of myself and Revell. But Trask was not so unanimous.
“Do you mean to say, Matterson, that I’m to let a nigger cut my throat before I pull trigger on him? Because if so, I’m lowed if I do, and that’s all about it,” he said.
There was a queer look in Brian’s face as he answered—
“I mean to say nothing so idiotic. But, all things considered, Trask, perhaps you’ll oblige me by going home, and leaving us three to straighten out this worry. Now do. We shall get on so much better that way.”
“What the very devil do you mean, Matterson?” blustered Trask.
“What I say—no more, no less. I’m bossing this undertaking. I’m obliged to you for volunteering, but if you think you’ve got a better plan than mine, why we shan’t get on. That’s all.”
“Oh, blazes, man. I didn’t mean that. I’ll do anything you like,” answered Trask, after a moment’s hesitation, during which all hands thought the row might end in blows. “I’m not going to turn tail and go back now—not much.”
“It’s no question of turning tail, but of using ordinary and sound judgment,” rejoined Brian. “We shall be glad enough of your help on those terms.”
“Oh, all right, old chap. Say no more about it,” conceded the other with a sort of bluff, would-be good-natured growl—and the difference thus patched up, we resumed our way.
But I, in my heart of hearts, most devoutly wished we were through with it, for in marching into the nest of fierce and truculent barbarians which was our objective, it seemed to me we were placing ourselves between the very sharp horns of a bad dilemma. In sheer savagery, and trusting in the immunity which a paternal Government would be sure to extend to them, the sportive barbarians aforesaid might incontinently massacre the lot of us, or, if in defending ourselves any of our enemies got hurt, why then under the laws of our country we might have to stand our trial for murder. But the third solution of the difficulty, that we should return with whole skins and clean hands, and that for which we had come out, viz., the recovered stock, seemed to me just then rather too good to be hoped for.
Chapter Thirteen.Checked.For some hours we held on without difficulty. It became very hot. The sun’s rays poured down into the close, shut-in kloofs as from the lens of a gigantic burning-glass; and the atmosphere was unmoved by a single puff of wind. The horses were in a bath of perspiration, and it became evident they must be off-saddled, wherefore a halt was called in a cool, shady place, where they could enjoy to the full a much-needed rest. It was a bushy secluded spot beneath an overhanging cliff, from whose face a whole cloud of spreuws flashed hither and thither, whistling in lively alarm, but, best of all, it contained a cool clear water-hole, albeit the liquid was slightly brackish.“Tired, Holt?” asked Brian good-naturedly, as having knee-haltered the horses, we were discussing some supplies which had been brought in a saddle-bag. “Have a drop of grog.”“To the first I answer ‘No,’ to the second, ‘Yes,’ emphatically!” I said, catching the flask which he chucked across to me. It was a roomy metal one, with considerable carrying capacity.“Well, this sort of forced march on an African summer day isn’t a cool and invigorating promenade,” cut in Trask. “After you, Holt.”We had a tot all round and a smoke. Then it became time to move on again. Once a check occurred, where the thieves had manifestly separated their spoil, but the device was only a blind, and soon solved by such experienced frontiersmen as Brian and Revell. Now and again we would sight a farmhouse, with its cultivated strip of mealie land, picturesquely nestling in some bushy hollow, but such we purposely avoided, for news travels on winged feet among Kafirs, and the arrival of an armed party at one of these homesteads would be extremely likely to be notified by any of the hangers-on there to their brethren of the marauding clans inhabiting the dark, frowning fastnesses which now began to rise not far in front. Nor was there any need to ask for information, for the spoor was as plain as plain could be, and soon, after leading us up a steep hillside, it suddenly left the bush, and, cresting the ridge, struck out into an open plain, where, a few hundred yards in front stood a large native kraal, the dark forms of whose inhabitants we could see moving about among the beehive-shaped huts. But the simultaneous yell and rush of a lot of curs promptly turned the attention of the said inhabitants upon us. It looked as if our appearance had been provocative of more than ordinary excitement.“Don’t shoot, Trask,” said Brian warningly, observing that that worthy was aiming at a couple of large, mouthing curs whom he considered in rather too close proximity to his horse’s hocks. “Don’t shoot. We haven’t time to stop and have a row here.”“Who is your headman?” he asked the half-dozen sullen, stalwart savages who had slouched forward to meet us.“He is not here,Umlúngu,” was the ready reply.“Whois he, notwhereis he?” repeated Brian.“He is away,” again answered the man, a tall, grizzled Kafir with an evil expression of countenance.