Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.Vrouw Van Vuuren’s Frenchman.It was not until the second time I stayed with him that old Cornelis Van Vuuren began to open his heart, and to pour fitfully into my ears, from the rich storehouse of his memory, many a strange tale of veldt life. I had been fortunate enough to render some little service to a son of the Van Vuurens, far up in the hunting veldt; and these kindly, if somewhat uncouth, South African Dutch folk do not lightly forget such matters. When I passed through the Orange Free State on my way to Natal, in the year 1880, I stayed for a night at the Van Vuurens’ farm. The good people received me with the greatest hospitality, and Cornelis pressed me to stay longer. I was unable to do so at that time; but later, on my way up-country, I outspanned at Nooitgedacht, and stayed several nights.That name, Nooitgedacht (never give in), bestowed years ago upon the farm, well indicates the strong and stubborn character of old Cornelis Van Vuuren, its owner. There were some springboks and blesboks running on the place—remnants of those mighty herds of game which formerly blackened the Free State plains.During the daytime I shot a few head of buck—I wanted some blesbok heads as specimens—and at evening, after supper, as we sat out beneath the warm starlight, Cornelis would open up, and yarn to me in a way that, until you know him well, the Boer seldom manifests to therooinek(Literally, Red-neck—a Boer name for Englishmen).What experiences the old man had had! In his youth he had been a great hunter, and had followed the elephants far into the interior before Gordon Cumming’s time. In those days ivory was plentiful throughout the north of the Transvaal. Many and many a rich load of tusks had Cornelis brought down-country. One of the first to penetrate into the Sabi River country and Gazaland, he had reaped a rich reward. So well had he done, that by 1863 he had practically retired from the hunting veldt, having amassed enough money and cattle to settle down on one of the best farms in the Free State. Here, at the time I knew him, he was living in a roomy, comfortable farmhouse—one of the best Dutch homesteads I have entered. Groves of fruit trees flourished round about; the well-tilled “lands” grew enough grain for a pastoral farmer’s needs; upon the 10,000 acre run large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses flourished. Most of the children had grown up, and been duly married off long since. Only Franz Van Vuuren, the youngest son, whom I had met up-country, now lived with his parents.By the second evening, as we sat at supper, old Cornelis and I had become fast friends. The old man knew from his son that I had shot pretty successfully in Mashonaland; and, in the old Dutch fashion, his simple soul went out at once to a hunter—especially to one who had done Franz a kindly turn. It was a warm evening in November. Vrouw Van Vuuren—a broad-faced, white-haired, portly old dame, still keen-eyed, brisk and sharp with her native servants—sat at the head of the table, endued with a clean print gown and her best black silk apron in honour of my coming. In front of her stood the great coffee urn. Her capacious feet, enveloped in softvelschoens, rested, spite of the warmth of the African evening, upon one of those curious chafing stools—a footstool filled with hot embers—so common in Boer houses. Franz sat at one side of the table, I at the other. Old Cornelis was at the top. I see him now in memory as he stood reverently pouring forth one of those long Dutch prayers, without which no good Boer will begin his meal. He was a magnificent old fellow, far better looking than the average run of Free State or Transvaal Boers. Cornelis Van Vuuren stood a good six feet in hisvelschoens, and, although now seventy years of age, was still erect and strong as an ancient oak. His thick masses of white hair—not too well trimmed—and his snowy beard well set off his strong, massive features. And the old man’s bright blue eye—merry, alert, and penetrating—showed that the fire of life still burned strong within that great old frame. Well might he be called by his fellows, “Sterk Cornelis” (strong Cornelis). I had often heard of the old man’s reputation far up in the interior—of his clear courage and unflagging resource; for Cornelis had been in many a tight place, whether in hunting or in native wars. Few men, even among the great English hunters, had been more reliable at need, whether facing an infuriated bull elephant, or standing up to a wounded and snarling lion—two of the most dangerous foes, I take it, that a man may expect to confront in Africa.As we sat at the evening meal, the pretty Cape swallows, in their handsome livery of blue-black and rufous, flitted in and out of the chamber, through door or open window, hawking incessantly at the plague of flies, or sitting sometimes upon the top of the open door, cheeping their brief, cheerful song. As in many Boer houses, the Van Vuurens had fitted up, for cleanliness’ sake, directly under the swallows’ nests, which were fastened between the central roof timber and the reed thatch, immediately over the table, a broad, square, flat piece of wood. Thus the swallows never trouble the farmer; and, in return for a kindly toleration, the pretty, tame creatures do their best to rid the homesteads of those plagues of flies which are found at most cattle kraals near a Dutchman’s house. Sometimes I have seen the little, confiding creatures, as old Cornelis sat outside upon thestoep, with legs comfortably outstretched, stoop for an instant upon his shoe, and, like lightning, pick off some fly that had rested there.I had long spoken Boer Dutch, and our conversation therefore flowed smoothly and merrily enough. Old Cornelis was in high spirits, and, in response to my queries, told several anecdotes of his early life in the far wilderness. He had been one of the “Voor-Trekkers,” quitting the Cape Colony in 1836, and passing beyond the Orange River to found a new home, and to seek fresh hunting-grounds beyond the reach of a British government. His young wife had fared forth with him, and for twenty years and more had shared his life of pioneer and hunter, with all its dangers, its roughs and tumbles, its wild pleasures, and its fierce occasional excitements. In the distant interior, in the big wagon, or in some temporary hartebeest house of reeds and clay, had the family of this sturdy pair been reared around them.Presently, as he filled his great pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away, some amusing reminiscence flitted across the old Boer’s brain. A broad smile overspread his face, as he said to me, nodding mischievously at his wife, “Kerel(my boy), you have never by chance heard the story of the vrouw there and her Frenchman? It used to be pretty well-known in the veldt years ago.”“No,” I answered, “I never heard the tale. What is it?”“Almighty!” he returned. “It’s a good story, though an old one. I never think of it without laughing, though it happened forty years ago! I must tell it to him, vrouw; what say you?”And then, as the merry recollection rose firmer before the old man’s mind, his broad palm smote his great thigh with a smack that resounded through the room, and he burst into a fit of laughing—so hearty and so long, that the tears started into his blue eyes.But Vrouw Van Vuuren looked meanwhile straight in front of her, with a rather grim look upon her strong old face.“Cornelis Van Vuuren,” she said, after a little pause, looking now very hard at her husband, “that is an old and a foolish story that has been told far too many times already. I will not have it told in my house. If you wish to repeat tales that are better dead and buried, you must go outside.”Cornelis looked at his wife. One glance, and a long experience—nearly fifty years of married life—told him plainly enough that the vrouw was in earnest.“That is all right, Anna, my dear,” he said simply. “I won’t tease you with an old joke. Come, my friend (to me), we will smoke our pipes outside.”We sat ourselves down upon the broadstoep(veranda) which ran round the house, and smoked our pipes. Franz had gone to the sheep-kraals to see that all was well for the night. The sun had just set, and the western heavens and horizon were still aflame with colour. A strange, mellow, refracted light filled the upper air, and threw the flat grass plains, stretching everywhere around, into strong relief. Far out upon these grassy flats, some half a mile away, grazed a troop of springbok, their shining white and cinnamon coats flecking the plain brilliantly. The mingled bleat of sheep and goats and the low of neat cattle came not unpleasantly from the kraals behind the dwelling. I saw that the old man’s eye was resting upon the springboks, now grazing so peacefully upon the plain. Presently he took his pipe from his mouth, shook his head regretfully, and said, “’Tis a pity thewilde(game) are going so fast. I never could have believed it. When I first trekked through this country, in 1837, the land was darkened with wild animals. Almighty! they ran in millions. Quagga, Bonte quagga, black wildebeest, elands, hartebeest, ostrich, springboks, blesboks. Ach!Kerel! (my boy) I tell you I have passed across these plains through a herd oftrek-bokken(migrating springboks) three or four miles broad, and extending as far as a man’s eye could reach. All day we passed through thattrek-bokken. I shall never forget it, never. We shot scores of buck, till we were tired; but we were chiefly anxious to get past the springboks, which had eaten off every blade of grass for miles upon miles, so that our oxen and horses looked like being starved. And now, almost all gone, all gone!”“But,” I said, “although you Afrikanders have pretty well cleaned out the Free State and Transvaal, there is still a good deal of game beyond. Along the Sabi River, for instance!”“Yes, yes,” said the old fellow, “that’s right enough; but even there the heavy game’s going. Why, how many elephants does a man now get in a season’s hunt? Eight or ten, perhaps,—if he is a good man,—and thinks himself lucky. Why,Kerel, when I first hunted along the Crocodile, I shot sixty elephants to my ownroer(gun) in five months. That was something like a game country,—elephants and rhinoceros as common as goats in a kraal.”“Was that the season you met the Frenchman?” I inquired, with a smile.“No, no,” briskly responded Cornelis, with a sly look towards the room where the vrouw still sat. “Not that season, nor the next. But you would like to hear the yarn, and it always make me laugh to tell it. Laughter is good. I was always a merry one, and that, thank the Heer God, is the reason I have got so well through my troubles. Your sour-faced fellow is no good for the long trek through life.“Well, well! It was a funny business that of the good vrouw there and the little Frenchman. It happened in this way. In the third year after we had got into the Transvaal, about two years after we had driven Moselikatse and hisverdomde(infernal) Matabele rascals beyond the Crocodile, I was shooting elephants up in the north. The vrouw was with me, and the children,—we had three young children then,—and we had made a bigscherm(camp) some way south of the Crocodile, a few miles out of reach of the ‘fly,’ (Tse-tse fly) which, I can tell you, was in those days a terrible pest.“The first time I met Pierre Cellois—‘Klein Pierre’ we used to call him—I was about a day east of our camp, shooting water-buck forvelschoens. We had worn out our foot-gear, and wanted fresh supplies of skin. Never shall I forget the little Frenchman’s appearance. He was tricked out in a big slouch hat smothered with great white ostrich feathers—enough to frighten half the game of the country away. Then he had a bright blue jacket with gilt buttons, a pink flannel shirt, a red silk sash round his waist—something like what your officers wore across their shoulders at Boom Plaats, when we fought Sir Harry Smith—white breeches, and long, shiny, black English hunting-boots. In his sash he had stuck a long knife and a pair of pistols. At his side he wore a wonderful powder-horn, decked with silver, and over his back a brown leather bag, smothered with steel mountings, the flash of which you might see a mile off. He carried a good English rifle. His Hottentot boy, besides a fowling-piece, carried a green net and a lot of boxes. The little Frenchman collected butterflies and bird-skins, and he never went abroad without his full paraphernalia. I have seen some funny sights in the veldt, but never have I seen such a figure of a sportsman as Pierre Cellois.“Well, the little Frenchman, it seems, had come up to the Transvaal to shoot game and to collect specimens for a museum. He had read a book by your English army officer, Captain Harris, who was up in the country just before we turned out Moselikatse and his Matabele. Though he was an Englishman, Harris was a right good sportsman. I saw him in our laager in 1837, and his wagons were crammed with horns and skins and ivory. Cellois had Harris’s book with him, a great book—I saw it afterwards on Gordon Cumming’s wagon in Bamangwato—full of capital coloured pictures of game. Little Cellois used to rave over that book, and fling his arms about, and slap his rifle, and altogether send me nearly dying with laughter. But, bless you, Pierre was no sportsman; I could see that at once with half an eye. He had the best of rifles, powder-horns, knives, pistols, everything else—but he hadn’t the pluck, without which a man in the veldt in those days might surely turn his wagons and go home. I have seen him peppering away at a rhinoceros at a hundred and a hundred and fifty yards—teasing the great beast, and tickling its hide, and making it mad, but doing nothing more.“Well, we hunted together during the afternoon of the day I met him, and I shot a big white rhinoceros bull—about the easiest beast a man could shoot. The Frenchman hadn’t seen a rhinoceros shot before, and he nearly went out of his mind. He danced about, cried out with joy, and then rushing up to me, put his arms round my neck and kissed me—yes, kissed me, the little fool! Pah! I couldn’t stand that, and I gave him a bit of a push, and sent him over on his back. He picked himself up and seemed rather angry, but we became good friends afterwards. Next day we came across elephants, and I shot three good bulls, and a cow with long teeth. I was finishing off the last bull, when Pierre Cellois, who had kept very much in the background so far, came up and fired his piece two or three times into the beast, which was now at a stand, just about dying. Then it fell, and the little fellow climbed up on to its back, screaming and waving his arms, took off his hat and cried out something about ‘La France.’ Laugh! I nearly split my sides with laughing at that little jackanapes fellow dancing about up there on the big elephant.”And the old man, as he recalled that absurd scene of forty years agone, laughed in his hearty, massive way so heartily that I, too, was impelled to join him.“Well,” went on Cornelis, “that evening Cellois’ wagon came on to the spot where the elephants lay, and the little Frenchman wrote home a long letter to his wife. He had picked up Dutch at Cape Town, and he told me in his excitable way how he had headed his letter. He wrote: ‘From the camp upon the Crocodile River, upon the day we slew four elephants.’ I laughed, and didn’t say much; but I thought the little man a bit of a liar, considering thatIhad shot the elephants, and thathehad done no more than fire two or three bullets into a bull which was already as good as dead. However, bless you, I didn’t much mind, and I reckoned it would please his vrouw at home. These Frenchmen, I understand,arerather queer in their ways compared to us Boers, or even to you English folk.“A day or two after, having chopped out the tusks, we trekked back to my camp, and the little Frenchman met my vrouw. I can tell you she didn’t much appreciate him, in spite of his fine clothes and his prancing ways. If he was highly dressed before, he was a thousandfold more gay now. In the evenings, after coming into camp, he would deck himself up in all sorts of finery—silk waistcoats covered with flowers, white shirts with frills—frills, I tell you—collars, blue neckerchiefs, and I can’t tell what. Then he was for ever paying my wife compliments, which she hated. The vrouw then was, I can tell you, a very handsome young woman, and although she wore but simple clothes, and her bigkapje(sun-bonnet), it was very plain that he admired her strongly. But then, where a woman was concerned little Pierre was a perfect fool. Why, I have heard him paying compliments and talking nonsense to his Hottentot driver’s wife,Kaitje—such trash as that!“What my wife couldn’t stand was the habit the little fellow had of holding her hand when they met, and sometimes even of kissing it. Almighty! that sent her mad. I could see the angry flush rise to her cheeks and neck, and at last one day she snatched her hand from his and slapped his face pretty smartly.“Not long after, we were outspanned together on the Crocodile River, in a clear place where there was no tse-tse fly for some miles. It was a pleasant camp, and we stood there some time. Here the Frenchman collected birds and butterflies, and I was often away shooting game. One day the little Frenchman was fishing from a high spit of sand below the banks. He had, it seems, waded into the water a little to get his line further out, and a young crocodile, about five feet long, made a grab at him, and caught him by the leg. The reptile was not big enough and strong enough to pull the little fellow in, and a pretty tussle the two had. The vrouw, who was on the wagon close by, hearing some dreadful cries for help, snatched up a gun and ran down. There she saw the crocodile and the Frenchman pulling and hauling and kicking on the spit of sand. She at once let off the gun close into the beast’s side. It was my big elephantroer, carrying four balls to the pound. It made a great hole in the crocodile’s side, so that it quitted its hold, turned over belly upwards, and lay there dead in the shallows. Well, a pretty fuss Cellois made about this affair. He wasn’t much hurt; he had his high boots on, and the crocodile had only given him a few pinches in the calf and side of the leg. He was all right again in a day or two. But he pestered the vrouw nearly to death with his speeches and grimaces, called her his angel, his deliverer, and what not. I was away a good deal just then, and being a veldt-man, and knowing my wife, and not wasting much thought upon the little Frenchman, except when he amused me in camp, I took little heed of what was passing, so to speak, beneath my nose. It seems then that the foolish fellow began to make love to my wife after the crocodile episode. At last, two or three evenings after, when Pierre had gone to his wagon for the night, the vrouw said to me,—“‘Cornelis, you are a fool. This little jackanapes of a Frenchman is making love to me, and you see nothing and do nothing. If you don’t tell him to pack up and trek to-morrow, I shall. I will put up with it no longer.’“‘Wait till to-morrow night, Anna,’ I said. ‘I am riding at dawn to-morrow after zwart-wit-pens (sable antelope). I will see to the matter when I come in. I am sorry this little French ape has been teasing you.’“Well, I rode off next day, and by the merest chance shot two zwart-wit-pens quite early, and came into camp again at noon. As I rode up, I heard piercing shrieks and howls, and cries for mercy, which I knew could come only from Klein Pierre. Then I turned a corner of thescherm(camp fence), and saw at once what was up. Almighty! Although I was startled and surprised, I could scarcely help laughing. There was Pierre Cellois, tied up to our wagon-wheel; all the native servants standing round, and the vrouw, very red and angry, flogging away at the fellow’s back with a goodsjambok(whip) of sea-cow hide.“I jumped off my horse, and ran up to the group. ‘Anna! Anna!’ I cried, ‘what in the Heer God’s name are you doing?’“The vrouw, I can tell you, was mad with anger. She turned upon me, threw down thesjambok, and said, ‘If you hadn’t been a fool, Cornelis, with no more than half an eye, this need never have happened. This little baboon fellow has insulted me grossly. He came up to me, put his arm round my waist, as I sat in my chair, and kissed me upon the mouth. And so I have had him tied up by the boys, and flogged him. Now do you finish with him.’“Well, I was pretty angry—angry at being scolded before all the boys, and angry at this little scoundrel’s impudence, and so I picked up thesjambok, and gave him half a dozen or so for myself. Then I had him untied, and let him go, and bade him inspan and trek at once before worse happened.“Almighty! how mad the fellow was. He cried, he screamed, he wanted to fight me with pistols. But I just sat on my wagon-box, with my gun on my knees, and bade him be off. Well, he trekked in an hour—my boys helped him to inspan the oxen—and we never saw him again. I heard that he went down to Mooi River Dorp (Potchefstrom) and lodged a complaint with Martinus Wessels Pretorius, our commandant, and wanted satisfaction, and threatened a war, and all sorts of things. But, bless you, old Pretorius knew a thing or two. He got the true story from the Frenchman’s Hottentots, and just packed him off south of the Vaal River, and he passed, as I heard, to the old colony, and so home to France. That is the story of the vrouw’s little Frenchman; the vrouw, yonder, will tell you if it is true or no.”The old lady, as Cornelis finished speaking, stood just within the doorway of the house, looking up into the star-spangled sky. She turned towards us; her grave old face, as she did so, lit up by the lamp-light from within. “My Frenchman!” she answered, with a look of strong contempt. “It is an old tale, that, which had better been left untold. I hate the name of Frenchman. I come of Huguenot blood myself, Meneer,” she continued, addressing me, “my father was a Joubert. The Huguenots, I trust, were a very different people. Sooner than think myself akin to such a race as that little dressed-upbaviaan(baboon) my husband has been telling you of, I would disown my own blood. But, indeed, though some of us have Huguenot names, we are all good Dutchmen in South Africa nowadays. You English and we, Meneer, are not always the best of friends; but at least you are men, and not apes in clothes like Pierre Cellois. Come in now, and have asoupje(A drink) before you go to bed.”Pierre Cellois, as I happened to learn since, has long been dust. He became a shining light in his own country, wrote a book, and is still referred to as “that great explorer and hunter.”Stout Cornelis Van Vuuren and his good vrouw, too, have lain for some years in their quiet graves. I sometimes wonder if they and the little Frenchman have met and settled their differences in the silent land.

