Preface.

The tales here set forth are, subject to a generous allowance for Uncle Abe’s gift of imagination, true to the animal life and the scenery of a district in the Cape occupied by the British Settlers of 1820—a tract rich in incidents of border warfare, hallowed by the struggles of that early band of colonists, saturated with the superstitions and folk lore of the Kaffirs, and thoroughly familiar to the author—who passed his boyhood there.

E. Glanville.

Streatham: September 1897.

Chapter One.

Abe Pike’s Poison Bark.

Abe Pike—Old Abe Pike, or Uncle Abe as he was variously called—lived in a one-horse shanty in the division of Albany, Cape Colony. I won’t locate his farm, for various reasons, beyond saying that there is a solitary blue-gum on the south side of the house and the rudiments of a cowshed on the north. Uncle Abe was not ambitious; he was slow, but he was sure. So he said. One blue-gum satisfied him, and as for the cowshed he meant to complete it during the century. I don’t introduce him as a tree planter, but as a narrator of most extraordinary yarns. He called them facts—but of the truth of this the reader may judge.

Riding over one warm afternoon, I found him leaning over a water-butt examining the little lively and red worms therein, which would soon hatch out into livelier mosquitoes.

“Well, Uncle, how d’ye fare?”

“Porly, lad, porly; pumpkins is scarce.”

Uncle Abe took a very old pipe from his pocket, and showed the emptiness of it by placing a very gnarled little finger into the black bowl.

I held out my pouch.

“I’ll jest take a little dry to put on the top,” he said, as he deliberately filled the pipe. “We want a little ‘dry on the top’ to start us, but if there’s nothin’ deown below, why, it’s a puff and out it goes. Yo’ll never get a crop from that bottom land o’ yours until you put some dry on the top in the shape of manure. See!”

Now, of all the laziest, shiftless beings there was no one who could start level with old Abe Pike, and this advice from him was rasping, but still he had his points.

“I’ve heard say there’s a powerful heap o’ money in portents,” he ventured presently.

“It depends on how you interpret them.”

“Well, that’s so. I’ve got a portent here in this very coat; that’s some small pumpkins, I tell you. It’ll kill any sort o’ vermin, rats, skeeters, wild-cats, jackals, quicker’n winkin’. See! I found it out myself come next Friday fortnight.”

“You mean you interpreted the portent.”

“Well, now, is that so? I tole you I got it in my pocket, and ef I didn’t find it, how did it get there? That’s what I want to know.”

“All right, Uncle, what is it?”

“That’s my portent. I diskivered it, and I’m gwine to work it under my name—Abe Pike’s Sure Killer.”

“Is it a patent medicine you’re talking of?”

“Of course; that’s what I said. There it is,” and out of his pocket he produced a strip of bark.

“Sneeze-wood bark, isn’t it?”

“Looks like it, don’t it? But there’s bark and there’s bark. This is Abe Pike’s Bark, possessing properties which will alleviate the sufferings of the human race by putting a lightning end to the enemies of the human kind. That’s what I’ve studied out to put in the papers in big letters. There’s money in it, now; ain’t there?”

“I don’t see it, Uncle.”

“Ah! the limitations of knowledge, my boy, is accountable for a pot of ignorance. You think that’s plain ordinary bark, but that’s where your limitations run dry. I’ll jes’ tell you how I diskivered this great and marvellous killer of the centry. Come Friday fortnight I sot out with the axe to chop out a pole for the cowshed—t’other on’ been eaten thro’ by those plaguy ants. Well, I knew of a tree way down in the kloof that had been growin’ for that shed o’ mine ever since the seed dropped on the ’xact spot where nature had provided a bed for it. When you come to think of it, everything has got its purpose all smoothed out from the start, and that little seed spread itself out from the beginnin’ to build up a pole for ole Abe Pike’s cowshed. I sot down on a fallen tree and thought that all out, while the trees round about made a whisperin’ with their leaves over the head o’ that there sneeze ’ood that was doomed so to speak, by reason o’ my cows, and the necessity of keepin’ ’em out o’ the rain in the winter. Well, I sot there thinking all these thoughts until it was too dark, and I went away home ’thout having cut the tree. Next mornin’ I took up my axe and went down into the kloof and took off my coat. I gave two blows and stopped.”

“Too much work?”

“Jes’ you wait. I tole you there was a fallen tree; well, in that tree was a snake. The first blow of the axe woke him, and he popped his head out. The second blow sent a chip that hit him square between the eyes. Out he came biling with rage, and hissin’ like a kettle o’ water, and I just had time to dodge behind the tree when he let out. His fangs stuck right in the wood, and with a clip I cut his head off. I stood away back looking at his writhing body and at his wicked head sticking there in the tree jes’ where I had made the wedge. As I looked in, there came to pass a remarkable circumstance.”

“Yes?”

“Yes; that tree began to lose colour. It was a healthy tree, sound as a bell, with a heart o’ iron and a crown o’ green leaves; but as I stood there in the space o’ maybe one minit, or a minit and a half, it begun to turn pale and sickly.”

“Turn pale!”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I said. First the leaves shuddered and rustled, and grew moist; then they slowly turned yeller, curling up as if they’d been frost-bitten, only sadder. It s’prised me, that did, for there was somethin’ in the way the leaves went that struck a shudder through me, ’twas so human like in the manner o’ it. But that was nothing—the bark suddenly cracked and peeled off—then the white trunk itself standin’ there, exposed in its nakedness began to swell—until it split with a groan—ay, a groan, a moaning shivery gasp o’ pain. ’Twas so like life, I turned and ran, thinkin’ that dead snakes was after me—so that as I ran the fear grew upon me till I came out inter the open. After looking around keerfully I sat on a stone an’ steadied my thinking machine. When I got the fear out o’ me I went back and there was that tree dead as tho’ it had been struck by lightnin’ and bleached by the rain an’ sun.”

“Well?”

“That tree was pisened! It died o’ snakebite—its system chock full o’ pisen. I cut it down and took it home, where I planted it under the shed.”

“And your portent?”

“I’m comin’ to that, if you’ll give me time. That night I couldn’t sleep for a procession of ants. They came out of a hole in the floor, crept over my bed—which you may know is on the floor for convenience—and marched out thro’ the crack under the door. All the ants in the country were there—red ants, black ants, working ants, soldier ants, and the soldier ants nipped me whenever I moved. In the morning, when they had passed away, I went outside, and in the shed there was thousands an’ thousands o’ dead ants, not to speak o’ flies.”

“All dead?”

“They had been nipping that pisened pole, and those that didn’t bite got the news and moved off for other scenes. I tell you, you may speak o’ telegraph wires, but lor’ bless you, news travels faster among the creatures. Why I’ve knowed—”

“Yes; but you’ve not told me about your discovery.”

“Well, now, the limitations of your knowledge is great. I’ve told you enough to put two and two together. If not, I’ll just make the plain plainer. Seeing what the tree had done, I though o’ the bark an’ the leaves left there behind in the kloof, and went for ’em. It was jus’ as I thought. They was deadly pisen, and when I laid some leaves about the house they killed all the flies, and a piece o’ bark laid in a rat-hole brought all the rats out corpses.

“Yes sir, that’s ole Abe Pike’s Vermin Destroyer, and if you’re setting pills for jackals, why, don’t you forget to come to my shop.”

“Are you opening a shop?”

“That’s what I said. Abe Pike’s vermin pisen poles, warrented to stand the ravages o’ time an’ insects, and Pike’s bark; no other genuine. So long!”

“Well, so long!”

Chapter Two.

Uncle Abe’s Big Shoot.

I had ridden out one day to the outpost, where a troop of young cattle were running, when the horse rode into a covey of red-wing partridges, a brace of which I accounted for by a right and left. Picking up the birds, and feeling rather proud of the shot, I continued on to Uncle Pike’s to crow over the matter.

The old man was seated outside the door ‘braiding’ a thong of forslag or whip-lash.

“Hitch the reins over the pole. Ef the shed was ready I’d ask yer to stable the hoss, but there’s a powerful heap o’ work yet to finish it off nice an’ shipshape—me being one o’ those who like to see a job well done. None o’ yer rough and ready sheds for me, with a hole in the roof after the fust rain. A plump brace o’ birds—you got ’em up by the Round Kopje.”

“Yes, Uncle; a right and left from the saddle. Good shooting, eh!”

“Fair to middling, sonny—fair to middling—but with a handful o’ shot an’ a light gun what can yer expect but to hit. Now, ef you’d bagged ’em with one ball outer an ole muzzle-loader, why I’d up an’ admit it was praisable.”

“Why Uncle, where’s the man who would knock over two birds with a ball? It couldn’t be done.”

“Is that so? Well, now yer s’prise me.”

“You’re not going to tell me you have seen that done!”

“Something better. That’s small potatoes.”

He rose up, went indoors, and returned with an ancient single muzzle-loader, the stock bound round with snake skin. “Jes’ yer handle that wepin.”

I handled it, and returned it without a word. It was ill-balanced, and came up awkwardly to the shoulder.

“That wepin saved my life.”

“In the war?”

“In the big drought. You remember the time. The country was that dry, you could hear the grass crackle like tinder when the wind moved, an’ every breath stirred up columns of sand which went cavorting over the veld round and round, their tops bending over to each other an’ the bottoms stirring up everything movable, and the whole length of the funells dotted about with snakes, an’ lizards, an’ bits of wood. Why, I see one o’ em whip up a dead sheep, an’ shed the wool off o’ the carcase as it went twisting round an’ round.”

“And the gun?”

“The gun was on the wall over my bed. Don’t you mind the gun. Well, it was that dry the pumpkins withered up where they lay on the hard ground—an’ one day there was nought in the larder, not so much as a smell. There was no breakfast for ole Abe Pike, nor dinner nor yet tea, an’ the next morning ’twas the same story o’ emptiness. I took down the old gun from the wall an’ cleaned her up. There was one full charge o’ powder in the horn, an’ one bullet in the bag. All that morning I considered whether ’twould be wiser to divide that charge inter three, or to pour the whole lot of it in’t once. When dinner-time came an’ there was no dinner, I solumnly poured the whole bang of it inter the barrel, an’ listened to the music of the black grains as they rattled on their way down to their last dooty. I cut a good thick wad from a buck-hide and rammed it down, ‘Plunk, plenk, plank, plonk, ploonk,’ until the rod jumped clean out o’ the muzzle. Then I polished up that lone bullet, wrapped him round in a piece o’ oil rag, an’ sent him down gently. ‘Squish, squish, squash, squoosh.’ I put the cap on the nipple, an’ sent him home with the pressure o’ the hammer. Then I took a look over the country to ’cide on a plan o’ campaign. What I wanted was a big ram with meat on him ter last for a month, if ’twas made inter biltong. There was one down by the hoek, but it warnt full grown. He was nearest, but there was one I’d seen over yonder off by the river, beyond the kloof, an’ I reckoned ’twas worth while going a couple o’ mile extra to get him.”

“You were sure of him?”

“He was as good as dead when I shouldered the gun an’ stepped off out on that wilderness o’ burnt land. The wind came like a breath from a furnace, an’ the hair on my head split an’ curled up under the heat. Whenever I came across a rock with a breadth of shade I sot there to cool off, panting like a fowl, an’ also to cool off the gun for fear ’twould explode. By reason o’ this resting the dark came down when I reached the ridge above the river, an’ I jest camped where it found me, after digging up some insange root to chew. The fast had been with me for two days, an’ the gnawing pain inside was terrible, so that I kept awake looking up at the stars an’ listening to the plovers.”

“It must have been lonesome!”

“’Twas not the lonesomeness so much as the emptiness that troubled me. Before the morning came, lighting up the valley, I was going down to the river on the last hunt. ’Twas do or die that trip—an’ it seemed to me I could see the gleam o’ my bones away down there through the mist that hung over the sick river. I made straight for the river, knowing there was a comfort an’ fellowship in the water which would draw game there, an’ the big black ram, too, ’fore he marched off inter the thick o’ the kloof for his sleep. By-and-by, as I went down among the rocks an’ trees, I pitched head first—ker smash—in a sudden fit o’ dizziness, but the shock did me good. It rattled up my brain—an’ instead o’ jest plunging ahead I went slow—slow an’ soft as a cat on the trail—pushing aside a branch here, shoving away a dry twig there, an’ glaring around with hungry eyes. I spotted him!”

“The ram?”

“Ay, the ram. The very buck I’d had in my mind when I loaded the old gun. He stood away off the other side o’ the river, moving his ears, but still as a rock, and black as the bowl of this pipe, except where the white showed along his side. He seemed to be looking straight at me—an’ I sank by inches to the ground with my legs all o’ a shake. Then, on my falling, he stepped down to the water, and stood there admiring hisself—his sharp horns an’ fine legs—an’ on my belly, all empty as ’twas, I crawled, an’ crawled, an’ crawled. There was a bush this side the river, an’ I got it in line. At last I reached it, the sweat pouring off me, an’ slowly I rose up. The water was dripping from his muzzle as he threw his head up, an’ he turned to spring back, when, half-kneeling, I fired, an’ the next moment the old gun kicked me flat as a pancake.”

“And you missed him?”

“Never! I got him. I said I would, an’ I did. I got him, an’ a 9 pound barbel.”

“Uncle Abe!”

“I say a 9 pound barbel, tho’ he might a been 8 and a half pound, an’ a brace of pheasants.”

“Uncle Abe!”

“I zed so—an’ a hare an’, an’,” he went on quickly, “a porkipine.”

“Uncle Abe!”

“Well—what are you Abeing me for?”

“You got all those with one shot. Never!”

“I was there—you weren’t. ’Tis easy accounted for. When I pulled the trigger the fish leapt from the water in the line, and the bullet passed through him inter the buck. I tole you the gun kicked. Well, it flew out o’ my hands, an’ hit the hare square on the nose. To recover myself, I threw up my hands, an’ caught hold o’ the two pheasants jest startled outer the bush.”

“And the porcupine?”

“I sot down on the porkipine, an’ if you’d like to ’xamine my pants you’ll find where his quills went in. I was mighty sore, an’ I could ha’ spared him well from the bag. But ’twas a wonderful good shot. You’re not going?”

“Yes, I am. I’m afraid to stay with you.”

“Well, so long! I cut this yere forslag from the skin o’ that same buck.”

“Let me see—it’s nine years to the big drought.”

“That’s it.”

“That skin has kept well.”

“Oh, yes; ’twas a mighty tough skin.”

“Not so tough as your yarn, Uncle. So long!”

Chapter Three.

Uncle Abe, the Baboon, and the Tiger.

Abe Pike was one of those men who would walk ten miles to set a trap without a murmur, while he thought himself badly used if he were called upon to hoe a row in the mealie field. So when, for the third time within one week, a calf was killed by a tiger, and our attempts to shoot, poison, or trap the thief had failed, I rode over to Uncle Abe’s to secure his aid.

“I can’t do it,” he said, when I had stated my business.

“Too busy?”

“No; ’taint that, sonny, ’taint that—tho’ there’s a powerful heap o’ work to do on that shed.”

“I’ll put in a couple of days and help you finish it right off, as soon as the tiger is laid by the heels.”

“Thank ye kindly; but I’ve got to finish that there shed offun my own bat. It’s a job that wants doin’ keerfly.”

“Well, Uncle, I’ll plough up your old land by the hoek, and put in two muids of corn. How will that do?”

“’Twont do, my lad; that land’s full o’ charlock.”

“Then, Uncle, the day you show me the dead body of that tiger, the red heifer with the white patch on the hump is yours.”

He heaved a sigh, and knocked the bowl of his pipe on his thumb, but he did not accept the offer, though I knew he admired that heifer.

“Why, Uncle, what is the matter? You’re not ill?”

“’Tain’t that, either—not ’xactly—tho’ there’s such a thing as illness o’ the mind.”

“I’m very sorry,” as I unhitched the bridle and prepared to mount, “for I’ll have to go to Long Sam, and from the hairs I’ve seen I shouldn’t be surprised if this is a black tiger.”

This was the last shot—Abe Pike had not yet trapped a black tiger, and Long Sam was his rival in bush lore.

“That settles it,” he said, with a groan.

“Come along then,” I said, with a smile at my success in breaking through his obstinacy.

Abe rose up and laid his gnarled hand on the mane of the horse. “’Tis the same one,” he muttered, “the same one, sure.”

“Why, of course; you know the old horse, Black Dick.”

“Black Nick,” he said slowly, and, drawing his hand across his forehead; “my boy, you’ll never trap that animile; he’s a witch tiger.”

“A witch tiger?”

“That’s so: he’s given a lodging to some ole Kaffir. Abe Pike ain’t going arter any black tigers, not he.”

“What are you driving at now, you old buffer?”

“Buffer, is it; well—well—buffer—oh, yes, of course; an’ me that has passed through sich a three weeks as ud have scared many another into his grave.”

I felt remorse at the thought that for three weeks I had not called on the lonely old man, and concluded that he was paying me out for this neglect.

“I am very sorry,” I said eagerly, “I have not been over; but the truth is the work has been very heavy. It must have been very lonely.”

“I’ve had kempany.”

“Oh, I see; and perhaps they’ve engaged your services?”

“That’s it. On ’count o’ ’em that’s been callin’ here I can’t go catching any black tigers.”

“I should like to know who it is has set you against doing a service for a neighbour?”

“There’s kempany an’ kempany. This yer kempany ud turn your hair white.”

“Ah!” I said, sniffing a story.

“Yes, ’twould that. There were some baboons away over by the big kloof. A family party—ole man, wives, middle-aged, an’ pickaninnies. They came there for the Kaffir plum crop, an’ were mighty lively, not to say noisy, three weeks ago, when they began to drop. I yeared ’em dropping off.”

“Off the trees?”

“No; offun this mortal spear. As they dropped off in the dark, the others howled an’ whooped like mad. It was a tiger that did the droppin’.”

“A tiger?”

“You hold on to him. At last the ole man were left alone, an’ he had a mighty anxious time looking all around at onct, while he hunted for grubs for fear the enemy ’ud spring on him. He used to come over yonder in the lands for kempany. I’ve sot here on the door-step an’ he sot over there, glaring at me from his little grey eyes. Arter a time we got to know each other, an’ I found out he went to sleep on the roof alongside the chimney.”

“He was the company?”

“One on ’em. An’ seein’ him about reminded me o’ the Kaffir plums, so one mornin’ I took up the can an’ went away off to the big kloof where the plums are red an’ juicy. Well—my boy—that ole man baboon, he up an’ come along with me, an’ when he found I were goin’ to the kloof he jabbered most like a human. I could see he were excited—anybody could a seen that—an’ I sot down on a rock to argy the point with him. He wouldn’t argy, but he started back for the house. Well, you know me, when Abe Pike sots out to do a thing he does it, an’ arter I had smoked two pipes, I resoomed my way, jest as unconcarned as you are, for all the plain meanin’ o’ the baboon that I should go away home. When he saw that I were sot on it he came along at a canter, with his hind-quarters slewed round an’ the hair all standing up on his neck. He looked ugly, but ’xcept he lifted his eyebrows very quick, he said nothin’, and went along very quiet, with the same anxious look on his face I had noticed prev’ous. As I went into the kloof he swung into the trees, an’ kept along overhead. When we came to the thick o’ the wood, he going along all the time scarcely moving a leaf, he made a soft noise, an’ looking up I saw him bobbing his head up an’ down to make you giddy. I know by that he saw somethin’, an’ I jes’ slipped behind a tree to take stock. I yeerd a yawn, an’ what d’ye think I see thro’ the leaves stretched out on a rock, not twenty foot away?”

“A black fellow?”

“Yes; a black feller, with four legs an’ a tail, an’ a red mouth all agape, wide enough to take in my head, hat an’ all.”

“A black tiger?”

“Yes; an’ me with only a tin can. I jes’ sank down inter my boots. All o’ a sudden his jaws come to with a snap. Then he riz his head and stired straight fer me, his eyes gitting flamier as he looked, an’ his tail all on the jerk. He moved his round head about, then shot out his neck an’ growled in his stummik as he peered under the leaves. Just then that baboon let out a ‘baugh—baugh—bok-hem,’ an’ dropped down beyond the tiger. There were a roar, a leap, a scramble, an’ Abe Pike were shooting on his tracks for the open veld. He didn’t stop running till he got home—he didn’t—not me.”

“And the baboon? He wasn’t killed, was he?”

“You wait—jes’ you wait. Before you get the end o’ the journey you’ve got to pass the half-way house. This is a solitary place—this mansion—and beyond the ole Gaika-Bolo I have no visitors—an’ he only when he’s doctorin’ the Kaffirs down these parts. So that night, when there were a tap at the door, I were skeered a little from the shake I got when I saw that black critter staring at me with them wicked eyes of hisn. ‘Come in!’ I sed, an’ the tap came agin, soft an’ gentle, like as if a child or a woman were standin’ there—timid—tho’ it’s many a year since a female brushed the door-post with her dress—a many years, my lad.”

“Yes, Uncle; who was it?”

“‘Come in!’ I sed, laying hold o’ a piece of wood. ‘Jes’ pull the string,’ I sed. Believe me, the string were pulled—the upper half o’ the door swung open, an’ he stepped in.”

“Who?”

“The old man baboon! He pulled the string, the door swung open, an’ he hopped in.”

“Good gracious, Uncle!”

“Yer s’prised. Well, jes’ think how it took me—an’ on top o’ what I saw that day. I jes’ sot there an’ looked, an’ when he turned an’ shut that door, an’ moved the wooden button to secure it, I were fairly paralysed. ‘Ho-hoo,’ he sed, an’ blinked his eyes. He jes’ sed ‘ho-hoo’ in a friendly way, an’ planked hisself down before the fire, with the black palms o’ his hands to the coals, his head turned over his shoulder, an’ his little grey eyes takin’ stock o’ everythin’ in the room.”

“He must have escaped from captivity.”

“That’s the first thought that struck me when I steadied my brain pan. Thinks I, he b’longed to some man, an’ I looked at his waist for signs of the chain, but there were no sign. I noticed he looked empty, an’, remembering how he’d saved me by leading the tiger off another way, I got out a mealie cob. He snatched it quick, raised his eyebrows at me, then begun to eat as ef he’d been hungry for a week. There we sot—he one side, eating, me t’other, smoking. All o’ a sudden he quit eating: then he stood up on his hind legs an’ looked outer the winder. ‘Wot’s up now?’ sezs I to myself. There he stood looking outer that window; then he gave a jump into the rafters, crowding hisself under the slope. It gave me a sort o’ creepy crawl to see him do that, an’ I took down the ole gun. Bymby I yeard a sniff under the crack of the door as if a dog were taking a smell. Then there were a space o’ stillness that was terrible trying. I stood there looking at the door, ’xpecting to see it fly open, when I chanced to give a glance at the winder, and my blood froze.”

“What did you see?”

“What did I see? A pair o’ green eyes fixed on me. Then the gleam o’ white teeth an’ a sort o’ dim outline o’ a big round head. I let out a yell, an’ fired. If you look you’ll see where the winder’s smashed.”

“The tiger had tracked the baboon?”

“Very like ’twas jes’ that.”

“And then?”

“Then I jes’ jumped inter the pantry an shut myself in till daybreak.”

“Yes, Uncle Abe; and what happened then?”

“I jes’ opened the door gently, an’ looked out.”

“Well?”

“Well! The door were open. I yeerd the cracking o’ the fire an’ the humming o’ the kettle.”

“Someone had called?”

“Perhaps so; perhaps not. ’Tany rate the fire were lit. And when I looked out the front door there were the old man baboon plucking the feathers from the grey hen.”

“Humph!”

“Yes. An’ when he done plucking he popped the old fowl inter the pot.”

“Ha! I suppose the tiger was lying dead?”

“Who—the tiger? Not he. The darned critter pulled the plug outer the water barrel, then turned the barrel over an’ let all the water out. Arter that he pulled the roof offun my shed.”

“I don’t see the baboon around.”

“He ain’t around. Arter breakfast he went. When I come to think o’ it, he took the road to your place, an’ it’s my b’lief, sonny, he’s on the spoor o’ the same tiger.”

“And you won’t come over, then?”

“I’m waitin’ for that ole man baboon to come back. If he comes back an’ finds me gone I reckon he’d be disappointed. I tell yer I’d be mighty keerful how you treat that tiger.”

“Everything happened as you have related, Uncle Abe?”

“That’s so, sonny.”

“How did the baboon light the fire?”

“He jes’ used the bellers, I ’xpect, used the beller, an’ puffed the embers. Tell me how yer get on. Sorry I can’t go; but I dasn’t. So long!”

Chapter Four.

Abe Pike and the Whip.

I don’t know what degree of truth there was in old Abe’s account of his adventure with the black tiger, but I certainly learnt to my cost that whether the brute had or had not given a domicile to a witch-doctor, it was too cunning for any efforts on my part to get even with it for the heavy toll it levied on the young cattle. I was driven once more to seek out his assistance, but I thought I would get him over to the homestead on some other pretext, being firmly persuaded that once he was there his hunting instincts would lead him on the tiger’s spoor. One afternoon, therefore, I drove over in the “spider,” and found him busily engaged waxing a stout fishing line for “kabblejauw,” a very large, but coarse sea fish, which loved to venture up the Fish River with the tide.

“Holloa, sonny!” he cried; “climb out an’ make yerself at home. Got any baccy?”

I stepped out, and handed him a cake of golden leaf, which he just smelt, then turned over and over.

“Sugar stuff,” he growled, with a queer look of disgust, wrinkling up his nose.

“Good American leaf, Uncle.”

“Well, well; what’s the race comin’ to? Sugar—all sugar. Sugar with tea, sugar with coffee, so that the spoon stands up; sugar with pumkins, sugar with grog, sugar with baccy, until the stummick which nature gives us revolts an’ cries out for salt an’ the bitterness o’ wholesome plants. Bitterness ’ardens, my boy—bitterness in food, bitterness in life—an’ sugar softens. Jes’ you hole on to that as you plough the furrer thro’ the ups an’ downs o’ your caryeer.” He cut a slice from the cake and stowed it away in his cheek. “Well! ha’ yer cotched that tiger yet?”

“He’s prowling around yet, Uncle.”

“Soh! An’ you want ole Abe Pike to settle ’im, eh!—but ’taint no use.”

“I want you to ‘ride’ a load of wood to the house. The ‘boys’ have gone off to a beer dance, and I’m short-handed. The wood is cut and shaped.”

“But I’m goin’ a fishin’. Lemme see. It’s full moon next week. Well I’ll come along.”

He coiled up his line, stowed it away in his skin bag, locked his door, and climbed in. Next morning the old chap went off with the wagon for the wood, and returned late at night. He had a peculiar way of humming to himself whenever he was pleased, and I caught the sound as he came in through the kitchen to the dining-room, where the evening meal was on the table. With a nod to me, he sat down to a hearty meal, then, filling his pipe, he leant back and laughed silently.

“Seen anything, Uncle?”

“I don’t know that I have seed anythin’ outer the common, but I’ve learnt somethin’ that’s given me a better understandin’ o’ the spread o’ kindness overlaying things.”

“What was that?”

“You know where the wood were stacked?”

I knew the place very well, for that brute of a tiger had killed a foal there only two days before, and I had directed Abe there in the hope that he would drop across its tracks.

The old man, still chuckling, went out of the room and returned with a long bamboo whip-stick, deprived, however, of the twenty-foot thong made from buffalo hide.

“What’s become of the thong?” I cried.