“Now look,” said Brian forcibly. “When did those oxen and horses pass by here? The spoor is at your very doors. One of you must go with us and carry it on, or you are responsible equally with the thieves.”By this time quite a number of Kafirs had come forth from among the huts by twos and threes, and were clustering around, a proportion armed with tough, heavy kerries, and their demeanour was sullen and unfriendly to a degree, as they muttered among themselves in their deep bass tones. Women, too, had raised their greasy, scantily-clad forms where they had been lolling against the huts basking in the sun with their round-headed, beady-eyed brats, and were gazing at us; the while discussing us with the freedom of their sex and in no flattering terms.“Au! We know nothing about thieves,Umlúngu,” replied the spokesman. “If any oxen came by here they did not stay here. Why not follow them further if you have followed them so far? Why trouble us?” And a great jeering guffaw greeted the words.“Good,” said Brian. “These oxen have been stolen, and we have traced them to the gates of your kraal. You will hear a great deal more about this.”“Whau!” exclaimed the savage, turning his back upon us. “Go. Go and find your oxen.”Again that insolent jeering laugh went up from the onlookers, and here an unpleasant discovery forced itself upon us. By accident or design, the crowd, which was now considerable, had closed round us on every side. A serried mass of dark, musky bodies, and grim—and it seemed threatening—faces walled us in, while requests for tobacco and other things were hurled at us in tones that savoured more of demand than petition. The aim of the savages was clear. They intended to delay our advance as long as possible. We had, rather foolishly, allowed ourselves to be led into a trap.Then occurred the unexpected. A tall Kafir, in the forefront of the mob, pointing suddenly at Revell, ejaculated in great jeering tone—“Hau! Ibomvu!”And the shout ran through the whole crowd.“Ibomvu!” roared the men. “Yau!Ibomvu!” shrilled the women in the background.I have said something as to the effect produced upon our comrade by any allusion to his flaming poll. It seemed to drive him quite mad. It mattered not that it was uttered by one man or a thousand, the effect upon him was just the same, and this held good here. In less than a second he had put his horse straight at the original offender, and with a tough seacow-hide sjambok which dangled from his wrist was cutting into that astonished and ill-advised ruffian with the fury of a madman. On head and face and naked shoulders the terrible lash descended, and the lightning-like celerity of the attack was such as to leave neither time nor thought for resistance—the victim’s one idea—if he had even one—being to escape from that awful lash, while those around, appalled by the white, infuriated countenance, and the frenzied plunging of the horse, gave way, though not before several of them had tasted the infliction; for Revell cut impartially right and left as though he were hewing his way through with a sabre. And in effect this is just what he might have been doing, for the crowd on that side opened out in wildest confusion, of which we took advantage, and in less than a minute were a couple of hundred yards from the spot.And now a terrific hubbub arose in our rear. A glance over our shoulders showed the crowd roaring forward on our track, while among others who had dived into the huts to arm, we could see the bright gleam of assegais.“Face round,” cried Brian, “and aim, but for your lives don’t fire. If we can’t scare them to a halt we must turn and run. But—no shooting.”We wrenched our horses round. The roaring, surging rush of oncoming savages poured forward, then stopped. Four gun barrels sending forth their contents into the thick of the mob would create awful havoc, and there were four more in reserve, for we each had double barrels. Besides, they knew we could gallop out of reach at no loss to ourselves. So they halted, brandishing sticks and assegais, and howling out every kind of taunting and abusive epithet.“Ibomvu!Yau!Ibomvu!” yelled Revell, in return, making his sjambok whistle through the air as he flourished it round his head. “Come on, all of you, and taste this. I’ll cut the whole lot of you to thongs! I’ll show you howIbomvucan burn!”This speech, in Kafir, raised another roar of menace and defiance, but the savages were not inclined to accept the invitation therein embodied, wherefore we turned our horses’ heads, and proceeded leisurely onward.“Go on, go on,” howled the mob after us. “Go and find your oxen! They—up yonder—will know how to talk with you.”No further interruption occurred, and before us lay the tell-tale track, as clear as need be. At length the wooded heights rose immediately in front, and we halted for another short off-saddle.“Now look here,” began Brian, throwing himself on the ground, and filling his pipe. “It’s evident these chaps don’t care whether we follow them or not, but I believe we shall come up with them this evening, and we shall have a little over three hours of daylight to do it in. The sort of treatment we met with just now is a good earnest of what we’ve got to expect. And there are only four of us.”“Hooray for a row!” cried Trask.