It was not until the second time I stayed with him that old Cornelis Van Vuuren began to open his heart, and to pour fitfully into my ears, from the rich storehouse of his memory, many a strange tale of veldt life. I had been fortunate enough to render some little service to a son of the Van Vuurens, far up in the hunting veldt; and these kindly, if somewhat uncouth, South African Dutch folk do not lightly forget such matters. When I passed through the Orange Free State on my way to Natal, in the year 1880, I stayed for a night at the Van Vuurens’ farm. The good people received me with the greatest hospitality, and Cornelis pressed me to stay longer. I was unable to do so at that time; but later, on my way up-country, I outspanned at Nooitgedacht, and stayed several nights.

That name, Nooitgedacht (never give in), bestowed years ago upon the farm, well indicates the strong and stubborn character of old Cornelis Van Vuuren, its owner. There were some springboks and blesboks running on the place—remnants of those mighty herds of game which formerly blackened the Free State plains.

During the daytime I shot a few head of buck—I wanted some blesbok heads as specimens—and at evening, after supper, as we sat out beneath the warm starlight, Cornelis would open up, and yarn to me in a way that, until you know him well, the Boer seldom manifests to therooinek(Literally, Red-neck—a Boer name for Englishmen).

What experiences the old man had had! In his youth he had been a great hunter, and had followed the elephants far into the interior before Gordon Cumming’s time. In those days ivory was plentiful throughout the north of the Transvaal. Many and many a rich load of tusks had Cornelis brought down-country. One of the first to penetrate into the Sabi River country and Gazaland, he had reaped a rich reward. So well had he done, that by 1863 he had practically retired from the hunting veldt, having amassed enough money and cattle to settle down on one of the best farms in the Free State. Here, at the time I knew him, he was living in a roomy, comfortable farmhouse—one of the best Dutch homesteads I have entered. Groves of fruit trees flourished round about; the well-tilled “lands” grew enough grain for a pastoral farmer’s needs; upon the 10,000 acre run large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses flourished. Most of the children had grown up, and been duly married off long since. Only Franz Van Vuuren, the youngest son, whom I had met up-country, now lived with his parents.

By the second evening, as we sat at supper, old Cornelis and I had become fast friends. The old man knew from his son that I had shot pretty successfully in Mashonaland; and, in the old Dutch fashion, his simple soul went out at once to a hunter—especially to one who had done Franz a kindly turn. It was a warm evening in November. Vrouw Van Vuuren—a broad-faced, white-haired, portly old dame, still keen-eyed, brisk and sharp with her native servants—sat at the head of the table, endued with a clean print gown and her best black silk apron in honour of my coming. In front of her stood the great coffee urn. Her capacious feet, enveloped in softvelschoens, rested, spite of the warmth of the African evening, upon one of those curious chafing stools—a footstool filled with hot embers—so common in Boer houses. Franz sat at one side of the table, I at the other. Old Cornelis was at the top. I see him now in memory as he stood reverently pouring forth one of those long Dutch prayers, without which no good Boer will begin his meal. He was a magnificent old fellow, far better looking than the average run of Free State or Transvaal Boers. Cornelis Van Vuuren stood a good six feet in hisvelschoens, and, although now seventy years of age, was still erect and strong as an ancient oak. His thick masses of white hair—not too well trimmed—and his snowy beard well set off his strong, massive features. And the old man’s bright blue eye—merry, alert, and penetrating—showed that the fire of life still burned strong within that great old frame. Well might he be called by his fellows, “Sterk Cornelis” (strong Cornelis). I had often heard of the old man’s reputation far up in the interior—of his clear courage and unflagging resource; for Cornelis had been in many a tight place, whether in hunting or in native wars. Few men, even among the great English hunters, had been more reliable at need, whether facing an infuriated bull elephant, or standing up to a wounded and snarling lion—two of the most dangerous foes, I take it, that a man may expect to confront in Africa.

As we sat at the evening meal, the pretty Cape swallows, in their handsome livery of blue-black and rufous, flitted in and out of the chamber, through door or open window, hawking incessantly at the plague of flies, or sitting sometimes upon the top of the open door, cheeping their brief, cheerful song. As in many Boer houses, the Van Vuurens had fitted up, for cleanliness’ sake, directly under the swallows’ nests, which were fastened between the central roof timber and the reed thatch, immediately over the table, a broad, square, flat piece of wood. Thus the swallows never trouble the farmer; and, in return for a kindly toleration, the pretty, tame creatures do their best to rid the homesteads of those plagues of flies which are found at most cattle kraals near a Dutchman’s house. Sometimes I have seen the little, confiding creatures, as old Cornelis sat outside upon thestoep, with legs comfortably outstretched, stoop for an instant upon his shoe, and, like lightning, pick off some fly that had rested there.

I had long spoken Boer Dutch, and our conversation therefore flowed smoothly and merrily enough. Old Cornelis was in high spirits, and, in response to my queries, told several anecdotes of his early life in the far wilderness. He had been one of the “Voor-Trekkers,” quitting the Cape Colony in 1836, and passing beyond the Orange River to found a new home, and to seek fresh hunting-grounds beyond the reach of a British government. His young wife had fared forth with him, and for twenty years and more had shared his life of pioneer and hunter, with all its dangers, its roughs and tumbles, its wild pleasures, and its fierce occasional excitements. In the distant interior, in the big wagon, or in some temporary hartebeest house of reeds and clay, had the family of this sturdy pair been reared around them.

Presently, as he filled his great pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away, some amusing reminiscence flitted across the old Boer’s brain. A broad smile overspread his face, as he said to me, nodding mischievously at his wife, “Kerel(my boy), you have never by chance heard the story of the vrouw there and her Frenchman? It used to be pretty well-known in the veldt years ago.”

“No,” I answered, “I never heard the tale. What is it?”

“Almighty!” he returned. “It’s a good story, though an old one. I never think of it without laughing, though it happened forty years ago! I must tell it to him, vrouw; what say you?”

And then, as the merry recollection rose firmer before the old man’s mind, his broad palm smote his great thigh with a smack that resounded through the room, and he burst into a fit of laughing—so hearty and so long, that the tears started into his blue eyes.

But Vrouw Van Vuuren looked meanwhile straight in front of her, with a rather grim look upon her strong old face.

“Cornelis Van Vuuren,” she said, after a little pause, looking now very hard at her husband, “that is an old and a foolish story that has been told far too many times already. I will not have it told in my house. If you wish to repeat tales that are better dead and buried, you must go outside.”

Cornelis looked at his wife. One glance, and a long experience—nearly fifty years of married life—told him plainly enough that the vrouw was in earnest.

“That is all right, Anna, my dear,” he said simply. “I won’t tease you with an old joke. Come, my friend (to me), we will smoke our pipes outside.”

We sat ourselves down upon the broadstoep(veranda) which ran round the house, and smoked our pipes. Franz had gone to the sheep-kraals to see that all was well for the night. The sun had just set, and the western heavens and horizon were still aflame with colour. A strange, mellow, refracted light filled the upper air, and threw the flat grass plains, stretching everywhere around, into strong relief. Far out upon these grassy flats, some half a mile away, grazed a troop of springbok, their shining white and cinnamon coats flecking the plain brilliantly. The mingled bleat of sheep and goats and the low of neat cattle came not unpleasantly from the kraals behind the dwelling. I saw that the old man’s eye was resting upon the springboks, now grazing so peacefully upon the plain. Presently he took his pipe from his mouth, shook his head regretfully, and said, “’Tis a pity thewilde(game) are going so fast. I never could have believed it. When I first trekked through this country, in 1837, the land was darkened with wild animals. Almighty! they ran in millions. Quagga, Bonte quagga, black wildebeest, elands, hartebeest, ostrich, springboks, blesboks. Ach!Kerel! (my boy) I tell you I have passed across these plains through a herd oftrek-bokken(migrating springboks) three or four miles broad, and extending as far as a man’s eye could reach. All day we passed through thattrek-bokken. I shall never forget it, never. We shot scores of buck, till we were tired; but we were chiefly anxious to get past the springboks, which had eaten off every blade of grass for miles upon miles, so that our oxen and horses looked like being starved. And now, almost all gone, all gone!”

“But,” I said, “although you Afrikanders have pretty well cleaned out the Free State and Transvaal, there is still a good deal of game beyond. Along the Sabi River, for instance!”

“Yes, yes,” said the old fellow, “that’s right enough; but even there the heavy game’s going. Why, how many elephants does a man now get in a season’s hunt? Eight or ten, perhaps,—if he is a good man,—and thinks himself lucky. Why,Kerel, when I first hunted along the Crocodile, I shot sixty elephants to my ownroer(gun) in five months. That was something like a game country,—elephants and rhinoceros as common as goats in a kraal.”

“Was that the season you met the Frenchman?” I inquired, with a smile.

“No, no,” briskly responded Cornelis, with a sly look towards the room where the vrouw still sat. “Not that season, nor the next. But you would like to hear the yarn, and it always make me laugh to tell it. Laughter is good. I was always a merry one, and that, thank the Heer God, is the reason I have got so well through my troubles. Your sour-faced fellow is no good for the long trek through life.

“Well, well! It was a funny business that of the good vrouw there and the little Frenchman. It happened in this way. In the third year after we had got into the Transvaal, about two years after we had driven Moselikatse and hisverdomde(infernal) Matabele rascals beyond the Crocodile, I was shooting elephants up in the north. The vrouw was with me, and the children,—we had three young children then,—and we had made a bigscherm(camp) some way south of the Crocodile, a few miles out of reach of the ‘fly,’ (Tse-tse fly) which, I can tell you, was in those days a terrible pest.

“The first time I met Pierre Cellois—‘Klein Pierre’ we used to call him—I was about a day east of our camp, shooting water-buck forvelschoens. We had worn out our foot-gear, and wanted fresh supplies of skin. Never shall I forget the little Frenchman’s appearance. He was tricked out in a big slouch hat smothered with great white ostrich feathers—enough to frighten half the game of the country away. Then he had a bright blue jacket with gilt buttons, a pink flannel shirt, a red silk sash round his waist—something like what your officers wore across their shoulders at Boom Plaats, when we fought Sir Harry Smith—white breeches, and long, shiny, black English hunting-boots. In his sash he had stuck a long knife and a pair of pistols. At his side he wore a wonderful powder-horn, decked with silver, and over his back a brown leather bag, smothered with steel mountings, the flash of which you might see a mile off. He carried a good English rifle. His Hottentot boy, besides a fowling-piece, carried a green net and a lot of boxes. The little Frenchman collected butterflies and bird-skins, and he never went abroad without his full paraphernalia. I have seen some funny sights in the veldt, but never have I seen such a figure of a sportsman as Pierre Cellois.

“Well, the little Frenchman, it seems, had come up to the Transvaal to shoot game and to collect specimens for a museum. He had read a book by your English army officer, Captain Harris, who was up in the country just before we turned out Moselikatse and his Matabele. Though he was an Englishman, Harris was a right good sportsman. I saw him in our laager in 1837, and his wagons were crammed with horns and skins and ivory. Cellois had Harris’s book with him, a great book—I saw it afterwards on Gordon Cumming’s wagon in Bamangwato—full of capital coloured pictures of game. Little Cellois used to rave over that book, and fling his arms about, and slap his rifle, and altogether send me nearly dying with laughter. But, bless you, Pierre was no sportsman; I could see that at once with half an eye. He had the best of rifles, powder-horns, knives, pistols, everything else—but he hadn’t the pluck, without which a man in the veldt in those days might surely turn his wagons and go home. I have seen him peppering away at a rhinoceros at a hundred and a hundred and fifty yards—teasing the great beast, and tickling its hide, and making it mad, but doing nothing more.

“Well, we hunted together during the afternoon of the day I met him, and I shot a big white rhinoceros bull—about the easiest beast a man could shoot. The Frenchman hadn’t seen a rhinoceros shot before, and he nearly went out of his mind. He danced about, cried out with joy, and then rushing up to me, put his arms round my neck and kissed me—yes, kissed me, the little fool! Pah! I couldn’t stand that, and I gave him a bit of a push, and sent him over on his back. He picked himself up and seemed rather angry, but we became good friends afterwards. Next day we came across elephants, and I shot three good bulls, and a cow with long teeth. I was finishing off the last bull, when Pierre Cellois, who had kept very much in the background so far, came up and fired his piece two or three times into the beast, which was now at a stand, just about dying. Then it fell, and the little fellow climbed up on to its back, screaming and waving his arms, took off his hat and cried out something about ‘La France.’ Laugh! I nearly split my sides with laughing at that little jackanapes fellow dancing about up there on the big elephant.”

And the old man, as he recalled that absurd scene of forty years agone, laughed in his hearty, massive way so heartily that I, too, was impelled to join him.

“Well,” went on Cornelis, “that evening Cellois’ wagon came on to the spot where the elephants lay, and the little Frenchman wrote home a long letter to his wife. He had picked up Dutch at Cape Town, and he told me in his excitable way how he had headed his letter. He wrote: ‘From the camp upon the Crocodile River, upon the day we slew four elephants.’ I laughed, and didn’t say much; but I thought the little man a bit of a liar, considering thatIhad shot the elephants, and thathehad done no more than fire two or three bullets into a bull which was already as good as dead. However, bless you, I didn’t much mind, and I reckoned it would please his vrouw at home. These Frenchmen, I understand,arerather queer in their ways compared to us Boers, or even to you English folk.

“A day or two after, having chopped out the tusks, we trekked back to my camp, and the little Frenchman met my vrouw. I can tell you she didn’t much appreciate him, in spite of his fine clothes and his prancing ways. If he was highly dressed before, he was a thousandfold more gay now. In the evenings, after coming into camp, he would deck himself up in all sorts of finery—silk waistcoats covered with flowers, white shirts with frills—frills, I tell you—collars, blue neckerchiefs, and I can’t tell what. Then he was for ever paying my wife compliments, which she hated. The vrouw then was, I can tell you, a very handsome young woman, and although she wore but simple clothes, and her bigkapje(sun-bonnet), it was very plain that he admired her strongly. But then, where a woman was concerned little Pierre was a perfect fool. Why, I have heard him paying compliments and talking nonsense to his Hottentot driver’s wife,Kaitje—such trash as that!