“That’s it. It’s on account of the missin’ thong that I’m telling you o’ this remarkable cirkumst’nce. There’s a clump o’ trees ’long side the path ’way over yonder, where the wood were stacked, an’ the thong flew off in the dusk o’ the evening thereabouts. You see there were a stick fas’, and when I lammed into the oxen that ere thong flew off—whizz!—whang!—into the dark o’ the trees. I lay the stick down an’ searched fer it up an’ down, in an’ out—the oxen standin’ there knockin’ their horns, an’ the stars poppin’ out. Well, I guv it up, an’ picked up the stick, an’ the thong came through my fingers.”

“You said the thong flew off.”

“So it did; but there it were fast on the stick—long, smooth, round, an’ taperin’ off inter a fine lash, as thick about the middle as my little finger, an’ as tough as steel.”

“I know it. You couldn’t match that thong in the Colony. But where is it?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ yer about. The thong flew off—whizz!—whang!—but when I picked the stick up, there it were. I jes’ stood there ponderin’ over the strangeness o’ this, when a breath o’ wind come up the valley with a sigh on it—one o’ those quiverin’, mysterious, solumnelly sounds that makes you look over yer shoulder an’ start at a shadder. ‘Hambaka—trek,’ I cried, an’ whirling the whip around, touched up the fore-leaders, then brought the forslag down on the achter ox. I told you them oxen had stuck fas’. Well! at the touch o’ the whip they jes’ laid their shoulders agin the yokes, an’, with a low groan, they yanked the wagon up that stiff bit—up an’ up, without a pause, to the level veld. I tell you, sonny, I never seed oxen lay themselves down like that span.”

“Where does the kindness come in?”

“Hole on. The tortoise gets to the end o’ his journey same as the hare, only samer. On the level I called to the oxen to whoa!—whoa!—whoa!—and, arter a time they whoa’d, tho’ somehow ’twas ag’inst their will. They were that active they could have trotted home—they could so. I lay down that whip an’ filled my pipe.”

“Yes?”

“Then I took the stick up, an’ the thong were gone agin.”

“What!”

“Clean gone, sonny! Clean gone!”

“Did it fly off?”

“No, sonny; it crawled off.”

“Crawled off?”

“That there thong were a whip-snake. It jes’ gripped on ter the bamboo with its jaws to help me outer that stick fas’, an’ when we got to the level it unhitched. It knew as well as I did the oxen didn’t want any more whip when the flat were reached, and it unhitched.”

“Uncle Abe Pike! Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I have my hopes, my lad. But when yer gets older you’ll get more faith. Why, man, an’ I yeared that snake move off. It give a sort o’ friendly hiss as it slid away thro’ the grass, an’ it cracked its tail in sport like a whip. The oxen yeared it, too, and they moved off ’thout waitin’ for my call. I tell you there’s a heap o’ goodness among animiles an’ reptiles, tho’ this is the fust time I ’xperienced the thoughtfulness o’ a snake. It jes’ snapped its tail—ker—rack—as it moved off.”

When the old man prepared himself for sleep I saw the lash off my whip projecting from the mouth of his skin bag.

Chapter Five.

The Spook of the Hare.

The next day was hot and drowsy, and old man Pike simply lazed around, with his smasher hat tilted over his eyes and his hands in his pockets. He could not, however, be tempted to roam any distance from the house, and he showed not the slightest curiosity about that fiend of a black tiger, which in the night had killed a goat belonging to one of the “boys.” The kill was made out of sheer lust of blood, for he had eaten nothing, the body being untouched, except for the festering marks about the throat I had the carcase brought up for Abe’s inspection, since he would not walk down to the kraal, and he held an inquest upon it, sitting on an upturned “vatje,” or small water barrel.

“That goat,” he drawled, “were killed!”

“There seems proof of it,” I said mildly.

“Yes, killed by a ole tiger.”

“Why old?”

“Well, you see, this yer goat died o’ a broken shoulder an’ shock—mostly shock. The tiger just patted the shoulder in his spring with the open paw. I see there are four scratches, an’ the hook of the dew claw over here, a span away from the fore claws. The middle an’ end scratch is shaller. Why? Cas the claws a been worn down. Now take these yer wounds in the throat. These two deep holes here’s where his fangs went in, but on the top side there’s jest the marks o’ his small teeth. The upper fangs is missing or worn down. Consekently, ’tis a ole tiger.”

“And you will catch the old tiger?”

“Not me! Bein’ ole, he’s cunnin’, an’ bein’ black, he’s naturelly fierce; and bein’ ole an’ black he’s more’n a match fer me. See that big blue fly? I swear there warn’t a blue fly around here ten minutes ago, an’ now there’s a whole cloud o’ ’em followin’ the track, an’ buzzin’ like a telegraph wire! Little things is like big ’uns. That there fly is like the first aasvogel sailin’ away from the limits o’ the sky on the taint of a dead ox, an’ behind him a whole string o’ vultures, with their wings outstretched like the sails of a ship, an’ ther bald heads bent down to spot the dead heap of corruption miles away below.”

I bade the Kaffir take away the dead goat which formed the principal dish at the feast that night and, getting my double-barrelled gun, whistled up the dogs, and went off on the spoor of the tiger, leaving Abe listlessly whittling at a stick.

The scent was good, and the dogs went on it still-mouthed, except for an occasional growl, and they led me through the large ostrich camp, over a ridge, across an open strip of veld, to a deep and dark kloof, where the trees grew so thick that underneath it was twilight in the glare of mid-day. The dogs went on, with bristling hair, into the heart of the kloof, when a singular thing happened. The shrill, piercing cry of a “dassie,” or rock coney, arose from out the deep silence, and the dogs stopping, howled dismally, then suddenly turned and slipped away, disappearing like shadows among the trees. The noise I knew must have aroused the tiger, but I pushed on cautiously, hoping to get a shot at him as he slunk off. I reached the krantz which rimmed in the kloof without sight of him, and, hunting around, found his lair, still warm in a small cave. Retracing my steps, I had almost reached the edge of the trees, when in the way lay the body of one of the dogs, an old and favourite buffalo dog of the mastiff breed, his throat torn, and the mark of claws on his shoulder and flank.

“It’s lucky for you,” said Abe when I reached home, “that it were the dog he took.”

“How do you know he got the dog?”

“You went out with five, an’ you come home with four, an’ a look on your face ’s if you’d seen a ghost. I’m gwine back in the mornin’.”

“You’re no friend of mine, Abe Pike, if you don’t help destroy that brute!”

“I seed the ole man baboon makin’ tracks for my place this arternoon—an’ mebbe that ther’ tiger would be quittin’ too.”

“Hang you and your baboon!”

“All serene, sonny—all serene. I’d rayther be hanged than ’ave my wizened open’d out by a blood-sucking four-footed witch. What happened in your hunt?” I told him curtly enough. “My gum! You believe me: that dassie cried out to warn the tiger. He were put there to watch while his master slep’.”

“Nonsense! His cry was an accident.”

“Soh! Then tell me why the dogs scooted. You don’t know! O’ course you don’t know. But I know. I’ve had ’xperience o’ the same thing. Animiles have got a sense which is missin’ from folk, or maybe lost for want of use, I don’t know which, tho’ myself I think it’s lost. What we call a presentment is the remains o’ that missin’ sense, an’ animiles is got the full sense. Those dogs knew the meanin’ o’ that dassie’s yell—that’s so.”

“And what was your experience?”

“It were all along o’ a spring hare hopping along in the night—without enough solid body to put a shot in. It were away back in the sixties, when I were younger nor I am now, an’ a sailor chap, knockin’ around doin’ odd jobs, happened across my house. He were a good-hearted critter, tho’ terrible lazy, ’xcept it were shootin’ spring hares at night by lamp-light, which came ’xpensive by reason of his usin’ up the oil an’ powder. Well, one night the wind came off the seas, bringing up a great stack of clouds, makin’ it that dark you couldn’t tell which were solid yearth an’ which were sky; but this sailor chap he would go out, an’ I had to go along to hold the lamp, he not bein’ keerful enough to carry it in the strap of his hat. Well, soon’s I got outer the door I knew there were somethin’ wrong. The black night were full o’ the roar o’ the surf breakin’ six miles away, an’ yet there were the same sort of shivery stillness you find in a great cave while the echoes are tossin’ about the sound of a dying shout. In the stillness behind the holler growl o’ the sea I could tell there were somethin’ watchful an’ bad. I wanted to turn back, but he yelled out he yeard the spring hare gruntin’, an’ I were obliged to foller him inter the black, with a sickly sort o’ fan-shaped light streaming from the lamp. ‘Hist!’ says he. I histed, an’ peering ahead seed a big bright eye glancing out o’ the dark, not mor’n twenty paces off—fer the lantern couldn’t throw a reflection farther than that. ‘Take him an inch below the eye,’ says I, an’ he let rip. We went forrard to pick the hare up, but he warn’t there—not a hair o’ him. The grunt o’ him come jest ahead agin—an’ steadyin’ the lamp, we caught his eye full an’ bright. ‘I’ll blow his head off,’ said the sailor chap, and taking a long aim, he banged off. There warn’t no dead spring hare. No, sonny; but while we gazed around his grunt come to us onct more. I took the ole gun an’ loaded her up. ‘You take the lantern,’ says I, ‘an’ lets stop this ’ere foolishness.’ A step or two we took, an’ sure enough that eye blazed out onct more. I jes’ knelt down under his arms, an’ taking full aim at the eye, was dead sure I had the long-tailed crittur, fer he sat still as a rock, an’ as onsuspicious as a tree trunk. An’ I missed him. His body warn’t there, but his grunt came jest as lively as ever. The sailor chap were laughing at me fer missin’, but Abe Pike warn’t doing no giggling. He smelt somethin’ onnatural.”

“You had been taking grog, perhaps, that evening?”

“Not a sup nor a sip. We stood there, he laughin’ and me listenin’ to the moan in the air, an’ lookin’ roun’ at the black wall o’ night ‘Blow me!’ says the sailor chap, ‘if the swab ain’t come back,’ an’ with that he took out his jack knife an’ flung it at the flamin’ eye, which had moved back inter the light from the lantern. That eye never winked, an’ it made me shiver. ‘Come on,’ says the sailor, ‘I’ll foller him to the devil,’ says he. ‘Foller him,’ says I, ‘but I’m goin’ back;’ and back I went; and he, not havin’ the lantern, had to come along too, which he did cheekin’ me the ole time. Well, before we’d gone a hundred paces, ther’ were that eye ahead, an’ he says, ‘Let us get nearer.’ We went closer, when all on a sudden that eye went out like a burnt match. Jes’ then I yeard a rustlin’ noise behind, an’ whipping roun’, saw there were a pair o’ sparkles shining green. He seed ’em too. ‘Don’t shoot,’ says I, ‘it’s a shadder.’ ‘Shadder be blowed,’ says he, ‘yer a ole fool.’ He were gettin’ ready to fire, when I gripped him by the arm, while the hair riz on my head, for I saw what was behind those green eyes. ‘Let me go,’ he says, hissin’ through his teeth. ‘If you fire,’ I says speakin’ solumn, ‘yere a dead man.’ ‘You’re silly,’ he says, pulling hard. ‘How can a little hare hurt me?’

“‘That hare,’ says I, ‘is a tiger.’”

“Was it?”

“You wait. You know’s well as I do a hare, by reason of his eyes bein’ wide apart, only shows one eye to the light, an’, moreover, he sits with his head sideways. Well, these two eyes, when I looked ag’in, were close together, an’ they gave a green light. ‘A tiger,’ says I, an’ with my hand on his arm we went back to the house. As I shut the door I yeared that grunt ag’in—an’ ag’in as we sat down listenin’. Well, that sailor chap, he warn’t satisfied. He must open the door an’ look out. ‘Come here,’ he says, an’ looking out over his shoulder there I seed that hare sitting up, an’ the light shining thro’ his body, ‘’Tis a white hare,’ he says. ‘It’s a sperrit,’ says I. ‘Sperrit or no sperrit,’ he says, snatchin’ the gun, ‘I lay him out!’ With that he stepped out into the darkness, an’ the lantern went out. Then it happened.”

“What happened?”

“Something ’twixt the sailor lad and the tiger. As I searched aroun’ fer a match I yeard the gun, there were a roar and a shriek, an’ when I got the light started an’ went out there were only his old hat an’ the gun. I’m not fooling with any o’ yer tigers that’s got sperrits watchin’ over ’em. I’m going home in the mornin’.”

Chapter Six.

The Baboon and the Tortoise.

I have referred to Bolo, an old Kaffir medicine man, who, on his professional tour round the country, always remained a day or two with Abe Pike, in his way, a great doctor with a valuable fund of information about the medicinal properties of plants and roots. Bolo turned up in the evening, fresh from a beer dance, and the manner of his coming was that of a ravenous lion. He charged down upon the house in the dusk, with his necklet bones rattling, the horsehair mane flying, and the bellow of his deep voice setting the dogs off into a fury of barking, up he came—leaping, bounding, hurling himself forward with in-creditable swiftness, whirling his knobbed kerrie, his eyes glaring and his features twitching, the dogs snapping around him—right up to the door, as if he meant to burst in and brain everyone he met. Then he stopped, smiled in a wide vacuous way, took snuff, and squatted down, while the dogs as suddenly ceased their clamour and walked sheepishly away.

“Well, you clatterin’ ole heathen,” said Abe, seating himself on the door-step, and shaving slices of tobacco against the ball of his thumb; “what mischief have you been up to?”

“Yoh,” said Bolo, resting his long arms on his knees; “I have heard tales of the black tiger and the white man’s fear. But my medicine has sent the black evil away back again to the big kloof.”

“To the kloof on my farm?”

“Eweh! Why not? The white man is a great medicine man. Has he not a familiar in the old baboon—who is the most cunning of familiars?”

“That’s so,” said Abe gravely; “the baboon is cunnin’, but he don’t know everything. Did I ever tell you the yarn o’ the baboon an’ the tortoise?”

“No. Fire away, Uncle.” He hitched himself up against the door-post and related his story in Kaffir for Bolo’s benefit, though I prefer to render it in English.

“The ole skelpot, one day hunting aroun’ nosed out a store o’ yearth nuts. He raked the yearth over an’ flatten’ it down, an’ he jes’ crawl aroun’ till the dry weather sot in, when he took’d up his quarters near the hidden store. One day he meet ole man baboon searching fer grubs. ‘Things is mighty dry,’ says the baboon. ‘Might be drier,’ says the skelpot. ‘Food is skerce,’ says the baboon. ‘Might be skercer,’ says the skelpot. ‘Ho! ho!’ says the baboon, mighty sharp, ‘you don’t seem to be troubled in your shell. There’s a shine on your shell, ole man skelpot,’ he says. ‘Shell shine when the stummick don’t pine,’ says the skelpot.”

“Er-umh!” grunted Bolo.

“‘Shell shine when the stummick don’t pine,’ said the skelpot. ‘Baugh,’ says the baboon, ‘p’raps you got some food, skelpot,’ says the baboon. ‘I’m gwine to sleep,’ says the skelpot, an’ he drew his head into his house, so the baboon couldn’t ask him any more questions.”

“Er-umh!” said Bolo, politely signifying his sustained interest.

“The ole man baboon he make sure the skelpot’s got some store o’ food, so he hid hisself in a tree an’ kep’ watch. There ain’t no hurry about a skelpot, an’ this yer skelpot he kep’ on sleepin’ all through the day, an’ the baboon got that hungry he were obliged ter gnaw the bark from the tree. But he jes’ kep’ on watchin’, an’ in the dusk he seed the skelpot pop out his head.”

“Er-umh!” said Bolo.

“Then the baboon climbed down softly, an’ when the skelpot move off, he follow’d. Arter a time the skelpot begin to scrape up the yearth, an’ the baboon look over his shoulder. He can’t see nothing, but he smelt the yearth nuts, an’ he makes a grab. ‘So! so!’ he says chuckling, ‘you got a fine pantry these dry times. Now you’ll have to go shares, or I’ll give the news out.’ Well, the skelpot he sees he were fairly caught, an’ so he take ole man baboon inter partnership, an’ the baboon show him where he’s ’ole is, though it were empty now.”

“Er-umh!” grunted Bolo.

“Well, the baboon got a bigger stummick than the skelpot, an it were not long afore he took two nuts to one; then he began ter take some away to his private ’ole in a Kaffir plum tree; then he break the agreement by taking three meals a day to the skelpot’s one.”

“Er-umh!” said Bolo.

“Well, about this time the skelpot smell’d out the baboon.”

“Eh-umh!” said Bolo.

“So he made a plan. He roll hisself in the mud, an’ crawl up near the store, where he draw his head in. Bymby ole man baboon come up, an arter takin’ some nuts, he sot down on ole skelpot to make his feast. ‘Poor ole skelpot,’ says the baboon, ‘three meals to his one, an’ a heap o’ nuts in my store ’ole by the ole ant-hill.’ ‘Too-loo-loo!’ says the skelpot. ‘What’s that noise?’ said the baboon. ‘Too-loo-loo!’ says the skelpot. ‘Hist!’ says the baboon, knockin’ his stummick. ‘Too-loo-loo!’ says the skelpot; then drawin’ in his breath he let it out ag’in, ‘Hiss! puff!’ like a great big snake. O’ coorse the baboon’s dead scared o’ snakes, an’ droppin’ the nuts he jest scooted fer the woods.”

“Er-umph!” said Bolo.

“He jest up an’ scooted fer the woods, an’ the skelpot arter eatin’ the nuts, he went back to the ’ole, scooped the yearth away, an’ crawled in. The baboon were very scared, but when the hunger come back he went for some more nuts. No sooner did he pop his hand in than the skelpot grab him by the little finger and hold on.”

“Eh! eh!” said Bolo.

“Grabbed him by ther little finger. The baboon nearly jumped outer his skin. ‘Who’s got hold o’ me?’ he yelled, but the skelpot he can’t talk, fer his mouth’s full. ‘Let me go!’ howled the baboon, an’ he pull and he pull, and bymby he draw the skelpot’s head outer the ’ole. Well, the skelpot he’s got a head like a puff-adder when yer don’t see his shell, an’ when the baboon see’d that yellow head glued onter his finger, he jest went green, and turned over in a fit. Bymby the baboon shivers, then he sot up. ‘Hiss! poof!’ says the skelpot, an’ the baboon lit out with a shriek, never to come back to that part ag’in. ‘Hiss! poof!’ says the skelpot, an’ the baboon lit out fer the nex’ country.”

Chapter Seven.

The Jackal and the Wren.

“Now, Bolo! let us hear something from you.”

The old Kaffir took a pinch of snuff, and began about the jackal and the netikee, the smallest of all South African birds, and a member of the wren family.

“The jackal one day was boasting. Said he, ‘When we go on the hunt all the animals are still. We—the lion and I—we rule the forest. When we growl the trees shiver, when we roar the earth shakes, when we strike the biggest goes down before us. Even the elephant turns out of our path.’ So he shook his tail and loped off to tell the lion that a fat eland was drinking at the vlei. Then up stood the lion, and crawled on his stomach to the shelter of a rock, while the jackal went round beyond. ‘Look out, eland,’ said the jackal; ‘here comes the lion.’ So the eland ran, and he ran straight for the lion, who rose through the air and broke the eland’s neck. The lion ate, and the jackal sat on his tail, licking his chops and whimpering. But the lion ate, and ate—first the hind legs, then the stomach, and the jackal ran up to take a bite. ‘Wait,’ grunted the lion, and the jackal sat on his tail and howled. Bymby the lion went off to the vlei to drink, and the jackal snap at the carcase, but before he gets a mouthful down swoop the ring crows and the aasvogels. ‘Away,’ said the jackal, ‘away—this food is mine and the lion’s.’

“‘Tell the lion we are obliged to him for giving us a meal,’ said the chief aasvogel, and with his big wing he hit the jackal, ker-bluff—long side the head, and the black crow dig him in the back. So the jackal run away, and jump, and howl.”

“‘Why don’t you roar?’ said the netikee.

“The jackal looked up, and there he sees the netikee on a thorn tree.

“‘Growl,’ says the netikee; ‘growl, and the tree will shake me off,’ and he laughed.

“‘What are you laughing at?’

“‘At you.’

“‘Why,’ said the jackal, looking back over his shoulder at the bag of bones that the birds had cleaned.

“‘’Cos you’re afraid of the birds, though the elephant gets out of your way and you can strike down the biggest,’ and the netikee laughs again.

“‘Who’s afraid?’ said the jackal.

“‘You are.’

“‘What! me!’

“‘Yes, you! I make my nest from your fur.’

“The jackal he bite, and snap, and howl, and then he say he’d only wished he had a chance of a fight with the birds.

“‘What’s that spot I see in the sky?’ said the netikee, looking up.

“The jackal look up and see the eagle swooping down, and he bolt into the earth. Bymby he poke his head out. ‘Is he gone?’ he said. ‘You see, me and the eagle had a dispute over a lamb which I took away from him, and I thought he would feel uncomfortable if he saw me. What did he say?’

“‘The eagle said he willing to fight if the lion leads the animals; but he’s not going to demean himself against any jackal trash.’

“The jackal grinned. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘the lion won’t fight, he’s just been feeding, and the eagle needn’t trouble about it. You get all the partridges, the pheasants, ducks, knorhaan, guinea fowl—the more the merrier, and I’ll bring the red cats, the muishonden, the wild dogs, the tiger-cat, and we’ll meet here to-morrow.’

“The netikee flip his tail about, and say, ‘Yes, he’s willing to have a battle,’ and the jackal with a grin he run off to call all his friends to a big feast off the birds. The netikee just bunch up his feathers, tuck his head under his wing, and go to sleep. Next morning before sunrise he fly to the bush, and he hear the jackal making a plan.

“‘You keep your eye on my tail,’ said the jackal. ‘Watch my tail,’ said the jackal, ‘I will hold it up straight like a banner, and you must follow it into the thick of the fight.’

“The netikee flew away off to a honey-tree, and he had a word with the bees: then he fly back to the thorn bush with a clump of bees with him.

“Bymby here comes the jackal with his bushy tail held up straight like a banner, and behind him come a green-eyed, silent, swift, cruel pack of wild-cats, red cats, grey cats, and wild dogs.

“‘There they come,’ said the nekitee; ‘see the jackal, with his tail up. Stick his tail, creep into his hair, and make him yell.’ So the netikee left his perch and flew to meet the animals all by himself, for they could not see the bees; but the bees they swarmed into the big bushy tail, and the next minute there was the jackal scooting off across the veld with his tail between his legs. Next thing you know the animals is all scuttling home.

“That’s why the netikee is so perky.”

“Jes’ like little men,” says Abe Pike.

Chapter Eight.

Abe Pike and the Honey-Bird.

In the night we heard the loud barking of a baboon, and next morning Uncle Abe, accompanied by the witch-doctor, Bolo, started back for his solitary homestead, saying that he had received a call from his familiar. This I regarded as an excuse, and judged that the two old men were bent, like boys, on some fishing excursion. Strangely enough, however, the black tiger disappeared at the same time, leaving the live stock free from his ravages—though human thieves as mischievous were afoot, and during the week paid a visit in the night to the cattle kraal, “lifting” a fine cow with a young heifer calf.

The spoor led away towards the dense bush of the Fish River to the east, and setting a knowing old dog upon the scent, I followed on horseback. The thief I judged had probably five hours’ start, and allowing for the feeble strength of the calf, I reckoned he was from six to ten miles ahead, when, if surprised by day-light at any distance from the cover of the bush, he would probably turn into a kloof. At intervals of about a mile I came on spots which, from the numerous hoof marks, indicated that the thief had stopped to let the calf rest and take milk, then, after the third such resting, he went right ahead at a sharp pace directly towards the big kloof on Abe Pike’s farm. If the beasts had been driven in there I made sure of recovering them, but I presently noticed that the spoor led away along a ridge to the left, skirting the kloof, and descending to a wide wooded valley which ran into the bush. I followed without much hope into the valley, to find the spoor obliterated by the tracks of a troop of cattle which had been on the move since sunrise. After questioning the native herd without success, I turned back towards Pike’s house, reaching it just as he came out from his breakfast. He took a long glance at me and my horse.

“Soh,” he said, “been spooring a stock thief, eh? You’ve got to get up early to catch that sort—earlier than bedtime. I seed you go over the brow of that rand yonder with a dog nosing on in front, and I said to myself, ‘Abe Pike, there’s the young baas with the hope springing up in him that he’s got the glory of catching a cattle thief.’ The young has got all the hope and the old all the experience, and I’d swaap a whole lot of experience for a glimmer of hope.”

All this time he had been attending to the horse, rubbing its back and legs with a wisp of straw.

“Who said I had been after a cattle thief?

“What are words, sonny; words is nothing—nothing but a slower way of saying a thing you have already made plain enough by your actions. Says I, ‘Abe Pike, the young baas has lost a beast, maybe a cow and calf, and bymby he’ll be looking as black as thunder and as hungry as a mule.’”

“Uncle Abe, you know something about this robbery. It is true I have lost a cow and calf. Have you seen them?”

“What! me? Where is they? You know well if Abe Pike had seen them they’d a been right here waiting for you. No, lad; but I saw you follering straight on the spoor, and if there’d been several beasts some on ’em would have broke from the track, making the spooring bend and twist. So I reckoned there were only one beast, maybe a cow and calf. There’s a dough cookie under the coals and some good honey, with a couple of fresh aigs and a roast mealie, not to say a cup of as good coffee as you can get. Help yourself, lad; help yourself.”

I sat down to this simple fare—after raking the “cookie” from the fire-place, whence it came baking hot with wood cinders embedded in its steaming crust; while Abe leant against the door-post, pulling reflectively at his pipe.

“What has become of Bolo?” I asked.

“He quitted last night. No, he ain’t gone off with your cow. He was skeered.”

I nodded an inquiry, being engaged with the mealie cob, the eating of which occupies the mouth too fully for speech.

“Old Bolo were skeered. Try some of that honey—it’s real good. None of your euphorbia juice in it to burn your mouth out, but just ripe sweetness from the hill flowers and sugar bushes.”

The old man held his pipe away, and his lips were drawn in as I placed a piece of gleaming yellow comb on my plate.

“Yes,” he chuckled, “old Bolo were skeered, and he lit out for home. You see, him and me were sitting away yonder, under the tree in the shade, talking about things, when up comes a honey-bird. ‘Chet-chet-chet-chee!’ he said, sitting up there in the branches, with his head on one side and then the other as he fussed about with his news. ‘Chet-chet-chet-chee!’ he said—which is his way of saying as how he’d found a honey-tree and wanted someone to go shares with him.

“‘Shall we foller him!’ says I.

“Bolo he grunted. For a heathen he’s spry, but it was his lazy time, and for another thing he was in the middle of a long-winded story, which he was bound to finish, being a born talker, and very strong ag’inst being interrupted.

“‘Chet-chet-chet-chee!’ said the honey-bird, jumping from one branch to another all in a quiver of impatience.

“‘Come on,’ says I, ‘let’s see what sort of a nest he’s got.’

“‘That bird is a mischief bird,’ said Bolo; ‘he will lead us to a snake or a tiger. Eweh! to the black tiger.’

“‘How?’ says I.

“‘Why,’ says he, ‘if he were a good bird he would sit away over there on that thorn bush and wait till we have finished our talk. This bird is too anxious.’

“Just then that bird flew away, off to the thorn tree, and there he sat dumb.