“Yes, but we don’t want a row if it can possibly be avoided. We’re between the devil and the deep sea, which for present purposes may be taken to mean that none of us must fire a shot unless our lives depend upon it, and then, if possible, fire blank.”This oration was interrupted, and that by a thud of approaching hoof strokes and a sound of deep voices and laughter. A track wound round the hillside lower down, and we saw about a score of mounted Kafirs sweep past, chattering and laughing at the top of their voices. It was clear that this gang was returning from a visit to some canteen, for the condition of more than one of their number was not a little precarious, swaying and lurching in their ragged saddles as they belaboured their wretched undersized steeds.“All as drunk as pigs,” whispered Revell. “By George! That looks like Kuliso.”A tall, finely-made man, clad in an ancient pair of trousers and a red blanket and wearing an ivory ring on his left arm rode at the head of the gang, evidently a chief, for he was rather more drunk than the rest, and seemed to occupy a greater share of attention.“No, it isn’t,” returned Brian. “I don’t know who it is, though.” And in a trice the weird equestrians, their red blankets streaming behind them, were whirled out of sight, and having given them time to get further on their way, we resumed our own.There was nothing in itself gloomy or forbidding in the series of densely-wooded heights which now rose in front of us. Peaceful solitude rather than lurking danger was the idea conveyed by that winding succession of deep valleys and lofty hills slumbering in the golden light of the waning afternoon, yet the network of rugged ravines we were about to penetrate had, in former times, been the scene of more than one bloody encounter wherein the advantages had all lain with the wild denizens of the place. Many a dark episode could those tangled glens have told, of patrols surprised and outnumbered in the thick bush, of brave men struck down by the assegai of the savage, or dragged off, wounded and disabled, to be put to a lingering death of torture. Even at that time the locality held an evil repute as the haunt of cattle thieves and desperate characters generally.We crossed a kind of deep basin shut in on all sides by wooded hills, then through a narrowpoortoverhung by aloe-fringed krantzes widening out into just such another basin. In fact, we seemed to have got into a veritable labyrinth of such—and through my own mind, at any rate, passed the thought—How were we going to get out? Then the clamour of dogs in front, and we suddenly came upon a kraal.“Straight on,” said Brian. “We can’t stop. No time to waste.”The inhabitants gave us rather a sullen greeting, but made no demonstration, staring after us in lowering silence. And now the way became wilder and more rugged still, and the spoor, yet plain as ever, led us far down into a jungly glade, where the monkey ladders hung like trellis work from the twisted limbs of great yellow-wood trees, and here in the shaded gloom of the forest—for this was no mere scrub, but real forest—night seemed already to be drawing in.“What’s this?” said Brian, turning in his saddle to look back, as a long shrill cry arose in the distance, from the direction of the kraal we had left behind us.“I hope they are not raising the country on our heels.”We paused and listened. The sound was repeated, far away behind us.“Well, we must take our chance. ‘Push on’ is the word.”For some time we rode on in silence, over the same sort of ground as I have already described. And now the sky was glowing with blades of golden effulgence, as the rays of the declining sun lengthened, touching for a moment the face of a great iron-bound krantz starting up, here and there, from the dark impenetrable bush. A pair of crimson-winged louris darted across our path, but otherwise sign of life was there none. Somehow we felt that we must be very close upon the marauders, who might number ten or a hundred. Every moment had become one of tense excitement and expectation.
For some hours we held on without difficulty. It became very hot. The sun’s rays poured down into the close, shut-in kloofs as from the lens of a gigantic burning-glass; and the atmosphere was unmoved by a single puff of wind. The horses were in a bath of perspiration, and it became evident they must be off-saddled, wherefore a halt was called in a cool, shady place, where they could enjoy to the full a much-needed rest. It was a bushy secluded spot beneath an overhanging cliff, from whose face a whole cloud of spreuws flashed hither and thither, whistling in lively alarm, but, best of all, it contained a cool clear water-hole, albeit the liquid was slightly brackish.
“Tired, Holt?” asked Brian good-naturedly, as having knee-haltered the horses, we were discussing some supplies which had been brought in a saddle-bag. “Have a drop of grog.”
“To the first I answer ‘No,’ to the second, ‘Yes,’ emphatically!” I said, catching the flask which he chucked across to me. It was a roomy metal one, with considerable carrying capacity.
“Well, this sort of forced march on an African summer day isn’t a cool and invigorating promenade,” cut in Trask. “After you, Holt.”