“What my wife couldn’t stand was the habit the little fellow had of holding her hand when they met, and sometimes even of kissing it. Almighty! that sent her mad. I could see the angry flush rise to her cheeks and neck, and at last one day she snatched her hand from his and slapped his face pretty smartly.

“Not long after, we were outspanned together on the Crocodile River, in a clear place where there was no tse-tse fly for some miles. It was a pleasant camp, and we stood there some time. Here the Frenchman collected birds and butterflies, and I was often away shooting game. One day the little Frenchman was fishing from a high spit of sand below the banks. He had, it seems, waded into the water a little to get his line further out, and a young crocodile, about five feet long, made a grab at him, and caught him by the leg. The reptile was not big enough and strong enough to pull the little fellow in, and a pretty tussle the two had. The vrouw, who was on the wagon close by, hearing some dreadful cries for help, snatched up a gun and ran down. There she saw the crocodile and the Frenchman pulling and hauling and kicking on the spit of sand. She at once let off the gun close into the beast’s side. It was my big elephantroer, carrying four balls to the pound. It made a great hole in the crocodile’s side, so that it quitted its hold, turned over belly upwards, and lay there dead in the shallows. Well, a pretty fuss Cellois made about this affair. He wasn’t much hurt; he had his high boots on, and the crocodile had only given him a few pinches in the calf and side of the leg. He was all right again in a day or two. But he pestered the vrouw nearly to death with his speeches and grimaces, called her his angel, his deliverer, and what not. I was away a good deal just then, and being a veldt-man, and knowing my wife, and not wasting much thought upon the little Frenchman, except when he amused me in camp, I took little heed of what was passing, so to speak, beneath my nose. It seems then that the foolish fellow began to make love to my wife after the crocodile episode. At last, two or three evenings after, when Pierre had gone to his wagon for the night, the vrouw said to me,—

“‘Cornelis, you are a fool. This little jackanapes of a Frenchman is making love to me, and you see nothing and do nothing. If you don’t tell him to pack up and trek to-morrow, I shall. I will put up with it no longer.’

“‘Wait till to-morrow night, Anna,’ I said. ‘I am riding at dawn to-morrow after zwart-wit-pens (sable antelope). I will see to the matter when I come in. I am sorry this little French ape has been teasing you.’

“Well, I rode off next day, and by the merest chance shot two zwart-wit-pens quite early, and came into camp again at noon. As I rode up, I heard piercing shrieks and howls, and cries for mercy, which I knew could come only from Klein Pierre. Then I turned a corner of thescherm(camp fence), and saw at once what was up. Almighty! Although I was startled and surprised, I could scarcely help laughing. There was Pierre Cellois, tied up to our wagon-wheel; all the native servants standing round, and the vrouw, very red and angry, flogging away at the fellow’s back with a goodsjambok(whip) of sea-cow hide.

“I jumped off my horse, and ran up to the group. ‘Anna! Anna!’ I cried, ‘what in the Heer God’s name are you doing?’

“The vrouw, I can tell you, was mad with anger. She turned upon me, threw down thesjambok, and said, ‘If you hadn’t been a fool, Cornelis, with no more than half an eye, this need never have happened. This little baboon fellow has insulted me grossly. He came up to me, put his arm round my waist, as I sat in my chair, and kissed me upon the mouth. And so I have had him tied up by the boys, and flogged him. Now do you finish with him.’

“Well, I was pretty angry—angry at being scolded before all the boys, and angry at this little scoundrel’s impudence, and so I picked up thesjambok, and gave him half a dozen or so for myself. Then I had him untied, and let him go, and bade him inspan and trek at once before worse happened.

“Almighty! how mad the fellow was. He cried, he screamed, he wanted to fight me with pistols. But I just sat on my wagon-box, with my gun on my knees, and bade him be off. Well, he trekked in an hour—my boys helped him to inspan the oxen—and we never saw him again. I heard that he went down to Mooi River Dorp (Potchefstrom) and lodged a complaint with Martinus Wessels Pretorius, our commandant, and wanted satisfaction, and threatened a war, and all sorts of things. But, bless you, old Pretorius knew a thing or two. He got the true story from the Frenchman’s Hottentots, and just packed him off south of the Vaal River, and he passed, as I heard, to the old colony, and so home to France. That is the story of the vrouw’s little Frenchman; the vrouw, yonder, will tell you if it is true or no.”

The old lady, as Cornelis finished speaking, stood just within the doorway of the house, looking up into the star-spangled sky. She turned towards us; her grave old face, as she did so, lit up by the lamp-light from within. “My Frenchman!” she answered, with a look of strong contempt. “It is an old tale, that, which had better been left untold. I hate the name of Frenchman. I come of Huguenot blood myself, Meneer,” she continued, addressing me, “my father was a Joubert. The Huguenots, I trust, were a very different people. Sooner than think myself akin to such a race as that little dressed-upbaviaan(baboon) my husband has been telling you of, I would disown my own blood. But, indeed, though some of us have Huguenot names, we are all good Dutchmen in South Africa nowadays. You English and we, Meneer, are not always the best of friends; but at least you are men, and not apes in clothes like Pierre Cellois. Come in now, and have asoupje(A drink) before you go to bed.”

Pierre Cellois, as I happened to learn since, has long been dust. He became a shining light in his own country, wrote a book, and is still referred to as “that great explorer and hunter.”

Stout Cornelis Van Vuuren and his good vrouw, too, have lain for some years in their quiet graves. I sometimes wonder if they and the little Frenchman have met and settled their differences in the silent land.

Chapter Ten.The Great Secret.“And ever with unconquerable will,Bearing her burden, toward one distant starShe moves in her desire; and though with painShe labour, and the goal she dreams be far,Proud is she in her passionate soul to knowThat from her tears, her very sorrows growThe joy, the hope, the peace of future men.”The speaker, as he finished these lines, recited half to himself, half to his friend, in a dreamy monotone, gazed again into the dark night sky above him, and fetched a deep breath—almost a sigh.“Hullo, Bill!” remarked his friend by the camp-fire, in a brisk tone. “Breaking out that way again, are you? I haven’t heard poetry from you—of that sort—for weeks. I suppose all the hunting and hard work lately has knocked the stuffing out of you. A day’s rest, and you burst into song again. Who’s your author? I don’t seem to know him. Not Tennyson, is it?”“No, old chap,” returned Bill, “it isn’t. It’s a new man—Lawrence Binyon—and he’s got some mettle in him. I think that image of his of our poor old earth staggering along with her load to some far-off goal, still, among all her tears and sorrows, buoyed with future hopes, is magnificent. Is it true, though? Is there that great secret, and does she know it?”Bill Vincent and Ralph Jenner, the two men who sat by the pleasant camp-fire in the far South African interior, were old friends, now engaged on a hunting expedition towards the Okavango.Nowadays you may find, scattered about that vast mysterious land, many scores of well-educated gentlemen knocking about in the veldt, often dressed in clothes and engaged in work that a British navvy would scorn, yet, barring a slight access of strong language, born of the wilderness, still gentlemen at heart, and capable of returning to civilisation without loss or deterioration. Here were two of them. The burnt arms of the two men, and their sun-tanned faces and chests and rough beards, their thorn-tattered breeches, and scarred old pigskin gaiters, showed plainly that they had been long afield. And the numerous heads, horns, and skins hanging in trees near, and bestowed about the wagon, sufficiently indicated the main object of their trip.Their big wagon stood near; beyond it, lying at their yokes, chewing peacefully the cud, the great trek oxen rested. Six hunting ponies were carefully fastened to the wagon-wheels in full light of the camp-fires. Thirty yards away from the two Englishmen, gathered round a still bigger fire, were the native “boys,” some still chattering, some fast asleep. Round about, the camp was engirt with bush and thin forest of giraffe-acacia.As usual it was a glorious night. Only those who have lain out month after month in the vast silent veldt of the far interior can realise the unspeakable majesty of the deep indigo void of the night heaven, sown with a myriad flashing diamonds, that looms above the wanderer. The airs were soft and sweet; the night was absolutely perfect. Almost complete silence rested upon the wild. Bill took a fresh ember from the fire and relit his pipe.“My boy,” he went on, “with all the roughs and tumbles of this life—and it’s a glorious life while it lasts, and where the game’s plentiful there’s none better in this world—one can’t help thinking sometimes what it all means and where it ends. No man, I take it, can live with Nature as we do, and look up at that sky,”—here Bill turned his gaze upward, and with his short pipe indicated the glittering array of stars,—“with its myriads of systems, and deny some great Power behind it all. And yet—and yet, in all these tens of thousands of years, with all the millions upon millions of souls that have come and gone, we know absolutely nothing of the hereafter. That’s what beats me. No true or certain message has ever yet come from the dead to tell us what happens when the last plunge is made. Chaldeans, Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Greeks, Buddhists, Confucians, Hebrews, Christians, all have tried their level best to get at the secret; none—no, not one—have solved it. They all have their theories, of course. I suppose they always will. But to any real solution of the great secret, to the real truth, we are no nearer than we were ten thousand years ago. The wisest of them all are dumb and mute, and, I suppose, always will be. Look at the Spiritualists. What do they tell us? A lot of piffling rubbish—knockings, rappings, and contemptible nonsense of that sort—but of serious truth, of what we want to know, not one little bit.“Religions, and creeds, and beliefs never help us to pierce the big veil yonder. Ethics are all right enough; but even ethics can’t solve that immense mystery. One can only long and wonder, and wonder and long again. Don’t laugh, old chap. I don’t often inflict you with this sort of thing; but out here in the desert, face to face with Nature, with time to think, one can’t help puzzling over this world-worn problem. One finds so much wrong in what one hears in the world. You know that as well as I. Why, look at the dream of universal peace—swords turned into ploughshares, lions and lambs lying down together, and all that sort of thing. What rot it is! One comes out here in the veldt and looks at Nature, and one findseverywherethe most ghastly war, and murder, and suffering incessantly around one. Birds, beasts, insects, reptiles, fish—all hard at it. You can never have peace in this world. Battle, and murder, and sudden death will, I believe, last as long as the earth lasts. You may have epochs of civilisation and calm, but only for a time. Nature tells us that plainly, and you can’t get away from Nature.”“I’m not laughing, Bill,” returned his comrade. “Sometimes, but not very often, I have the same thoughts. Everybody, I suppose, has at times. Your puzzle has puzzled the world always, and always will. And the more one gets away from the din and struggle of the beastly towns, the bigger seems the mystery of life and the beyond. But it’s no use worrying about it. The baby that dies every day somewhere in the world, I suppose knows more than we shall ever do till the end comes. After all, one can only try and play the game, and do one’s poor little best according to one’s lights and ethics.”“I suppose so,” answered Bill. “But it’s a secret worth knowing, old chap, isn’t it? Itmustbe, if one only knew.”The two friends sat smoking and talking for half an hour longer upon different topics, mainly to do with hunting, and then climbed into the wagon, tucked themselves beneath their karosses, and slept the refreshing sleep of the veldt.A fortnight later they were camped on a tributary stream north of the Okavango. They had left their wagon standing on the southern bank of the big river, and the Bayeiye had ferried them across in their dug-outs. Here buffalo were in plenty—the vast reed-beds were full of them—and they had already secured plenty of meat and some good heads.It was early dawn, and they were drinking a cup of coffee by the remains of the overnight camp-fire. The sky was just paling in the east, and already the world was astir in this remote wilderness. The hippos were blowing in the river a little below them; long flights of storks were winding through the clear air; multitudes of duck, geese, and other wildfowl were raising their clamour upon the waters. Presently their native hunter crept in from a tour of inspection. “Sieur,” he said, a grin of pleasure upon his keen face, “there’s a big troop of buffalo down there by the water now. They are not far from some bush, and you can get a good shot before they make for the reeds again. And there are some big bulls among them—old fellows with horns so thick!”—spreading out his arms with perhaps a trifle of exaggeration.“That’s all right, Cobus,” responded Bill Vincent. “We’ll come along at once. How far are they off?”“Less than a quarter of a mile, Sieur. You can hear them a little way on, trampling and splashing in the shallows. They’re feeding all round there.”“Capital!” exclaimed Ralph, picking up his double eight-bore and looking through the barrels. “Here, you, Tatenyan, lay hold of that,” handing another native his second rifle. “Be careful, you beggar; it’s loaded.”Tatenyan grinned an immense grin, and took the rifle.Accompanied by their two gun-bearers, the white men set off in high spirits. There was plenty of scattered cover between them and the buffalo, principally thorn-bush, and the hunters picked their way as noiselessly as possible, following the lead of Cobus.A noble koodoo bull, carrying a magnificent pair of spiral horns, stared at them for a second as they entered a grassy clearing, and then with his three cows fled away before them.But they were after heavier game even than the gallant koodoo, and he went unscathed.Now they are nearing the buffalo. Beyond the fringe of bush which yet masks them they can hear the great beasts grunting, wallowing, splashing, nay, even hear them plucking the sweet grass that margins the lagoon. The wind, what there is of it, is right in their faces. The game here has scarcely ever yet been disturbed by gunners; they are safe for sport.Old hands though they are, they now steal breathlessly through the bush. Cobus has resigned the lead, and the two friends stalk in with the greatest care together. At last they peer through a small opening. What a scene lies before them! A troop of at least three hundred mighty buffalo, bulls, cows, and calves, some feeding, some drinking, some rolling in the shallow lagoon, some playfully butting at one another. All, utterly unconscious of impending danger, stand there within a radius of two hundred yards; the nearest of them are within fifty. A more inspiring prospect hunter’s eye never beheld.Numbers of the weaver birds (Bubalornis erythrorhyncus), always found associating with buffalo, are here, some picking busily at the parasites on the great creatures’ backs; others flitting hither and thither, chattering noisily, intent on business or pleasure. Even the sharp weaver birds detect no enemy—much less their allies the buffaloes. A few white egrets, apparently as fearless of the great quadrupeds as the buffalo birds, add beauty to the scene. Some of these charming herons, too, are perched upon the buffalo, their snowy plumes contrasting sharply with the sombre hides of their gigantic friends. Birds and quadrupeds alike are all void of suspicion upon this bright, quiet morning in the far African wilderness.Having taken in with an eager glance or two this wonderful picture, the two men and their gun-bearers crouch down behind the thick screen of bush and wait. It seems half an hour to them. At length, in about five minutes, two massive old bulls, grim, heavy-fronted, and carrying immense horns, nearly devoid of hair, short in the legs, yet of tremendous bulk, come feeding past within easy range. The two men glance at one another, and with a nod single out their victims.On a sudden their heavy rifles roar out together. One of the bulls falls instantly to the shot; the other staggers, but plunges on. There is a terrific commotion among the herd. The great beasts all gallop left-handed, seeking an outlet in the ring of bush. Through the lagoon they splash, driving the water in masses of spray about them, and then away they rave through grass and undergrowth, making the earth thunder beneath them. Bill, whose buffalo has for the moment escaped, selects a fat cow, and with two bullets well planted brings her down. The vast troop has passed away, and they now emerge to inspect their quarry.The dead buffaloes are fine specimens, and in high condition and, leaving Tatenyan behind to begin the skinning and cutting-up process, the two Englishmen now proceed together with Cobus to take up the blood-spoor of the wounded bull and finish him off. He carries a magnificent pair of horns—a champion head—which Bill yearns to possess himself of.Cobus, with the marvellous skill of the native African hunter, quickly separates the trail of the wounded beast from its scores of fellows, and presently, as they enter the bush, bears suddenly to the left. The stricken brute has turned him aside from the battle, and the main body of the troop have plunged right-handed through the bush to seek shelter in the dense reed-beds not far away.At first the blood-spoor, which is now easily followed, takes them through fairly open bush, in which they can see about them without much difficulty. So far all is well. A wounded buffalo is, as all hunters know, the most dangerous and tricky beast in Africa, and in thickish bush his pursuer must needs follow him yard by yard with his life in his hand. Presently the spoor takes them by a narrow game-path through impenetrable thorny covert six or eight feet high. Patches of bright red blood show that the buffalo is bleeding freely, and from the lungs; he cannot go far at this rate. Cobus, who has led the way hitherto, looks at the dark wall of bush on either hand, indicates the deep shade thrown here and there, and the possibility of dangerous ambush at any moment, and shakes his head. He likes the job little enough, and he is perfectly right. To go on is to risk a violent death, and there is little chance of escape from a charge in such confined quarters. But to many Englishmen the constant spice of clanger adds greatly to the charm of sport in Africa. Bill quietly pulls Cobus behind him, knits his brow, and prepares to creep forward. Ralph in his turn supersedes Cobus, and dogs the heels of his friend. It looks like a nasty business, and he wishes them all well out of it; but he can’t now go back on his chum.Breathlessly, cautiously, they pick their way down the narrow game-path. The dense thicket shuts out every trace of the cool outer breeze; the sun beats down hotly upon their heads; lightly clad though they are, the sweat starts freely from their bodies. Silently they move on. They turn an angle or two, pass safely some dark shadows in the bush-wall, and then, without a fiftieth part of a second of warning, from a piece of bush where you might swear a steinbok could not have hidden itself, a great dark form comes charging forth, with eyes of fire, blood-dripping nostrils, and head well up.In an instant the revengeful beast has cleared the angle of bush where it had lain silently biding its time, and is almost on top of Bill. Bill fires one shot,—he has no time for more,—and then, to save himself, springs as far to the left as possible. In vain! His bullet glances harmlessly from the tremendous frontal horn of the buffalo without stopping or even injuring the brute. Another half instant and the great grim beast has taken terrible revenge.There is a single lightning-like sweep of the heavy head, a dull, sickening thud, and Bill is sent crashing into the thorny thicket yards away.The buffalo stands in devilish wrath for a brief moment, a terrible picture, meditating its next attack; its left chest is exposed.Ralph instantly seizes his only hope of salvation and poor Bill’s. His eight-bore rifle is at his shoulder, the loud report roars out, and the bull staggers to earth, sore-stricken yet not vanquished. Fiercely he struggles for his feet again, the blood pouring from his mouth and nostrils with the tremendous exertion. In the next instant another bullet, planted in the centre of his forehead, just below the rugged mass of horn, ends his career, and he breathes out his last with that fierce complaining bellow peculiar to the death-throe of his race.Ralph and the native turn at once to Bill, lying senseless and bleeding, deeply embedded in the frightful mass of thorny bush. It is a tough task even to extricate him; but after some minutes’ hewing and hacking with their hunting knives it is at last accomplished, and the victim is laid tenderly on the smooth game-path.Alas! his injuries are terrible. Several ribs are displaced and smashed on the right side; there is a deep jagged hole beneath; and the sharp horn, driven with the mighty strength of an old buffalo bull, has penetrated far into the lung. So much is at once apparent, and it looks sadly as if Bill’s hours are numbered.It is a shocking blow for Ralph. Who could have dreamed that that strong, active man, not yet at his prime, full of pluck, enterprise, and a perennial cheeriness—but ten short minutes before cracking some half-whispered joke to his friend and servant—could now be lying, a battered, senseless rag of humanity, in his comrade’s arms?As well as they can, the two sound men bind up the gaping wound, and stanch the bleeding, and then, between them, tenderly they carry the still senseless hunter back to camp.It was but a twenty minutes’ journey, slowly as they progressed, yet to Ralph it seemed long hours.At last they laid the wounded man gently upon his blankets, beneath the shade of the big thorn tree, washed and carefully bound up his dreadful hurt, poured brandy between his poor bloodstained lips, and then—there was nothing else to be done—awaited the event. It was too far to attempt to convey him across the river to the wagons; the slightest movement greatly increased the bleeding from the mouth, and suffocation seemed imminent. Ralph sent Tatenyan across in a canoe for more brandy; for the rest of that weary, hot African day he could only watch and wait.Bill lay senseless far into the afternoon, breathing out, as it seemed, slowly and very painfully his remaining stock of life. Towards sunset, he opened his eyes feebly, looked about him, and whispered faintly to Ralph, now bending over him with his eyes full of irrestrainable tears, “Where’s the bull?”“He’s dead, old chap. I settled him after he struck you. Don’t talk much; I’m afraid you’re very badly hurt.”“Yes,” went on Bill, “he’s about finished me, I think. I was an idiot to follow him into that bush. Cobus was right. Well, I’ve paid dearly for him. Take his head home, old chap, and hang it up. I don’t think I shall see this through; and when you look at the horns, you will think of me, and the good days we had together in the veldt.”“Don’t, don’t, Bill,” said Ralph. “For God’s sake don’t talk like that. Who knows?—we may pull you through yet. Lie still, and don’t talk, there’s a dear old chap.”“My head is clear now,” whispered Bill, “and it mayn’t last long. My affairs are all right at home. If anything happens, see my lawyers. Give my love to Laura (his sister) and Aunt Marion; tell them I thought of them at the end. I feel faint... give me some brandy.” Ralph poured strong brandy and water into the sufferer’s mouth, and he revived again. “One more word, old chap,” went on Bill. “I know I am near the end. I feel it. I shall soon know that great secret we spoke of.Remember this,”—he raised his left hand as he spoke, and feebly took hold of Ralph’s flannel shirt sleeve,—“If I can tell you hereafter, or let you know,I will. Don’t forget! Don’t forget! If I can... It’s dark, isn’t it? and I’m very sleepy. Hold my hand, dear old Ralph... Good-bye. If I don’t see you...”Bill’s head fell back a little; his eyes closed again; a little blood trickled from his lips; his breathing came and went with yet more effort. Again Ralph administered more brandy to his dying friend. It was of little use. Bill never rallied more. In half an hour the end had come, and Ralph, still holding his friend’s hand within his own, knew that Bill had entered the unknown land, and that he himself had lost the best and bravest comrade that ever entered the hunting veldt.Ralph took his friend’s body across the river next morning, and buried it reverently beneath a big giraffe-acacia tree by the wagons, and set up a wooden cross in that lone wilderness. He took with him, too, the great horns of the buffalo by which Bill had come to his untimely end. Then slowly and painfully he made his way down-country, the saddest, loneliest man in Africa, and presently reached England.It is some years ago now, but Ralph has never forgotten that last scene and Bill’s impressive words. Often, whether he be in the far wilderness—to which he still periodically returns—or at home, in the park, or at his club, or in his own sanctum, surrounded by many a goodly spoil of the chase, he thinks of his comrade’s last words, and sees before him every incident of that dying sunset beyond the Okavango River.But of the Great Secret,—of that mystery which Bill so earnestly desired to pierce,—Ralph has never yet heard.