“‘By Jimminy,’ says I, ‘that’s funny.’

“Bolo he took a pinch of snuff, and he drove on with his story, with his ‘congella wetu,’ and his ‘kè-kè-lo-ko-kè,’ jes’ ’s if nothing had happened, while I sat with my eyes fixed on that there bird.

“Well, the longest river reaches the sea some time, and at last Bolo finished that yarn, and what it was about I couldn’t tell you, sonny. ‘Now,’ says I, ‘let us investigate this matter,’ and hang me ef at that precise moment of the ending of that yarn, the bird didn’t come back, all agog with his news.

“Bolo he shook his head. ‘That bird is no bird,’ he says, ‘it’s a familiar.’

“‘Whose familiar?’ says I.

“‘It belongs to that dog of a Fingo,’ naming a rival medicine man, ‘or else ’tis a slave of the black tiger sent to lead us into a trap.’

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘honey is sweet, though it gives a man a bad pense, as the Royal motter says, and I’m for follering him.’ So up I got, and that bird he jes’ flew off, lighting here an’ lighting there, so as I could keep up, and after a mile he sot still as death on a thorn bush.

“‘Is this the place?’ says I.

“The honey-bird kep’ quiet, but he jes’ turn his eye on me all of a sparkle.

“Well, I jes’ sniffed aroun’ and squinted aroun’, and in a brace of shakes I spotted the honey nest in a hollow ant-hill. Well, I scooted back to the house for a bucket, and after smokin’ the bees, got out fifty pound weight of the finest sealed honey, not forgetting to set a piece of comb with young bees in it for the bird.

“Well, Bolo was pretty sick when he saw me come in with that bucket full, and he was standing there saying he knew all along that bird was a good bird, but he didn’t want to find the honey seeing as it was on my farm, and he’d be sure to find it first, whereby he could claim half, which was against hospitality. Right there, sonny, that there bird come and perched on the roof. ‘Chet-chet-chee!’ says he, as excited as if he hadn’t had a meal for a month. I see it was the same bird, for there was a stickiness about his head.

“‘Oh, aie;’ says Bolo, then he shouted from his chest. ‘My little friend in the grey suit, lead on!’

“Well, the bird flew off, and Bolo, he went after, whistling and calling it good names. I jest pottered about by the house into the afternoon, looking out every now and ag’in to see if Bolo were coming back, when of a sudden I see him tearing acrost the veld. He shot by me into the house, and hang me if he didn’t bang the door in my face, and at the same time that honey-bird lighted on the roof. You never see sich a sight as that bird. He opened his mouth, spread his wings, rolled about and laughed fit to bust himself. Bymby he flew away with a final screech, and Bolo opened the door, his natrally black face being green, his lips curled back from his teeth, and his eyes rolling. I up with a beaker of water and threw it in his face to cool him off—and he came round.

“‘Did you find the honey-tree?’ says I.

“‘Honey-tree!’ says he, and his eyes began to roll ag’in, as though he were trying to look inside his head. ‘There were no honey-tree. It was a bad bird I knew it, I told you, and you would not believe the words of the wise man. I am going—where are my kerries?’

“‘What happened?’

“‘This. Listen. I followed the evil thing. It led me across the veld and a thorn caught me by the leg. It was a warning, but I did not heed, I went on across the ridge to the kloof, and into the kloof to a hollow tree. I heard the owl cry, the night-bird calling in the day, giving another warning, but I was deaf. I smelt honey, and there were no bees flying in the hole; but the smell of honey was strong. Into the hole I was about to thrust my arm when I saw on the bark long scratches. I looked up through the plume on my head, so, without turning my face, and up above on a branch I saw a black form stretching out and yellow eyes fixed on me; at the same time out of the hollow of the tree there came a low laugh, strange, fearful, not of man, and with a spring backwards and a bound sideways, I was off like the deer, with the roar of the black tiger in my ears.’

“So said Bolo, and without further words he took his kerries and his bag, and he went away over the hill to the north, running. Yes, lad, he quit at a gallop.”

“And what do you think of this story, Uncle Abe?”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about it. I thunked that there wooden shetter for the window as a protection.”

“Surely you don’t believe that Bolo was led deliberately by the honey-bird to the tiger?”

“Maybe I do. Maybe the bird led him to a sure enough bee-tree. Maybe Bolo happened on the black critter. Maybe he were skeered at a shadder. I dunno; but I tell you I see the bird laf fit to bust, and there’s more in the ways of these animiles than we can catch hold of—a jolly sight more.”

“Well, then, bring your gun along and we’ll put the dog on the tiger’s spoor.”

“Not this child! No, no, sonny! You leave me to get the blind side of that tiger; but I’ve got my own plan, and it’s not tracking him I am when he’s on the watch. Not me.”

“What plan, Uncle?”

“There’s a powerful thinking machine in a honey-bird,” said the old man slowly, so dismissing his plan from the talk; “and when you come to think of it, the first bird that led a man to a nest must ha’ been a great diskiverer—a greater diskiverer in his way than was that Columbus chap who smashed the egg. That bird must a reckoned the whole thing out, an’ if he could a reckoned way back in the years, why, it stands to reason his children, after all the experience they’ve larnt, must reckon a lot more. One day one of these birds called me, and I picked up a bucket and a chopper, and followed after him at a run, for he was in a mighty hurry, being, as I thought, hungry. It warn’t that, sonny. He was jes’ mean, and he knew it, for the bee-tree he were leading me to belonged to another bird. I found that out when that bird come along. The two of them had a argument—the new one expostulatin’, the other one jes’ ansering in a don’t-care way. The second one he flew off—yelling threats, and the other one, after bunching himself up, suddenly lit out ag’in with me after him. I found the tree, took out the honey, and gave the bird a piece of comb. Then, as I was sittin’ down with the pipe, up came a hull lot of birds, with a black-headed, white-throated fiscal—the chap with a hooked beak who sticks the grasshoppers on thorns out of sheer devilment. Well, sonny, believe me, those birds they jes’ up and tried that honey-bird, the other chap giving evidence. The jury, which were composed of a yellow oriole, a blue spreuw, and a mouse-bird, they found my bird guilty, and a old white ringed crow, who was the jedge, pronounced sentence of death. My bird didn’t say nothing. He jes’ sot there with a piece of honey in his mouth, and a set, gloomy look in his eye. After the verdict that fiscal he swooped down, fixed his claws in the prisoner’s breast, and yanked his head off his neck with a twist. It was summery justice on that bird for taking possession of the other bird’s honey-tree. Yes, the fiscal he just yanked the prisoner’s head off, and the body fell to the ground. Then the jedge he buried the bird.”

“How was that?”

“He jes’ ate it. He jes’ flopped down, give a caw, and swallowed the corpse. I went home then, thinking as how they might try me for aiding and abetting a crime.”

Chapter Nine.

Uncle Abe and the Wild Dogs.

There can be no denying that we were reaping a plentiful crop of misfortunes, to which farmers in South Africa are especially exposed. The cattle thieves had mysteriously come and swiftly gone, taking with them a few head of stock into the dense cover of the Fish River Bush, thence to slip them at favourable opportunities into Kaffraria. Then, one morning the news was brought in that a pack of wild dogs, issuing from the Kowie Bush on the west, had sallied out on a rush over the intervening belt of well-stocked cattle country into the Fish River Valley, and there were few farms on the route that had not suffered. At one place a heifer had been pulled down and eaten; at another, a cow had been attacked and so mauled that death from a rifle-ball was a happy release; and on my place the pack had stampeded a mob of young cattle, ran down and killed a steer, besides leaving their marks on many others. In one night they had covered fifteen miles from one wooded fastness to the other, killing as they went, and when in the morning the angry farmers fingered their guns the brutes were resting secure in the distant woods. The wild dogs hunt in packs when after game, and according to a well arranged plan. Thus, one part of the pack will head the quarry in a certain direction where other members are lying in wait, but when on a wild rush across the veld they keep together, and on coming across cattle or sheep they bite or kill out of sheer lust of blood, seldom stopping to eat. Their jaws are enormously powerful, and with a snap and a wrench they tear away mouthfuls of flesh—so that if a pack gets among a flock of sheep they do a vast deal of mischief, and though they cannot pull down an ox, they will cause the death of a cow by tearing at her udder and belly. Fortunately their raids into the comparatively open veld are not frequent, and they prefer to keep in the shelter of wide stretches of bush until game becoming scarce they shift quarters, when they may sometimes be caught in an isolated kloof and shot or poisoned.

Uncle Abe had something to say when I met him next at the monthly meeting of our Farmers’ Association—an organisation of six paying members and fifteen members who never had enough cash to pay, but who regularly attended on the chance of getting a square meal from any one of the five whose turn it was to give up his largest room to the meeting. Uncle Abe did most of the orating, and it frequently happened indeed that the formal business would be forgotten, while Abe from his usual seat on the door-step held forth on the peculiar gifts of “animiles.” His idea was that all branches of animal life acted under a stringent code of laws and regulations.

“Take these yer wild dogs,” he said, pointing the stem of his well-chewed pipe at the President, who sat at the end of the dining-room table waiting patiently for a nervous young farmer to read his painfully prepared paper on the vexed question of “Inoculation as a Cure for Lung-sickness.”

“Take these yer wild dogs. Haven’t they got a leader? They have. Of course they have, and wha’ jer think they’ve got a leader for if it isn’t to follow him or her—for more often than not the leader’s a she; and wha’ jer think they foller him or her if it ain’t because they’ve got rules and regulations which are be-known to that leader?”

“Don’t they follow the leader because he happens to be the strongest in the pack?” asked the nervous member anxiously, bent on shirking his task.

“We ain’t going to follow your lead this afternoon on that score,” said Abe caustically. “No sir, they follow the leader not because he is the strongest, but for the reason that he knows the rules and regilations.”

“Have you seen a printed copy, Abe?” asked one member shyly.

“No, sir. It’s only human beings that ain’t got sense enough to know what they are setting out to do unless they put everything in print. A human being wants to know everything, and he don’t know nothing; but a animile he calkalates to know what’s necessary for him, and when he learns his lesson he don’t want any noospaper to tell him about it—you jes’ put that in your pipe. Now take your case—”

“Have some baccy, Uncle,” said the interrupting member eagerly.

“Don’t mind if I do. Lemme see. I were jes’ going to tell ye a yarn about some wild dogs, but I see the President’s waiting for our young friend to ’lighten us about ’noculation, which is good on his part, considerin’ there’s some here as were curing lung-sick cattle before he were born.”

“My paper can wait,” said the young farmer, hastily stuffing his notes into his pocket. “Let us have your story.”

“Drive ahead, ole man.”

“Well, if it’s the wish of the meeting, I’m at your service. If I remember, ’twere away back in the sixties, when game were pretty thick in these parts, and a pack took up lodgings in the big kloof over yonder. I was mor’n ordinarily busy building my shed, and hadn’t much time to give any heed to them, though I yeard em often giving tongue as they went after buck, and saw one of ’em sneaking along right up to the old tree afore my door in the mealie garden. The brute were on the spoor of a big black ram, which had taken that track from the big kloof to a smaller shelter for a constitutional. I yapped at him, and after looking at me with his big ears cocked and the round muzzle of his dirty head held up, the yellow critter turned and went nosing back. Two days after I seed three of ’em stealing up across the veld, and blow me if they didn’t come right up to the mealie patch. One of ’em lay down at the bottom, the other come up to the top corner, and the third, a big chap with a round belly, he stood back of the tree squinting round the trunk. Thinks I, what’s up? and lighting the pipe, I jes’ plumped down behind a bush, with the ole gun over my knee. The air was still, with the drone of the sea, coming like the hum of a big bluebottle, and bymby, through the stillness I yeard the sudden excited yapping of the pack, followed after a spell by a loud bark, I looked at the three dogs, and they was all looking across the veld with the water running from their mouths. Casting my eye acrost the veld, there I seed a black spot in the distance. It was the ram, sure enough, who had been put up in the kloof and were now making for his second hiding-place. He were taking it easy, though the wind was coming straight to him from the pack behind. He came right on, with his head up, then he slowed down to a walk, and looked back over his shoulder. Away back there were something moving, a dark in-and-out patch, the pack on the spoor, and I seed the ram shake his head and stamp with his hoof. Then he gave a short bark, sort of defiant, and on he trotted again; but this time he turned away to the left, as if he’d got a sudden fancy for the scattered bush clumps about a mile over the ridge that way. Well, sir, he hadn’t covered more’n fifty yards when a yeller dog rose up and yapped at him. The ram, he stood still, with his head up, looking at this oudacious critter, when the pack behind gave tongue altogether, and the sound of it made him skeered, for he wheeled round and came at a smart pace right for the big tree and the mealie garden. I turned my head, biting through my pipe, I was that excited, and I seed those two corner dogs creeping nearer to the big one, who was standing back of the tree, with his teeth showing and his tail twitching. Then I yeard the steps of the ram, and there he were sailing along over the bushes, and the ant-hills, his eyes full and bright with the light o’ courage in ’em—for you know, gentlemen, that the bush-buck carries a stout and gallant heart in his great chest.”

“Ay, ay, Uncle; so he does.”

“There he came, his sharp hoofs pricking into the ground, his legs slender and shapely, his great haunches gathering up as he cleared everything in his way, and the points of his short, strong horns catching the sparkle of the sun. Right for the tree he went, then on a sudden he stopped and looked full ahead, his ears turned backward, but his gaze fixed on a pair of gleaming eyes that glared at him. As he stood there, as big as a year-old calf, with his side to me, I could ha’ driven a ball through his heart; but I didn’t as much as go beyon’ closin’ my grasp on the rifle. I wouldn’t a shot him—no, not in them cirkumstances. There were a duel of staring between those two for a full half-minute, and in that time those other two yellow critturs were slinking through the long grass bordering the mealies. Nex’ thing they’d a been on him from each side, with that other cur comin’ up from behind, not to speak of the pack hurrying up and of the big chap behind the tree, when I gave a shout: ‘Look out!’ say I, jes’ as if he were a human. ‘Look out!’ says I, and the chap that was nearest me he rose up outer the grass and jumped for the ram. You never seed sich a thing. For all the ram had got his eyes on the big chap, he slewed his head round quicker’n lightning, his horns went down, and the next thing that yeller critter was lying on his back yelping, with a hole in his neck.

“The ram shook his head, and a tiny red mark went winding down the furrows of his horn nearest me. Eh! you should a seen him and I jes’ held my breath, while my legs shook so I was obliged to stand up. Back of him came the pack—silent now, and the speediest of ’em slipping along like shadders, while two of the critters stood each side of the ram watching him, and the big one standing clear of the tree, staring at the great blazing eyes with his mean little yeller peepers. Suddenly the big chap gave a few orders, sharp and snapping, and four leaders from the pack shot out, two going one side and two the other. They were surrounding the ram, and he knew it. He made a bound forward, and the same minute the two dogs nearest him sprang open-mouthed, one of ’em taking a clear mouthful outer the haunch. The ram swerved, and the big chap waiting for him went for his belly, but the ram bounded into the air, and when he came down he wheeled round with his back to the tree. The dogs they jes’ drew off and sat in a ring staring at him, one and another opening his big jaws and bringing the white teeth together with a snap, but the sight of that circle didn’t shake the nerve of the buck, for he shook his head at ’em and stamped his hoofs. One of the young critters growing impatient ran in, but got a stroke from the pointed hoof for his pains. Well, I were that ’xcited I moved towards the tree, the pack jes’ giving me one look, then closed in a step or two. Three times the circle were drawn closer, and the sight of those staring eyes from outer those ugly round heads fairly made me shudder. I up with the gun and let ’em have a charge of slugs. In the confusion the ram went off full slick this time, and the dogs, with a whimper, scattered after him; but ’twas no use, he give ’em leg bail, and believe me them critters come sneakin’ back and s’rounded me. They did that.”

“Did they think you were good to eat?”

“’Pears so, for they sat on their tails regarding me with loving looks. I shoo’d to them, but they didn’t shoo a inch. I went for ’em with the gun clubbed, but while those in front give way, those ahind came perilously near my legs. I heerd the snap of their steel jaws, but when I turned there they were sitting down with their heads on one side. Each time I tried that it were the same; and when I give up, there they sat in a ring round me. Then I jes’ swung up into the tree and snapped my fingers at em.

“If I were to tell you what them ere wild dogs did, you ’ud up and say the old man were a liar.”

“You hurt our feelings, Uncle.”

“Well, that big leader he up and made a speech—not a oration like our gifted young friend here can make, but a few yaps and growls. After he had finished they give him a cheer, and fell to scooping a big trench round the tree. Then they gnawed the roots through. Then they boosted the tree down. Yes, gentlemen, them wild dogs which you would call unthinking critters, deliberately dug up that big tree with their teeth, so’s to get hold o’ me.”

“Hum! Did they eat you, Uncle?”

“They boosted the tree down; but while they stood away off, I lit on my feet and were inside the house ’fore you could say Jack Robinson. Yes, that’s so.”

Chapter Ten.

The Black Mamba.

We were talking about snakes at the little roadside winkle—a composite shop, where you could buy moist black sugar, tinned butter, imported; tinned milk, also imported; cotton, prints, boots, “square face,” tobacco, dates, nails, gunpowder, cans, ribbons, tallow candles, and the “Family Herald.” We always did talk about snakes when other topics failed, and no one had been fishing for some time, and the big pumpkin season had passed.

“Man,” said Lanky John, the ostrich farmer, “I killed a snake, a ringhals, yesterday morning back of the kraal, and in the evening when I went by there was a live ringhals coiled round the dead one.”

“There’s a lot of love among snakes,” said Abe Pike, who had swapped a bush-buck hide for a pound of coffee and a roll of tobacco. “They don’t talk much, but they think a lot, and you can’t plumb the feelings of silent folk; they’re that deep.”

“Ever been in love, Uncle?” asked Lanky John, popping a big lump of black sugar into his mouth.

“I guess it won’t take more’n a foot measure to get to the bottom of your feelings, tho’ you are long enough to be a telegraft pole,” snorted Uncle Abe.

“Snakes haven’t got any brain,” said Lanky John, after an awkward pause.

“No more has a whip-stick,” said the old man, with a contemptuous glance at Lanky’s long, thin limbs.

“That’s true,” replied John, with a wink at us; “though I’ve heard of a snake that glued on to a whip-stick all for love of you, Uncle.”

“Snakes,” said Abe, “knows when to speak and when to keep shut, which is more than some folk can do. If you come unexpected on a snake in a path, and he sees your foot coming down on him, he lets you know he’s about, and that foot of yours is jest fixed in the air. Well, suppose that snake is not in the path, but jest stretched out ’longside, he don’t call out. For why? ’Cos he knows it’s safer for him and for you that he should keep quiet. I tell you there’s not a man here who hasn’t time and again passed in the dark within a few inches of a snake.”

A listener, who was seated in a dark corner, moved out into the sunshine.

“Did I ever tell you that yarn about the black mamba?”

“You never did, old man, so shove along.”

“You may thank your stars there’s no mambas down in this country, for of all critturs that crawl, or fly, or walk, there’s not one for nateral cussedness and steady hate to come up to a black mamba. Why! thunder! if there was a mamba in these parts, and he’d a grudge against me, I’d move off a hundred miles to where my sister ’Liza lives.”

“A hundred miles! That’s a good step.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be fur enough neither. You wait! Ten years ago I was riding goods to the Diamond Fields, and after one trip I was starting back with the empty wagon, there being no produce to load up with, when a chap came up and offered three guineas for his passage. Well, a man’s wagon is his home, and you don’t want to give a fellow the run of your tent for a month without knowing something about him. So I jes’ looked him all over—saw that his boots were worn out, and that he kep’ looking over his shoulder, when he climbed into the wagon and drew the blanket over him—though the sun was fierce enough to light your pipe. He gave me sich a look when he went in that I had not the heart to drag him out, and off I trekked. He didn’t join me at the fire that night, and when I climbed in, thinking he was asleep, he was shiverin’ as though he had the ague. Well, I gave him a glass of Cango and went to sleep. At sunrise I trekked again, and bymby I see him draw the canvas aside and look back over the veld, which was as flat as the palm of my hand. Thinks I, he’s expecting the police, but I let him be, and at dinner he came out, looking as skeered as a monkey with a candle. First he took a walk round the wagon, then he shaded his eyes as he glanced over the veld, then he took a bite and a look, then a sip and a look.

“‘What are you looking for?’ says I.

“He let the beaker fall out of his hands and turned white.

“‘Have you seen it?’ he whispered, with a sort of choke.

“‘Seen what?’ I said.

“‘I don’t feel well,’ he answered, with a twitch for a smile, and climbed back into the wagon.

“I tell you his looks made me feel queer, and I slept that night under the wagon. Well, I made a long skoff the next day, crossed the Modder River, and no sooner’d we get across than the river came down with a rush, brimming full with a boiling yeller flood right up to the lip of the steep banks. That coon spent the whole day on the bank watching the other side, and fixing his eyes on every tree and branch that went sailing down.

“‘It’s a grand flood,’ he said, rubbing his hands together; ‘’twould sweep a whale away like a piece of straw.’

“‘Yes, and a policeman too, eh?’ said I, looking at him hard.

“He noticed the meaning in my words, and a human smile broke over his face, chasing away the worried look that seemed carved into it. ‘Policeman,’ he said. ‘I’ve no cause to fear a policeman, or any man. Good God!’ he cried, catching me by the arm, ‘what’s that?’

“‘Where?’ said I, fit to jump out of my skin for the terror in his face.

“He stood there with his eyes glaring at the water, and a shaking finger pointing into the very heart of the yeller flood. There stood out the root of a tree, and clinging to the root the coils of a snake, with his gleaming head moving like a branch. Jest a moment it showed, then the water swirled over it again.

“‘Let go of my arm,’ I said, for his fingers were biting into me, and the look of him made me afeard, so that I talked gruffly.

“‘Did you see it?’ he said, and then he jest collapsed like a bundle of clothes. I had a good mind to leave him there, but, instead, I histed him on to my shoulders, and poured enough Cango into him to make him forget his name. He wasn’t fit to stand until a couple of days after, and then wha’ jer think he did? Cut up his clothes into shreds and laughed fit to kill himself when I found him at it. Of course, I thought he was clean daft, but he weren’t, and for the first time, with my old corduroys on him, he sat by the camp fire, sipping his coffee, and talking—talking mainly about snakes and bloodhounds, and things that made my backbone whang like a broken fiddle-string. He frightened himself, too, so that when he saw the long achter-oss sjambok quivering on the ground where the driver had thrown it, his jaw got rigid, and moved up and down without any words coming from his mouth. Then, with a sort of sob, he snatched up the axe, and I’m blowed if he didn’t cut that sjambok into a thousand bits. It was a good sjambok, too, made of rhinoceros hide, as thick as your wrist at the butt and going off to a point, and when I told the idiot what he’d done, he jes’ went off into another unnateral fit of wild laughter, after which he paid me a guinea and went to bed. Putting this, that, and the other together, with the Cango brandy, I guessed my man had got snakes in his head, and I kept the demijohn under lock. That calmed him down, and he was all right until we came to the Orange River, where we had to camp while the water went down. About fifty wagons were there waiting to cross, and there was quite a stir with all the fellows moving about visiting. When we had outspanned, I joined a group to hear about the state of the roads, the condition of the veld for grazing, and all them things that transport riders talk about, when one chap asked if I had heard the news. ‘What news?’ says I. ‘About that snake,’ says he; ‘he was seen at the Riet River drift last week.’ ‘Yes,’ says another, ‘and two days before he was at Aliwal North.’ ‘I heard from the mail coach driver,’ says a third, ‘that the snake overtook his coach, stopped the horses, and took a steady look at all the passengers, after which he went across the veld, leaving ’em all frozen with terror. It was twenty feet long, and its eyes were like black diamonds.’

“Of course, I wasn’t swallering that, but when I told my traveller the sweat gathered in big drops on his forehead, and the old hunted look came into his face. ‘You don’t believe this silly yarn?’ says I, placing my hand on his shoulder. ‘Believe it, man!’ he said. ‘Good heavens! that snake is after me.’ ‘After you,’ says I. ‘Yes,’ says he, making an effort to swallow something. ‘It has chased me up and down over a thousand miles for two months.’ ‘Nonsense!’ I said; ‘you’re nervous and fanciful.’ ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Two months ago I was hunting in the Zulu country, and one day, ten miles away from my camp, I shot a mamba. I took the body back with me to skin it; but when the two blacks I had with me saw it, they cried out to me to take it away, or the mamba’s mate would come in the night. I left them sleeping by the fire, and the next morning they were still sleeping—ay, they were sleeping the last sleep, for the mamba had been in the night.’

“As I looked at them, with the blood in me like water, I heard a heavy breathing, and saw my horse on the ground, his eyes glazed and his nostrils fighting for breath, while, resting on his body, was the awful head of a mamba, his eyes fixed on mine, and his forked tongue darting in and out. I fired at him with the rifle barrel, but clean missed in my flurry; then I ran until my courage came back. I found that I had left the powder behind, and slowly turned back. I had not gone a hundred paces when I met him on my track, slipping like a black streak through the grass, and I thought of nothing then but escape. After a time I met a party of Zulus, but when I asked for their assistance, they fled with loud cries of alarm, and at a Zulu kraal, where I stopped to ask for thick milk, they drove me out when they learnt why it was I fled. That night as I slept that snake coiled by my side.

“‘What!’

“‘Yes; he could have struck me then, but he preferred to have full vengeance. I woke at the flicker of his tongue on my cheek, thinking it was a fly—a fly! good Lord! and my hand fell upon his cold, sinewy folds, and his head was resting on my shoulder. Ever since he has been after me, with a deadly hate that is slowly driving me mad. Sometimes he disappears, but I never escape from the glint of his unwinking eyes, and one day he will strike, unless—unless—’

“‘Well?’ said I, looking at his drawn face.

“‘Unless,’ he said, ‘I forestall him.’

“‘No my lad,’ said I, ‘for that would be a sin, and when you are stronger this dream of yours will go.’

“He looked so fallen in, so weak, all of a sudden, that I took him for a walk to the river, and the rush of the waters seemed to comfort him. He sat on a big boulder looking across, and the whiteness presently went from his cheeks.

“‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said, ‘if I could reach the other side I’d be all right again.’

“We sat there in a sort of a dream for an hour or two, when I happened to look round, and right there on the flat of the ground was stretched out the biggest and the ugliest snake I ever saw, black as night, with a great vicious diamond-shaped head, and a pair of eyes that glowed all colours. He looked as if he’d travelled; his scales, instead of being glossy, were dull with scratches here and there, and his skin had a sort of bagginess as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks. As soon as he saw me turn he raised his head about five feet from the ground, and from his eyes there shot a look that jest kept me fixed like a stone. Then that poor young feller on the stone began to speak again, in a soft way, of the river and its journey to the sea.

“‘I wish,’ he said, ‘I could look on the sea again.’ Then I heard him move, and I knew he was looking into the eyes of his enemy, for that snake began to sway his head to and fro, to and fro, while his tail went twisting in and out, sending his body nearer and nearer. Suddenly there was a shriek, and a splash, and the snake went by me—streamed over the rock into the water, and when I leapt to my feet with a yell that startled the whole camp, I saw an arm thrust above the yeller flood, and above the arm the bend of that black snake, his head turned down looking into the water, and a coil of his body round the elbow. Ole Abe Pike has swound away once, and that was the time. Yes; there was his black body gleaming with the water on it, and his head turned towards the face of the enemy—that poor young chap he had follered over three countries for one thousand miles—one thousand English miles.”