We had a tot all round and a smoke. Then it became time to move on again. Once a check occurred, where the thieves had manifestly separated their spoil, but the device was only a blind, and soon solved by such experienced frontiersmen as Brian and Revell. Now and again we would sight a farmhouse, with its cultivated strip of mealie land, picturesquely nestling in some bushy hollow, but such we purposely avoided, for news travels on winged feet among Kafirs, and the arrival of an armed party at one of these homesteads would be extremely likely to be notified by any of the hangers-on there to their brethren of the marauding clans inhabiting the dark, frowning fastnesses which now began to rise not far in front. Nor was there any need to ask for information, for the spoor was as plain as plain could be, and soon, after leading us up a steep hillside, it suddenly left the bush, and, cresting the ridge, struck out into an open plain, where, a few hundred yards in front stood a large native kraal, the dark forms of whose inhabitants we could see moving about among the beehive-shaped huts. But the simultaneous yell and rush of a lot of curs promptly turned the attention of the said inhabitants upon us. It looked as if our appearance had been provocative of more than ordinary excitement.
“Don’t shoot, Trask,” said Brian warningly, observing that that worthy was aiming at a couple of large, mouthing curs whom he considered in rather too close proximity to his horse’s hocks. “Don’t shoot. We haven’t time to stop and have a row here.”
“Who is your headman?” he asked the half-dozen sullen, stalwart savages who had slouched forward to meet us.
“He is not here,Umlúngu,” was the ready reply.
“Whois he, notwhereis he?” repeated Brian.
“He is away,” again answered the man, a tall, grizzled Kafir with an evil expression of countenance.
“Now look,” said Brian forcibly. “When did those oxen and horses pass by here? The spoor is at your very doors. One of you must go with us and carry it on, or you are responsible equally with the thieves.”
By this time quite a number of Kafirs had come forth from among the huts by twos and threes, and were clustering around, a proportion armed with tough, heavy kerries, and their demeanour was sullen and unfriendly to a degree, as they muttered among themselves in their deep bass tones. Women, too, had raised their greasy, scantily-clad forms where they had been lolling against the huts basking in the sun with their round-headed, beady-eyed brats, and were gazing at us; the while discussing us with the freedom of their sex and in no flattering terms.
“Au! We know nothing about thieves,Umlúngu,” replied the spokesman. “If any oxen came by here they did not stay here. Why not follow them further if you have followed them so far? Why trouble us?” And a great jeering guffaw greeted the words.
“Good,” said Brian. “These oxen have been stolen, and we have traced them to the gates of your kraal. You will hear a great deal more about this.”
“Whau!” exclaimed the savage, turning his back upon us. “Go. Go and find your oxen.”
Again that insolent jeering laugh went up from the onlookers, and here an unpleasant discovery forced itself upon us. By accident or design, the crowd, which was now considerable, had closed round us on every side. A serried mass of dark, musky bodies, and grim—and it seemed threatening—faces walled us in, while requests for tobacco and other things were hurled at us in tones that savoured more of demand than petition. The aim of the savages was clear. They intended to delay our advance as long as possible. We had, rather foolishly, allowed ourselves to be led into a trap.
Then occurred the unexpected. A tall Kafir, in the forefront of the mob, pointing suddenly at Revell, ejaculated in great jeering tone—
“Hau! Ibomvu!”
And the shout ran through the whole crowd.
“Ibomvu!” roared the men. “Yau!Ibomvu!” shrilled the women in the background.
I have said something as to the effect produced upon our comrade by any allusion to his flaming poll. It seemed to drive him quite mad. It mattered not that it was uttered by one man or a thousand, the effect upon him was just the same, and this held good here. In less than a second he had put his horse straight at the original offender, and with a tough seacow-hide sjambok which dangled from his wrist was cutting into that astonished and ill-advised ruffian with the fury of a madman. On head and face and naked shoulders the terrible lash descended, and the lightning-like celerity of the attack was such as to leave neither time nor thought for resistance—the victim’s one idea—if he had even one—being to escape from that awful lash, while those around, appalled by the white, infuriated countenance, and the frenzied plunging of the horse, gave way, though not before several of them had tasted the infliction; for Revell cut impartially right and left as though he were hewing his way through with a sabre. And in effect this is just what he might have been doing, for the crowd on that side opened out in wildest confusion, of which we took advantage, and in less than a minute were a couple of hundred yards from the spot.
And now a terrific hubbub arose in our rear. A glance over our shoulders showed the crowd roaring forward on our track, while among others who had dived into the huts to arm, we could see the bright gleam of assegais.
“Face round,” cried Brian, “and aim, but for your lives don’t fire. If we can’t scare them to a halt we must turn and run. But—no shooting.”
We wrenched our horses round. The roaring, surging rush of oncoming savages poured forward, then stopped. Four gun barrels sending forth their contents into the thick of the mob would create awful havoc, and there were four more in reserve, for we each had double barrels. Besides, they knew we could gallop out of reach at no loss to ourselves. So they halted, brandishing sticks and assegais, and howling out every kind of taunting and abusive epithet.