“And ever with unconquerable will,Bearing her burden, toward one distant starShe moves in her desire; and though with painShe labour, and the goal she dreams be far,Proud is she in her passionate soul to knowThat from her tears, her very sorrows growThe joy, the hope, the peace of future men.”

“And ever with unconquerable will,Bearing her burden, toward one distant starShe moves in her desire; and though with painShe labour, and the goal she dreams be far,Proud is she in her passionate soul to knowThat from her tears, her very sorrows growThe joy, the hope, the peace of future men.”

The speaker, as he finished these lines, recited half to himself, half to his friend, in a dreamy monotone, gazed again into the dark night sky above him, and fetched a deep breath—almost a sigh.

“Hullo, Bill!” remarked his friend by the camp-fire, in a brisk tone. “Breaking out that way again, are you? I haven’t heard poetry from you—of that sort—for weeks. I suppose all the hunting and hard work lately has knocked the stuffing out of you. A day’s rest, and you burst into song again. Who’s your author? I don’t seem to know him. Not Tennyson, is it?”

“No, old chap,” returned Bill, “it isn’t. It’s a new man—Lawrence Binyon—and he’s got some mettle in him. I think that image of his of our poor old earth staggering along with her load to some far-off goal, still, among all her tears and sorrows, buoyed with future hopes, is magnificent. Is it true, though? Is there that great secret, and does she know it?”

Bill Vincent and Ralph Jenner, the two men who sat by the pleasant camp-fire in the far South African interior, were old friends, now engaged on a hunting expedition towards the Okavango.

Nowadays you may find, scattered about that vast mysterious land, many scores of well-educated gentlemen knocking about in the veldt, often dressed in clothes and engaged in work that a British navvy would scorn, yet, barring a slight access of strong language, born of the wilderness, still gentlemen at heart, and capable of returning to civilisation without loss or deterioration. Here were two of them. The burnt arms of the two men, and their sun-tanned faces and chests and rough beards, their thorn-tattered breeches, and scarred old pigskin gaiters, showed plainly that they had been long afield. And the numerous heads, horns, and skins hanging in trees near, and bestowed about the wagon, sufficiently indicated the main object of their trip.

Their big wagon stood near; beyond it, lying at their yokes, chewing peacefully the cud, the great trek oxen rested. Six hunting ponies were carefully fastened to the wagon-wheels in full light of the camp-fires. Thirty yards away from the two Englishmen, gathered round a still bigger fire, were the native “boys,” some still chattering, some fast asleep. Round about, the camp was engirt with bush and thin forest of giraffe-acacia.

As usual it was a glorious night. Only those who have lain out month after month in the vast silent veldt of the far interior can realise the unspeakable majesty of the deep indigo void of the night heaven, sown with a myriad flashing diamonds, that looms above the wanderer. The airs were soft and sweet; the night was absolutely perfect. Almost complete silence rested upon the wild. Bill took a fresh ember from the fire and relit his pipe.

“My boy,” he went on, “with all the roughs and tumbles of this life—and it’s a glorious life while it lasts, and where the game’s plentiful there’s none better in this world—one can’t help thinking sometimes what it all means and where it ends. No man, I take it, can live with Nature as we do, and look up at that sky,”—here Bill turned his gaze upward, and with his short pipe indicated the glittering array of stars,—“with its myriads of systems, and deny some great Power behind it all. And yet—and yet, in all these tens of thousands of years, with all the millions upon millions of souls that have come and gone, we know absolutely nothing of the hereafter. That’s what beats me. No true or certain message has ever yet come from the dead to tell us what happens when the last plunge is made. Chaldeans, Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Greeks, Buddhists, Confucians, Hebrews, Christians, all have tried their level best to get at the secret; none—no, not one—have solved it. They all have their theories, of course. I suppose they always will. But to any real solution of the great secret, to the real truth, we are no nearer than we were ten thousand years ago. The wisest of them all are dumb and mute, and, I suppose, always will be. Look at the Spiritualists. What do they tell us? A lot of piffling rubbish—knockings, rappings, and contemptible nonsense of that sort—but of serious truth, of what we want to know, not one little bit.

“Religions, and creeds, and beliefs never help us to pierce the big veil yonder. Ethics are all right enough; but even ethics can’t solve that immense mystery. One can only long and wonder, and wonder and long again. Don’t laugh, old chap. I don’t often inflict you with this sort of thing; but out here in the desert, face to face with Nature, with time to think, one can’t help puzzling over this world-worn problem. One finds so much wrong in what one hears in the world. You know that as well as I. Why, look at the dream of universal peace—swords turned into ploughshares, lions and lambs lying down together, and all that sort of thing. What rot it is! One comes out here in the veldt and looks at Nature, and one findseverywherethe most ghastly war, and murder, and suffering incessantly around one. Birds, beasts, insects, reptiles, fish—all hard at it. You can never have peace in this world. Battle, and murder, and sudden death will, I believe, last as long as the earth lasts. You may have epochs of civilisation and calm, but only for a time. Nature tells us that plainly, and you can’t get away from Nature.”

“I’m not laughing, Bill,” returned his comrade. “Sometimes, but not very often, I have the same thoughts. Everybody, I suppose, has at times. Your puzzle has puzzled the world always, and always will. And the more one gets away from the din and struggle of the beastly towns, the bigger seems the mystery of life and the beyond. But it’s no use worrying about it. The baby that dies every day somewhere in the world, I suppose knows more than we shall ever do till the end comes. After all, one can only try and play the game, and do one’s poor little best according to one’s lights and ethics.”

“I suppose so,” answered Bill. “But it’s a secret worth knowing, old chap, isn’t it? Itmustbe, if one only knew.”

The two friends sat smoking and talking for half an hour longer upon different topics, mainly to do with hunting, and then climbed into the wagon, tucked themselves beneath their karosses, and slept the refreshing sleep of the veldt.

A fortnight later they were camped on a tributary stream north of the Okavango. They had left their wagon standing on the southern bank of the big river, and the Bayeiye had ferried them across in their dug-outs. Here buffalo were in plenty—the vast reed-beds were full of them—and they had already secured plenty of meat and some good heads.

It was early dawn, and they were drinking a cup of coffee by the remains of the overnight camp-fire. The sky was just paling in the east, and already the world was astir in this remote wilderness. The hippos were blowing in the river a little below them; long flights of storks were winding through the clear air; multitudes of duck, geese, and other wildfowl were raising their clamour upon the waters. Presently their native hunter crept in from a tour of inspection. “Sieur,” he said, a grin of pleasure upon his keen face, “there’s a big troop of buffalo down there by the water now. They are not far from some bush, and you can get a good shot before they make for the reeds again. And there are some big bulls among them—old fellows with horns so thick!”—spreading out his arms with perhaps a trifle of exaggeration.

“That’s all right, Cobus,” responded Bill Vincent. “We’ll come along at once. How far are they off?”

“Less than a quarter of a mile, Sieur. You can hear them a little way on, trampling and splashing in the shallows. They’re feeding all round there.”

“Capital!” exclaimed Ralph, picking up his double eight-bore and looking through the barrels. “Here, you, Tatenyan, lay hold of that,” handing another native his second rifle. “Be careful, you beggar; it’s loaded.”

Tatenyan grinned an immense grin, and took the rifle.

Accompanied by their two gun-bearers, the white men set off in high spirits. There was plenty of scattered cover between them and the buffalo, principally thorn-bush, and the hunters picked their way as noiselessly as possible, following the lead of Cobus.

A noble koodoo bull, carrying a magnificent pair of spiral horns, stared at them for a second as they entered a grassy clearing, and then with his three cows fled away before them.

But they were after heavier game even than the gallant koodoo, and he went unscathed.

Now they are nearing the buffalo. Beyond the fringe of bush which yet masks them they can hear the great beasts grunting, wallowing, splashing, nay, even hear them plucking the sweet grass that margins the lagoon. The wind, what there is of it, is right in their faces. The game here has scarcely ever yet been disturbed by gunners; they are safe for sport.

Old hands though they are, they now steal breathlessly through the bush. Cobus has resigned the lead, and the two friends stalk in with the greatest care together. At last they peer through a small opening. What a scene lies before them! A troop of at least three hundred mighty buffalo, bulls, cows, and calves, some feeding, some drinking, some rolling in the shallow lagoon, some playfully butting at one another. All, utterly unconscious of impending danger, stand there within a radius of two hundred yards; the nearest of them are within fifty. A more inspiring prospect hunter’s eye never beheld.

Numbers of the weaver birds (Bubalornis erythrorhyncus), always found associating with buffalo, are here, some picking busily at the parasites on the great creatures’ backs; others flitting hither and thither, chattering noisily, intent on business or pleasure. Even the sharp weaver birds detect no enemy—much less their allies the buffaloes. A few white egrets, apparently as fearless of the great quadrupeds as the buffalo birds, add beauty to the scene. Some of these charming herons, too, are perched upon the buffalo, their snowy plumes contrasting sharply with the sombre hides of their gigantic friends. Birds and quadrupeds alike are all void of suspicion upon this bright, quiet morning in the far African wilderness.

Having taken in with an eager glance or two this wonderful picture, the two men and their gun-bearers crouch down behind the thick screen of bush and wait. It seems half an hour to them. At length, in about five minutes, two massive old bulls, grim, heavy-fronted, and carrying immense horns, nearly devoid of hair, short in the legs, yet of tremendous bulk, come feeding past within easy range. The two men glance at one another, and with a nod single out their victims.

On a sudden their heavy rifles roar out together. One of the bulls falls instantly to the shot; the other staggers, but plunges on. There is a terrific commotion among the herd. The great beasts all gallop left-handed, seeking an outlet in the ring of bush. Through the lagoon they splash, driving the water in masses of spray about them, and then away they rave through grass and undergrowth, making the earth thunder beneath them. Bill, whose buffalo has for the moment escaped, selects a fat cow, and with two bullets well planted brings her down. The vast troop has passed away, and they now emerge to inspect their quarry.

The dead buffaloes are fine specimens, and in high condition and, leaving Tatenyan behind to begin the skinning and cutting-up process, the two Englishmen now proceed together with Cobus to take up the blood-spoor of the wounded bull and finish him off. He carries a magnificent pair of horns—a champion head—which Bill yearns to possess himself of.

Cobus, with the marvellous skill of the native African hunter, quickly separates the trail of the wounded beast from its scores of fellows, and presently, as they enter the bush, bears suddenly to the left. The stricken brute has turned him aside from the battle, and the main body of the troop have plunged right-handed through the bush to seek shelter in the dense reed-beds not far away.