“That a true story, Uncle Abe?”

“Ain’t I told it? That’s why I gave up transport riding. I darsn’t go near that Orange River again.”

Chapter Eleven.

How the Melons Disappeared.

I think I have said that Uncle Abe knew everything there was to be known about farming, but he was content with his knowledge and never put it to practical use, unless it was in the growing of water-melons. His melons were the biggest and the sweetest, with the reddest hearts and the smoothest rinds in the district. His patch was on the sunny side of the slope, and when the big glistening globes were coming to fruition, the old chap would sit on the worn sod bank above them and watch them “drinking in the sunshine,” as he said. I went over one morning to collect six melons, previously selected, in exchange for a sack of meal, and found him seated on a bank, the picture of misery.

“What’s the matter, Uncle?”

“A go-hoppin’ ghost’s been around here eating my melons.”

“A what?”

“A spook, and he’s walked off with the very six melons you set your mark against.”

I dismounted, and walked into the melon patch, the old man silently pointing out to me, with the stem of his pipe, the severed stems of my melons.

“They’re gone—you see.”

“Yes,” I answered dryly, “and the man who gathered them used a very clean-cutting knife.”

“What man?”

“Come, Uncle, you have parted with my melons to someone else, and I consider you have behaved shabbily.”

“That’s it—go on. It isn’t enough that my hair should turn white in the loneliness of the dark at the dog-hopping terror that came out of the deep pool down below there, ’midst a fearful groaning in the air and a splashing in the water, but you must turn on me.”

“What became of those melons, you old shuffler?”

“I ain’t had a smoke for six days, and, on top of that, each morning I woke up with an empty pipe to find a melon missing.”

I handed him my pouch, and waited for explanations.

“Yes,” he said, ramming the tobacco down with his little finger; “six days ago when I came over here to watch them melons mopping in the sunshine I saw at once one was gone—and gone, too, without so much as leaving any sign but a straight cut through the stem to show how it went, not a footprint, nor a bruised leaf, nor anything. Yes, that was the smallest of the six; and next morning another was gone, the next biggest, and there was no mark on the ground. I tell you that want of sign made me queer, and when that night I yeard a splashing down there in the pool—and there’s no sound, mind you, that comes so mysterious as the sudden splash of water out of the night—I wondered if the Kaffir’s devil was climbing out of the pool, or if the little brown man, the Tikoloshe, was up to his mischief. There was that splash, loud and sudden, as if the big tail of a monstrous snake had come down smack on the water; then there was a humming all around me in the air. Have you got a match?”

He struck the match on his corduroys, lifting his knee to stretch the breeches taut, and his hollow cheeks nearly met inside as he puffed, then he held the glow of the expiring match before me.

“There was a humming in the air all around me, and my skin tingled all over jes’sif the wind were whipping the sand against my wet body when coming from a sea bathe, and in the centre of that melon patch I seed a spark of fire like that dying match, jes’ one dull spark of fire without any ray from it. That was all. Next morning the third melon was gone—clean gone.”

“Yes; and you ate it.”

“I grow melons—I don’t eat ’em. The next day I set a spring-gun with the string from the fourth melon to the trigger, and in the middle of the night I woke up with a start to the report of the gun and to a long terrible wail, that seemed to come out of the depth of the sky and from the heart of the earth. It just went soughing and sighing and wailing through the house, and round it and over it, so that your eyes would follow it up and down and round, as though there was some living person there screeching. I tell you an ole rooster that was perched on the foot of my bedstead fell down in a dead faint, so that I had to pour a teaspoonful of brandy down his throat.”

“The melon must have given you indigestion.”

“Look here, sonny; if you play any longer on that string you’ll wear it out. In the morning there was one melon left, the spring-gun having blown the fourth one to smithereens—pieces of it being scattered all over the ground—though there was not a fragment of skin or hair or feather to show what sort of thing it was had carried off the fifth melon. There was one left. The biggest of the lot—a great dark-green ball of liquid fire and honey, that would ha’ fetched first prize at any show. I made up my mind to save that one, so I built a kraal round it with stakes driven in a foot deep, and roofed in with saplins, and over all a fence of thorns. And when the dark came on I sat out there with the gun and the bull’s-eye lantern. I tell you I’ve suffered a lot in trying to keep those six melons of yours—and that night there was a stillness in the air that brought out all my sufferings on the stretch like fiddle-strings. It was dead quiet far into the night, with the stars blinking, and the voice of the sea appearing to pass overhead, when of a sudden there came that splash from the pool, loud and startlin’. I stood up to look down into the valley, then I slipped inside.”

“What did you see?”

“See! nothing; but I felt there was something crawling up that hill—and through the air all around there came that humming. Yes, I slipped inside; but on the bank I left that lantern glaring like a great eye over the melon patch. I could not sleep for a melancholy sound in the air, half whistle, half moan; and when I went into the middle room to look out of the window, I’m gummed ef that bull’s-eye lantern wasn’t standing on the table with the slide shut. That very same lantern I’d left all ablaze on the bank—and in the room there was a smell of crabs, a damp, muddy smell, and beyond the window was a smoulderin’ fire—the same dull spark-like point I had seen on the first night.”

“Your pipe is out; do you want another match?”

“A match is not much good without baccy. Thankye, sonny. So I climbed into bed again, or rather—for I’m not ashamed of being afraid—under the bed, and there I was when I yeard the old rooster say good-morning to the sun. The first thing I did was to look at the melon patch, and—what’jer think—”

“Go on, you wretched old fabricator.”

“I seed that last water-melon sliding down the hill.”

“Sliding? Wasn’t it walking?”

“Yes, sliding—not rolling, as you’d expect a round thing to do down a steep like that, but jes’ gently sliding, as though it were resting on a coat. There was nothing by it, nothing at all, and it was the most surprisin’ sight I ever seed to watch that fine melon softly skimming over the grass and dodging all the stones. I was so lost, flabbergasted, unbalanced by this sight that I never saw what was awaiting the melon, down by the pool, until the last thing, when it slid, all of a sudden, into a dark hole. Into a dark hole—a sort of tunnel level with the take-off into the pool—and that hole, that tunnel, sonny, was the throat of the big devil-snake. All in a moment I saw that. The melon disappeared, the jaws of the snake came together, and a column of water shot into the air as he slid back into the pool.”

“So; and that’s where the six melons went?”

“Five, sonny; five—one of ’em was blown to smithereens by the gun. The five of ’em were swallowed by that devil-snake.”

“And how did he cut the stems so clean?”

“That’s where the mystery comes in, sonny. I expect you’ll have to take six of the best that are left, sonny; and I’m going into town next week to get some dynamite to blow the bottom outer that pool. That devil-snake might take it into his head to swallow me one of these fishing nights.”

Chapter Twelve.

Abe Pike and the Big Fish.

The Fish River was “down.” It generally was down, in the sense of being low, but colonial rivers run by contraries—when they are down they are up. There had been a heavy fall of rain “up country,” and the water rushing off the sun-baked surface poured like a flood between the high banks, sweeping, as we afterwards heard, a stone bridge away, and catching in its career a wagon and span of eighteen oxen at a drift which, at the time of crossing, had scarcely water enough to wet the feet. For many a mile the banks of the river are of red soil, and as the flood eats into the banks its waters are stained a dull brick colour, which hue is imparted to the Atlantic itself for miles along the coast as the red waters pour out into the sea, bearing with them a wonderful collection of flotsam in the shape of timber, dead stock, and live reptiles. Of late, railway sleepers formed no small part of the flotsam, and if work was slack we sometimes, when the river was down, spent a sloppy day on the banks fishing for these floating items. On hearing the news I rode off to pick up Uncle Abe, but finding him out, went to a spot on the bank which he particularly favoured, where a wide flat rock stood at the base of a krantz. He was not there, however, and the rock itself was covered by the flood, which reached half-way up the krantz, but it was evident he had been there, for from a cave in the rock, just above the lap of the waters, there issued a thin line of smoke, and on climbing along a ledge I saw signs of his occupation in a skin kaross, a dark lantern, a gun, and a few well-known traps which he always carried with him when after kablejauw, the great hundred pounders which come up as far as this point in the spring tides. Now thoroughly alarmed for his safety, I rode down towards the sea, from which, six miles away, there came the continuous roar and thunder of the surf, and, to my great relief, met him in a bush path, with a full-grown otter on his back, and the water oozing from his top boots and from his clothes, which clung to his lank body.

“Halloa! Uncle; I thought you were drowned.”

“That’s me,” he said, sweeping the water from his eyes; “I’ve been drowned twice over. Got a pipe and baccy? I’m jest perishing for a smoke.”

I saw now that his knuckles were skinned, and that his face was pinched and blue.

“Get up,” I said dismounting.

“Not me. I’d spoil the saddle. Lemme catch hold of the stirrup—so. Now get along quick, for I want to boil this yer soaking of water outer my bones and body.”

We went along, and presently I had a bright fire going in the cave, and the kettle singing, while Abe, stripped of his clothes, sat shivering still in his skin kaross, his eyes fixed on the red torrent, which stretched across for a mile.

A tin beaker of boiling coffee soon brought back the warmth to his body, and when he had my pipe between his teeth he began to talk.

“I believe I’m getting old, sonny; and I’ve lost my fishin’ tackle.”

“Not the kablejauw tackle?”

“Jest that. It’s stood by me, man and boy, for twenty-five years. I’ve waxed it and waxed it, and wired it about the shank, till it were strong enough to haul in a shark, and now it’s gone—all along of this yer flood. I don’t like loosing old things, and the loss of it pains me as tho’ you’d pulled the sinews outer me.”

“How did it happen?”

“Yesterday I came here to fish, and in the afternoon—when the tide crept whispering along the rushes—I cast in from the big rock. ’Twas as quiet as Sunday, with a fringe of bubbles right across the river marking when the tide moved up. On the mud bank, jest below where the big fish would soon be routing up the mud like pigs, there was a blue crane dozing on one leg, with his head bunched between his shoulders; on a dead tree above sat a big black and white kingfisher, with his red beak pointing up, and on the top of the krantz a white-headed eagle was all huddled up. After a smoke, I built up the fire in the cave, then made another cast with the line, for the fish were coming up, and the tide had reached up so high that the crane had to quit. I heaved the lead out about thirty yards, and was drawing her in when there comes a tug, and I was into a steinbrasse. That same moment the eagle started into the air, sailing roun’ and roun’, and letting go screech after screech; and when I looked up at him, surprised at the racket, I yeard a hollow murmur, like an echo that comes from a cave. I knew what it meant.

“’Twas the river comin’ down, and in a hurry I began hauling in that line, when, with a rush that parted the water, a big kablejauw took the steinbrasse, and, with a swirl of his tail, made for mid-stream to bolt his food. I dunno how it happened, but a coil of the line whipped roun’ my leg, and I was yanked on to the broad of my back into the river, with that eagle ’twixt me and the blue sky. That fish pulled me right into the middle, then he paused to take bearings, and when the strain slackened I took a breath, and reached along to get hold of the line. But it was beyond me to slacken the knot without a knife, and I turned over to swim to the rock. ’Twas easy enough till I tautened the line, when the fish made another struggle. ’Twas pull devil, pull saint, and the line wouldn’t break. First he’d gain, then I’d gain; but most of the time we just stuck there—he facing to the sea, me to the rock, and that eagle ripping out up above. And then!”

“Well, Uncle?”

“Lord love you, lad. There were a roar in the air; I seed the tree tops above the bend swaying; then there shot into the air a great tongue of water, and round the corner, from side to side, there came a wall—the face of it curved in, the top hissing in foam, and the sides of it running right up the banks, so high it shut out the valley beyond. I gave a yell, then turned over on my back, with my hands clasped behind my head to protect it from the shock, and the next minute I were scooting down the river for the sea, with that wall howling behind me like a thousand thunders.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That kablejauw did. ’Twas a race between him and the flood, and the way he flashed along showed he’d only been fooling with me before. And the line didn’t break, and overhead there sailed the eagle, with his black wings outspread and his white head looking down at me. We flew so fast that in a few minutes I saw the white lines one above the other, which showed where the waves were breaking, and then with a snap like a pistol-shot, the line snapped. ’Twasn’t my weight that broke it, but a snagged tree, into which, with the way on me, I went feet foremost. No sooner’d I clung to a mud greasy branch than, with a roar like a fallen mountain in my head, the red flood tossed the big tree into the air, and, when we come down, we were in the thick of it—rushing on, at a height of twelve feet above the blue waters of the tide. Phew! how we did go; and in a minute there was the mouth of the river, the big waves solemnly rolling in, and beyond them the heaving blue of the ocean. With a fierce rush, like a live crittur, the flood threw itself at the sea. We just footed it over the small waves, then we cut the top off the first roller, throwing up columns of spray high as the church steeple, and then the fight began. Behind us there was a hundred miles of flood; before us was the tide with the Atlantic at the back, and the sea after the first shock jes’ gave a sort of surly roar, and away back of the outermost breaker I seed a dark line coming along steady and unbroken. ’Twas the last of the seven brothers, of the seven big waves that roll in with the tide at intervals, and it was bigger than all. Nearer it came, dark at the base, with a glistening curve, and a light line along the top. We in the front had made a track for the flood behind. For a little we stopped—then my tree was flung forward, and a red, angry column shot forth to meet the big wave. My! Sonny! The music of that meeting! The two waters coming together would neither give in, and they piled up, and up, and up, until there was built up a wall of water high as a hill, red on my side, blue on the other, and up this wall my tree was forced by the flood behind. Up we went, until we were balanced on the very ridge, with a black gulf on the other side of smooth water. A breath we poised there while the fresh and the salt were straining against each other, then a heaving mass out of the sea swiftly smote the great wall, and we went headlong—the tree and me—into the biggest toss-up you ever see. I dunno why it was I kept a-hold, but I think the weight of the waters jammed me into a cleft branch. Anyhow, the life kept in my body, and when I took a breath, the next minute it was dark, the stars were blazing, and the tree was a-rocking up and down away out on the ocean beyond the fighting whirl-about of river flood and tide. In that one second between the time I went headlong from the curling top of that hill-high wall of water into the roarin’ jumble some hours had gone—the tide had flowed and turned, and the old tree, with me on it, hanging like a withered apple, had floated miles. I must have been drowned over and over, and reg’lar pickled with salt. I tell you it was lonesome out there on the sea—and wet.”

“It was a wonderful escape, Uncle.”

“But it warn’t over. Bymby the tide turned again, and the tree made again for the shore, where the fighting was going on jes’ the same from the roar, and when the sun broke I saw we would strike the mouth of the river again. I dunno, sonny, how it is, but it seemed to me the ole sea was entering into the fight, for there was a sort of rush in the great heaving masses that began to pile in out of the blue, and when I came near the beat of the surf where the sea was all red, the breaker that carried the tree on his round back rose higher and higher, as he swept on until he reached the flood water, when he let the head of him curl and plunge with a force that swept everything away, and in the wall of his foam we were shot right into the river. That’s when I was drowned again; and when I came to I found we were settled in the still centre of a great circle of waters under the left bank, outer the main current. Everything that came into that circle went roun’ and roun’ till it came gently into the centre, to drift up against the big tree. Already there were three goats against the tree, legs up, an’ a sheep were drifting up, while in the circle sailin’ roun’ was a straw hat and a pair of trousers. On the tree there was fifteen snakes—all alive, but sluggish, mostly puff-adders, with some long yeller boomslangs, and three or four ugly looking black snakes that must er come way down 200 miles from the karoo veld. While I was looking at these ugly lodgers coiled round the branch, there was a swirl in the water, and the sheep that were drifting along suddenly went under. ’Twas a shark took him. That made things lively, but when three more sharks come up, and after eating the goats, the straw hat, and the trousers began butting at the tree with their shovel noses, I felt there was a lot of excitement in this world if you only look for it patiently. The rolling of the tree stirred the snakes, and the whole fifteen of them began crawling up. If there’d been two I’d kicked ’em off, but being so many I sot and took ’em. When they had settled down again there was one round my neck, a yeller boomslang, making a very fine collar, there were a pair of black snakes on each of my arms, a brown boomslang round my waist, and no less’n six big puff-adders coiled about my legs. I tell you I kept my mouth shut less one should crawl in by mistake, an’ if my hair hadn’t been so scant and wet it would ha’ stood up straight.”

“That was a tight fix, Uncle.”

“Tight! By gum! The pressure of that six foot o’ collar on my neck tilted my chin up in the air, while the chap above my waist nearly broke my ribs. The worst of it wer’ I was freezing.”

“Freezing! and the sun at 108.”

“That’s so; but fright turns a chap cold, and them snakes were drawing all the remainin’ warmth outer me. And ther’ were those sharks promenadin’ roun’ and roun’ the tree, every now and again givin’ it a lazy shove. Jes’ then the tide turned, and the tree began to move on another cruise. This time I knew it would be all up with me. I couldn’t live through another fight with the surf, and if I moved there was the snakes and the sharks. Soon as the tree moved those snakes woke up and began hissing an’ puffing an’ swaying their heads about, while their eyes got bright and brighter. Suddenly the collar chap crept up over my face and took a twist round my head with the end of his tail in my ear; then one by one the other snakes crawled up over my face, each one of ’em giving me such a look as threatened my life in case I moved. I wondered what they were about, for I couldn’t see, but the pressure on my neck was terrible, when, after the last one had gone, I heard a hiss, a whizz, and a thud. What jer think?”

“I suppose they flew away.”

“They jest piled on top of each other, tail round the other’s neck, till they made a column that would reach the bank; then the topmost one bent forward, and there was a line of snakes from the tree to the bank. A big puff-adder was at the far end, and he hitched his fangs over a tree stump. Right there I spotted my chance. I softly hauled on the line, and drew the tree ashore, when I jumped to the ground and cut.”

“And where did you find the otter?”

“Picked him up, sonny. And to think that I lost my line.”

“That’s a wonderful story, Uncle.”

“Eh! but it’s so. You can see yourself I’m soaked through and through, and if you look out, there’s the river in flood plain enough, and here’s the otter which will make a good weskitt.”

Chapter Thirteen.

The Black Tiger Again.

Abe suffered for several days from an attack of rheumatism in his shoulder, brought on by his immersion in the flood waters, and he applied himself steadily to the manufacture of a wonderful lotion, in which camphorated oil was the main stock, with a dash of turpentine, a strong trace of eucalyptus, and a few drops of the powerful euphorbia juice, together with extracts from sundry potent herbs. When I visited him this concoction was brewing in a pot, the steam from which filled the house with an extremely pungent smell.

“There,” said he, holding up a wooden ladle full of the mixture, “jes’ take a sniff of that. That’s the sort to sift right through you, and yank out rheumatics from the knuckle joints.”

“It certainly is strong.”

“Yes, sonny; but it lacks one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Jes’ a lump, as big as your fist, of fat from a tiger’s inside.”

“Is that so?”

“’Tw’d give substance to it; bind all these yer scents together, and make ’em settle down to their work instead of fighting against each other. This euphorby juice is mighty cantankerous, and is given to blisterin’ unless it’s toned down by tiger fat.”

“Well, Uncle, that black tiger is still alive.”

“Hum! I don’t know that the black tiger is good for this purpose. What do you say?”

“I know nothing about it; but, if any tiger is good, I should say a black tiger, by reason of his greater strength, should suit best, and, if you remember, you said you had a plan for trapping him. I believe he’s still in the big kloof.”

“Yes, he’s there. That ole man baboon’s been aroun’ here, and maybe he’s got some notion of showing me where the black fellow takes his snooze. I’ll jes’ think over it.”

“If you want any help I can bring along some dogs and a couple of guns?”

“Dogs, eh! Seems to me that tiger’s too smart for dogs. He chawed up one of yours. I don’t want no dogs, sonny, and if this tiger is to be downed, he’s got to be downed by cunning. You leave him to me.”

After the lapse of a week I rode over to see how the old man had succeeded, and found him peacefully employed boiling down wax berries for the manufacture of candles for his own lighting—the rheumatism, apparently, having been vanquished.

“Hallo! Abe,” I said, taking a look round the room, “where’s the tiger skin?”

“I speck it’s on the tiger.”

“So your plan didn’t succeed?” Abe solemnly skimmed a ladle full of melted wax from the water, and poured it into a bamboo mould.

“Berries is terrible skerce this season. Time was when a body could gather a bagful in a day from the bushes above the beach; but now—lor’, everything’s different now. This very earth’s agoing downhill—it’s getting played out.”

“Are you mixing any tiger fat with that wax, Uncle, to bind it?”

“Maybe goose fat would be better, sonny; have you got any to spare?”

“That tiger must be a cunning beast if he’s got the better of you, Uncle!”

He shook his head gravely. “He’s no tiger. He’s jes’ a ole witch prowling aroun’, that’s what he is.”

“Eh?”

“Yes. You believe me, that’s what ole Black Sam is. I worked out a plan to catch him, supposin’ I could find where he put up in the daytime, and what path he took on setting out in the night, for you know these critturs in the woods don’t go along anyhow, but follow paths jes’ as you or me would, and some of these paths they’re more fond of than others. Well, I kep’ watch on that ole man baboon, and when I see him strolling along outside the kloof I up and follered him. He knew, bless you, what I was after, and the way he led me into the dark of that kloof was a caution; so silent he went, and so careful to take the proper track. Bymby he stopped and pointed—yes, pointed with his finger at the ground—then he jumped for a bough, and there he sat grinning an’ working his eyebrows. Well, blow me, ef there wer’n’t a spoor of the tiger where he pointed, and squinting along through the underbush I see a clean walk which the tiger had made—the sides of the trees worn smooth and the ground jes’ trodden down. That was enough. So I went home and made a pill of meat, with enough poison in it to kill a museum full of stuffed critturs. Nex’ morning I went down, and if that baboon hadn’t a almost stopped me by force I’d a run bang into that tiger.”

“Was he dead?”

“Dead! Thunderation! he was jes’ lying full-stretched for a spring from a tree branch jes’ above where I laid that pill, awaiting for me to come along. The baboon jes’ invited me to climb a tree, and looking through the leaves, I spotted that black devil, with his tail a-switching and a-jerking. I jes’ climbed down, and slipped off like a shadder, with my heart in my boots. Well, I did some thinking. You know cats is fond of certain smells, so is dogs—only dogs is not so dainty as cats. It’s jes’ the same with a tiger, and he’s got a nose for a partickler herb which he rubs his head into. I dug up one of these year herbs, and I fixed it up fine, jes’ over the spring of a big man trap. Then, it being near dusk, I climbed into a yeller wood, and waited for Black Sam to walk up and put his foot into the jaws of that trap; but the dark came before he did, and then I wasn’t going to trust myself in the wood—so there I stuck, with the stiffness in all my bones, till the morning. By gum! it were skeery work, sittin’ up there with the wind moaning over the tree, and sounds of creeping things all aroun’. Then, blame me! the first thing I clapped eyes on in the morning was that black crittur standing there in the path, staring at that scent bush ’sif it were somethin’ to be suspicious about instead of a nice smellin’ bottle. There he stood like a dark shadder, working his nose for maybe half an hour, when he walked all around, finally sitting down on his tail with a pucker between his eyes jes’sif he were thinking. Yes, he sat there working his brain; then up he stood, looked about for a spell—then, I’m hanged, if he didn’t pick up a dry stick in his mouth and poke it at that bush.”

“What’s that?”

“Yes, sir. He jes’ sprung the trap. Of course, soon’s he poked the bush the spring give, and the jaws flew together with a snap that bit clean through the stick. Then that there witch reached for the bush with his claw, and fetched a grin that spread all over his face like a gash in a water-melon. Then he smelt that trap all over and began to switch his tail, and with a growl in his stummick off he went slinking on my trail, taking long strides with his ears flattened. Luckily he went on the long trail leading from the house, and soon’s he’d gone I lit out for the top of the krantz, where I could see the veld right up to my door.”

“Well?”

“Well, after a time, I saw him crossing the veld, making himself small when he was on the level, and running when he got in a holler. Right up near the house he went and hid himself in a clump of wild cotton, waiting and watching for me to come out o’ the door. I tell you he stopped there till the sun was right over head, then suddenly he ran right up to the house and looked in at the winder. I never was so glad at being not at home to a visitor. He walked all round the house and got on the roof; then he came back, full lick, having made up his mind I was in the kloof. Yes, then I made a bee line for home, and shut myself in.”

“And that ends it?”

“No, sonny, it’s the beginning of the chapter. He’s jes’ scheming to get me; but the ole baboon’s on the watch and maybe I’ll have the black skin yet.”

Chapter Fourteen.

Buffalo Bull and the Shorthorn.

In one of the kloofs near the Fish River, an old buffalo bull had taken up his quarters, and, like all solitary males, he was suspicious and savage.

“And I don’t wonder at it,” said Abe Pike, when discussing the bull’s points. “Trouble sours the best of us, and he’s had his share of trouble—what with his struggles as a youngster to get a footing in the herd, and his struggles, when he became leader, to guard his position against enemies without in the shape of tigers and hunters, an’ against enemies within in the shape of younger bulls, not to speak of the jealousy of his wives; and then on top of all this, the trouble of being driven from the family when his powers were failing, maybe by a own son of his. Yes, sir, that lonely animile, for all he’s so savage, an’ a’most knocked the life outer me, has my sympathy in his proud old age. Proud he is, you believe me. He might a stayed with the herd ef so be he choose to behave himself and foller with the calves, but once a king always a king. Ef he can’t rule in the herd, he’ll rule all alone in that kloof—nursing his pride and his memories—and going scatter—dash—on sight for any critters mad enough to enter his domain.”

“Did you run against him, Uncle?”

“Well—I’d put it the other way—that he run against me. I tole you often how he fit and killed my rooi bonte bull, Red Prince, that old red and white chap with a cross of shorthorn that was so masterful you couldn’t keep him in any kraal if he wanted to move out I’ve seen him fix his horns under a heavy pole that took two men to place across the gate, and jest hoist it as tho’ it were a straw, and if he set out to go into the mealie patch why he’d go in, an’ there was an end of it, bellowing all the time fit to drown the roar of the sea.”

“Did the old solitary kill your bull?”