“Ibomvu!Yau!Ibomvu!” yelled Revell, in return, making his sjambok whistle through the air as he flourished it round his head. “Come on, all of you, and taste this. I’ll cut the whole lot of you to thongs! I’ll show you howIbomvucan burn!”
This speech, in Kafir, raised another roar of menace and defiance, but the savages were not inclined to accept the invitation therein embodied, wherefore we turned our horses’ heads, and proceeded leisurely onward.
“Go on, go on,” howled the mob after us. “Go and find your oxen! They—up yonder—will know how to talk with you.”
No further interruption occurred, and before us lay the tell-tale track, as clear as need be. At length the wooded heights rose immediately in front, and we halted for another short off-saddle.
“Now look here,” began Brian, throwing himself on the ground, and filling his pipe. “It’s evident these chaps don’t care whether we follow them or not, but I believe we shall come up with them this evening, and we shall have a little over three hours of daylight to do it in. The sort of treatment we met with just now is a good earnest of what we’ve got to expect. And there are only four of us.”
“Hooray for a row!” cried Trask.
“Yes, but we don’t want a row if it can possibly be avoided. We’re between the devil and the deep sea, which for present purposes may be taken to mean that none of us must fire a shot unless our lives depend upon it, and then, if possible, fire blank.”
This oration was interrupted, and that by a thud of approaching hoof strokes and a sound of deep voices and laughter. A track wound round the hillside lower down, and we saw about a score of mounted Kafirs sweep past, chattering and laughing at the top of their voices. It was clear that this gang was returning from a visit to some canteen, for the condition of more than one of their number was not a little precarious, swaying and lurching in their ragged saddles as they belaboured their wretched undersized steeds.
“All as drunk as pigs,” whispered Revell. “By George! That looks like Kuliso.”
A tall, finely-made man, clad in an ancient pair of trousers and a red blanket and wearing an ivory ring on his left arm rode at the head of the gang, evidently a chief, for he was rather more drunk than the rest, and seemed to occupy a greater share of attention.
“No, it isn’t,” returned Brian. “I don’t know who it is, though.” And in a trice the weird equestrians, their red blankets streaming behind them, were whirled out of sight, and having given them time to get further on their way, we resumed our own.
There was nothing in itself gloomy or forbidding in the series of densely-wooded heights which now rose in front of us. Peaceful solitude rather than lurking danger was the idea conveyed by that winding succession of deep valleys and lofty hills slumbering in the golden light of the waning afternoon, yet the network of rugged ravines we were about to penetrate had, in former times, been the scene of more than one bloody encounter wherein the advantages had all lain with the wild denizens of the place. Many a dark episode could those tangled glens have told, of patrols surprised and outnumbered in the thick bush, of brave men struck down by the assegai of the savage, or dragged off, wounded and disabled, to be put to a lingering death of torture. Even at that time the locality held an evil repute as the haunt of cattle thieves and desperate characters generally.
We crossed a kind of deep basin shut in on all sides by wooded hills, then through a narrowpoortoverhung by aloe-fringed krantzes widening out into just such another basin. In fact, we seemed to have got into a veritable labyrinth of such—and through my own mind, at any rate, passed the thought—How were we going to get out? Then the clamour of dogs in front, and we suddenly came upon a kraal.
“Straight on,” said Brian. “We can’t stop. No time to waste.”
The inhabitants gave us rather a sullen greeting, but made no demonstration, staring after us in lowering silence. And now the way became wilder and more rugged still, and the spoor, yet plain as ever, led us far down into a jungly glade, where the monkey ladders hung like trellis work from the twisted limbs of great yellow-wood trees, and here in the shaded gloom of the forest—for this was no mere scrub, but real forest—night seemed already to be drawing in.
“What’s this?” said Brian, turning in his saddle to look back, as a long shrill cry arose in the distance, from the direction of the kraal we had left behind us.
“I hope they are not raising the country on our heels.”
We paused and listened. The sound was repeated, far away behind us.
“Well, we must take our chance. ‘Push on’ is the word.”
For some time we rode on in silence, over the same sort of ground as I have already described. And now the sky was glowing with blades of golden effulgence, as the rays of the declining sun lengthened, touching for a moment the face of a great iron-bound krantz starting up, here and there, from the dark impenetrable bush. A pair of crimson-winged louris darted across our path, but otherwise sign of life was there none. Somehow we felt that we must be very close upon the marauders, who might number ten or a hundred. Every moment had become one of tense excitement and expectation.