At first the blood-spoor, which is now easily followed, takes them through fairly open bush, in which they can see about them without much difficulty. So far all is well. A wounded buffalo is, as all hunters know, the most dangerous and tricky beast in Africa, and in thickish bush his pursuer must needs follow him yard by yard with his life in his hand. Presently the spoor takes them by a narrow game-path through impenetrable thorny covert six or eight feet high. Patches of bright red blood show that the buffalo is bleeding freely, and from the lungs; he cannot go far at this rate. Cobus, who has led the way hitherto, looks at the dark wall of bush on either hand, indicates the deep shade thrown here and there, and the possibility of dangerous ambush at any moment, and shakes his head. He likes the job little enough, and he is perfectly right. To go on is to risk a violent death, and there is little chance of escape from a charge in such confined quarters. But to many Englishmen the constant spice of clanger adds greatly to the charm of sport in Africa. Bill quietly pulls Cobus behind him, knits his brow, and prepares to creep forward. Ralph in his turn supersedes Cobus, and dogs the heels of his friend. It looks like a nasty business, and he wishes them all well out of it; but he can’t now go back on his chum.

Breathlessly, cautiously, they pick their way down the narrow game-path. The dense thicket shuts out every trace of the cool outer breeze; the sun beats down hotly upon their heads; lightly clad though they are, the sweat starts freely from their bodies. Silently they move on. They turn an angle or two, pass safely some dark shadows in the bush-wall, and then, without a fiftieth part of a second of warning, from a piece of bush where you might swear a steinbok could not have hidden itself, a great dark form comes charging forth, with eyes of fire, blood-dripping nostrils, and head well up.

In an instant the revengeful beast has cleared the angle of bush where it had lain silently biding its time, and is almost on top of Bill. Bill fires one shot,—he has no time for more,—and then, to save himself, springs as far to the left as possible. In vain! His bullet glances harmlessly from the tremendous frontal horn of the buffalo without stopping or even injuring the brute. Another half instant and the great grim beast has taken terrible revenge.

There is a single lightning-like sweep of the heavy head, a dull, sickening thud, and Bill is sent crashing into the thorny thicket yards away.

The buffalo stands in devilish wrath for a brief moment, a terrible picture, meditating its next attack; its left chest is exposed.

Ralph instantly seizes his only hope of salvation and poor Bill’s. His eight-bore rifle is at his shoulder, the loud report roars out, and the bull staggers to earth, sore-stricken yet not vanquished. Fiercely he struggles for his feet again, the blood pouring from his mouth and nostrils with the tremendous exertion. In the next instant another bullet, planted in the centre of his forehead, just below the rugged mass of horn, ends his career, and he breathes out his last with that fierce complaining bellow peculiar to the death-throe of his race.

Ralph and the native turn at once to Bill, lying senseless and bleeding, deeply embedded in the frightful mass of thorny bush. It is a tough task even to extricate him; but after some minutes’ hewing and hacking with their hunting knives it is at last accomplished, and the victim is laid tenderly on the smooth game-path.

Alas! his injuries are terrible. Several ribs are displaced and smashed on the right side; there is a deep jagged hole beneath; and the sharp horn, driven with the mighty strength of an old buffalo bull, has penetrated far into the lung. So much is at once apparent, and it looks sadly as if Bill’s hours are numbered.

It is a shocking blow for Ralph. Who could have dreamed that that strong, active man, not yet at his prime, full of pluck, enterprise, and a perennial cheeriness—but ten short minutes before cracking some half-whispered joke to his friend and servant—could now be lying, a battered, senseless rag of humanity, in his comrade’s arms?

As well as they can, the two sound men bind up the gaping wound, and stanch the bleeding, and then, between them, tenderly they carry the still senseless hunter back to camp.

It was but a twenty minutes’ journey, slowly as they progressed, yet to Ralph it seemed long hours.

At last they laid the wounded man gently upon his blankets, beneath the shade of the big thorn tree, washed and carefully bound up his dreadful hurt, poured brandy between his poor bloodstained lips, and then—there was nothing else to be done—awaited the event. It was too far to attempt to convey him across the river to the wagons; the slightest movement greatly increased the bleeding from the mouth, and suffocation seemed imminent. Ralph sent Tatenyan across in a canoe for more brandy; for the rest of that weary, hot African day he could only watch and wait.

Bill lay senseless far into the afternoon, breathing out, as it seemed, slowly and very painfully his remaining stock of life. Towards sunset, he opened his eyes feebly, looked about him, and whispered faintly to Ralph, now bending over him with his eyes full of irrestrainable tears, “Where’s the bull?”

“He’s dead, old chap. I settled him after he struck you. Don’t talk much; I’m afraid you’re very badly hurt.”

“Yes,” went on Bill, “he’s about finished me, I think. I was an idiot to follow him into that bush. Cobus was right. Well, I’ve paid dearly for him. Take his head home, old chap, and hang it up. I don’t think I shall see this through; and when you look at the horns, you will think of me, and the good days we had together in the veldt.”

“Don’t, don’t, Bill,” said Ralph. “For God’s sake don’t talk like that. Who knows?—we may pull you through yet. Lie still, and don’t talk, there’s a dear old chap.”

“My head is clear now,” whispered Bill, “and it mayn’t last long. My affairs are all right at home. If anything happens, see my lawyers. Give my love to Laura (his sister) and Aunt Marion; tell them I thought of them at the end. I feel faint... give me some brandy.” Ralph poured strong brandy and water into the sufferer’s mouth, and he revived again. “One more word, old chap,” went on Bill. “I know I am near the end. I feel it. I shall soon know that great secret we spoke of.Remember this,”—he raised his left hand as he spoke, and feebly took hold of Ralph’s flannel shirt sleeve,—“If I can tell you hereafter, or let you know,I will. Don’t forget! Don’t forget! If I can... It’s dark, isn’t it? and I’m very sleepy. Hold my hand, dear old Ralph... Good-bye. If I don’t see you...”

Bill’s head fell back a little; his eyes closed again; a little blood trickled from his lips; his breathing came and went with yet more effort. Again Ralph administered more brandy to his dying friend. It was of little use. Bill never rallied more. In half an hour the end had come, and Ralph, still holding his friend’s hand within his own, knew that Bill had entered the unknown land, and that he himself had lost the best and bravest comrade that ever entered the hunting veldt.

Ralph took his friend’s body across the river next morning, and buried it reverently beneath a big giraffe-acacia tree by the wagons, and set up a wooden cross in that lone wilderness. He took with him, too, the great horns of the buffalo by which Bill had come to his untimely end. Then slowly and painfully he made his way down-country, the saddest, loneliest man in Africa, and presently reached England.

It is some years ago now, but Ralph has never forgotten that last scene and Bill’s impressive words. Often, whether he be in the far wilderness—to which he still periodically returns—or at home, in the park, or at his club, or in his own sanctum, surrounded by many a goodly spoil of the chase, he thinks of his comrade’s last words, and sees before him every incident of that dying sunset beyond the Okavango River.

But of the Great Secret,—of that mystery which Bill so earnestly desired to pierce,—Ralph has never yet heard.