“You know that, sonny, for you saw his body with the rip that went to his heart. I yeared ole Prince bellow one morning, and, lookin’ over the veld, I saw him away off yonder on the ridge slowly moving, with his big head swaying from side to side, and as I watched him he would, every now and again, stop to paw the ground and toss his horns. I thought, maybe, there was some stray cattle beyond, and I set off after him with the sjambok. After he topped the ridge I could still hear the rumble of his challenge, and when I reached the divide there he was down below raking up the earth with his hoof, but there was no sign of a horn or hide beside him. I ran down to him, and at the sound of my running he turned his head, showing the red of his eyes. He blew through his nostrils at me, and he looked that wicked that I dodged away behind a big rock, and soon’s I peeped out I saw he was looking at the kloof with his ears pricked forward. So I scanned the edge of the wood, which was about fifty paces off, and there, poking out of the shadows, was the head of that buffel, his black muzzle held high, and the sharp curved tips of his horns showing above the great mass of bone on his forehead. The foam was dripping from his muzzle. I saw, then, that red crittur of mine had got the scent of the buffel, and here he had come to do battle out of the love of a fight. I called to the old fool to come back, but, with another dig of his hoof and a shake of his head, he went forward with that slow, steady stride of a crittur that knows no fear. From the wood there came a menacing growl, and at the hoarse rumble of it the red bull sunk his crest and let out a beller that went rolling over the kloof. Then the old solitary stepped out, big and black, with white scars showing on his shoulders and his head held high and threatenin’. There the two of them stood face to face with twenty yards between, their ears twitching and the tails jerking against their sides, Red Prince looking heavier with a mightier neck, the crest arching like the neck of a horse, and the dewlap hanging down between his wide knees. Bigger and stronger he looked than the buffel, but my heart went weak within me for him when I saw the wild gleam of the buffel eyes, and dwelt on the pile of rugged bone that spanned his forehead. Slowly they walked up to each other, muttering deep threats, then their horns clashed, and their foreheads were pressed closer and closer to the strain of heaving quarters. A minute they stood so, the breathing coming heavily, so that the dust below was blown about—then my old red chap turned the buffalo right round, and with a snort and a sidelong blow, he ripped a long red streak in the black thigh. The buffel sprang a step aside, then his tail went up over his back, and he rushed forward. Right round on his pins as nimble as a yearling the old red went, and catching the buffel between the forelegs, he heaved him up and sent him with a thud on to his side. If he had only known, poor old chap, he would never have let his enemy reach his feet again, but he curled his nose up and jest stood there watching the black devil gather himself together. The buffel was up—phew—and then, with a savage roar, his eyes gleaming like a tiger’s, he jest leapt at the big red body standing there so proud, and the next moment—’twas done so quick—I saw the blood running from his side. I wept, lad, at the sight. There stood the buffel, with his muzzle up—and the foam dripping from it—watching the red bull, whose legs were planted wide apart to steady himself. While the life was flowing from that terrible wound in his side the old chap shook his head again. So they stood silent, eyeing one another, then Prince lurched forward—dead—and the buffel went up and smelt him, with his back toward me. I had moved round the rock to watch the fight, and as I stood there tremblin’ from the excitement, that old black devil suddenly whipped round, and with a most hair-rising roar, came straight at me. The outer curve of his horn caught me on the shoulder, and sent me spinning till I tripped over a rock, and when he turned I squeezed tight against the shelter of the stone. Then that ole brute came and stood by with his nose a few inches off, and his bloodshot eyes glaring at me, and every minute or so he’d try to chop me with a hoof, or hook me out with his horns. And three times he trotted off to smell the red bull—the which times I’d try to squeeze closer to the rock, and then at the third time he cleared off to the left at a gallop.”

Chapter Fifteen.

The End of the Tiger.

I had been busy all day ‘branding’ the young cattle, and returning hot, dusty, and tired to the house, found Abe Pike comfortably seated in the cane chair, with the veldschoens of his outspread feet resting on the top bar of the verandah rail, and his lined face looking up at the thatched roof, whence came the loud zing of a bluebottle fly caught in the meshes of a spider web. A jar of my Transvaal tobacco was on the ground by his side, and a large jug of buttermilk near it.

“Don’t disturb yourself, Uncle!”

“I’m not agoing to. Mind how you step, else you’ll obset that buttermilk—not that it would matter much, for it ain’t been rightly made. Should ha’ been kep’ in a calabash with a drop of old milk in the bottom, to flavour it with a taste of biled leather and smoke that belongs to the proper article. But all the old arts is dying out, and insects and beasts is the only critturs that keep up the old customs. Conservatism is a law of nature—among men who have broken away from nature it’s a blind, unreasonin’ protest against change. Conservatism is the preserving wisdom of the aged, the salt of experience, and change is born of the rashness of youth. I’m a Conservative—I’m old. I should be presarved for the edification and guidance of the young. Give me the buttermilk.”

As he would not move, I tilted his chair over by kicking the legs away, and passed over his recumbent body to the bedroom. After a wash down I found him still outspread on the ground, his long legs hooked over the chair, and his head resting on his arm, while the glow of his pipe showed that he was still calmly smoking.

“What’s brought you over here, Uncle?”

“Well, I ’spect I walked. Have you ever observed, sonny, that the human body is so built that it will fit itself to any position? This is comfortable and the tobacco is fair to middlin’, fair to middlin’, with a touch of sulphur in it.”

I sat down on the stone steps to listen to the most delightful of all sounds—those made by the domestic animals and birds settling to rest; while from the deep black of the sky the stars shot out with a sudden blaze, and the cool night wind came softly whispering through the acacias.

Uncle Abe gathered himself up, and bunched upon the rail, his back bent like a sickle to keep his balance. “What’s acrost over yonder?” he said.

“My boundary ridge.”

“Your boundary ridge! An’ a euphorby tree, and a sprinkling of white thorn acacias, with the gum drops glistenin’ on the rough bark, and a few grey stones all covered with moss and a stretch of grey veld. Go ’long; there’s more than that under the curtain of the dark, for if there weren’t why would you an’ me sit here and look away off, an’ look an’ look, as ef behind the curtain was all the mysteries of the unknown world. The dark makes a wonderful difference.”

“So it does—when you’re five miles from home and hear the ‘gurr’ of a tiger.”

“Sonny, I’ve downed that black tiger.”

“You have!”

“That’s so. Ole Abe Pike has come out on top—and soon’s I skinned him I lit out to tell you the news. You see it was my wits against his. Traps was no good, so I determined to set my skin against his and trust to the ole gun. I calculated to tackle him right close up to his lair.”

“In the kloof?”

“Eweh! in the dark of the big kloof, where it’s that still you can hear the sap moving in the trees. You see that crittur was more’n ordinary cunning, and he’d seen how he was feared, so he’d settle it down to a certainty that no man would ever dare tempt death near his sleepin’ place. Therefore, though deadly risky, the best plan would be to go to that very spot. Next thing was to give him a good feed far away—and yet not too far. Ef the kill was too far he wouldn’t come back to his roost, and ef it was too near he wouldn’t eat before returning. So I built a little bush kraal near the kloof an got a brandzickt goat from Ned Amos to turn in.”

“Why not have tied the goat up in the kloof?”

“No good, sonny, with an ’xper’enced tiger. He’d a suspected a plant, ’cos his understanding ’ud tell him that goats don’t grow in kloofs. The kraal he would take as a piece of man’s foolishness. Before this I filed down a whole sixpence, and the filings I melted into a good round bullet, with some clean lead. Two charges I put in behind that bullet, and seed that the powder was well up in the nipple with the shiniest cap well pressed down. Then I killed a stink-cat—I’ll tell you why afterwards. I got the goat down to the kraal an hour before sun-down, and then I slipped into the kloof, treading like a shadder, with the bleat of the old billy buck calling loud. I pulled up, an’ waited till that ole man baboon, who had watched all proceedings, gave me the sign that the Black Sam was on the move. I felt my way on up to his lair under a shelving rock at the foot of the precipice that hems in the kloof on the top side. It was that dark I couldn’t see my hand, and I knew at once my plan would land me with a split throttle if I waited for his coming back. I was that skeered, too, with the whisperin’ in the trees, that I was just making ready to run when I see a firefly dodging around.”

“And you thought it was the tiger’s eye?”

“You wait. I seed a firefly making circles of flame against the blackness—and I cotched him gently—so’s not to spoil his lantern. I fixed him in the bark of a tree that stood near the den—and two others I fixed in line—one above, one below. The top was three feet above the ground, the middle was two and a half, and the bottom one a foot high. Next thing I threw that stink-cat in the den, and the smell of him came out thick, covering up all taint of a man. Then I settled down opposite the tree with the gun fixed on the little spark where I’d fixed the middle fly. I reckoned when the ole chap came home and smelt that cat he’d stand in disgust—and as the smell would strike him just by the tree his body would blot out the flies and give me a mark.”

“And he didn’t come back that way?”

“He did that, as it was the easiest way; but before he came the feeling grew in me that he was just behind watching me where I lay. I tell you, sonny, that long watch in the stillness of the dark, with a drop of water minute by minute falling into a little pool, and a sort of queer stirring noise among the trees, gave me the ague. But he came at last. It may have been three, or two o’clock; but without a sound he was there before me. My eyes had grown tired of watching those three dots of fire, and I’d been shutting them tight for a spell every now and again, and when I opened them the last time I saw the light was there, but altered. I looked away a second, then back, and there was three lights; but two of ’em were close together, and bigger. Jimminy! it was the ole man himself looking at me. I pulled the trigger, and the gun flew outer my hands. Then I rolled over and over, with a roaring, scuffling, and screaming in my ears as ef the gun had woke a whole crowd of devils and brought them howling outer the rocks. I rolled against a tree, and I was up it before I knew where I was, an’ all the time there was that scuffling an’ growlin’ and awful screamin’ going on down below. Bymby it got weaker and weaker, until it died off in gurglings and deep breathing, and by the grey light of the morning there was the two of ’em dead, the black tiger and the ole man baboon. The baboon had got his two long teeth in the big throat, and there he had held while the tiger with his hind claws raked the stomach clean out of him.”

“And where did your bullet strike?”

“It struck the tree, and smashed the top firefly to smithereens. The other two had dropped off.”

“Then you didn’t kill the tiger?”

“I reckon I did; at any rate, I’ve got his skin and the skull of the ole baboon. He was the biggest tiger you ever see, and old as the hills, with his teeth worn down. I’m sorry for the baboon, but I’m glad he was there.”

I have reason to believe that Uncle Abe maligned himself for the sake of the yarn. On examining the tiger’s skin subsequently, I found no traces of the baboon’s teeth, but exactly between the eyes was a bullet-hole. The old man had held his gun straight in the dark kloof.

Chapter Sixteen.

Where the Quails came from.

In the spring the quails come in from the west, and one September morning I went out into the standing oat-crops with two other guns, each one of us attended by a little Kaffir lad to retrieve the birds. By noon we had traversed and re-traversed in line the upper lands and low lands, bagging 98 brace, and then in the glare of the mid-day we took shelter in the shade of a yellow-wood tree. There we argued the ever-recurring theme of the coming of the quail.

In August there is not a quail to all seeming in the land, but suddenly, as the spring advances, there comes from every thicket of grass and square of growing corn on the coast the whistling call of the male bird—‘phee—phe—yew’ calling in bird language, ‘where are you?—where are you?’ and the answering cry of the modest mate—‘phee—phee’—“here—here.” Whence do they come—these thousands of birds that throng along the coast? On that point regularly as September came round, as the 12-bore gun was taken down, and the cartridges filled with Number 6, we talked greatly, setting forth many theories. Silas Topper was of opinion that the quails spent their time in travelling round the continent of Africa in four huge armies, covering 500 miles from front to rear, and that while one was passing along the southern coast, the second army would be going north somewhere above the Zambesi, while the third would be traversing the shores of the Mediterranean, and the fourth skirting of Gold Coast. We all agreed that was a very good theory, and one deserving more credence than the crude, but positive, assertion of Amos Topper that the quail was originally a frog.

“It stands to reason,” Amos would say, “that a quail is developed from a frog. If ’tain’t so, what becomes of all the frogs?—tell me that. Take a caterpillar. A caterpillar comes from an egg, and a cocoon comes from a caterpillar, and a butterfly from a cocoon.”

“But a quail isn’t a butterfly.”

“Chuts! A tadpole comes from an egg, doesn’t it? Well, a frog comes from a tadpole, and a quail comes from a frog. That’s clear enough, ain’t it?”

Then, of course, the argument would start, and this particular September morning we had got well into the frog theory when old Abe Pike came along.

“I don’t mind if I do,” he said, as he sat down and selected a plump bird that Amos had carefully prepared for his own eating. He had opened it out by a cut down the breast bone, laid the broad bare back on the wood coals, and in the cup-like cavities of the breast had placed a pat of butter, with pepper and salt. The juices of the bird had gathered in these cavities, and Amos had just cut off a slice of bread to serve as a plate when old Pike forestalled him.

“That’s my bird,” said Topper, fiercely.

“Just yeard you say ’twas a frog,” grunted Abe, as he dug his knife into the earth to clean it.

“I said it was a frog, but it’s a sure enough bird now—blow you!”

“Go slow, sonny, go slow,” said Abe, between the mouthfuls. “Stick to one thing at a time. Once a frog always a frog.”

“Humph,” said Amos, as he picked out another bird from the heap. “I s’pose you never heard frogs whistling of a night?”

“Well, of course.”

“What do they whistle for, eh, if they’re not fitting themselves for the bird life—tell me that?” And Amos looked at us triumphantly.

“They whistle for the rain, you donderkop.”

“P’raps, then, you can tell us where these birds come from, as you’re so mighty clever.”

“To be sure, sonny, to be sure; they come from the clouds.”

“Oh, thunder!”

“Yes; from the clouds, or maybe higher. I s’pose you yeard of the people of Israel and how they were fed in the wilderness with manna and quail. Where d’you expect those birds came from? Frogs! No; they just dropped from the sky, and they’ve kep’ on droppin’ ever since in the spring.”

“Go along! There’s no people wandering in the wilderness in these days.”

“I seed ’em.”

“The Israelites?”

“No; the quail a-falling out the roof of the world. I’ll tell you how it came about that I diskivered this secret that’s been kep’ locked up all these hundreds of years. I’d been a-fishin’ off the great rock that stands out of the breakers over there yonder by the Kasouga, an’ the spring tide, rolling in with a great heave, made a boilin’ foam ’twixt me an’ the beach. I were fixed there for the night, sure enough; an’ I tell you what, sonny, when a man is brought face to face in the black of the night with the leaping sea, he don’t forget the time. Noise! by gum! You know what it is to be waked all of a sudden out of a sleep a full mile from the sea by the smacking crash of a great wave, and there I was in the very thick of the thunderation, with the big black breakers swishing out of the dark like a movin’ wall, and jus’ leapin’ agin the rock as though they were bent on sweeping it away. The white foam went flying above, drenching me through and through—and it grew so slippery up above on that table size top, that I was obliged to lay full stretched on my back with my heels agin a crack, and my arms outstretched—and my eyes fixed on the stars above whenever I could see them through the flying scud. Even a spring tide turns—and in the darkness before the early morning I could feel the rock under me growing firmer. I was just thinking o’ getting to the shore to dry myself in the white sand when I yeard a queer sound from the sky. There’s just one thing wanting to this yer quail.”

“What’s that?”

“Just a dash of Dop brandy.”

I passed him over the stone demijohn, and we listened to the cluck of the liquor as it poured into the tin komeky.

“Yes; out of the black of the sky there came a sort of sound that goes before a storm; and, boys, it licks me how such a shadder of a noise can come on in advance.”

“It’s the way with shadows,” said Amos, drily.

“Soh! but it’s a queer thing to hear the hum of a wind-storm before the wind comes along; jes’ ’sif th’re messages going ahead to warn critturs and trees to stand firm. Well, I squinted around, and bymby, as the light grew, far above I seed a something movin’, and the noise of its coming grew. ’Twas no bigger’n a umbrella when I fixed it; but it soon spread out, wider and wider, and what was the curiosest, it lengthened out behind like my old concertina. I tell you, I begun to get skeered, for I thought maybe ’twas one o’ them water-spouts. Then the light grew stronger and there was a twinkling from the growing column jes’ if thousands and thousands o’ poplar leaves was stirred by the wind. ‘’Tis alive,’ I said, jumping to my feet, and I scaled down that rock and scooted through the pools, and up over the sand hills to the shelter of the woods. I thought it was one o’ them here sea-serpents.”

“But it was not?”

“No sonny; it was a heaven-high column of quail. That’s what it were.”

“Falling from the moon, eh?”

“When the head of the column reached the ground, which it did, on the beach the whole length just collapsd like a falling tree, and the whole lot were just scattered along the coast in a twinkling.”

Chapter Seventeen.

Abe Pike and the Ghon-ya.

Old Abe had strolled over to my place to see a new Harvester tried on a good crop of wheat. In the previous reaping season I had been left suddenly in the lurch by my Kaffirs, who had silently vanished in the night for other scenes without a word of explanation, or a single regret for the loss they would put me to, and I determined to be prepared in future for such another vagary. Hence the Harvester, which reaped the corn and bound up the sheaves, aided only by one man and a boy. We were just sweeping clear the last square in the small field when Abe came up and hung himself on the fence, with his back bent like a bow, and his toes hitched under the lower wire. There, all bunched up, he eyed the machine in silence.

“Well, Uncle, what do you think of it?” I said, with some pride, as the last sheaf was tossed on one side by the human-like grippers.

He looked at me vacantly, then climbed slowly down, examined the sheaf and the tie, and then took a look all round the country.

“Things is changing,” he said.

“Yes; this is the age of progress and electricity.”

“And snorting steam engines and that there man machine—that thing without a heart, or a stomach, or eyes to see. Where’s the good?”

“It is a labour-saving machine, and enables me to produce more.”

“’Tis all vanity, an’ foolishness, an laziness—that’s what. Laziness and pride,” and the old sinner, who never did a fair day’s work in a month, wore an air of virtuous indignation as he resumed his seat on the fence.

“Things is changing—that’s so; and mankind’s on the down track. Time was when a reaper would take his sickle and harken to the rustlin’ of the yaller corn as he cut his way along, with the smell o’ the yearth in his nostrils, and the sight of all manner o’ living insects below him. And bymby he would straighten his back and look away over the land, or at the shining layers behind, and then he would stoop to it again with the thoughts busy in his mind as bees about a comb concerning the going out of the wheat in waggons an’ trains, an’ ships across the sea to the feeding of the nations. An’ look at this yer cast-iron reaper; what’s it good for but to work for a cast-iron man? That’s what’s the world’s comin’ to, with all the people cast in a mould. I’m gwine home!”

“Nonsense; come back with me and try the new lot of rolled tabak from the Transvaal.”

For all his disgust with the Harvester, Uncle Abe did not mind “riding,” to the house on the driver’s seat; neither was he cast down after supper when he sat out on the stoep. The day’s work was done for man and beast and the great quiet of the evening brooded over the place. There we sat and smoked in silence, until the glow died out of the sky, when the night creatures began to stir, sending forth inquiring notes as if to assure themselves that the time was really at hand for the starting of the wonderful orchestra of the insect band. And, as we listened, there rang out above the shrill drummings and chirpings and whistling, the weird, mournful cry of the “ghon-ya,” calling “ghon-ya!” “ghon-ya!” at regular intervals, until the melancholy of its far-reaching cry stilled the other noisy voices.

Abe stirred uneasily. “There’s the lost sperrit,” he muttered.

“Why, that’s the night locust!”

“Soh; jes’ a locust.”

“Yes, with a transparent drum in place of a body which he blows out when he wishes to make that noise, and rubs his legs upon the drum.”

“How big is this yer drum?”

“About as large as a hen’s egg.”

“So; and with such a small thunder-bag he can send out a noise that booms further than the greatest drum in the British army. Don’t tell me. That’s no insect; it’s a cry that comes from beyond.”

“Beyond where?”

“Beyond the dark. I tell you, sonny, when the ghon-ya cries he ain’t bothering himself about any glass-eyed beetle-hunter who’s just hankering to label all the critturs in this yearth; he’s not thinkin’ about you nor me, but he’s jes’ wailing in that shudderous voice to the shadders that pass by in the night; whether it’s to comfort ’em, or to put ’em on the right track, or to warn ’em of danger, I can’t say. One night I had taken the short cut past the big krantz, being late from the shop where I’d been for a tin of o’ black sugar, and thinkin’ of nothin’ at all when I yeard the ghon-ya’s cry passin’ overhead. There was nothin’ more’n ordinary solemn in the wail of it, but when I came to the thick of the wood it seemed to me there was a queer whisperin’ going on among the trees. Have you ever marked a bee against the shadder? Of course you have, and you’ll know how he moves like a drop o’ light as the sun strikes on his wings against the dark of the hill behind. Well, I happened to look back over my shoulder to the other side of the valley where ’twas as black as black, and in the glance of my eyes, with the blue and red light snapping from ’em as it does sometimes when you blink, in that very moment of turning, I seed a passing of a many shadders.”

“Tree shadows?”

“Shadders of dreams, sonny, I tell you. Jes’ in a flash I seed ’em moving up, and then all was black groups of trees; but I knowed where that whisperin’ come from. Yes, a many shadders hurryin’ on up that valley with the cry of the ‘ghon-ya’ pealin’ out ahead. Well, I got outer that valley pretty quick, and were hurryin’ by the top of the krantz overlooking the big kloof when the ‘ghon-ya’ cried jes’ ahead o’ me. A locust! Lor’, sonny, right afore me there was a something shaddery—a darker patch on the blackness, standing on the brink of the krantz overlooking the deep kloof that lay below stretching towards the sea, and the ‘ghon-ya,’ loud, long, mournful as the solitary toll of the death-bell, went out on the air, an’ I jes’ went to the ground as if the bones had all been drawed out. Looking along the top, with my eyes to the light that was in the sky over the sea, I seed them shadders from the valley file down into the kloof. A many shadders, sonny, come out of the valley—passed by that dark patch, and jes’ floated down into the kloof—whispering as they went. What sort o’ shadders they were I couldn’t tell you, my lad; but they belong, sure enough, to the other world beyond the dark. Many a time I yeard them same things in the kloof, when the dead quiet has been broken by a movement in the air, and a sort o’ creepin’ sound ’sif somethin’ were peepin’ at you from behind a tree. You’ve felt it, too, of course. The dogs they know, ’cos they’re not so cock-sure as we are about knowin’ everything jes’ bekose we can make a cast-iron reaper.”

The ghon-ya from the darkness called again, as if the sorrows of the world were in the cry.

“A locust!” cried Abe scornfully; “that’s no locust. It’s calling the sperits of the woods together, and the ghostses of animiles—that’s what; and that’s why all the other noises is hushed.”

Chapter Eighteen.

Abe Pike and the Kaffir War.

“Were you ever in the wars, Abe?” I asked the old chap on one of my off-days, when I had called on him to go out after rhea-buck.

“Were I ever in the wars? Did I ever grow pumpkins? There’s some fellows go through life asking questions about things that’s as plain as plain—why, blow me, I’ve known ’em ask ef ’twdn’t be a fine day when there’s bin no rain for a month and not a stir o’ wind.”

“So you have been in the wars?”

Grunt.

“I suppose,” said I, unmoved by Abe’s indignation, “you never got into a fix—always kept with the rear column?”

“What, me! Jes’ you look here,” and cocking up his chin, he showed a long scar under his beard. “Assegai!” he said.

“Must have been a close shave!”

“’Twarnt no barber held that wepin I tell you, sonny. No, sir! I jes’ seed the whites of his eyes and the gleam of his teeth, and whizz!—whough!—the assegai darted like a serpent’s tongue. He was painted red, he were!”

“Who?”

“The Kaffir, you blind eyed calabash. It was in Blaauw krantz in ’45. You don’t remember those days, ’cos you weren’t born, but Blaauw krantz were jes’ where it is now, and the red Kaffirs had suddenly got back their old idea they could drive us into the sea. Wonderful how sot they are on getting us into the salt water; and that time they was partikler keen on making us take to the sea without so much as a plank. Of course we knew there was something in the wind. When Kaffirs mean to fight they don’t fire off blank cartridges in the papers; they jes’ keep dark, uncommon dark an’ sulky, but for all that they can’t keep down the human nature that’s in ’em, and they have a way of giving you the shoulder when you order them about that means mischief. When a Kaffir clicks at you with his tongue you don’t want him to tell you in plain words that he’s quaai and would like to belt you over the head. Well, I tell you, you dursen’t order a boy to step a yard but he’d click, an’ some of the chaps with families took the hint and shifted into Grahamstown; but, lor’ bless yer, the Government didn’t take any notice. Oh no; the Government knew the Kaffirs and it knew the whites, and it believed in the Kaffirs. Look here, sonny, Government’s a ass—alus was a ass, and alus will be a ass. Alus so darned cock-sure, and so blamed ignorant that any Kaffir chief could best it every time. You know, sonny, the chief he would jes’ come along—simple an’ humble—and pitch in a yarn about how he loved the ‘great white ox,’ how he wished to herd his cattle in peace, and how thankful he’d be if the great white chief would send him a little white chief to keep the wicked white men from his kraals. All he wanted was peace—since he had listened to the words of wisdom from the Government. Then the chief would say: ‘That is my speech,’ and the Government would up and pat him on the back; an’ when the farmers said the Kaffirs meant to fight, Government would tell ’em they was a passel of fools. Oh, I tell you, Government is vain as a boy in a new weskit, an’ as easily humbugged. Well, about 1845 Government was laced up and smoothed down by the chiefs, with their tongues in their cheeks, and on a sudden the war smoke rose on the frontier.”

“The war smoke!”

“Ay, bossie; the heaven-high columns of smoke going up blue and round in the still air, as a sign to the Kaffirs waiting silently in the bush and the kloofs. At the sign out they came, slipping from the bush paths stealthy as leopards on the trail, and one morning the hill-sides yonder were red, as though the aloes had blossomed.”

“What—with fire?”

“Neh! karel with red clay smeared thick over the black faces, and with the red blankets carried by the bearers. Then there was in-spanning of horses, hurrying of women after their children, and the trail of dust about each flying cart. The red Kaffirs! Ay, lad! many a mother an’ wife has gone white at times of peace at the sight of a Kaffir in his paint—squatting, maybe, like a tame dog at the back door, waiting for his women-folk in the kitchen to hand him out a bone—for in the smouldering eyes of him she can see the leaping flames of a burning homestead and assegais runnin’ red, and if it’s so in peace what must she feel when her roving eye, searching the veld for the little ones to bid them to breakfast, lights on the far-off streak on the border hills, and when her ear catches a murmur that is not from the sea—the murmur of fighting-men singing of death? The sun was level when it shone upon the red Kaffirs, and when the shadder was close up to my heels in the mid-day the country was empty of whites, except maybe a solitary cuss like me, hating to leave his home, and lurking in the bush close to his belongings.”

“And the cattle?”

“It’s the horned beasts that you think of—well, why not? they’re meat and drink and a roof over your head. A few there were who saved their herds, but the bulk were swept in the net of the robbers. There was not a many human fish caught in that net that time, ’cept old Dave Harkins, an’ his five sons who fell all in one spot by Palmiet Fontein fighting to the last grain o’ powder, and ole Sam Parkes. Poor ole Sam. He found religion, did ole Sam, and many the day I’ve a-harkened to him holdin’ forth on his stoep, where he would sit for the rheumatism kep’ him from moving. Well, ole Sam, when they told him that he must fly, he said, ‘Lift my chair to the stoep. The Kaffirs will not harm me.’ They placed him there with his face to the east, and there the Kaffirs found him. I passed the house the next day, and he was leanin’ back lookin’ so peaceful that I hailed him. But he were dead, sonny, with a gash in his heart. Ay, they struck him as he sat, but they left the house standing and when I peeped in at the window there was the table set with all the chiney in the house. The Kaffirs did that One on ’em had been about a white man’s house, and he showed his friends how the white man prepared his table. A little one’s vanity and the blood dropping from the assegai.”

“What were you doing all this time, Uncle Abe?”

“Shiverin’ and hidin’, sonny; for a party on ’em swooped down on my place led by a thunderin’ ole thief I had once lammed with a sjambok for stealin’ my sugar. There was a fine bedstead in the house and a whole shelf o’ crockery, for I had some idees then of marryin’, and, blow me, if they didn’t smash the lot, besides breaking all the winders and burning the thatched roof. Then they killed an ox, a fine rooi bonte, roasted him whole, and ate him—by gosh. After that they slept with their bellies full! Yes, they did that; slep’ with me a watching ’em from an ant bear hole. I nearly spiflicated ’em, but somehow I didn’t. Then they moved off all but three, including that ole thief, which gathered my cows an heifers an’ calves an’ oxen together, and druv ’em off. ’Twas like partin’ with my heart strings, and I followed ’em up. That evenin’ I druv the lot inter the big kloof.”