Chapter Eleven.The Story of Jacoba Steyn.Jacoba Steyn lives with her brother Hans and his wife and numerous family on a remote farm far up in Waterberg, to the north-west of the Transvaal. She is, although now well on in middle age, a spinster—a rather remarkable circumstance among the women of the South African Dutch. For Jacoba is, as Dutch Afrikanders go, not uncomely, and few Boer women of her looks and condition in life escape, or desire to escape, from the joys and cares of matrimony. You would never think, to look at Jacoba Steyn nowadays, that there was much of romance or sentiment in her nature. She is now a stout spinster of forty-seven, thick and square of figure, and, as she takes herkapjeoff, you may note the grey threads showing thick in her dull brown hair. Yet Jacoba cherishes within her broad breast a very real and very tender romance, as all her relations and some few of her friends know.Thirty years ago there came into the life of this staid, sober-minded Boer woman a bright gleam of passion, which ever since has illumined her quiet existence. That romance will never fade from her heart. Its tender memory shapes and tinges almost every act of her working, everyday life. It softens those somewhat rude asperities of manner which the average Boer housewife usually exhibits. It gives that kindly content which shines forth from the blue eyes and upon the homely features of spinster Jacoba. All the ragged, rough, and noisy crew of children—there are nine of them—of her brother Hans call in Tant Jacoba for the settlement of quarrels and the drying of tears. Her renown as a peacemaker has a far wider field than that of her somewhat sharp-tongued sister-in-law, the mother of all this unruly brood. Until ten years ago many of the neighbouring Boers of Waterberg—bachelors and widowers—still cherished the hope and belief that Jacoba Steyn was to be induced into the bonds of matrimony. Jacoba was still on the right side of middle age; she was far from ill-looking in the eyes of a Dutch farmer; a certain air of refinement, peculiar to herself, distinguished her from all her fellows. And she had flocks and herds of her own, running upon her brother’s veldt, as well as some good tobacco “lands,” which yielded no mean profit each year. The few cows and goats set apart for Jacoba in her infancy, according to the ancient patriarchal Boer plan, had increased and multiplied. Jacoba Steyn’s stock always had luck, and throve handsomely; and so at the age of thirty-seven she was still looked upon as an excellent match. But Jacoba had throughout her life steadily refused all offers of marriage. It was very exasperating to her family in her younger days, and a complete mystery to the Boer men who knew little of her earlier life. Gradually it dawned upon the minds of these slow-witted Waterberg Dutchmen that in real sober truth Jacoba Steyn was not to be won, that she was vowed to spinsterhood, and that some unaccountable attachment of her girlish days prevented her from ever accepting another man’s attentions.When she had reached the age of forty, her youngest brother, Hans, with whom and whose family she had, since the death of her parents, always lived, ceased to urge upon her to take a husband. It was hopeless, and, after all, Jacoba’s cattle, goats, and savings would be a great help to the children at some future time. And so, at the age of forty-seven, Jacoba had outlived the attentions of bucolic swains, and the strong and even forcible recommendations of her own family, and was left to pursue unmolested the tenor of her quiet existence. She helped Lijsbet, her brother Hans’s wife, with her unwieldy family, performed more than her share of the household duties, and wore always a look of quiet happiness upon her broad, pleasant face. Twice or thrice a year she trekked with the family toNachtmaal(Communion) at Pretoria. After all, Jacoba was a woman, and even she, weaned though she was from the hopes and fears and commoner frets of the world, could not find it in her heart to deny herself the pleasure of a few days in the Boer capital, the sight of shops andwinkels(stores) and English folk, the joys of attendance in the Dutch Reformed Church, and some little intercourse with thepredikant(pastor). Thepredikantknew something of Jacoba’s strange story; he was a man of some refinement and much sympathy; and it did the quiet Dutchwoman good to have a talk with the minister she had known so long. Sometimes on the calm Sunday evenings up in Waterberg, when the cattle and goats are kraaled for the night and the still veldt lies golden beneath the kiss of sunset, when the bushkoorhaan(bustards) are playing their half-hour of strange aerial pranks and evolutions yonder, just outside the dark fringe of bush, Jacoba wanders from the low homestead and sits up above the Falala River, dreaming upon an old, old tale. That tale was once full of mingled memories—bitter-sweet. You may tell now, from the clear, tender look on the good woman’s face, that her thoughts are mainly pleasant ones. Time and she have healed, or nearly healed, her once bruised heart. Jacoba’s tale is a simple one. Yet it has its romantic side. It is not widely known even in Waterberg, and it may perhaps be worth the telling.Jacoba Steyn’s father was one of those sturdy emigrant Boers who crossed the Vaal River towards 1837, defeated that terror of the north, Moselikatse, and his fierce Matabele warriors, drove them beyond the Limpopo, and took possession of the vast countries now known as the Orange Free State and Transvaal. Jan Steyn was, until the verge of old age, one of those restless frontier-men who are never content to settle down entirely to the pastoral life of the average Dutch farmer. He was a great hunter, and during the first ten years of his career beyond the Vaal he found almost as much occupation as he needed within the boundaries of the newly formed republic. But after that time elephants began to grow scarce within the Transvaal, and the ivory-hunters had to push their way farther afield. Moselikatse’s country—which we now call Matabeleland—was a sealed book for the Boers; the old Zulu lion seldom allowed them to enter it, and then only on payment of an extortionate tribute. Some of the hunters gradually thrust their way through Zoutpansberg eastward into the low countries (rich in game, but terribly feverish and unhealthy), towards Delagoa Bay; others gained permission from the Bamangwato chief, Sekhomi, and followed the ivory into the wild deserts towards Lake N’gami and the Zambesi. Among these last was to be found Jan Steyn. Jan had settled, after the final defeat of Moselikatse and his hordes, in that magnificent district of the western Transvaal now known as Marico. He had had hard times during the war with the Matabele, and had lost more than half his cattle. However, he consoled himself by selecting a 6,000 acre farm of rich and well-watered land, which he appropriately christened “Beter laat dan Nooit,” (“Better late than never”). His friend Jan Viljoen, the famous elephant-hunter, was his nearest neighbour. Viljoen had named his farm “Vär Genoog,” (“Far Enough”), not by any means a bad name for a trekking farmer who had wandered in search of a home from the Knysna, on the extreme southern littoral of Cape Colony, to the far Marico River.Well, Jan Steyn built himself a house of Kaffir bricks, beaconed off his farm, and settled down for a year or two to get things into shape. After that time the wandering spirit overcame him again, and, leaving his farm in charge of a near relation, he put his family into the big tent-wagon and trekked away each season of African winter into the hunting veldt. Jan Viljoen and other neighbours followed the same plan. Elephants were inordinately plentiful, tusks were magnificently heavy, and a good trade in ivory could, in those days, be done with native chiefs. Jan Steyn’s wife and family—six in all—always accompanied him on these expeditions. The toughvrouwrefused to be left behind, and where she went the family went also. So that from her earliest years the little Jacoba remembered always the strange, wild life of the hunting veldt, the voice of lions and hyaenas by night, the great camp-fire, the return of the hunters laden with the hard-won spoils of chase, the dark groups of Kaffirs carrying in the long gleaming tusks of ivory. Like her mother, Jacoba as she neared her teens, could load a gun, and upon occasion, even knew how to discharge it.By the year 1855, the Transvaal elephant-hunters were trekking very far afield in search of ivory. Livingstone’s discovery of Lake N’gami in 1849 had opened up a new region, teeming with the great tusk-bearing pachyderms, and a few Boer hunters began to filter gradually into the deserts towards the Lake and the Chobe River. Among these were Jan Viljoen, Piet Jacobs, and Jan Steyn. And so it happened that in 1859 the Steyn family for the fourth season had reached the south bank of the Botletli, better known as the Lake River, which runs south-east from Lake N’gami.They had had a terrible struggle across the thirst-land lying between Shoshong, the Bamangwato Stadt, and the Lake River. More than once it seemed that they must have left their wagons behind in the desert; but they had somehow battled through, with the loss of three good trek oxen.It was within an hour of sundown when they rose the little swelling of the plain, just where you strike the river, and drew up their wagons by the big thorn tree for the night N’gamiland hunters will know that tree; it bears the initials of most of the wanderers who have passed that way. Jacoba Steyn was but a girl of seventeen then, but she will never, to her dying hour, forget the scene that lay before her. Boer women are not, as a rule, impressionable; they give little heed to the sights that surround them, and have no eye for the picturesque. But this evening, of all others, will, for a particular reason, remain imprinted deep in the tablets of Jacoba’s remembrance. Below the wagons lay the Lake River, now somewhat shrunk within its low banks, and teeming with bird life. Just here the tall reeds had been burnt down, and there was a clear view. Flamingoes, ibises, coots, great gaudy geese, thousands of wild-duck, widgeon, and teal thronged the shallows and darkened the river surface. Elegant jacanas flitted brilliantly upon trembling islets of floating weed. Noisy spur-winged plovers clamoured with sharp metallic voices. Aloft soared a great fishing-eagle or two. And from afar, following one another slowly and solemnly in even, single-file procession, long lines of monstrous pelicans filled the sky. Their soft, melancholy whistling sounded clear, even amid the lowing of the parched oxen, now frantic and well-nigh dead with thirst. To the right the vast reed-beds of the Komadau marsh filled the view for miles. In front, outlined clear against the flaming sunset, stood up here and there a few tall palm trees, marking the course of the river. Beyond these the dry plains stretched to the north and west in illimitable monotony.Just beyond where the Steyns had outspanned was the wagon of another traveller. And as Jacoba Steyn stood, stretching herself a little after the long wagon journey, and gazing about her, the owner of it walked up from the river. He was an Englishman, that was perfectly clear. His smart, erect carriage, short, neatly trimmed dark beard and moustache, and the cut of his breeches, gaiters, and boots, at once proclaimed the fact. He looked to be about the middle height; he was strong and well set up; an air of careless grace sat well upon him. He had dark and very handsome grey eyes, and a most pleasant smile, and his face, throat, and bare arms were deeply tanned by the sun. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat for head-gear, and his grey flannel shirt was open at the throat, and had the sleeves rolled up. On his shoulder rested a double-barrelled shot-gun. At his heels followed a pointer dog, and a young native boy, the latter carrying several couple of duck and geese. As the stranger approached the wagons and doffed his hat, something in Jacoba’s heart told her that she had never seen so completely good-looking a man. She stared hard with all her eyes as the Englishman advanced towards her. As he drew near and held out his hand, and said, in a clear, pleasant voice, “Dag, juffrow,” Jacoba’s eyes fell beneath the steady gaze of his, and she whispered bashfully, as she put her palm into his, “Dag, meneer.”That, as well as I can describe it, is the picture that even now, thirty years after, is constantly before the mind’s eye of Jacoba Steyn.Captain Meredith had soon introduced himself to the Steyn family. He was heartily received; for the Transvaal Boers, even in those days, had no grudge against individual Englishmen. Their dislike was for the British Government and British officialism, which, from their point of view, had driven them to trek from the old colony. While the oxen and horses were being watered at the river, a bottle of the captain’s brandy was produced, and Dutch and Englishman pledged one another insoupjisof right “French.”Meanwhile, the Steyns proceeded to unburden their wagons and prepare for the night. The sailcloth was spread between the two wagons; Jacoba’s fowls and chickens, and her cat Tina and the kittens were set loose. The captain invited them all to his wagon to supper. He had the flesh of a fat cow eland all ready, and it would save much trouble to the tired trekkers if they took their evening meal with him. In an hour’s time they all sat down together, a jovial party, to sup by the light of two blazing camp-fires. TheKaptein, as the Steyns already called Meredith, was an English officer spending his leave on a hunting trip. It was his second expedition; he had been to the Lake two years before; and he spoke Cape Dutch. That was well for all parties; they could converse freely; and as all were interested in the life of the hunting veldt, there was plenty to talk about Meredith, too, had fought in the Crimean war four years before; and although these homely Boer folk had the vaguest ideas as to Russia and its whereabouts, they were interested in hearing of fighting, especially of warfare and siege amid the deep snows of the frozen North. And so, after pipes and coffee, the gathering separated, and Jacoba went to herkartelbed and dreamt of the alert, briskEngelschmannand his handsome face and grey eyes.It was settled next day that the two parties should trek up the river and hunt together for a time. Meredith was not sorry to make this arrangement. He had left Natal with an English hunting friend. A severe attack of fever on the Crocodile River had, however, driven his comrade south; and, after a lonely hunt in the country about the Great Salt Pan, north of the Lake River, he was not disinclined to have the companionship of white folk again, rough Boers though they were. The wagons stood for another two days at this outspan, while the Steyns’ oxen rested and refreshed themselves after their desperate trek across the “thirst”. On the last evening, Meredith was down at the river with his fishing-rod, catching “cat-fish,” of which there were quantities. The Steyns were busied about their wagons, preparing for the evening meal; the men-folk were sitting here and there, some on thedissel-boom, some on wagon-chairs, smoking contentedly. Little Hans, the youngest of the family, a sturdy imp of eight years, who had already formed a strong attachment for the English captain, had run down towards the water after his new acquaintance. Suddenly Jacoba glanced in that direction and uttered a choking cry. The rest of the family, hearing her exclamation, looked up, and were instantly horror-struck like herself. A hundred and fifty yards away, little Hans was standing close to the edge of a dense mass of reed-bed. Fifteen yards away from him crouched a big yellow-maned lion, its tail twitching very softly from side to side, its gaze fixed intently on the youngster’s face. Hans had seen the brute, and stood spellbound. Fifty paces away behind the boy was Captain Meredith, who too had that instant caught sight of the lion, and comprehended the whole terrible situation. He was armed only with his fishing-rod. For one brief instant all the gazers at that terrible picture were rivetted where they stood, frozen with apprehension.Jan Steyn was the first to move. He rose from his chair and plunged silently into his wagon for a rifle. But even he was not quick enough. Meredith, defenceless though he was, had already made up his mind. Flourishing his rod, and shouting objurgations on the lion at the top of his voice, he ran swiftly straight in the brute’s direction. To the utter surprise of all the watchers and the intense astonishment of Meredith himself, the lion, after baring his teeth in a savage defiance, suddenly changed his mind, turned tail, and disappeared like a yellow flash into the tall reeds. Meredith now picked up Hans, who, released from the strain of apprehension, burst into tears upon his shoulder, and carried him up to the camp. Vrouw Steyn first took the lad from his arms, pressed him to her breast, kissed him, and then, putting her arms round the captain’s neck, gave him two or three hearty kisses. That was the bravest thing, she said, she had ever heard of, much more seen, and she and her family would never forget it as long as they lived. Then the stout oldvrouwresigned herself to a quiet flood of tears and went about her work. Jacoba came next. The tears were already streaming down her cheeks. Hans was her favourite brother, and very dear to her. She came softly to Meredith, took his hand, modestly kissed him on the right cheek, and thanked him again and again. Jan Steyn and his three big sons, ranging from fifteen to two-and-twenty, one after another followed, thrust their big hands into the captain’s, and in their gruff Boer manner did their best to convey their hearty if, somewhat uncouth, thanks.After that episode the friendship between Boers and Englishman grew apace. The men hunted together as they moved slowly up the river, and brought in many a head of game. Once or twice they came up with elephants on the south bank of the river and secured some good teeth, and theKaptein, or Hendrik, as they all now familiarly called him (his name was Henry), proved that, besides being a brave man, he was a first-rate hunter and shot—as good a man, the Steyn lads said, as their own father, which was their highest form of praise.It was amusing to notice the domestic reforms that the Englishman and his ways introduced into the Boer family. Instead of for ever stewing lumps of game flesh in the big pot, or cooking drykarbonadjesover the embers, the captain persuaded thevrouwto follow his own example, and roast wild-duck or a joint of springbok in a Kaffir pot, with hot embers below and on the lid. Sometimes he persuaded her to cook springbok chops and “fry” in an open frying-pan, as had he taught his own native cook. He presented her with one of his two frying-pans for this purpose. He even inducted the good-wife and Jacoba into the mysteries of curry, and gave them a supply of powder which lasted them for a year or two later. In proof that these innovations were acceptable, you may find them to this day, thanks to Jacoba’s and Hans’s remembrance of the English captain, steadily practised in Hans’s household in Waterberg. Even Hans’s wife, obstinate Boer woman though she is, has long since admitted their merits. On the other hand, Meredith had to acknowledge that he could not improve upon the Steyns’ coffee-making, which, performed though it was in an ordinary iron kettle, was as good as could be. Many an Englishman, however, has discovered that fact.As for Jacoba, she foregathered with Meredith as often as she had opportunity. It was a delightful thing for this simple, untaught Boer maiden to hear news of that vast, dim outer world, and to gather some little idea of modern civilisation. For the Transvaal Boers, you must understand, to this day, linger in their isolation at least a hundred years behind the average European. Sometimes, when the captain came home early from hunting, Jacoba would walk with him to the river-side, or to the spreading lagoons which were now everywhere forming upon the flats, and watch him shoot wild-duck and geese, or some rare specimen or curious bird. Those were delightful times for the girl, as she and her hero strolled home in the soft African twilight, with all the glamour of evening about them. For within the secret recesses of her maiden heart she had long since set up the handsome Englishman as her hero. Jacoba at seventeen was a very comely girl; her complexion was fresh and clear—a rare thing among Dutch Afrikanders. She looked, as indeed she was, always pleasant and good-tempered; her blue eyes were as clear and honest as an African winter morning; from beneath her big sun-bonnet (kapje) her plentiful fair hair fell in a single thick plait down her back. Her figure, it is true, was nothing to boast of; but then, in the faraway veldt, who troubles about an inch or two at the waist? Meredith liked this frank, comely, modest South African maiden; even he, man of the world though he was, could scarce help but feel a little flattered at the manifest preference she showed for his society. Then the child—for, measured by the European standard, she was but a child—had so many questions to ask him upon all sorts of subjects; and it really was a pleasure to answer some of these naïve, unsophisticated inquiries, and to try and teach her something of the life and thoughts of Europe. And so it befell that Jacoba’s heart insensibly slipped from her, and she grew in her secret soul to love and almost to worship this fascinating Englishman, who knew everything, and did everything—from shooting an elephant to inspanning an ox—better even than her father and brothers, and could teach her own mother how to cook. She loved to watch him as he saddled up in the early dawning and rode off across the plains, or into the bush veldt, with her father and brothers in search of game. How nimble was this Englishman, and how graceful! With what an air he sprang into his saddle, and sat his horse, and even carried his rifle! And how fresh and trim and clean the man always looked! I am afraid Jacoba began secretly to contrast the captain with her own heavy, untrimmed and not over-clean kindred—much to the detriment of the latter.In a little while the girl had come to look forward to Meredith’s return from hunting as the one great pleasure in the long day. Sometimes, when the men were in pursuit of elephants, and slept out on the spoor, it seemed as if the slothful hours would never pass. Her mother noticed the change in Jacoba’s demeanour, and would sometimes rate her for her forgetfulness and absent ways. “Jacoba,” she would say, from her low chair under the shady lee of the wagon, “your mind is always running on that English ‘Kaptein.’ Wake up, child, and think what you are doing, or I shall send him packing.”Yet it must be confessed that the big ponderousvrouwwas, in truth, almost as taken with the stranger as her own child. She liked, as every one else in the camp liked, his pleasant, hearty ways, and the air of novelty and briskness that his presence brought into the dull lives of herself and her folk. She liked his friendship for her child most of all, stout anti-Briton though she was in the abstract. It would be a fine thing indeed, she whispered to herself, if the captain should ask the girl in marriage, and set her up as a great lady. Vrouw Steyn had very faint ideas of what great ladies did, and how they comported themselves; yet as a child she remembered seeing the wife of the Governor of the Cape, and other official dames, at Graaff Reinet. And besides, she had once or twice seen old copies of theIllustrated London News, from which she assisted her own misty and fantastic glimmerings upon the subject.It was curious to note in these days how particular Jacoba had grown about her clothes and person. It would be hard to say how she managed it. She had but two print gowns, and yet now she always appeared in a spotless frock in the afternoons. After all, even hunting Boers carry soap, and in the hot sunshine and parching winds of South Africa you can dry a print dress on a bush in a very little while. The captain had presented her, among other feminine treasures, with a brand-new pair of nail-scissors, and her hands were now kept as daintily as a Cape Townmeisje’s. Even her brothers could scarcely help noticing the smart ribbons that, especially on Sundays, decked her gown and hair.It must be said on the captain’s side that he behaved fairly well in a somewhat difficult position. He was an honourable man, and he had no intention in the world of stealing this simple girl’s affections. He was, in truth, much too keenly occupied in the wild pleasures of hunting big game to think about her affections at all. To him she was a mere child, and as such he had grown to treat her. It is true that it was a pleasant thing to find, even in this faraway desert—tolerable in many respects only for the game it held—a pretty fresh-eyed maid such as Jacoba, Dutch and semi-civilised though she was. Perhaps, if he had reflected a little, his friendship for the girl might have been somewhat less intimate. He treated her, indeed, in a careless brotherly, or perhaps, rather, cousinly way. When he came home from the hunt, often towards 3 o’clock, after a cup of coffee and a snack of food, he would exchange his heavy gun for the fowling-piece, whistle for Juno, the pointer, and stroll off arm-in-arm with Jacoba down to the river-side or the nearest lagoon. Sometimes little Hans would accompany them; sometimes he was lazy and stayed behind. It must be said that insensibly the captain and Jacoba grew to prefer their expeditions alone. When Meredith had shot enough wildfowl and red-billed francolin, he and Jacoba would stroll up to the camp-fire as the dusk fell. I am afraid, somehow, that the captain’s arm often wandered to the maid’s waist; sometimes even he took a kiss quite unresistingly from Jacoba’s fresh lips and soft cheek. It was thoughtless of him, which was perhaps the worst that could be said. For Jacoba those evening walks were full of unfading joy; to this hour she cherishes every incident of them, middle-aged woman though she is.As the wagons moved up the river, elephants became more plentiful. On several occasions the hunters had crossed the water and followed the great tusk-bearers into the jungles beyond. They had had first-rate sport, and secured some magnificent teeth. One morning, at earliest dawn, some Makobas punted their dug-out canoes across the river, and reported that a good troop of elephants had drunk during the night. For a consideration they would take the hunters across. All was now bustle and excitement in the camp. Jan Steyn and his two eldest sons and the captain were soon equipped. They swallowed a hasty breakfast, and then, walking their horses down to the river, got into the boats and swam their nags over behind them. There was some risk from crocodiles, but the feat was safely accomplished. Then they took up the spoor in earnest. Some Masarwa bushmen tracked for them, and they rode at a brisk pace upon the trail, hour after hour, until noon had come and the sun lay midway in the sky between north-east and north-west. At half-past twelve they came suddenly upon the elephants in some troublesome thorny bush. There were eighteen in all, and some good bulls among them. Meredith quickly got to work and slew two magnificent bulls, carrying long, even teeth, after a hot and most exciting chase. He next tackled a big cow, furnished with a capital pair of tusks. After a sharp gallop he got alongside and put a four-ounce ball, backed with seven drachms of powder (those were the days of smooth-bores and heavy charges), behind her shoulder. But, stricken though she was, the cow was by no means finished. She turned short in her tracks, and, spouting blood, came with a ferocious scream straight for her tormentor.Meredith had instantly turned his horse and spurred for flight. But, as it happened, in a hundred yards he was met by an absolutely impassablecul-de-sacof thorn-bush. Almost before horse and man knew where they were, they were caught up and flung to earth. The great cow drove her left tusk deep into the off flank of the horse, and hurled the poor brute and its rider away from her in one confused and bleeding mass. Before she could halt and turn again, the impetus of her ferocious charge took her thirty yards farther, right through that seemingly impenetrable wall of bush. It was her last effort. The heavy bullet had done its work. Thrice she lifted her blood-dripping trunk as if for air. Then she swayed softly to and fro, and suddenly sank down upon all-fours, as if kneeling, and so yielded up her fifty years of life.Meredith himself was found by his native boy ten minutes afterwards in but sorry plight. He had fallen underneath his horse when the pair of them had been hurled aside by the enraged cow, and the terrible impact had not only rendered him senseless, but had broken his right forearm and several ribs. His horse lay across his body breathing its last, with entrails protruding from a gaping wound in the flank. The boy, with the assistance of a Bushman, extricated his master and laid him upon the earth. In half an hour the Steyns came up. They had slain between them four elephants—a bull and three cows—and were well content. They now at once ascertained the Englishman’s injuries. He lay still insensible. They set his arm and bound it up in a pair of rough splints, and then carried him to the river, across which the Makobas again ferried them. Arrived at last at the camp, Vrouw Steyn and her daughter at once insisted that, for better nursing, the captain should be placed under the tent-sail, between the two Dutch wagons. There she and Jacoba tenderly laid him, bound up his ribs, washed the blood from his face, and poured brandy and water between his lips.For more than twenty-four hours Meredith lay in the long stupor produced by concussion of the brain. It was some way past the middle hours of the second night that the first glimmering of reason came back to him. He seemed to awake, as it were, in a fresh world. His body and limbs seemed curiously light; everything was strange. It was not unpleasant to lie thus, with eyes shut, awaiting new impressions. Presently a pair of soft lips kissed his brow and cheek, and he heard a woman’s voice, in a strange tongue, which yet he understood. “My darling!” said the voice, “my love! come back to me, come back to me. Ah! Heer God, bring him back to his senses, and make him well and strong again. Hendrik, my Hendrik, I cannot bear to see you lie like this. Come back to your Jacoba, or I shall break my heart.” There was a little sob, and then Meredith felt warm tears falling upon his face, and the lips pressed his brow again, this time more passionately. He could not move, much less make answer to the strange appeal which, as if through the mists of a dream, he now heard. But he felt somehow that it was pleasant to rest thus and to hear these things, to feel soft kisses and the tender caress of a hand that now and again stroked his own, or smoothed his brow.In a fortnight’s time Meredith was slowly recovering. His bones were healing, his pulses beat a thought more firmly. He knew now all about that strange night, when his mind first wandered back into the chambers of life again. He knew that Jacoba loved him, and the thought troubled him. Had he been wise? Had he done well to make so great a friend of this simple Dutch child, to have her so much about with him? Ought he to have kissed her? to have wandered in the dusk with her, arm-in-arm, or with his arm round her waist? All these questions returned again and again to his mind and sought answer.One quiet morning, as he lay on thekartelthere under the tent-sail, they two were alone in the camp. The men were out hunting; Vrouw Steyn and Hans were down at the river, washing; the native servants were scattered. Juno, the pointer, lay by her master’s bedside, as she always did; and, as Jacoba came in under the tent and sat down in the wagon-chair, something in Juno’s affectionate eyes, now turned from Jacoba’s face wistfully to her master’s, seemed to ask a question. Meredith returned Juno’s look, and then spoke.“Jacoba,” he said, taking the girl’s hand, “I want to tell you something. I ought to have told it you before, I am afraid. If I had known what I think I know now, I would have done so. I shall be leaving you very shortly—as soon as I am well enough to start. I have to be back in England before Christmas, because early next year I am going to be married. That is what I ought to have told you before. Forgive me, Jacoba; I never dreamt that our friendship was turning in another direction. I heard you say something the other night, just when my senses were coming back, which makes me think that I have done wrong in not telling you of all this before. I have been selfish and unfair. You must forgive me, Jacoba, and forget all about the past two months, though, indeed, it will be hard for me to forget the pleasant days we have had together. Don’t! don’t cry, my dear; I am not worth it, and you will forget it all soon enough.”Jacoba, seated in her low chair by the bedside, had buried her face in Meredith’s hand and her own as he neared the end of his speaking, and was now sobbing heavily. Presently she mastered herself, dried her tears a little, and spoke.“Perhaps, Hendrik,” she said, “you ought to have told me. But, indeed, it would not have much mattered. I loved you ever since I set eyes on you the first evening we met. And I should have loved you just the same, even if you had told me that very evening that you were promised to another. Yet all the time we have been together—these weeks that have gone so quickly—I knew, Hendrik, that indeed our ways lay differently; that your world was a different world to mine; that I was to you nothing but a child—a playmate. Yet your friendship even has been so sweet to me that never, never shall I forget these nine weeks with you by the Lake River.” Once more the girl dried her tears. Her face was clearer now. “But there,” she went on, “that is enough about myself. Presently, when I can bear it, you must tell me all about your wife that is to be, and your future. We have lived together so much in the happy present that I never cared to speak or even to think about your leaving us.” There were voices heard approaching the wagons. Jacoba kissed passionately Meredith’s hand, which she still held within hers, laid it gently by his side, and went to herkartelat the end of the big tent-wagon.And so the Boer maiden’s dream was ended. Meredith quitted the camp and trekked for the Cape a little later, after a friendly and even affectionate farewell with the Steyn family. A sad heart was Jacoba’s as the captain’s wagon moved away south-eastward, and the last crack of the great whip sounded through the hot morning air. Sadder yet was it when the captain, after kissing Vrouw Steyn and herself, climbed into his saddle and rode away. There were tears even in Meredith’s eyes as he departed.And so Jacoba, with the tenacity of her race, has cherished that first love of hers, and steadily refused all others in its place. No Dutchman can ever supplant that dear image which, long years ago, she set up within her maiden heart. The bright girl of seventeen has changed to the middle-aged woman of forty-seven, yet that early love and its memories have remained ever constant within her, and will go with her to her grave.The smart English captain of 1859 is now a grey but still handsome veteran with a grown-up family of his own. You may usually see him sitting comfortably in an easy chair at the Naval and Military Club towards afternoon.Major-General Meredith has an excellent memory for the details of his old stirring hunter’s life. I sometimes wonder if he recalls also that other brief episode on the far-off Lake River. I am inclined to think he does. But he can little imagine that for his sake Jacoba Steyn remains a single woman to her last hour.