“You recaptured them?”

“I s’pose so, sonny!”

“And the three Kaffirs?”

“I speck they ate too much beef, sonny, I speck they did. Any way they died. They did so—and after I had druv the cattle into the kloof I sot off for Grahamstown, passing ole Sam Parkes on the way. I came pretty nigh close to parties o’ Kaffirs, but ’twas when I came to Blaauw krantz that I got the shivers. I were goin’ along mighty keerful, I tell you jes’ ’sif I were ‘still huntin’’ but ne’r a sound o’ a Kaffir I could hear. Well you know one side the road there’s a yellow bank with a bush on the top. I had turned a corner on the listen, with my eyes every way, when I caught the move of a insect, or something like that, on the left. Blow me, sonny, there was a big Kaffir standing agin’ the bank, all naked, but red with clay. What caught my eye was the roll of his eyes, for he were jes’ like a part of the wall. He’d been walking down the road when he must a’ yeard me comin’ for all I went so soft. My! I jes’ give a jerk o’ my head as he launched out with his assegai. Then I gave him a charge o’ buck-shot in the stummick and jumped back inter the bush on the lower side. I yeard a shout from other Kaffirs, and, you b’lieve me, I dodged through the bush like a blue-bok until I got right under the big krantz, where I crep’ inter a cave. I seed then the blood running down, and like a streak I were out o’ that cave inter a pool o’ water until I got under a thick ‘dry-my-throat’ bush where I hid. The Kaffirs they followed on the blood-spoor right up to the cave, but they missed me where I lay in the dark o’ the pool, an’ next evenin’ I were in Grahamstown, where the doctor stitched up the wound.”

“A very close call, Uncle.”

“Oh, I’ve been in many tight places, sonny—a many, an’ maybe I’ll tell you about ’em.”

Chapter Nineteen.

A Black Christmas.

“How is it you never married?” I asked of Abe on an evening after the mealie cobs had been shelled, and we were too dead tired to brush the husks from our hair.

“Me! Well, you see this yer cob. It’s worth nothin’, ’cos all the mealies been shelled off. That’s me—I’m a shelled cob, and wimmen folk isn’t got any use for that sort of bargain.”

“But you told me the other day that you were thinking of marriage once. That time, you know, when the Kaffirs smashed your furniture.”

“Jes’ so—the critturs. They broke a fine four-posted bed and a hull lot o’ chiney.”

“And the lady.”

“You see, bossie, she was gone on that four-poster and the chiney. ’Twasn’t me she was thinkin’ of nohow.”

“Nonsense, Abe; you’re too modest.”

“Well, she forgot me, an’ took up with a armchair an’ a copper kettle which belonged to young Buck Wittal, son to ole Bob. A armchair an’ a shiney kettle, that’s what cut me out, sonny; but Buck went up the gum ’cos she would have a swing lookin’-glass. That’s so! Wimmen is mighty keen on the look o’ things, an’ that kettle fetched her. Them was times!”

“Courting times?”

“Fighting times, sonny; all up an’ down the country, in an’ out the kloofs, an’ over the mountains, by gum. I tole you about that chief—how I spoored him a full forty mile from the Chumie after Black ’Xmas?”

“Black ’Xmas!”

“You mean by that raising o’ the voice you never yeard o’ Black Xmas! Well, well, the ignorance an’ the vanity o’ learnin’ which takes no account of the great happenings in your own country, and you come swaggerin’ about with your Greek turnips.”

“I assure you I never heard of Black ’Xmas.”

“Never yeard of the soldier settlers away up by the Chumie—them as were planted there by Sir Harry Smith—of their wives and children, making merry on Christmas Day, 1850—making merry with the old custom, and the sounds of the laughing going out into the dark kloof, where the Kaffirs crouched, eyeing them as they fingered their assegais. Lor’ love you, lad: when the poor little children were running at their games, and the women were talking over their washing up, and the men at their pipes in the quiet of the afternoon, the war shout broke suddenly from the wood. There was stabbing, and a blaze, a great gasp, and the life went out of them all that Christmas Day. That was Black Xmas—men, and women, and children, and dogs, and every crawlin’ crittur given to the assegai. I were on my way there after stray cattle, and I yeard the cry of a little child, sonny, and the sand went out o’ young Abe Pike that day. I seed it all—yes—lad, and I see it now in the nights, the stabbing of the women and little ones.”

“And what did you do, old man?”

“What did I do? I dunno, sonny—I dunno! I must a walked an’ walked all through the night, for the nex’ morning I were away beyond the Chumie in a deep kloof, without knowing how I came there. Then the cry of the little one went out o’ my ears and out of my eyes with the sight of them leapin’ devils about the burnin’ houses, an’ I saw the rifle in my hand—for ther’ came boomin’ through the trees the sound of a Kaffir singing from his chest. I found him in a clearin’, stampin’ with his feet and swingin’ his kerrie before the chief and his headmen seated all aroun’ against the trees, with their long pipes all agoin’. The blood was still caked on his arms, an’ I plunked him in the breast.”

“You shot him? Good old Abe!”

“It were a ole muzzle-loader—one smooth, one rifle—and I shifted, but it weren’t long afor’ they picked up my spoor, and in the fust rush I could hear the rattle of assegais as they follered. Then it was quiet in the kloof, an’ I knew what a animile must feel when the hunter’s after him, or the tiger’s tracking him down. Bymby I yeard the call of the bush-dove every side, and I gave the call too at a venture, keepin’ my eye on a dark spot where the last cry came from. Sure enough I seed the leaves tremble, and there was a show of red paint where the Kaffir stood. That were the bush-dove, and he called again; then he came steppin’ along to the fern chump where I were hid, movin’ like a shadder with the whites of his eyes showin’ as he glanced around. By gum, lad, I thought it was all over, but another dove called an’ he moved off. I yeard the calls growin’ softer an’ softer, and I made a move to slip away; but there’s no gettin’ to the bottom of a red Kaffir’s cuteness.”

“How is that?”

“Why, sonny; that chap never went off when he made as if he would. He jes’ slipped behind a tree, and when I ris my head out of them ferns he druv his assegai at me, and it clean pinned my left arm to my side. See, here’s the scar;” and the old man rolled back the sleeve of his worn shirt until a white scar was revealed on the fleshy part of the upper arm.

“I fetched a groan, and he sprang out to belt me over the head, but I kep’ my senses, an’ knocked the wind clear outer him with a straight thrust of the muzzle. As he stood gasping, I give him back his own assegai.”

“You killed him?”

“Maybe he died; but Kaffirs is tough, and at the thrust he gave his cry, standin’ there with his legs wide apart, afore he sank among the ferns. I turned an’ ran, keeping down the little stream till I come to a krantz, with the water slidin’ down, an’ I swung over, holdin’ fast to a monkey tow. I slid down fifty feet, and then let go, holdin’ the rifle high over head, and fell feet first inter a little round pool at the bottom. It was a chance, sonny, but I kep’ my bones sound and the powder dry. I did that. I tell you young Abe Pike was some pumpkins. Then I pushed on an’ on till I went over a ridge into another kloof, an’ through that to another kop, standing up above the wood in a mass of stone. I sat down in a cleft, and the weakness came on me from the loss of blood and the want of food. Well, I tell you, sonny, I fit ag’inst the weakness, an’ with a spread of shirt, holdin’ one end in my teeth, I bound up the wound after plugging it with dirt. Right away I looked over the country, an’ I see’d to the right the smoke rising and across a stretch of veld I seed a black patch movin’. ’Twere Kaffirs on the march, an’ following the directshun they were taking, I seed a white speck to the left; a farmhouse, sonny, with a thin trail of smoke going up from the one chimney.”

“The Kaffirs were on their way to sack the place.”

“They were that, and I set off to beat ’em. But look here, I said when I started talking, I was going to tell you how I trekked the Kosa chief, and here I been a’ spinnin’ on about another thing.”

“Did you get to the house first?”

“What—me! I did that, sonny. I got there fust, an’ there was nobody in—not a one though the pot was on the fire. I went off with the pot into a patch of mealies, and when the Kaffirs came up an’ smashed things I were eatin’ pap outer the pot, yes, that’s so.”

“And did they find you?” I ventured after a long pause.

“That pap were good, but it wanted salt—it did that. So long, sonny, so long,” and the old man moved off to bed.

Chapter Twenty.

Tracking the Kosa Chief.

“I tole you all about it, and, what’s more, I ain’t got no time to jaw along when that shed o’ mine wants mendin’,” and Abe resolutely re-filled his pipe, unheeding my request for the completion of his last yarn.

“Leave the shed alone. It will keep—besides, this is resting weather.”

“Sonny, listen to me. Restin’ weather’s been the ruin of this yer country. That so. When a man should span in and plough, when he should take the hoe and skoffel the lands, what does he do? Why up and say at the first touch of the warm wind, that it’s restin’ weather. I can’t stand such laziness, and I ast you, sonny, where’d I been to-day, if I’d taken notice of the weather?”

I glanced round at the neglected lands, at the solitary gum tree, at the old water barrel on its tree sledge, at the tumble-down shed, and shook my head, for there really was nothing to say.

Old Abe followed my look, and then shoved himself back with his heels into a breadth of shade.

“That’s it, my lad,” he said with a queer smile, “cast your eyes round and see what can be done by one man if his heart’s in his work. Forty years agone this yer land were wilderness, and now look at it, with that there shed, them pumpkin lands, and this yer tree standin’ up like the steeple of a church as a token of honest labour.”

“Wonderful!” I said.

“That it are. I watched that old gum grow since it were no higher than my knee. I watered it an’ tended it, an’ measured it by the buttons on my shirt till it topped my head, and now, blow me, you could send a hull regiment with the band in the shadder of it.”

“I suppose you have seen regiments on the march?”

“What, me? Well, now, I was tellin’ you of that time I give the slip to the Kaffirs beyond Chumie and took hiding in the mealie field. Well, that time I came on a regiment in Pluto’s Vale, when a Kaffir poked his assegai in the big drum, and the Colonel he give me a big knife for what I did.”

I said nothing about the shed or the resting weather, and Uncle Abe, sprawling in the shade, went on with his story.

“Yes, sonny, there I were in the mealies, and there were the Kaffirs about the house banging at the windows because there was nobody at home for ’em to kill. They were mostly young bucks, and they all jawed together, ’cept two or three who started singin’ about what big potatoes they was. Well, after knocking around an’ smashin’ things, they set off in a cluster anyhow, on the back trail. And as I watched ’em go, blow me ef one of them in the rear didn’t drop his assegai on puppose. On they went out o’ sight behind the bush, but Abe Pike he jest kep’ where he were. I tell you, Kaffirs is mighty stuck on their assegais, and bymby, sure enough, back came that chap lopin’ along. When he reached the house he shouted out to his friends that it was all right and he’d foller. Well, they gave him the answer back, saying they would go on. He were a young chief this, with an ivory ring round his wrist, and a feather sticking out behind his ear, and as springy on his feet as a young ram. I spotted him well, for I were wondering what his game were, and marked the look in his eyes, and the smooth sweep of his jaws. He picked up his wepin and then he giv’ a sharp look all roun’, and nex’ he went steppin’ roun’ the house with his head bent. I saw it then, sonny. He were lookin’ for spoor, and, by gum, he found it sooner you could snap your fingers. I yeard him give a grunt, and nex’ thing I see him sailin’ along over the veld with his head down on a trail quite away from that taken by his friends.”

“He was spooring the people who had escaped from the house?”

“Don’t jump over a gate when you can open it, bossie. I crep’ out of the mealies and cast round the house; but for all I’d seen where that young Kaffir went it were many minutes afore I saw the spoor—then it were as slight as a brush of a hare’s tail. But there it were—the spoor of a man in veldschoens. You know, there’s no heel to a veldschoen, and it leaves little sign; but this yer chap had a habit of stickin’ his toes into the ground, and here and there he had kicked up a tuft o’ grass. Well, I laid down to that spoor, marking the direction the Kaffir had taken, and went at a trot, thinking all the time it were mighty queer for one Kaffir to leave his friends. When I reached the wood it was easier going, for in the bush path the naked spoor of the chief was plain enough in the dust. The spoor led deeper into the wood, crossed a stream where the white man had drunk, for there was the print of his corduroys where he had knelt, and then climbed a hill, when I went slow. The darkness was coming on, and I reckoned that the chief couldn’t be but a mile ahead. Neither he nor me could spoor in the dark, so I guessed he would pull up, an’ I didn’t want to run in on his assegai. Turnin’ away from the trail I pegged out under a rock until the spreuws whistled before sun-up, when I crept once more on the trail. ’Twere very faint now, but bymby I come on fresh spoor—so fresh I jest squatted behind a tree. Then, after a time, I marked where this new sign entered the path, and follering it back came on the spot where the chief had slept. The beggar had turned back on his trail a matter o’ fifty paces, and if so be I’d follered him in the evening he’d a’ had me sure.”

“He was up to his work!”

“Him—I guess so, lad. He were a caution for cunnin’ and bush learnin’, were the chief.”

“What chief was he?”

“This ain’t the place to bring in his name, for I didn’t know him then. I tell you it was smart work tracking him through the woods, over the hills, inter the kloofs, but Abe Pike did it sure enough, and he tracked the white man, though he were half starved and lamed in the arm, by gosh. Many a time that day, when my back ached from the bending of it, and my stummick was jammed together for want of something to eat, many a time I thought of the three of us strung out in the dark woods like tigers on the scent. Hungry, by gum! I jest chewed leaves as I went along; and sore—thunder—I kin feel now the throbbing of the wound in my arm. But I kep’ on. I tell you, young Abe Pike was tough as foreslag, and he wern’t going to cave in while that red Kaffir boy was keepin’ up. The chap in the lead, the man in veldschoens who was escaping, must a been made o’ iron too, I reckon, for he only stopped once the second day, when he ate some bread. There was some crumbs on the yearth among the grass, with the ants over ’em where he’d sat and ate, and the dry skin from a piece o’ biltong. I took a chew o’ elephant leaves, and bymby in the afternoon I seed little balls of pith, which showed the Kaffir had cut off a insengi root to chew. The white man kep’ on for twenty miles, keeping to the woods all the time where he could, and the Kaffir kep’ on arter him, and Abe Pike he kep’ on arter the Kaffir. If it hadn’t a been for that insengi root I’d a lost the spoor clean, for there were a big stretch of rock veld where they passed over, and all I could follow was white balls of chewed root. I dunno how the Kaffir picked up the trail on that stretch. He must ha’ smelt it. There were a bit o’ hill to climb, and when I reached the top my head swam, an’ I pitched down like a log. When I opened my eyes it were dark, and my bad arm was doubled up.”

“You gave up?”

“Sonny; you didn’t know young Abe—no, you didn’t. But I did. And I tell you, for all his emptiness, he jes’ kep’ on. Yes, sir—he did that I said the darkness were down, but when I looked aroun’ I seed the glimmer o’ a spark down below, an’ I kep’ my eyes on it whiles I crawled down the steep of the hill to the kloof below. Things happen sometimes, sonny, in a way that makes you very quiet an’ thoughtful. A bird flew up—a grey-wing partridge, I guess, from the whirr—and, searchin’ around, I found its eggs. They put life into me, and I steadied up—but what’s all this I’m telling you about? There’s work to be done, and if you don’t stir ’twill be sun-down and too dark. As for me, I’m going to boil the kettle.”

“But you’ve not finished telling about the spooring.”

“Ah, well, it can wait, sonny; but it’s time the kettle were put on and the mealies roasted.”

Chapter Twenty One.

The Boom of the Drum.

“Oh, ghoisters!” said Abe, “there’s the blamed bung come outer the vaitje and not a drop of Dop left, and all the buchu collected for the soaking.”

“Do you soak the buchu in brandy?”

“The brandy brings out the goodness from the yerb, and I tell you a dose of it gets home every time. But what’s the good—the brandy’s gone, there’s not a tickey in the stocking, and not a man in the country would offer ole Abe Pike so much as half-a-pint—not a one. The old people’s gone and the new ones, blow me—the new ones drink cold tea.”

“What about the Kaffir chief you were following Abe?”

“I ain’t follering no Kaffir chief, not me—and look here sonny, you get along home, see, ’fore it gets dark.”

“I think I could spare a gallon of brown Cango, Abe, if you come over in the morning.”

“Cango, eh! Stay right here, sonny—I’ve marked down a fine porkipine—and we’ll hunt him to-night. In the morning I’ll go over with you, arter showing you something as’ll surprise you, I bet.”

“What’s that?”

“A horn-bill sitting on her nest in a hollow tree, and the entrance built up with mud, so she can’t get out, and the cats can’t git in, by gum, an’ the ole chap a feeding her. Lor’ love yer, there’s no matchin’ animiles an’ birds for cunnin’.”

“Yet I remember you saying that young chief was very cunning.”

“So he were; lad, he were born smart; an’ them gleamin’ eyes of his’n could read the writin’ on the ground, the signs of weather, and the ways of fightin’ men better’n you could read a big print book. That’s so. I tole you how I follered him, and how he follered a chap in veldschoens all the way from the Chumie. Well, in the dark of the second evenin’ I seed a red light, and were blunderin’ on towards it, being pretty well dazed from the hunger and weakness and pain o’ my bad arm, when somethin’ in the steady glow of it brought me up with a jerk. Says I, that fire’s been long lit, there’s nothin’ but coals blazing, and whoever lit it must feel safe. Says I, who can feel safe in this yer place? Why, a Kaffir. So I slowed down to a crawl, and blow me, when I got within hearin’ distance, I seed a man by the fire. Sonny, he were the man in veldschoens.”

“The white man the chief was after.”

“’Twas a blanged half-caste, lad, that’s what he were. I saw that in the fust look by the red dook he wore roun’ his greasy head, and by the spread of his flat nose, and the sight of him kept me still, I tell you. Half-castes is mean. And to think I’d been goin’ hungry to save a thing like that, and him a sitting there with his mouth all smeared with black coal from the bried meat he were eatin’. The smell of it came to me where I lay in the shadder, an’ I tell you it made me sick with longing for a bite, but I jes’ kept there sniffin’ till the faintness left me. Well, all ov a sudden I seed his jaws stop, and his eyes had that sort o’ fixed look which they has when a man’s listenin’. Then, without movin’ his body, he reached out for his gun. Yes, sonny, he reached out for his gun with his eyes starin’ straight for me, and I kivered him. While I was gettin’ ready to shoot, outer the darkness behin’ him there come a voice callin’ in greetin’, ‘Gumela vietu!’ I giv’ a start, but that ere half-caste he never stirred. The hand that was reachin’ out for his gun stopped, his jaws began to move, but his voice were a bit shaky when he said ‘Gumela inkose!’ and there was a sort o’ hunchin’ of his shoulders as tho’ he felt the assegai going in. For a spell there was silence, then from the wall o’ blackness there stepped to the fire the young chief hisself. I see the gleam o’ his ivory bracelet. With his toe he moved the gun away. Then he reached down, took up a length of roasting flesh, caught hold of a mouthful and saw off the chunk with the blade of his assegai ’twixt his hand and his lips. He jes’ ate and ate, an’ the smell o’ the meat made my stummick heave an’ grumble most horrible.”

“They were friends, then, after all?”

“You wait, sonny—jes’ keep still an’ wait. Arter a time they began to talk. Then it came out that the half-caste was on some mission from the head chief, and the young chap was mighty curious to know all about it; but the half-caste he were too slim. They jes’ paced roun’ each other like a couple o’ strange dogs. At the end the chief he up and say, ‘I know where you’re going.’ ‘Soh?’ said the half-caste. ‘Yes,’ said the chief, ‘you’re going to the white man’s camp to give the white chief news of our coming.’ Well, the half-caste he spat in the fire. ‘You are a boy,’ he said; ‘your place is at home with the women.’ ‘My place is with you,’ said the young chief, speaking soft, so that the other laughed in his throat, and called the chief quedin—‘boy’—again, which you know is the easiest word to rile a Kaffir. ‘I know, in your heart,’ said the boy, ‘you will sell us for the white man’s money.’ The half-caste spat again. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘the white men are in terror of you—a warrior like you would be worth a whole goat to them.’ ‘I am Sandili,’ said the lad, ‘son of the head chief, and one day the Amakosa will do my bidding.’ The half-caste giv’ a start; then he grew soft all of a sudden. ‘I was but trying you,’ he said. ‘Oh, chief, forget my words, and take the path with me in the morning. We will find out where the red-coats are, how many of them, and what road they take, so that we can report to your father, and plans can be made to trap them.’ I could hear the hiss of a snake in the man’s speech, sonny; and it struck me then he had, in his heart, determined to take the young chief Sandili to the English colonel.”

“It was really Sandili?”

“It were, an’ no mistake. I could a’ shot him then, an’ put a stop to two wars; but a good many things could be done, sonny, if only we could see ahead. Well, for all they’d made friends, those two didn’t trust one another—not a bit, not they—they jes’ sat there glancing acrost the coals, nodding, an’ wakin’ up with a start, and when one on ’em moved t’other would have his eyes wide open. Long before sun-up they moved off, an’ I crep’ outer my hidin’ place to the fire, where I found jes’ a coal-blackened strip o’ meat that jes’ made me hungrier than afore. Lor’ love you, a human is a helpless crittur. There was animiles about an’ birds, but as I darn’t use my gun I couldn’t get one. I cotched a salamander and ate him, an’ a land crab by the stream, an’ ate him—an’ I ate some berries, an’ a clutch o’ young birds from the nest, and I had a bathe—and took up the spoor of the two of ’em. ’Twas easier spoorin’ now, for they was going slow, and at mid-day I had ’em in sight, and so kep’ ’em till the last. In the afternoon we were climbing a ridge among the bushes, when boomin’ along there came the sound of music that brought the three of us to a dead stop. Never had young Abe yeard any sound like that afore or since ’cept once—it went through my worn-out body until I trembled like a leaf—yes, sonny—and the wet ran down my cheeks. ’Twas the soun’ of a big drum.”

“There’s not much music in that, Abe.”

“Isn’t there, sonny? Not when you’ve been three days in the woods, skeered of every shadder; not when you’ve yeard the war-cry of the red Kaffir; not when the cries of the little ones waitin’ for the assegai are ringin’ in yer head. Only the soun’ of a drum. One, big boomin’ note, rolling clear an’ far with a message of help. The tiredness an’ the sickness fell from me, sonny, an’ I could a’ run up that hill. The other two they crept up presently, and bymby I follered and hid behind ’em. They was crouchin’ by a rock, lookin’ down, and I forgot ’em in lookin’ at the picture. Far below in the valley was the white tents, an’ the cattle, an’ a line of red where the soldiers were drawn up, bayonets flashing. Then a troop of men on horseback rode down the line, and again the drums beat and the bugles rang out. It was a picture, sonny, that I could a’ looked at all day, but I were jes’ jerked out o’ my spell o’ dreamin’ by the chief talkin’.”

“‘Yoh,’ he said, ‘they are few, but what noise is that?’

“‘Tis their witch-music,’ said the half-caste; ‘’tis kep’ in a big box, and when the man hits the top of it with a stick the witch cries out what they should do.’ ‘Yoh!’ said the chief, ‘I will kill the box! They are great warriors, these, but they are foolish to wear a red so bright, that no man of them can hide.’ ‘They do not hide,’ said the half-caste, and he shifted his gun as he looked at the chief from the corner of his eyes. ‘Let us go.’ ‘Nay,’ said the chief, ‘it is a good sight this—stay a little while. Why do they move about so?’ ‘It’s their war-dance, and he on the white horse is the chief. At his words they turn and stop, break up, and come together.’ The young chief watched like a dog straining at the leash—and, by gum, he yeard the colonel’s commands, though never a sound reached me. A smart Kaffir can smell, and see, and hear like a animile. ‘Yoh!’ he said; ‘listen to his words!’—and in his excitement he raised his head, and the half-caste he stood back and lifted his gun. But he measured his distance to the camp, and he said, ‘Let us get nearer’—for why, the cuss wanted to be near help when he went for the chief. The chief looked round, and, ghoisters! he seed my face stickin’ outer a bush. He jumped to his feet and drew back his arm to fly the assegai, but the half-caste, after one glance at me, dropped his gun, seized the haft of the assegai with one hand and hooked his other arm round the chief’s neck. ‘It was a good word you spoke, quedin,’ he said, hissing as he struggled with the boy. ‘I will sell you to the white man.’ Seein’ how it was, I stepped out, and as I went up I seed the chief’s eyes rollin’, while his nostrils were blowed out like a horse. ‘I am a boy,’ he said; ‘I give in.’ The half-caste he laughed, turnin’ to me whiles he called out in Dutch that it was he who took the quedin prisoner, but he’d give me somethin’ if I helped him—the skunk, the blanged, mangy, yeller dog. Well, sonny, that Kaffir were shamming. Soon’s he give in, the half-caste he loosed his hold, when, with a grunt, the Kaffir yanked his assegai away, and with a wriggle o’ his naked body he got a length and struck the half-caste under the armpit. ‘Dog,’ he said, and druv’ his assegai in over the blade. The half-caste he jes’ went green. ‘Ek ’es dood,’ he said, lookin’ at me; then he sat down all of a heap. The young chief he stood there eyein’ me like a tiger, with his lips curled back and his chest heavin’. It was the first man he’d killed, I guess. Well, I lifted the gun, but the left hand gave out and the barrel wobbled—then, I dunno why, but I begin to laugh in a foolish way, an’ I kep’ on laughin’ whiles the Kaffir came crouchin’ up with his assegai held back. Nex’ thing I seed the half-caste roll over, and then sit up and point his gun at the boy’s back. ‘Pass op,’ I said ’mid the laughin’, while the sweat was drippin’ off my nose; and the chief he jumped aside as tho’ there was a snake in his way, and the bullet whizzed by him. The half-caste gave a groan and rolled over dead, out of hate and disappointment, ’cause he’d missed. That’s so. The chief he looked at me, an’ he looked at the soldiers who were hurrying up from down below, then he jes’ turned and walked away; yes, he jes’ walked away with his head up, and I could a’ shot him—for the laughin’ fit had passed away. But before he could ha’ killed me easy as sticking a pig, so I watched him go; an’ when he reached the bush he said, lookin’ over his shoulder, ‘Grow fat, man who laughs, an’ you will be food for my assegai.’ The cheek of these young bucks; but I reckon, sonny, if he’d a’ known I’d killed two of his men in the Chumie he wouldn’t a’ waited, for all I was like a shadder.”

“Is that all?” I said, when the old man paused.

“Well, it were enuff, wern’t it?”

“What did the Colonel say?”

“Oh, the Colonel! He said, ‘Who the devil are you, an’ where the blazes you come from?’ That’s what he said, that time; but ’twern’t long afore he changed the tune of his remarks. ‘Who the devil are you, and where the blazes you come from?’ he sed, sittin’ in his tent with his officers by him; an’ I jes’ reached over to a black square bottle that was ahind him and put the neck to my mouth.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Red Diamond.

Our big Christmas hunt was in full swing. In a smooth, well-carpeted glade, surrounded by forest trees and bush, the three tent wagons of the party were outspanned, drawn up in a hollow square which formed a capacious outside room, roofed in by a wide stretch of canvas. From the spreading branches of a yellow-wood hung the last day’s ‘bag,’ consisting of seven bushbucks, two duikers, three blaauwboks, one jackal, and a wild dog. Beyond the wagons was the servants’ fire, and the ‘boys’ themselves were ‘brying’ meat and talking, as only Kaffirs can talk when the day’s work is over and food is plentiful. In our ‘scherm’ one lantern swung from the centre pole, its light just sufficient to mark out the position of the brown demijohn on the box that served as a table; while across the breadth of darkness, where the ‘scherm’ opened to the wood, fireflies crossed and circled. The quiet of the night was over the bush, intensified by the deep undertone from the sea, and the brooding spirit in time reduced us to silence, even stilling Long Jim’s concertina, whose lugubrious notes had in the early hours of the evening wailed complainingly over “The Old Camp Ground,” “Poor Old Joe,” and other old favourites.

“I envy you fellows,” said Mr Strong, a crack shot from the town; “we don’t get such nights as this.”

“The boot’s on the other foot,” said Long Jim, making his instrument moan. “We’ve got poverty and pumpkins. You’ve got comfort and a pianny.” And he pumped out “Hard times come again no more” till a dog pointed its nose to the sky and howled in sympathy.

“There’s no chance of making a pile in the country,” said Amos Topper, who raised ten acres of “forage” regularly every season, and “rode” firewood for a living in the balance of the year. “’Tis all hard work and disappointment—ticks in the cattle and rust in the corn.”

“Soh!” said Abe Pike.

“Well; so it is!”

“Yet,” said Abe, “there’s chances.”

“Meanin’ pine-apples and bananas, which Dick Purdy made a fortune out of through growing them on the slope of a valley.”

“No; meanin’ diamonds.”

“There’s no diamonds down here.”

“Is that so? Well, I seed one right here, as big as a plum an’ as red as the eye of a coal gleamin’ outer the dark. Yes, sir.”

“Of course. It belonged to some digger from the field. For the matter of that, I’ve seen a whole bucketful of them, but then they was white, and the sight of ’em never made me any the richer.”

“Your head was allus too big for your hat, Amos. I expect that’s why there’s a hole in the crown of it for your hair to grow through—but it so happens this yer diamon’ I’m speakin’ of could ha’ been gathered by anyone who had the pluck to grab it.”

“Fire ahead, old man,” I said, seeing that Abe was preparing the way for a yarn.

“You’ve hit it, sonny,” said Abe solemnly; “it was fire-ahead, and no mistake. Lemme see; you know ole Harkins, the mad trader?”

“I remember him,” said Mr Strong, “a fine hunter in his youth, who returned from his last trip into the interior broken by the Zambesi fever. He had a suspicion that everyone was watching him, and I believe he died in the bush after leading the life of a hermit.”

“That’s him,” said Abe, pulling at his pipe until the glow lit up his lined face. “Yes, he went into the bush—and for three years he hunted for that same red diamond. Some people thought he was crazy—so he were crazy after a fortune, but lor’ bless yer, he’d got all his wits about him, and the fortune was big enough to buy up the whole side of this district—houses, land and stock—which is a big enough haul to turn the minds of most of us. One night, many years ago, I was still-huntin’ buffel by the Kowie bush, when from the thick of the wood I yeard a noise that sent me up a tree in a jif—a shrill sort o’ scream that I couldn’t fix—an’ whiles I was up the tree I seed ole Harkins slippin’ along through the moon light. He stood under the tree listenin’, and then he began talkin’ to hisself in jerks. ‘That’s him, I swear!’ he said, ‘and by God I’ll have him or die!’

“I jes’ kep’ quiet, for I tell you I didn’t like the look o’ him, with his long hair, and his lean fingers, and burnin’ eyes, but when he slipped along inter the wood like a shadder—for there the no boots on his feet—I skimmed down and let out after him with my heart in my mouth. I guess I hadn’t got much sense, and when I’d gone no more’n fifty paces inter the dark of the trees he grabbed me by the throat—afore I knew where he were. Oh, lor’! He jes’ grabbed me by the throat and shook me. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he hissed.

“Of course, I couldn’t speak, but I kicked and spluttered, and he loosened his hold. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he said, stickin’ his face close up. ‘I ain’t,’ I said; ‘I’m after buffel.’ ‘You yeard it,’ he hissed; ‘and you meant to rob me.’ Well, I laughed. The idea of robbing a scarecrow like him was too much, and I couldn’t help laughing, not though he looked as savage as a starved tiger. All the property he carried were a big-bore elephant gun, and I noticed the trigger were cocked. ‘Clear out,’ he said; ‘and if I see you after me I’ll kill you.’ By gum, he meant it, and I cleared out smart with him after me over the ridge, when once ag’in there came that strange cry from the woods, so near this time that I jumped inter a bush. Well, there were a smashin’ o’ trees, and afore I knew what was up a bit of the country rose up and came rolling down through the moonlight. Man alive—it were a thunderation bull elephant, and I slipped outer the bush and bolted for hum with Harkins’s yell a-ringing in my ears. Well, sir, whiles I was sittin’ in the room gettin’ back my wind, up along, in a flurry, came Sam Dale. ‘It’s true,’ said he, with a gasp, as he flung open the door. ‘What’s true?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I seed it. I were crossing the drift in Euphorby Valley when I yeard a splash in the pool, and out of the dark end beneath the krantz I seed a glow of red. First I thought it were a eye, but then I noted how it sparkled, and all in a breath it struck me it were ole Harkins’s diamond. Then there was a splash in the water, and I ran on here to ask you to help me kill the crittur.’ ‘Hol’ on,’ I said; ‘what the blazes are you talking about? I never yeard of any diamond, and I’m not killing any crittur to-night,’ I said. Well, Sam Dale he up and tole me how Harkins had courted his sister years before, and how his sister had told him, unbeknown to Harkins, how she had seen the big red diamond he kep’ in his pocket, which he had bought from a Kaffir chief. And Sam, he told me a most surprisin’ story, how Harkins being one night cornered by a animile in the wood had loaded his big rifle with that same diamond instead of a bullet—and how he had fired it into that animile—and how he went crazy in consequence. That’s what Sam tole me that very night arter I had met Harkins hisself, and it wern’t more’n a minute afore I seed that if there was any truth in that yarn the red diamon’ was in that bull elephant. Sam and me we talked and talked, until in the early morning we fixed up a company.”

“What did you do?”

“We made a company—that’s what—the Dale-Pike Diamon’ Mining Company, but lor’ bless yer, in the morning the whole thing seemed so blamed ridiklus that we guv up the idea. All the same, Sam he went down to Euphorby Drift, and I smoused over to the old spot where I seed the elephant, and blow me—there was ole Harkins flattened out Yes, sir. He were.”

“What ailed him?”

“He were dead—that’s all. That bull elephant must have charged him down soon’s I cleared off. We reckoned, Sam and me, that as Harkins were dead that diamon’ mine b’longed to us, and we started that company over again. It was quite reg’lar. Sam he studied up a prospectus, and fixed up a capital, he subscribin’ two trek oxen, an’ me a cow, a bull calf, and a pair o’ gobblers. The hull lot came to 16 pounds, and with that we laid in a stock o’ powder, lead, blankets, boots, coffee, sugar, tabak, an’ a demijohn o’ Cango. Then we shut up our homes, both on us being bachelors, and started after that ere blasted bull elephant.”

“I thought you were after a diamond?”

“You ain’t got any more thinking machine than a biled rabbit, Sam Topper. That bull elephant were the diamon’ mine, in course.”

“How was that?”

“Ain’t I tole you? Why, when Harkins made that mistake and fired off that diamon’ it went plump into the ole bull. I seed that as soon’s Sam Dale told me the yarn, and we started after that property of ourn. That was forty-five year ago, and I guess from the size of his right tusk, the left been broken off, he were then about one hundred years old. I tell you what, chaps, that diamon’s still knocking aroun’ in the Addo bush.”

“The company didn’t come into possession, then?” said Mr Strong.

“Well, do I look as if I had a fortune of one hundred and fifty thousand golding sovereigns, which we reckoned was the value of that stone? Not much! No, sir.”

“Well, did you ever see the diamond?”

“I’ll tell you. Sam and me we struck the spoor at Euphorby, follered it fifteen miles in an’ out of the Kowie bush, away over to the Kasouga, and ten miles to the Kareiga—in an’ out of the thickest bush—sleepin’ out o’ nights. Back ag’in to the Kowie bush, over into the Fish River, without settin’ eyes once on the blanged thing. One month we were on the spoor, and the food run out, so’s we’d got to raise more capital, which we riz by selling Sam’s plough and my harrow—the two of ’em bringing in twenty-five shillings. Then we ran ag’inst the mine after Sam had taken a horn o’ Cango—and his ribs were broken in. Yes, the fust thing we knowed one night thet bull charged us out of a patch of bush in the open. Well, I took Sam to a farmhouse, and picked up the spoor, and two nights after came on the bull standin’ in a vley on the flats over yonder. My! He were jes’ standing there shooting the water over his mountain-high body, with his big ears flapping, when he turned his head, and I seed that diamon’ shinin’ in his forehead like a blood-red star. I tell you that mine lit out a yell and came arter me like a rock hurled from the hilltop. The land was as flat as the palm of your hand, and the only thing was ter double. Well, I did that, and slipped into the vley, and the ole bull, arter ramping around, stood there on the brink listenin’, while his trunk went twistin’ about to catch my wind. He kep’ me there till the cold got into my bones, and then, when the dawn was breaking, off he made for the Kareiga again. Arter that Sam and me we called in fresh capital, an’ Jerry Wittal joined us with a piebald mare and twenty-five sheep. Part o’ the money was paid to mend Sam’s ribs, and then we went arter the ole bull ag’in. This time he went west, through the Addo and on to the Knysna. Six months we kep’ on arter him, sometimes he came arter us; and at last he smashed up the company one morning by takin’ us as we slep’. Yes, sir. That crittur, he waited till the cold of the mornin’, when we couldn’t see for the sleep, and he pounded Jerry into the groun’. He did that, and ef he hadn’t a screamed in his joy he might a done for us; but Sam and me, we dodged roun’ a tree an’ blazed inter him. Sam right there said the company must go inter liquidation, an’ he worked his way back home as a handy-man from farm to farm. Poor Sam! His nerves went, and in less than a year he was dead, sure enuf. Of course all this huntin’ got about, and a chap from Port Elizabeth said he would help me refloat the company; but when I giv’ him all the facts blow me if he didn’t try to ‘jump’ the claim.”

“How was that?”

“Why, he went off on the hunt with a couple o’ niggers, and afore I knowed about it he’d been out three days in the bush. It makes me laugh now. Wha’ yer think? I came across him without his gun, or his hat, or his kit, making tracks for home. He found the bull sure enough, but the bull chased him up a yellow-wood tree and kep’ him there one day and a night.”

“Did he see the diamond?”

“Oh, yes; he seed too much of it; but he didn’t want any more of that sort o’ minin’—and ’tweren’t long afore I chucked the job, too.”

“How was that?”

“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I tole you. At any rate it’s bedtime; and if you young ones don’t roost now you’ll never hold your guns straight in the mornin’. So long!”

Chapter Twenty Three.

Abe’s Diamond Mine.

We were still at the camp near the bush by the sea, and the week’s hunt was ended. The “boys” had gone off to a neighbouring kraal to dance and eat and drink throughout the night, and we were left in the great quiet of a South African evening. As usual, Long Jim had squeezed from his concertina all the melancholy airs he knew, and Amos Topper had trotted out all his well-worn arguments against the Ukolobola—the Kaffir system of selling girls into wedlock in exchange for cattle; a system which he warmly contended was the root of all the stock-thieving.

“A darned good system,” said Abe; “one that’s based on reason and justice; that’s so.”

“Hear the old boomer!” said Amos scornfully; “anyone would think he’d got a parcel o’ daughters to marry off fer cattle.”

“Go slow, Amos Topper, and maybe you won’t stumble. A good system, says I; and why? ’cos it’s lasted all these centuries—since and before Jacob he collected a heap o’ goats for his wife. See yer, when a white man marries a girl he don’t give nothin’ for her, but he asks her father how much he’s going to give the girl. That’s what a white man does, and lor’ lov’ yer, more often than not he swallows up all her money, and then beats her, the skunk. Now a black man is different. When he goes courtin’ he don’t ask the father how much the girl’s goin’ to bring to the hut—not he. What he does is to ask the father how much he wants for the girl. ‘Five cows,’ says the father ‘for the girl is nice an’ fat.’ Well, the young buck he’s got to get them five cows, and if he takes one outer a white man’s kraal that’s due to his impatience—it don’t prove the system is wrong. Well, the five cows is paid over, an’ the girl goes to the young buck. As usual, the pair has children—and the cows has calves. Maybe the husband beats his wife. What then; why, sir, the wife takes her children and goes back to her father. ‘I’ve come back,’ she says, ‘and I’m going to live on them cows and calves.’ The father he can’t say nothin’; ’cos why, ’cos he took those same cows in trust for his daughter ’gainst she should come, back to him on account of her husband’s bad treatment. That’s so. The Ukolobola is better’n a magistrate for keeping the peace ’twixt husband and wife. That’s why I say ’tis a good system, an’ a just system.”

“’Tis well known,” said Amos, “that Abe Pike’s got no cause to kick against Kaffir customs, because he keeps no cattle worth havin’—nor nothin’ else, for that matter.”

“By the way, Uncle Abe,” I said quickly, to prevent the coming storm; “you promised to tell us how it was you gave over searching for that diamond mine.”

“Meaning that bull elephant,” said Amos Topper, still aggressively; “and I do say this, of all the yarns I heard there’s none to beat that for downright contrariness to what is reasonable. Who ever heard of a bull elephant rampaging round with a red diamond stuck in his forehead?”

“Humph!” grunted Abe. “If we was to believe nothin’ you never yeard on we’d be a pack o’ blamed jackasses, and no mistake. Now, I tell you that same elephant is a-tramping around now over yonder in the Addo bush, with that same red diamond a-gleamin’ in his forehead, if so be the hide ain’t growed over it.”

“Why don’t you get a permit from Government and shoot him, then!”

“Not me: not Abe Pike. Oh, no! I tole you how he flattened out ole Harkins, an’ stove in my partner’s ribs, an’ laid out another chap what j’ined the company with a yeller horse, an’ skeered off that Port Elizabeth fellow what tried to ‘jump’ my claim. Well, that showed this yer walkin’ diamond mine were dangerous, but, lor’ bless yer, the schreik he gave me was somethin’ that sent the everlastin’ shivers up an’ down my backbone. I’ll tell you how ’twas. When the company was busted up I was the only chap what held shares, an’ as there was no market for ’em I calkerlated to do the prospectin’ myself. So I went on a reg’lar expedition into the bush with a new castin’ o’ bullets, a horn o’ powder, a tin box o’ caps—them being muzzle-loading days—an’ a kit o’ one sheepskin kaross, with a roll o’ tobacco, five pounds o’ coffee, an’ sugar, an’ as much Boer meal as I could buy, with a pot an’ cometje. I reckoned to shoot my own meat an’ pick up berries, besides gettin’ a square meal at a farmhouse now an’ ag’in. So I sot out into the Addo, an’ gettin’ to the middle of it, planted my kit in a holler tree. That was a Sunday. Then I scouted aroun’. Monday I seed nothin’. Tuesday I came on a family party o’ two tigers an’ their cubs. The ole woman, steppin’ on her toes, marched me off the premises, an’ I darsn’t shoot for fear o’ skeerin’ the elephant. I had to march back’ards, an’ the thorns they jest had a picnic with my shirt, I tell you; an’ I got sich a cramp in my stummick that I couldn’t hunt any more that day. Wednesday I came on elephant spoor—fresh spoor—and follered it for four hours without ever seein’ a patch o’ the animile. Thursday I came on spoor ag’in within twenty yards o’ where I camped. Yes, sirree; that crittur had come up as near as that, and he’d stood there for a long time, maybe watchin’ me. Well, I lit out on the tracks and follered ’em in an’ out an’ roun’ about all through the mornin’ into the afternoon, the tracks keeping so fresh that I kep’ on with the trigger at full cock. In the evenin’ the spoor led me right back to my holler tree, and blow me if that crittur hadn’t been overhauling my goods. Yes, that’s so. The kettle it were hung twenty feet from the ground. The kaross it were peppered all over with holes, where he’d drove his tusk through. The Boer meal were all eaten up, except for a sprinkle here and there; and the tobacco were chewed up and spat out. I dried it and smoked it, and it had a flavour of boots most terrible. Well, I tell you, this made me quei, but when I seed, arter looking more carefully, that this yer fool elephant were my diamon’ mine itself I jes’ picked up. ’Cos, what’s the loss of a few shillin’s worth of things when that diamon’ ’ud bring in enough to buy up a whole street full o’ grocers’ shops.”

“How did you know it was the elephant you wanted?”

“How did I know! ’Cos I seed, that’s how, by the size of his hoofs and the plain writin’ that he’d only one tusk, same as my bull. That’s how! Friday I up and follered ag’in afore sunrise, and I tell yer I hadn’t gone mor’n half-an-hour before I diskivered that he were follerin’ me. Yes. I were standin’ to listen, and I yeard the rumbling of his stummick. I yeard it plain—and jes’ crawled along so’s not to crush so much as a dry leaf. I yeard that rumble ag’in—but blow me if I could see him, an’ I crawled an’ crawled, poking the big gun afore till the sweat it run down my back. There was the spoor and there was the rumble, but—there was no elephant. I began to feel shivery, and looked over my shoulder like a man does in the dark, and—by gosh!—I seed that red diamon’ gleamin’ out of the leaves behind me. An’ jes’ below it and on each side were two other gleamin’ objects—the eyes of the bull hisself. Well, he giv’ a scream, I rolled over—an’ the next I yeard he were thundering by, smashing down the trees and yelling out most horrible. Abe Pike didn’t stop there, I tell you. He jest sneaked off, and when he yeard the bull stand—which was plain to hear from the stillness—Abe he stopped to. I did that.”

“Why didn’t you go back and shoot him?”

“Sonny, you never had a railway engine runnin’ arter you, did you? Well, you try, and then settle with yourself whether your nerves would be worth much for a spell. No, sir; I didn’t go back to shoot him, but I found the biggest yellow-wood and I climbed up. That’s what I did, and that bull he found out. Yes, sir, he picked up my scent and he tree’d me. But, by gum, d’ye think he’d show hisself? No, gentlemen, he jes’ kep’ away in the thick o’ the bush, goin’ roun’ and roun’ an’ stopping sometimes for a blow. Once I saw the sparkle of the diamon’, when he was doin’ a spell o’ listenin’ and watchin’, and I pulled straight at it. I hit him hard, the ole cuss, an’ he fetched a yell an’ went smashin’ off. The sound o’ him runnin’ away did me good. I loaded up and picked up the blood-trail, and was goin’ so hot on that that I’m blowed if I didn’t a’most run inter him. I were slippin’ along, and from the corner of my eye I saw the point of his tusk on my left. The ole chap had turned on his spoor; but his tusk saved me, for I dodged roun’ a big tree and brought the gun up. D’ye think he’d charge? He jes’ slipped back by inches and stole away as silent as a hare, whiles I had my eyes gummed on the thick cover where he’d stood. He jes’ slipped away and made a circle to come on me from the rear. He did that, and if I hadn’t edged away to see better inter the cover he’d a nabbed me—for bymby I saw he’d gone, and on follering on the spoor I seed where he’d turned back. I tell you that gave me the creeps, and I made off for a small krantz near by where there’s a stream. I crawled inter a cave there and went off ter sleep, because of the tiredness in my bones; and Saturday mornin’ I woke up hungry an’ stiff in the j’ints, and I laid off for the camp. Blow me, if that blamed bull hadn’t been there ag’in. The kettle were clean gone this time, and all the other things was smashed to nothing—so there wasn’t a smell, let ’lone a mouthful. I were that savage I jes’ went hot-foot on the old boomer’s spoor ag’in, an’ this time he were travellin’. He went straight on for fifteen miles, over the ridge, inter a deep kloof—where he laid in grub—and then set off, nose on, for another five mile towards Alicedale, where he had a bathe in a pool. All this time I hadn’t seen even the flap of his ears, and I were still on his spoor, when I just flung myself inter a hump o’ grass and chawed on to a stick o’ biltong. Then I went to sleep, ’cos I couldn’t keep my eyes skinned, but the morning cold woke me in the small hours, and the fust thing I seed were a blazing eye looking at me outer the dark. It sparkled and flickered and blinked, with the red heart of it contractin’ an’ expandin’. In the drowsiness I lay there, thinkin’ ’twas the mornin’ star, when I yeard the rumble of a elephant’s inside, an’ I knew that ole bull were a standing over me; maybe had been standin’ there for hours waitin’ for me to wake so’s he could enjoy seein’ me shake.

“Afraid! Well, I think so. And the shakes went scooting up an’ down my backbone, an’ my heart nearly stopped and I could skasely breathe. Then I felt about for my gun with one hand, then with the other, and then with each foot; but, by gosh! the wepin weren’t there, an’ the cole chills were chasing each other up an’ down my bones, an’ the ole bull laafed in his stummick, while that busted red diamond glowered at me. I thought o’ poor ole Harkins flattened out, an’ I jest pulled the plug outer the powder-horn, then I got out the flint an’ steel, an’ lay there watching the outline of the ole cuss come clearer an’ clearer out of the darkness an’ saw the shine of his wicked little eyes. He laafed in his stummick ag’in, and the coil of his trunk came out. I got the flint ready over the powder, and the stir of my body made him suspicious. His big ears went out like sails, and he made a step forrard. Then I struck with the steel, an’ turned over on my back. He brought his trunk down ‘ker—whack,’ on my sitting place, rolling me over an’ over—and when I rubbed the dust outer my eyes I yeard him smashin’ through the trees. The puff and flame of the powder must ha’ skeered him bad, but I didn’t wait beyond a second to search for my gun, and I seed the stock one side of a tree and the barrel bent up a yard away. He had moved it away, and were waitin’ for me to wake. Then I lit out for the water an’ hid away. That was Saturday. On Sunday I took the back tracks, without a wepin or anythin’, and blow me ef that bull didn’t reg’lar hunt me. He did that, an’ in the afternoon he caught me up and druv me inter a big tree. I jes’ managed to reach the first bough when, ker-blunk, he came up ag’inst it an’ nearly shook me off. By gum! the way that bull went on was a caution. He let off steam through his nose, stamped his feet, dug his tusk in the ground, twisted his little tail, and butted that tree till its roots heaved up the ground. In his walk he wore down a circle as big as a cattle kraal, smashin’ all the trees down, and trampling the leaves and branches and trunks inter a mass. And every now and then he’d wheel round and come smash ag’inst my tree till he started the wound in his forehead where my bullet struck, an’ the blood poured down his face. I never seed such wickedness an’ temper, never, and I crawled up to the top branch, for the sight of him made me queer. All through that Sunday afternoon he kep’ up that smash-jamble, an’ in the night he fetched up some water outer his stummick an’ washed his face; then, with that diamon’ shinin’ red outer the dark, he stood there, still as a rock, keeping guard. That night I went empty in my head, an’ got back my senses in starts when I were slippin’. In the mornin’ I jest gave him my trousers.

“It was a inspiration, that’s what. A flash came inter my brain from the blue sky, an’ I gave him my trousers. Lor’, the scream he gave when he fell on ’em, trampled ’em, knelt on ’em, jabbed his tusk inter ’em, and then danced ’em outer sight through the mass o’ leaves into the yearth beneath. Then he kep’ on going away and comin’ back with a rush, till I got giddy, and fin’ly jest slithered to the ground. That time he didn’t come back, and I krept away outer the Addo bush, living on roots and leaves like a animile. That’s so. I got on a Wednesday to a Kaffir clearing, most like a wild beast, all kivered with ticks and sores.”

“And what became of the diamond?”

“Well, the Abe Pike Diamon’ Mining Company went to smash. That diamond’s still in the Addo bush, and if any o’ you would like to float the company I’m not sure but I wouldn’t jine you again. I guess that ole bull’s a hundred an’ fifty years old, an’ maybe he’s not so blamed active. So long!”

Chapter Twenty Four.

How Abe lost his Water Barrel.

Abe Pike was laying a new floor to his shed. He had at last, after many years, brought that wonderful structure to some semblance of a covered shelter, and now he was stamping down the red earth taken from ant-hills. This earth makes a firm floor, as it binds well and grows harder from use.

“Yes, sonny,” said the old man, “when animiles or insecks take a work in hand they do it better’n men. See this yer earth. Well, every grain of it’s been worked up by the jaws of a ant, and covered with a nateral mortar. It’s been all milled month in and month out, mostly after a fall o’ rain, each tiny pellet mined out o’ the smoking ground and carried by the little chaps way up the tunnels out inter the sunlight and glued to its place on the risin’ mound. An’ in the buildin’ of the dome them critturs don’t forget the chopped straw, and when they’ve carried their temple high above the groun’ they don’t forget, too, to narrow the circle till they come to the finishin’ peak. Yes, sir, I tell you, there’s more wonder in one of em ord’nary ant-hills than there is in the biggest cathedral ever built, an’ yet here I be spreading the remains of such works over the floor of this yer shed.”

“But ants always keep to the same designs, Abe.”

“Not they. In diffrent countries they have diffrent kinds o’ hills; but when they find the sort that’s best fitted for the climate they sticks to it, which is morn men do. No, sonny; the animiles an’ the insecks know what they start out to learn without goin’ to school for sixteen years, same as some young ones do that I know of, and then can’t tell a field of wheat from a barley crop. As for me, I’ve had no schooling; but I know how to do what I want to do.”

“How long have you been over this shed, Abe?”

“Lemme see. I laid the fust pole at the time of the big drought, maybe thirty years ago.”

“And when it’s finished?”

“Finished!” Abe left off stamping the red earth, and looked around with a strange expression. “I ain’t goin’ to finish it, sonny; no, what’s the use? When I begun that shed Abe Pike were a young man, and I seed under the roof of it when the work were done sacks o’ yellow wheat, piled up. The lands were young, I had a team o’ young oxen, there were young cows in the kraal, a good flock o’ sheep, an’ a crop of hopes in my head. That were thirty years ago, sonny, an’ the shed ain’t finished yet, and the cows is dead, the lands are poor, and Abe Pike don’t hope no more. I ain’t goin’ to finish this yer shed, not me; it’s all that holds me together. There’s a man buried in this yer shed.”

“What!”

“Yes, lad, that’s so. Young Abe is here—in the four corners, and under the ground, an’ in the roof, and the sides. Yes, young Abe hisself, an’ his sorrows, an’ his hopes, an’ his pride and laziness. I’ve worked him in these thirty years in loneliness, with the sound of the sea groanin’ in the air, an’ the hills lookin’ on, and the sky stretched abuv, workin’ him in slowly with nery an eye to watch, and what’s lef of him is this yer sun-dried karkus that’s standing afore you. That’s all.”

Abe Pike straightened himself and looked round at the drab veld, the grey hills, and the dark of the kloof where the forest trees were massed. Then he rested his hands on the handle of his stamper, and, so standing, gazed with a vacant expression before him, and watching him I seemed to see a long line of shadowy reflections of him, standing so with the same fixed look fastened on the empty veld. The hollow booming of the great waves solemnly breaking in endless succession alone broke the heavy silence.