Jacoba Steyn lives with her brother Hans and his wife and numerous family on a remote farm far up in Waterberg, to the north-west of the Transvaal. She is, although now well on in middle age, a spinster—a rather remarkable circumstance among the women of the South African Dutch. For Jacoba is, as Dutch Afrikanders go, not uncomely, and few Boer women of her looks and condition in life escape, or desire to escape, from the joys and cares of matrimony. You would never think, to look at Jacoba Steyn nowadays, that there was much of romance or sentiment in her nature. She is now a stout spinster of forty-seven, thick and square of figure, and, as she takes herkapjeoff, you may note the grey threads showing thick in her dull brown hair. Yet Jacoba cherishes within her broad breast a very real and very tender romance, as all her relations and some few of her friends know.

Thirty years ago there came into the life of this staid, sober-minded Boer woman a bright gleam of passion, which ever since has illumined her quiet existence. That romance will never fade from her heart. Its tender memory shapes and tinges almost every act of her working, everyday life. It softens those somewhat rude asperities of manner which the average Boer housewife usually exhibits. It gives that kindly content which shines forth from the blue eyes and upon the homely features of spinster Jacoba. All the ragged, rough, and noisy crew of children—there are nine of them—of her brother Hans call in Tant Jacoba for the settlement of quarrels and the drying of tears. Her renown as a peacemaker has a far wider field than that of her somewhat sharp-tongued sister-in-law, the mother of all this unruly brood. Until ten years ago many of the neighbouring Boers of Waterberg—bachelors and widowers—still cherished the hope and belief that Jacoba Steyn was to be induced into the bonds of matrimony. Jacoba was still on the right side of middle age; she was far from ill-looking in the eyes of a Dutch farmer; a certain air of refinement, peculiar to herself, distinguished her from all her fellows. And she had flocks and herds of her own, running upon her brother’s veldt, as well as some good tobacco “lands,” which yielded no mean profit each year. The few cows and goats set apart for Jacoba in her infancy, according to the ancient patriarchal Boer plan, had increased and multiplied. Jacoba Steyn’s stock always had luck, and throve handsomely; and so at the age of thirty-seven she was still looked upon as an excellent match. But Jacoba had throughout her life steadily refused all offers of marriage. It was very exasperating to her family in her younger days, and a complete mystery to the Boer men who knew little of her earlier life. Gradually it dawned upon the minds of these slow-witted Waterberg Dutchmen that in real sober truth Jacoba Steyn was not to be won, that she was vowed to spinsterhood, and that some unaccountable attachment of her girlish days prevented her from ever accepting another man’s attentions.

When she had reached the age of forty, her youngest brother, Hans, with whom and whose family she had, since the death of her parents, always lived, ceased to urge upon her to take a husband. It was hopeless, and, after all, Jacoba’s cattle, goats, and savings would be a great help to the children at some future time. And so, at the age of forty-seven, Jacoba had outlived the attentions of bucolic swains, and the strong and even forcible recommendations of her own family, and was left to pursue unmolested the tenor of her quiet existence. She helped Lijsbet, her brother Hans’s wife, with her unwieldy family, performed more than her share of the household duties, and wore always a look of quiet happiness upon her broad, pleasant face. Twice or thrice a year she trekked with the family toNachtmaal(Communion) at Pretoria. After all, Jacoba was a woman, and even she, weaned though she was from the hopes and fears and commoner frets of the world, could not find it in her heart to deny herself the pleasure of a few days in the Boer capital, the sight of shops andwinkels(stores) and English folk, the joys of attendance in the Dutch Reformed Church, and some little intercourse with thepredikant(pastor). Thepredikantknew something of Jacoba’s strange story; he was a man of some refinement and much sympathy; and it did the quiet Dutchwoman good to have a talk with the minister she had known so long. Sometimes on the calm Sunday evenings up in Waterberg, when the cattle and goats are kraaled for the night and the still veldt lies golden beneath the kiss of sunset, when the bushkoorhaan(bustards) are playing their half-hour of strange aerial pranks and evolutions yonder, just outside the dark fringe of bush, Jacoba wanders from the low homestead and sits up above the Falala River, dreaming upon an old, old tale. That tale was once full of mingled memories—bitter-sweet. You may tell now, from the clear, tender look on the good woman’s face, that her thoughts are mainly pleasant ones. Time and she have healed, or nearly healed, her once bruised heart. Jacoba’s tale is a simple one. Yet it has its romantic side. It is not widely known even in Waterberg, and it may perhaps be worth the telling.

Jacoba Steyn’s father was one of those sturdy emigrant Boers who crossed the Vaal River towards 1837, defeated that terror of the north, Moselikatse, and his fierce Matabele warriors, drove them beyond the Limpopo, and took possession of the vast countries now known as the Orange Free State and Transvaal. Jan Steyn was, until the verge of old age, one of those restless frontier-men who are never content to settle down entirely to the pastoral life of the average Dutch farmer. He was a great hunter, and during the first ten years of his career beyond the Vaal he found almost as much occupation as he needed within the boundaries of the newly formed republic. But after that time elephants began to grow scarce within the Transvaal, and the ivory-hunters had to push their way farther afield. Moselikatse’s country—which we now call Matabeleland—was a sealed book for the Boers; the old Zulu lion seldom allowed them to enter it, and then only on payment of an extortionate tribute. Some of the hunters gradually thrust their way through Zoutpansberg eastward into the low countries (rich in game, but terribly feverish and unhealthy), towards Delagoa Bay; others gained permission from the Bamangwato chief, Sekhomi, and followed the ivory into the wild deserts towards Lake N’gami and the Zambesi. Among these last was to be found Jan Steyn. Jan had settled, after the final defeat of Moselikatse and his hordes, in that magnificent district of the western Transvaal now known as Marico. He had had hard times during the war with the Matabele, and had lost more than half his cattle. However, he consoled himself by selecting a 6,000 acre farm of rich and well-watered land, which he appropriately christened “Beter laat dan Nooit,” (“Better late than never”). His friend Jan Viljoen, the famous elephant-hunter, was his nearest neighbour. Viljoen had named his farm “Vär Genoog,” (“Far Enough”), not by any means a bad name for a trekking farmer who had wandered in search of a home from the Knysna, on the extreme southern littoral of Cape Colony, to the far Marico River.

Well, Jan Steyn built himself a house of Kaffir bricks, beaconed off his farm, and settled down for a year or two to get things into shape. After that time the wandering spirit overcame him again, and, leaving his farm in charge of a near relation, he put his family into the big tent-wagon and trekked away each season of African winter into the hunting veldt. Jan Viljoen and other neighbours followed the same plan. Elephants were inordinately plentiful, tusks were magnificently heavy, and a good trade in ivory could, in those days, be done with native chiefs. Jan Steyn’s wife and family—six in all—always accompanied him on these expeditions. The toughvrouwrefused to be left behind, and where she went the family went also. So that from her earliest years the little Jacoba remembered always the strange, wild life of the hunting veldt, the voice of lions and hyaenas by night, the great camp-fire, the return of the hunters laden with the hard-won spoils of chase, the dark groups of Kaffirs carrying in the long gleaming tusks of ivory. Like her mother, Jacoba as she neared her teens, could load a gun, and upon occasion, even knew how to discharge it.

By the year 1855, the Transvaal elephant-hunters were trekking very far afield in search of ivory. Livingstone’s discovery of Lake N’gami in 1849 had opened up a new region, teeming with the great tusk-bearing pachyderms, and a few Boer hunters began to filter gradually into the deserts towards the Lake and the Chobe River. Among these were Jan Viljoen, Piet Jacobs, and Jan Steyn. And so it happened that in 1859 the Steyn family for the fourth season had reached the south bank of the Botletli, better known as the Lake River, which runs south-east from Lake N’gami.

They had had a terrible struggle across the thirst-land lying between Shoshong, the Bamangwato Stadt, and the Lake River. More than once it seemed that they must have left their wagons behind in the desert; but they had somehow battled through, with the loss of three good trek oxen.

It was within an hour of sundown when they rose the little swelling of the plain, just where you strike the river, and drew up their wagons by the big thorn tree for the night N’gamiland hunters will know that tree; it bears the initials of most of the wanderers who have passed that way. Jacoba Steyn was but a girl of seventeen then, but she will never, to her dying hour, forget the scene that lay before her. Boer women are not, as a rule, impressionable; they give little heed to the sights that surround them, and have no eye for the picturesque. But this evening, of all others, will, for a particular reason, remain imprinted deep in the tablets of Jacoba’s remembrance. Below the wagons lay the Lake River, now somewhat shrunk within its low banks, and teeming with bird life. Just here the tall reeds had been burnt down, and there was a clear view. Flamingoes, ibises, coots, great gaudy geese, thousands of wild-duck, widgeon, and teal thronged the shallows and darkened the river surface. Elegant jacanas flitted brilliantly upon trembling islets of floating weed. Noisy spur-winged plovers clamoured with sharp metallic voices. Aloft soared a great fishing-eagle or two. And from afar, following one another slowly and solemnly in even, single-file procession, long lines of monstrous pelicans filled the sky. Their soft, melancholy whistling sounded clear, even amid the lowing of the parched oxen, now frantic and well-nigh dead with thirst. To the right the vast reed-beds of the Komadau marsh filled the view for miles. In front, outlined clear against the flaming sunset, stood up here and there a few tall palm trees, marking the course of the river. Beyond these the dry plains stretched to the north and west in illimitable monotony.

Just beyond where the Steyns had outspanned was the wagon of another traveller. And as Jacoba Steyn stood, stretching herself a little after the long wagon journey, and gazing about her, the owner of it walked up from the river. He was an Englishman, that was perfectly clear. His smart, erect carriage, short, neatly trimmed dark beard and moustache, and the cut of his breeches, gaiters, and boots, at once proclaimed the fact. He looked to be about the middle height; he was strong and well set up; an air of careless grace sat well upon him. He had dark and very handsome grey eyes, and a most pleasant smile, and his face, throat, and bare arms were deeply tanned by the sun. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat for head-gear, and his grey flannel shirt was open at the throat, and had the sleeves rolled up. On his shoulder rested a double-barrelled shot-gun. At his heels followed a pointer dog, and a young native boy, the latter carrying several couple of duck and geese. As the stranger approached the wagons and doffed his hat, something in Jacoba’s heart told her that she had never seen so completely good-looking a man. She stared hard with all her eyes as the Englishman advanced towards her. As he drew near and held out his hand, and said, in a clear, pleasant voice, “Dag, juffrow,” Jacoba’s eyes fell beneath the steady gaze of his, and she whispered bashfully, as she put her palm into his, “Dag, meneer.”

That, as well as I can describe it, is the picture that even now, thirty years after, is constantly before the mind’s eye of Jacoba Steyn.

Captain Meredith had soon introduced himself to the Steyn family. He was heartily received; for the Transvaal Boers, even in those days, had no grudge against individual Englishmen. Their dislike was for the British Government and British officialism, which, from their point of view, had driven them to trek from the old colony. While the oxen and horses were being watered at the river, a bottle of the captain’s brandy was produced, and Dutch and Englishman pledged one another insoupjisof right “French.”

Meanwhile, the Steyns proceeded to unburden their wagons and prepare for the night. The sailcloth was spread between the two wagons; Jacoba’s fowls and chickens, and her cat Tina and the kittens were set loose. The captain invited them all to his wagon to supper. He had the flesh of a fat cow eland all ready, and it would save much trouble to the tired trekkers if they took their evening meal with him. In an hour’s time they all sat down together, a jovial party, to sup by the light of two blazing camp-fires. TheKaptein, as the Steyns already called Meredith, was an English officer spending his leave on a hunting trip. It was his second expedition; he had been to the Lake two years before; and he spoke Cape Dutch. That was well for all parties; they could converse freely; and as all were interested in the life of the hunting veldt, there was plenty to talk about Meredith, too, had fought in the Crimean war four years before; and although these homely Boer folk had the vaguest ideas as to Russia and its whereabouts, they were interested in hearing of fighting, especially of warfare and siege amid the deep snows of the frozen North. And so, after pipes and coffee, the gathering separated, and Jacoba went to herkartelbed and dreamt of the alert, briskEngelschmannand his handsome face and grey eyes.

It was settled next day that the two parties should trek up the river and hunt together for a time. Meredith was not sorry to make this arrangement. He had left Natal with an English hunting friend. A severe attack of fever on the Crocodile River had, however, driven his comrade south; and, after a lonely hunt in the country about the Great Salt Pan, north of the Lake River, he was not disinclined to have the companionship of white folk again, rough Boers though they were. The wagons stood for another two days at this outspan, while the Steyns’ oxen rested and refreshed themselves after their desperate trek across the “thirst”. On the last evening, Meredith was down at the river with his fishing-rod, catching “cat-fish,” of which there were quantities. The Steyns were busied about their wagons, preparing for the evening meal; the men-folk were sitting here and there, some on thedissel-boom, some on wagon-chairs, smoking contentedly. Little Hans, the youngest of the family, a sturdy imp of eight years, who had already formed a strong attachment for the English captain, had run down towards the water after his new acquaintance. Suddenly Jacoba glanced in that direction and uttered a choking cry. The rest of the family, hearing her exclamation, looked up, and were instantly horror-struck like herself. A hundred and fifty yards away, little Hans was standing close to the edge of a dense mass of reed-bed. Fifteen yards away from him crouched a big yellow-maned lion, its tail twitching very softly from side to side, its gaze fixed intently on the youngster’s face. Hans had seen the brute, and stood spellbound. Fifty paces away behind the boy was Captain Meredith, who too had that instant caught sight of the lion, and comprehended the whole terrible situation. He was armed only with his fishing-rod. For one brief instant all the gazers at that terrible picture were rivetted where they stood, frozen with apprehension.

Jan Steyn was the first to move. He rose from his chair and plunged silently into his wagon for a rifle. But even he was not quick enough. Meredith, defenceless though he was, had already made up his mind. Flourishing his rod, and shouting objurgations on the lion at the top of his voice, he ran swiftly straight in the brute’s direction. To the utter surprise of all the watchers and the intense astonishment of Meredith himself, the lion, after baring his teeth in a savage defiance, suddenly changed his mind, turned tail, and disappeared like a yellow flash into the tall reeds. Meredith now picked up Hans, who, released from the strain of apprehension, burst into tears upon his shoulder, and carried him up to the camp. Vrouw Steyn first took the lad from his arms, pressed him to her breast, kissed him, and then, putting her arms round the captain’s neck, gave him two or three hearty kisses. That was the bravest thing, she said, she had ever heard of, much more seen, and she and her family would never forget it as long as they lived. Then the stout oldvrouwresigned herself to a quiet flood of tears and went about her work. Jacoba came next. The tears were already streaming down her cheeks. Hans was her favourite brother, and very dear to her. She came softly to Meredith, took his hand, modestly kissed him on the right cheek, and thanked him again and again. Jan Steyn and his three big sons, ranging from fifteen to two-and-twenty, one after another followed, thrust their big hands into the captain’s, and in their gruff Boer manner did their best to convey their hearty if, somewhat uncouth, thanks.

After that episode the friendship between Boers and Englishman grew apace. The men hunted together as they moved slowly up the river, and brought in many a head of game. Once or twice they came up with elephants on the south bank of the river and secured some good teeth, and theKaptein, or Hendrik, as they all now familiarly called him (his name was Henry), proved that, besides being a brave man, he was a first-rate hunter and shot—as good a man, the Steyn lads said, as their own father, which was their highest form of praise.

It was amusing to notice the domestic reforms that the Englishman and his ways introduced into the Boer family. Instead of for ever stewing lumps of game flesh in the big pot, or cooking drykarbonadjesover the embers, the captain persuaded thevrouwto follow his own example, and roast wild-duck or a joint of springbok in a Kaffir pot, with hot embers below and on the lid. Sometimes he persuaded her to cook springbok chops and “fry” in an open frying-pan, as had he taught his own native cook. He presented her with one of his two frying-pans for this purpose. He even inducted the good-wife and Jacoba into the mysteries of curry, and gave them a supply of powder which lasted them for a year or two later. In proof that these innovations were acceptable, you may find them to this day, thanks to Jacoba’s and Hans’s remembrance of the English captain, steadily practised in Hans’s household in Waterberg. Even Hans’s wife, obstinate Boer woman though she is, has long since admitted their merits. On the other hand, Meredith had to acknowledge that he could not improve upon the Steyns’ coffee-making, which, performed though it was in an ordinary iron kettle, was as good as could be. Many an Englishman, however, has discovered that fact.

As for Jacoba, she foregathered with Meredith as often as she had opportunity. It was a delightful thing for this simple, untaught Boer maiden to hear news of that vast, dim outer world, and to gather some little idea of modern civilisation. For the Transvaal Boers, you must understand, to this day, linger in their isolation at least a hundred years behind the average European. Sometimes, when the captain came home early from hunting, Jacoba would walk with him to the river-side, or to the spreading lagoons which were now everywhere forming upon the flats, and watch him shoot wild-duck and geese, or some rare specimen or curious bird. Those were delightful times for the girl, as she and her hero strolled home in the soft African twilight, with all the glamour of evening about them. For within the secret recesses of her maiden heart she had long since set up the handsome Englishman as her hero. Jacoba at seventeen was a very comely girl; her complexion was fresh and clear—a rare thing among Dutch Afrikanders. She looked, as indeed she was, always pleasant and good-tempered; her blue eyes were as clear and honest as an African winter morning; from beneath her big sun-bonnet (kapje) her plentiful fair hair fell in a single thick plait down her back. Her figure, it is true, was nothing to boast of; but then, in the faraway veldt, who troubles about an inch or two at the waist? Meredith liked this frank, comely, modest South African maiden; even he, man of the world though he was, could scarce help but feel a little flattered at the manifest preference she showed for his society. Then the child—for, measured by the European standard, she was but a child—had so many questions to ask him upon all sorts of subjects; and it really was a pleasure to answer some of these naïve, unsophisticated inquiries, and to try and teach her something of the life and thoughts of Europe. And so it befell that Jacoba’s heart insensibly slipped from her, and she grew in her secret soul to love and almost to worship this fascinating Englishman, who knew everything, and did everything—from shooting an elephant to inspanning an ox—better even than her father and brothers, and could teach her own mother how to cook. She loved to watch him as he saddled up in the early dawning and rode off across the plains, or into the bush veldt, with her father and brothers in search of game. How nimble was this Englishman, and how graceful! With what an air he sprang into his saddle, and sat his horse, and even carried his rifle! And how fresh and trim and clean the man always looked! I am afraid Jacoba began secretly to contrast the captain with her own heavy, untrimmed and not over-clean kindred—much to the detriment of the latter.

In a little while the girl had come to look forward to Meredith’s return from hunting as the one great pleasure in the long day. Sometimes, when the men were in pursuit of elephants, and slept out on the spoor, it seemed as if the slothful hours would never pass. Her mother noticed the change in Jacoba’s demeanour, and would sometimes rate her for her forgetfulness and absent ways. “Jacoba,” she would say, from her low chair under the shady lee of the wagon, “your mind is always running on that English ‘Kaptein.’ Wake up, child, and think what you are doing, or I shall send him packing.”

Yet it must be confessed that the big ponderousvrouwwas, in truth, almost as taken with the stranger as her own child. She liked, as every one else in the camp liked, his pleasant, hearty ways, and the air of novelty and briskness that his presence brought into the dull lives of herself and her folk. She liked his friendship for her child most of all, stout anti-Briton though she was in the abstract. It would be a fine thing indeed, she whispered to herself, if the captain should ask the girl in marriage, and set her up as a great lady. Vrouw Steyn had very faint ideas of what great ladies did, and how they comported themselves; yet as a child she remembered seeing the wife of the Governor of the Cape, and other official dames, at Graaff Reinet. And besides, she had once or twice seen old copies of theIllustrated London News, from which she assisted her own misty and fantastic glimmerings upon the subject.

It was curious to note in these days how particular Jacoba had grown about her clothes and person. It would be hard to say how she managed it. She had but two print gowns, and yet now she always appeared in a spotless frock in the afternoons. After all, even hunting Boers carry soap, and in the hot sunshine and parching winds of South Africa you can dry a print dress on a bush in a very little while. The captain had presented her, among other feminine treasures, with a brand-new pair of nail-scissors, and her hands were now kept as daintily as a Cape Townmeisje’s. Even her brothers could scarcely help noticing the smart ribbons that, especially on Sundays, decked her gown and hair.

It must be said on the captain’s side that he behaved fairly well in a somewhat difficult position. He was an honourable man, and he had no intention in the world of stealing this simple girl’s affections. He was, in truth, much too keenly occupied in the wild pleasures of hunting big game to think about her affections at all. To him she was a mere child, and as such he had grown to treat her. It is true that it was a pleasant thing to find, even in this faraway desert—tolerable in many respects only for the game it held—a pretty fresh-eyed maid such as Jacoba, Dutch and semi-civilised though she was. Perhaps, if he had reflected a little, his friendship for the girl might have been somewhat less intimate. He treated her, indeed, in a careless brotherly, or perhaps, rather, cousinly way. When he came home from the hunt, often towards 3 o’clock, after a cup of coffee and a snack of food, he would exchange his heavy gun for the fowling-piece, whistle for Juno, the pointer, and stroll off arm-in-arm with Jacoba down to the river-side or the nearest lagoon. Sometimes little Hans would accompany them; sometimes he was lazy and stayed behind. It must be said that insensibly the captain and Jacoba grew to prefer their expeditions alone. When Meredith had shot enough wildfowl and red-billed francolin, he and Jacoba would stroll up to the camp-fire as the dusk fell. I am afraid, somehow, that the captain’s arm often wandered to the maid’s waist; sometimes even he took a kiss quite unresistingly from Jacoba’s fresh lips and soft cheek. It was thoughtless of him, which was perhaps the worst that could be said. For Jacoba those evening walks were full of unfading joy; to this hour she cherishes every incident of them, middle-aged woman though she is.

As the wagons moved up the river, elephants became more plentiful. On several occasions the hunters had crossed the water and followed the great tusk-bearers into the jungles beyond. They had had first-rate sport, and secured some magnificent teeth. One morning, at earliest dawn, some Makobas punted their dug-out canoes across the river, and reported that a good troop of elephants had drunk during the night. For a consideration they would take the hunters across. All was now bustle and excitement in the camp. Jan Steyn and his two eldest sons and the captain were soon equipped. They swallowed a hasty breakfast, and then, walking their horses down to the river, got into the boats and swam their nags over behind them. There was some risk from crocodiles, but the feat was safely accomplished. Then they took up the spoor in earnest. Some Masarwa bushmen tracked for them, and they rode at a brisk pace upon the trail, hour after hour, until noon had come and the sun lay midway in the sky between north-east and north-west. At half-past twelve they came suddenly upon the elephants in some troublesome thorny bush. There were eighteen in all, and some good bulls among them. Meredith quickly got to work and slew two magnificent bulls, carrying long, even teeth, after a hot and most exciting chase. He next tackled a big cow, furnished with a capital pair of tusks. After a sharp gallop he got alongside and put a four-ounce ball, backed with seven drachms of powder (those were the days of smooth-bores and heavy charges), behind her shoulder. But, stricken though she was, the cow was by no means finished. She turned short in her tracks, and, spouting blood, came with a ferocious scream straight for her tormentor.

Meredith had instantly turned his horse and spurred for flight. But, as it happened, in a hundred yards he was met by an absolutely impassablecul-de-sacof thorn-bush. Almost before horse and man knew where they were, they were caught up and flung to earth. The great cow drove her left tusk deep into the off flank of the horse, and hurled the poor brute and its rider away from her in one confused and bleeding mass. Before she could halt and turn again, the impetus of her ferocious charge took her thirty yards farther, right through that seemingly impenetrable wall of bush. It was her last effort. The heavy bullet had done its work. Thrice she lifted her blood-dripping trunk as if for air. Then she swayed softly to and fro, and suddenly sank down upon all-fours, as if kneeling, and so yielded up her fifty years of life.

Meredith himself was found by his native boy ten minutes afterwards in but sorry plight. He had fallen underneath his horse when the pair of them had been hurled aside by the enraged cow, and the terrible impact had not only rendered him senseless, but had broken his right forearm and several ribs. His horse lay across his body breathing its last, with entrails protruding from a gaping wound in the flank. The boy, with the assistance of a Bushman, extricated his master and laid him upon the earth. In half an hour the Steyns came up. They had slain between them four elephants—a bull and three cows—and were well content. They now at once ascertained the Englishman’s injuries. He lay still insensible. They set his arm and bound it up in a pair of rough splints, and then carried him to the river, across which the Makobas again ferried them. Arrived at last at the camp, Vrouw Steyn and her daughter at once insisted that, for better nursing, the captain should be placed under the tent-sail, between the two Dutch wagons. There she and Jacoba tenderly laid him, bound up his ribs, washed the blood from his face, and poured brandy and water between his lips.

For more than twenty-four hours Meredith lay in the long stupor produced by concussion of the brain. It was some way past the middle hours of the second night that the first glimmering of reason came back to him. He seemed to awake, as it were, in a fresh world. His body and limbs seemed curiously light; everything was strange. It was not unpleasant to lie thus, with eyes shut, awaiting new impressions. Presently a pair of soft lips kissed his brow and cheek, and he heard a woman’s voice, in a strange tongue, which yet he understood. “My darling!” said the voice, “my love! come back to me, come back to me. Ah! Heer God, bring him back to his senses, and make him well and strong again. Hendrik, my Hendrik, I cannot bear to see you lie like this. Come back to your Jacoba, or I shall break my heart.” There was a little sob, and then Meredith felt warm tears falling upon his face, and the lips pressed his brow again, this time more passionately. He could not move, much less make answer to the strange appeal which, as if through the mists of a dream, he now heard. But he felt somehow that it was pleasant to rest thus and to hear these things, to feel soft kisses and the tender caress of a hand that now and again stroked his own, or smoothed his brow.

In a fortnight’s time Meredith was slowly recovering. His bones were healing, his pulses beat a thought more firmly. He knew now all about that strange night, when his mind first wandered back into the chambers of life again. He knew that Jacoba loved him, and the thought troubled him. Had he been wise? Had he done well to make so great a friend of this simple Dutch child, to have her so much about with him? Ought he to have kissed her? to have wandered in the dusk with her, arm-in-arm, or with his arm round her waist? All these questions returned again and again to his mind and sought answer.

One quiet morning, as he lay on thekartelthere under the tent-sail, they two were alone in the camp. The men were out hunting; Vrouw Steyn and Hans were down at the river, washing; the native servants were scattered. Juno, the pointer, lay by her master’s bedside, as she always did; and, as Jacoba came in under the tent and sat down in the wagon-chair, something in Juno’s affectionate eyes, now turned from Jacoba’s face wistfully to her master’s, seemed to ask a question. Meredith returned Juno’s look, and then spoke.

“Jacoba,” he said, taking the girl’s hand, “I want to tell you something. I ought to have told it you before, I am afraid. If I had known what I think I know now, I would have done so. I shall be leaving you very shortly—as soon as I am well enough to start. I have to be back in England before Christmas, because early next year I am going to be married. That is what I ought to have told you before. Forgive me, Jacoba; I never dreamt that our friendship was turning in another direction. I heard you say something the other night, just when my senses were coming back, which makes me think that I have done wrong in not telling you of all this before. I have been selfish and unfair. You must forgive me, Jacoba, and forget all about the past two months, though, indeed, it will be hard for me to forget the pleasant days we have had together. Don’t! don’t cry, my dear; I am not worth it, and you will forget it all soon enough.”

Jacoba, seated in her low chair by the bedside, had buried her face in Meredith’s hand and her own as he neared the end of his speaking, and was now sobbing heavily. Presently she mastered herself, dried her tears a little, and spoke.

“Perhaps, Hendrik,” she said, “you ought to have told me. But, indeed, it would not have much mattered. I loved you ever since I set eyes on you the first evening we met. And I should have loved you just the same, even if you had told me that very evening that you were promised to another. Yet all the time we have been together—these weeks that have gone so quickly—I knew, Hendrik, that indeed our ways lay differently; that your world was a different world to mine; that I was to you nothing but a child—a playmate. Yet your friendship even has been so sweet to me that never, never shall I forget these nine weeks with you by the Lake River.” Once more the girl dried her tears. Her face was clearer now. “But there,” she went on, “that is enough about myself. Presently, when I can bear it, you must tell me all about your wife that is to be, and your future. We have lived together so much in the happy present that I never cared to speak or even to think about your leaving us.” There were voices heard approaching the wagons. Jacoba kissed passionately Meredith’s hand, which she still held within hers, laid it gently by his side, and went to herkartelat the end of the big tent-wagon.

And so the Boer maiden’s dream was ended. Meredith quitted the camp and trekked for the Cape a little later, after a friendly and even affectionate farewell with the Steyn family. A sad heart was Jacoba’s as the captain’s wagon moved away south-eastward, and the last crack of the great whip sounded through the hot morning air. Sadder yet was it when the captain, after kissing Vrouw Steyn and herself, climbed into his saddle and rode away. There were tears even in Meredith’s eyes as he departed.

And so Jacoba, with the tenacity of her race, has cherished that first love of hers, and steadily refused all others in its place. No Dutchman can ever supplant that dear image which, long years ago, she set up within her maiden heart. The bright girl of seventeen has changed to the middle-aged woman of forty-seven, yet that early love and its memories have remained ever constant within her, and will go with her to her grave.

The smart English captain of 1859 is now a grey but still handsome veteran with a grown-up family of his own. You may usually see him sitting comfortably in an easy chair at the Naval and Military Club towards afternoon.

Major-General Meredith has an excellent memory for the details of his old stirring hunter’s life. I sometimes wonder if he recalls also that other brief episode on the far-off Lake River. I am inclined to think he does. But he can little imagine that for his sake Jacoba Steyn remains a single woman to her last hour.

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