“Did ever anything come out of the sea, Abe?” I asked, idly, as I gazed, like him, in a sort of spell, scarcely knowing what I meant.

“A many things,” said he, without moving. “Yes, sonny,” he continued, after a long pause; “a many, many things. When the evenin’ wind comes off the sea, and I been a-sittin’ outside the door, listenin’ to the waves and the different voices of ’em all blendin’, with now and ag’in a mighty bass note from the biggest of the seven brothers, as he rolled his shining crest—I’ve seed things come over the randt yonder, seed ’em come an’ melt away, often an’ often.”

“What things?”

“All manner o’ things, sonny; but I allow you won’t see ’em, as you ain’t had the trainin’. Night after night, year in year out, you must sit alone listenin’ in the stillness, and maybe you’ll year the voices I year an’ see what I see. But you couldn’t go through it—no, sonny! I bin frightened many a time so that I’ve got up and fetched the gun to make a noise—yes, that’s so; for there’s some things you can’t see, only feel, an’ they hard to bear. I seed a little boy once. Maybe he was young Abe Pike afore I knew him. A little chap with brown legs an’ curly hair an’ big eyes. He came drifting over the randt outer the sea, when its waves was jes’ murmuring sof and low, and I yeard him laugh as I watched him come, thinking he were a wild fowl. He lighted over there where that railed-in moss is a-growin’—see how green it is in the dry of the yearth. That’s where his little naked feet touched the ground, and where he stood eyeing me with his big eyes and a sort o’ dew on his forehead where the curls came down. Then he laughed, and with his head on one side he came up to my knee an’ looked up at me. Yes, a little chap; an’ he came outer the sea to ole Abe Pike, sitting lonely out there on the door-step. Maybe if I’d a married I might a’ had a son like that, for he seemed to b’long to me, as he eyed me with a smile. Only onct he came, only onct; but, sonny, I feel the touch of his hands now, an’ by that touch I know I will meet him ag’in. He may a bin young Abe afore I knew him come back to see what I’d made o’ him, an’ but for the smile on his face I’d think he were grieved to see what a blamed failure I’d made outer him. Many a time I watched for him. Yes, sonny; I’ve sat in the quiet of the afternoon, listenin’ to the sea, and when I year the murmuring same as then I look for that little chap to come floatin’ up over the randt, an’ I keep the moss there wet when I have to go without water to drink in the drought. You ain’t laughing?”

“No, Abe, no. One of these wretched flies has got into my eye.”

“I made a boat for the little chap, ’gainst he came again, and a fishin’ line, and a reed pipe. We could ’a played many games together, him and me, but he only came onct.” Abe turned his face to the sea and stared wistfully. He was not yarning now, and I wondered at him.

“Yes,” he said; “I could a showed him many a bird’s nest if he’d a come, but maybe the white woman has kep’ him away. She’s bin here off an’ on for maybe six years. She came outer the sea, too, footin’ her way through the air—comin’ like a cloud or one o’ these big sea-birds that sails on the wind without a flap of his long, narrer wings. White, my sonny!—I never seed anythin’ so white, not even the sails o’ a ship with the sun on, or the inside o’ one o’ them shells folk use for tooth powder. She comes on me all o’ a sudden, and all I see is the gleam o’ her eyes—then she’s gone, leavin’ me here with my heart beatin’. Maybe she looks after the little ones, for when she comes there’s a queer noise in the waves over yonder ’s if a heap o’ girls were at play. Oh, yes; many things come outer the sea besides fish an’ otter an’ sich like—many things, sonny; an’ when I’m buildin’ this yer shed I stop workin’ to look for their comin’. Of late I bin expectin’ somethin’ mor’n ord’nary, but it ain’t come. Yes, I bin waitin’ for that little chap to take me by the hand. Got any tabak?”

I handed over the pouch, and saw that Abe had come out of the spell that had been on him.

“That water bar’l o’ mine’s all broken up.”

“How was that?”

“I’ll tell you how it happened. The dry weather druv the field-rats to the bar’l for water, which they fetched out by dipping their tails in. Many a time I seed ’em at it, an’ it weren’t long before a ringhals spotted the performance; so what’s he do but get inter the water, tail fust, through the bung, and watch for the rats to come an’ drink. My! He guv me a schreik when I went for a drink an’ saw his eyes gleamin’ up outer the green bough I poked in the hole to cool the water an’ prevent it shakin’ out. I lef him there, for I couldn’t see how to fetch him out; but, whiles I were sittin’ quiet in the evenin’, waitin’ for him to crawl out, up came along a percession of rats, with a ole grey-whiskered chap leading. He took a look at me, movin’ his nose, but I kep’ still, and he reared hisself against the bar’l. Next rat he run up, and the next over the two of ’em, till the third got over the swell of the bar’l and scooted to the bung-hole, backed round and popped in his tail, unsuspicious of that vicious crittur inside. Nex’ minit that rat were hollering out blue murder, for the snake grabbed him by the tail, and the other rats, they jes’ lit out for hum. Well, that snake he let go, but the rat he jes’ curled up and fell down in a kickin’ fit. Then the ringhals crawled out—the ugly five feet length o’ livin’ death—and there and then gorged the rat. Well, I let him be. Snakes is bad, and rats is bad. I let him be, and three days arter there were the blamed ringhals in my bar’l again. Blow me, if the same performance didn’t happen over ag’in, and some days arter I seed that partickler tribe o’ rats was gettin’ smaller, and, believe me, sonny, that ringhals had guv the news to another snake, for one evenin’ I seed two o’ their wicked-lookin’ heads jes’ inside the bung on the twigs. I were watchin’ for the tragedy—same as us’al—when—same as us’al—up come that ole grey chap on his own hook. He came to the bar’l, and sat up on his behind legs like a hare, twiddling his moustaches and twisting his nose. Then he backed off, and give a whopping spring, which landed him on a swell of the bar’l. Well, he weren’t takin’ any water, he weren’t; oh, no! He jes’ walked on his hind legs and took a peep inter the bung-hole. I guess he seed something, for he turned a back sumersault, jes’ as a vicious head came with a hiss at him. Well, I tell you that ole chap he scooted off, squeaking like a forty-shillin’ kettle. I sat there laughin’ at the skeer of that ’ere rat, but, by gum! I soon dropped grinnin’, for up along came the ole feller ag’in with a ’ole lot o’ rats behind him. When they drew near he gave them the word to stop, whiles he examined the bar’l all round. Then he spoke a few words, and the entire gang they went to the lower side of the bar’l and began to scratch away the yearth. Yes, sir, that’s what they done. They scratched away the yearth. Then the ole chap guv another word, an’ they got roun’ on the top side o’ the bar’l. Then they begun to shuv.”

“Nonsense!”

“I tell you; them rats they jist put their backs ag’in the bar’l and shuved for all they were worth; but ’twarn’t no go. They was too light. D’ye think they guv up the job—not they! The ole chap led ’em roun’ the bottom side, and they set to scraping more yearth away till the bar’l were almost undermined. Then roun’ they came ag’in, all squeaking, and one of the snakes popped his head out ter see what the noise were about. Nex’ minute he’d a’ bin among ’em, but the ’ole parcel o’ rats, maybe one hundred, guv another mighty shuv, and ’fore I could start up to prevent it that bar’l gave a list over, and then started. Once it started it jes’ flew down the slope, and went to pieces at the bottom with a smash. The snake that were hangin’ out were flattened dead, and the way them rats fell on his body were a caution. They were tearin’ it to pieces when, bilin’ with rage an’ hissin’ most furious, up came the other riptile. The rats then scooted—that’s so!”

Chapter Twenty Five.

Abe Pike Scouting.

“Yes!” said Abe, one afternoon, after he had been helping threshin’ wheat; “these newfangled machines bin smashing up all the good old customs that were the salt of country life. This yer thresher of yours may get through the sheaves with a lot of dust an’ rattle an’ smoke, but give me the old floor, an’ the oxen tramping out the ear, an’ the neighbours coming to the supper. Oh, yes! the old customs they brought the people together and made ’em soshiable and talk. Lor’ bless you, there ain’t no talking nowadays—only grunting.”

“Is that so?” said I, as I brushed the dust from my eyes.

“It are. No one talks now, ’cos of these yer machines, which does everything. Why, blow me! you can shoot a man with these new guns without ever seeing him.”

“I don’t know that it is any more satisfaction for the man shot to die with the knowledge that he knows who shot him.”

“Well, I do know. Take these yer talking machines I year on. What’s the good squeaking through a machine to a man, or maybe a girl, in the nex’ street when you can’t see the eyes of her, or the shape of her lips, or the expression, without which talking’s no account. Look here, sonny, you listen to what I tell you; these yer machines goin’ to turn out people same as pins, all o’ one pattern.”

“You’re a great talker yourself, Abe?”

“I’m not talking when I ain’t got nothin’ to say. When I seed the Colonel of the 94th up by Pluto’s Vale—‘Who the blazes are you,’ he said, ‘and where the devil you come from?’—I weren’t saying much, but I took a pull at his black bottle. He were one of the ole sort were the Colonel—grey an’ peppery, an’ stiff in the upper lip ’s if his face bin fixed in a iron mask. That’s the sort of man he were. ‘The Kaffirs is laying a trap for you,’ I said to him. ‘They darn’t do it,’ he said. ‘Lay a trap for the 94th! I never yeard o’ sich blamed impertinence,’ he said, twisting his grey moustaches, an’ glaring at me’s if I’d insulted him. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘if yure too proud to take advice, go an’ walk inter the trap like a blunderin’ porkipine, an’ you’ll get stuck full o’ assegais,’ I said. ‘You’re too free with your tongue,’ he said, gettin’ red in the face; so I walked out, but bymby he came over to where I sot by the fire, an’ he sot down ’longside o’ me. He talked an’ I ate, but at last he up an’ came to the point. ‘Can you scout?’ he said. ‘Mejum,’ says I. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a mejum scout with me. What I want is a fust-class scout.’ Well, sonny, I jes’ lit my pipe and took a puff. He looked at me under his eyebrows. ‘My scout tells me the Kaffirs have retreated,’ he said. ‘Soh!’ says I, and went on smoking. ‘Yes,’ says he, gettin’ angry aller a sudden, ‘and you’ve been giving me false news for the sake of getting a reward.’ Well, I jes’ pulled up my sleeve and showed him where I’d been stabbed. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, and riz up to go back to his tent. ‘Colonel,’ says I, laying hold of his sash, ‘if you want me to scout I’ll scout, and you can send a man along with me.’ ‘Leave to-morrer,’ he said, ‘if you feel well enough;’ and he marched off jes’ as stiff an’ unconcerned ’s if he’d asked me to supper. Soon after a young chap came up to my fire. ‘I’ve received orders to go on scout duty with you,’ he said, eyeing me up an’ down ’s if I’d been some kur’ous kind o’ inseck. ‘When do we start?’ says I. ‘Oh, furst thing in the morning, if you’re awake.’ ‘Oh!’ says I, ‘so’s the Kaffirs can see us?’ ‘There ain’t no Kaffirs,’ says he; ‘’t any rate I ain’t seen any.’ ‘I’m startin’ at midnight,’ I says, and with that turned over to sleep. Well, at midnight I woke up and prepared to leave, thinking that young fellow wouldn’t be about. But, blow me, there he were, sitting by the fire watching me. ‘I’m ready,’ he said, standin’ up. ‘What for?’ ‘Why, to scout, of course’ ‘Orright,’ says I; ‘take off that sword then, and that white hat, and that red coat. You ain’t anxious for the Kaffirs to see us furst, are you?’ He jes’ opened his mouth to cheek me; then he ran off, and bymby he came back without them things, with a grey shirt and soft hat. ‘Is that right?’ he said, fetching a grin. I jes’ nodded, an’ off we stepped inter the dark of the night. Slipping by the sentries without givin’ ’em good evenin’, we marched along outer the side of the valley where the camp were pitched to where it narrowed into a poort, between big krantzes, with a kloof running down on the left side. By sunrise we were on the divide between the poort and the nex’ valley, jest about where the road led over the neck ahead of the troops. We took cover and looked around. ‘There’s a Kaffir,’ said I, ‘over yonder on that rock above the far krantz, watching the camp.’ The young chap fetched a laugh. ‘That Kaffir,’ said he, ‘is a vidette, and there’s a whole string of ’em on the heights. None of the enemy can get inter the poort without being seen.’ Well, this was up against me, an’ I kep’ quiet, looking away down inter the next valley where the road track twisted along the steep aside of the thick bush. ‘That’s the place for an ambush,’ said the young chap, ‘down in that ravine. If there are any Kaffirs about they will be there. Let us go down.’ I jes’ sot there watchin’, an’ bymby he began to fidget; then he up an’ tole me that if I would not scout, he would. ‘There’s no Kaffirs in the far valley,’ I said. ‘I’m tired of you,’ he said, in one o’ them sort o’ drawn tones that always reminds me o’ a sword glinting out o’ the scabbard; ‘I came out to scout, not to lie in cover; you may stay here by yourself; I’m going inter the valley below.’ I nearly got angry, but then I thought what’s the use, so I jest explained matters. ‘There’s no Kaffirs down there,’ says I, ‘but there is Kaffirs down here in the poort in that big kloof, an’, what’s more, them pickets o’ yours will be assegaied before long. I’ll tell you why. See them birds flying over that kloof? They’ve been startled, an’, what’s more, when they settled jest now they started off ag’in on a new flight, an’, what’s more, I seed a jackal an’ a ram slip away over the rise. That’s good enough for me, an’ when it’s dark I’ll slip back to the camp to tell the Colonel.’ ‘Are you sure?’ he said, lookin’ at me hard. ‘Certain,’ I said. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘we must go back to the Colonel at once.’

“‘You might start to go back,’ I said, ‘but you’d never reach half way. Where’s the picket?’ I said. He took a look at the krantz where we’d seen the figgur of a man, and he seed the poor beggar was gone. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he’s been assegaied!’

“‘My God!’ he said, ‘can’t we do anything to save the others?’

“‘It’s no go,’ said I, pulling out my pipe. ‘Haven’t you got any heart?’ he said, fiercely, then he began to move off. Well, that wouldn’t do, so I pulled him back. ‘Keep still,’ says I; ‘the pickets must look after themselves; we’ve got to save the camp.’ Well, blow me, that made him worse, and he struggled to get free, saying the 94th didn’t want to be saved from any Kaffirs, and all that—but I jes’ hung onter him, an’ while we were struggling in a holler behind a rock, up there came the sound of a bugle. ‘Hark!’ he said, lettin’ go his hold; ‘the regiment has struck camp—that’s the order to advance.’ ‘The blamed fool,’ I said, ‘he’ll march straight inter the trap.’ ‘Soh,’ says he, then he made a bolt, saying as he ran, ‘I must warn them.’ I seed it were no use, an’ I let him go. By gosh! he jes’ bounded down from rock to rock, without taking any cover, straight for the track that ran down the poort past the kloof to the regiment. At the same time I seed a black figure running down the slope from where the picket had been, then another an’ another, all of ’em crouchin’. Of course, there were Kaffirs there, an’ in course they seed him, an’ they were runnin’ down to stop him.”

“And what did you do?”

“What did I do? Well I jes’ sat an’ looked, an’ bymby I edged away over the randt away from the Kaffirs. Then I sot off at a run round to get to the back of the krantze where the picket had been killed.”

“You didn’t know he had been killed.”

“Well, according to all that was goin’ on he oughter bin killed, and ’t any rate I made round that way—but if you’re going to talk to me like that I’ll jes’ shut up. I’m gwine to supper now.”

Chapter Twenty Six.

End of the Scouting.

The next morning Abe was stamping mealies with a wooden pestle in a wooden mortar made from a tree trunk. It was a piece of unusual labour on his part, and I complimented him on his early industry.

“Industry be blowed—it’s my teeth! They’re worn down, and not equal to chewing hard mealies. You take pattern by me, sonny, and keep your teeth. Lor’ love yer, when I sees young boys and gals with half their teeth missin’, I’m jest thinkin’ that there’s no ignorance like that of the civilised man. Take me, or take an ord’nary raw Kaffir turned sixty, and look at his mouth. Teeth as white and soun’ as a animile’s—’cos why?—’cos he ain’t loadin’ his inside with all sorts o’ hots an’ colds, an’ sweets, and thingammies painted yeller an’ red—an’ ’cos he polishes up his grinders with a bit o’ wood and heaps o’ water. Toothache—man wasn’t born to have toothache—o’ course not; nor to have his jawbone broken with steel pincers; but there, he ain’t got sense to know when he’s well off, and so he starts undermining his teeth from the day he’s old enough to chew toffee.”

“I’ve known a Kaffir to have toothache.”

“And I’ve known a Kaffir to drink off a bottle of Worcester sauce. But why? ’Cos some blamed white man invented the sauce to help out his finicking appetite, and if the Kaffir’s fool enough to drink white man’s mixtures, why there’s an end to him. When you start to civilise a Kaffir you give him toothache, and fill him as full o’ wickedness an’ sickness as a white man. That’s so!”

“I didn’t know you were such an admirer of Kaffirs.”

“Ghoisters! You’re like a ramrod; you can’t see your way unless it’s straight. I’m not in love with the black because his teeth is good.”

Abe scooped up the broken maize, and proceeded to make his morning pap, after which he lit his pipe and was at peace.

“What was the end of your scouting, Abe?”

“I ain’t scouting.”

“I mean at Pluto’s Vale, when the young officer left you.”

“Is that so! Lemme see. I left him running like a blind hoss at a precipice, straight for the path by the kloof which I reckoned were full o’ Kaffirs, and with three chaps runnin’ down to cut him off. That weren’t me. No! I jest skipped round back o’ the krantz opposite the kloof, an’ crawled up to where I’d seen the vidette. It were as I thought Stone dead he were, with his face to the sky and his arms stretched out, assegaied through the back and then turned over by them as stabbed him—and who who was sneaking down the hill to do the same for my partner. I jest peeped over the rock—and far down the valley to the lef I see the regiment on the march, with the waggons in the centre and the Colonel riding ahead’s if he were going on parade. Sonny, them rooibaaitjes can fight, but they’re foolish. They’re too stiff in the lip to ask questions, and too proud to learn. That’s so! There were the Colonel marching his men straight into the tightest kind o’ fix without waiting for me to report the lay o’ the land. I looked down below, and there were that young chap booming along like a rock rolled from the top, leaping like a buck, an’ jes’ ahead o’ him, in a turn in the road, crouchin’ behin’ bushes, was them three red Kaffirs waitin’ to stab him. A hundred paces he had to cover afore he came up to the fust of ’em, and I seed in a flash he were a gone coon, unless somethin’ happened. I tell you, sonny, I did some quick thinking while he were running them hundred paces. S’pose I fired! The report would jes’ boom from side to side o’ that valley and wake up every darned Kaffir in the kloof—s’posing Kaffirs was there. The Kaffirs would be on the watch, the Colonel would hear, an’ rush up his men, leaving his waggons unprotected. Then there’d be a awful kind of a mess—s’posing the Kaffirs was in that kloof. I thunked all that, and that young chap had gone half-way. If I fired he couldn’t a pulled up in time, so I jest fetched a yell in Kaffir. From the bottom o’ my throat I fetched up one of them deep Kaffir shouts. ‘Look out!’ I yelled; ‘the soldiers—run!’ The words fell on them Kaffirs like the lash of a whip. The three of them jumped to their feet, run across the road, an’ slipped inter the kloof. The young chap seed ’em cross his track, and pulled up, then I’m darned if he didn’t keep on again. Well, I give him another chance. I cried to him in English to keep to his left, but he jes’ lifted his hand and kep’ on. Nex’ moment he were running along the fringe of the kloof where the dark wood came down to the road, and then he gave a lurch, and rolled over an’ over, his gun flying from his hand. I could hear the tinkle of the metal against the stones. The roll carried him to a rock, and over that he went with a splash inter a pool o’ water, and as he went in a Kaffir darted from the kloof with his shield and assegai. I knew then the kloof were full of Kaffirs, for none of the other three carried a shield. All this yer happened in a breath almost, and then I ran along the krantz to where a corner of it stood out bold, an’ standing there I shouted to the regiment, which lay outstretched down below, the head of it no further than 300 paces from the beginning of the kloof on that side. The Colonel were riding ahead, then followed the pioneers, with their axes and spades sheathed in shiny black leather, and on their chests big black beards, behind them a company of the 94th with the bayonets glittering like running fire, back o’ them the band, and ahind them the waggons in the long line, and far behind, a full mile from the Colonel, the balance of the regiment. Sonny! in ten minutes the hull biling of ’em would ’a been in the narrer of the valley without room to turn, and they’d a bin assegaied to a man, I tell you! But Abe Pike were there; and I tell you he gave a shout that went ekering down that valley from side to side. ‘Halt!’ I said. The Colonel he pulled up. I seed him shade his eyes with his hand as he took a look, and I seed some of the soldiers point up at me. The Colonel he shook his reins, and rode on. ‘Halt!’ I said; but he jes’ kep’ on, calm as possible. ‘You blamed fool,’ I shouted; ‘stop! There’s Kaffirs ahead.’ He pulled up, and turned in his saddle. ‘Ninety-fourth,’ he said—and his voice came up clear—‘halt!’ All along that mile o’ men and oxen the order ran down, and the moving column came to a stand. ‘Number 1 company,’ he said, ‘leading files from your left, two paces to the right. Rear ranks, two paces to your front.’ The leading company jest stretched out like a concertina, across the road. ‘Prepare to fire,’ he said, and down came that shining stretch o’ bayonets to the level. Then I’m darned if the Colonel didn’t walk his horse round the turn in the road till he came to the kloof, and seed the track wind up through the narrer poort up to the ridge beyond, with me on his right far above him. He seed nothin’, of course; ’cos why, he couldn’t see through the dark o’ the woods on his left; but there was hundreds of black eyes glaring at him through the leaves. He looked up at me, as if to say, ‘Where are the Kaffirs?’ ‘They’re in the bush,’ I shouted; then I slid down the krantz by a monkey tow, and after making my way through the tumbled mass of boulders and thorn scrub at the base, started to run down, when I yeard the beat of the drum, and the next minute seed the pioneers come round the bend, then the first company, and nex’ the band, with the Colonel ’twixt the pioneers and the company. The old fire-eater were determined to get inter the trap after all, and when I reached him he were half-way by the kloof. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, putting my hand on the bridle, ‘stop the waggons, and get your men outer this. Turn back!’ I said. He were jest going to rap me over the head for mutinous conduct, or some sich nonsense, when the Kaffir yell rang out. They couldn’t wait any longer. Whew! My gum, sonny! talk o’ yellin’ an’ cussin’ an’ gruntin’. Them red Kaffirs were into us. They jumped this way, and that, their eyes rollin’ in their heads, their assegais whizzing and kerries flying, with a noise like a flight o’ partridges. Then the rifles snapped out, and the big drum boomed onct. Only onct. Then I seed the drummer throw up his sticks an’ roll over, drum up, man up, turn an’ turn. I didn’t know which way to turn at first; then I seed a Kaffir raising his kerrie to smash the Colonel, who were lying on the ground, and I shot him. I helped the Colonel up, and he roared out ‘Bayonets.’ The soldiers were too mixed up to use their bayonets. I seed five of them—one after another—assegaied. The Kaffirs, they jes’ grabbed the poor Johnny by the belt, pulled him outer the thick of the jam, and then assegaied him. I seed how things would go if the soldiers couldn’t get ground to fight, so I jumped for the drum, and, cutting it free from the poor drummer chap, I banged on it and marched across the stream to the far slope. Some of the fellers seed me and follered. ‘Steady,’ says I, ‘take your man—fire.’ Well, they did jes’ so, and I banged the drum. The ole Colonel he got the pioneers with him—there was eight of them—and, my gum!—they jest swished their way through the Kaffirs with their axes. Then up come some more men, follering the drum, and we peppered the Kaffirs till they were obliged to get back inter the wood. Then the Colonel he looked for the wounded. There were nary one, but seventeen men lay dead. ‘There’s one here,’ says I, and led the place to where the young officer had tumbled in the water. There he were among the rushes, bleeding to death from an assegai wound, and one of them pioneers, his arms all bloody, lifted the young chap up and carried him to the waggons. I guessed it were time to go before them Kaffirs got up steam—so I banged the ole drum and marched back. ‘Where you going?’ says the Colonel. ‘Back to the camp,’ I says. ‘That ain’t the way,’ he says; ‘we camp over the ridge to-night,’ pointing the other way. ‘The Kaffirs will never let the waggons through,’ I said. ‘The Kaffirs is beaten,’ he says; and just then a young Kaffir leapt outer the bush and rammed his assegai into the big drum. ‘I have done it,’ he cried and I seed it were Sandili hisself. I tole you how Sandili he said he would bust the drum, and by gosh! he bust it. He was back inter the wood in a wink, and then he shouted how he had killed the white man’s war-god, and from all parts of the kloof the Kaffirs they began shouting. You could hear ’em comin’. The Colonel he looked round and said ‘Retire!’ So he had to turn back after all. He shelled the kloof all that afternoon; and the Kaffirs they just moved on.”

“And what did the Colonel say to you?”

“He said he’d half a mind to tie me up for givin’ orders to the regiment, and he went on most horrible; then when he cooled down he give me a huntin’ knife, with five blades and a corkscrew, and said he would mention me in despatches. I dunno whether he did; ’t any rate I never were called to account again, so I guess he were only skeering me. Well, so long!”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

Abe and the Tiger Trap.

I had got a new tiger trap, and was displaying its beauties to some members of our Cat Club—not that this was the official name, which in full dress proclaimed itself as the Round Hill Society for the Destruction of Vermin. The mouth of the trap had a span of fifteen inches, and the steel spring almost required the weight of a twelve-stone man to flatten it down to the catch. There was a stout chain to the shank end, which could be secured to a log, and the iron lips had no teeth.

“There’s a power of grip in the toothless gums of that ’ere grinning mouth,” said old Abe Pike, who was President of the Club, by virtue of which office it was his right to point out the spots for the setting of traps. “I don’t hole with teeth nohow.”

“Quite so,” remarked Amos Topper, sourly; “your tongue’s long enough to get a clinch round anything. What I say is, give me a trap with teeth a inch long that will drive through a tiger’s shin-bone.”

“Yes; and maybe cut the foot of him right off, and leave ole dot-and-carry-three to go limpin’ away growlin’ vengeance. You ain’t got no exper’ence, Amos; and talking about tongues, if you shut your teeth down tight you might pass for a wise man.”

Amos opened his mouth wide for a retort, but nothing came out but a cloud of smoke and a grunt.

“I shot a trapped tiger once,” said Long Jim, “that was caught only by his toe. Yes, sir, by his toe! and the danged crittur jes’ lay there and took the bullet ’thout even standing up. He jes’ hissed like a room full o’ kettles.”

“Ever been caught in a trap?” asked Abe quietly.

“I ain’t had any occasion to,” said Jim severely.

“Well, I have!”

“Gwine after anybody’s pumpkins?” asked Amos, thinking this was a good opportunity to work in his belated retort.

“Some folk’s talk,” said Abe slowly, “is like burrs—never wanted and allus spoilin’ good material, with this difference on the side of the burr-weed—that you can root up the weed when you find it.”

“It would take a better man than you to dig me up,” said Amos, shaking himself.

“We ain’t discussin’ weeds,” said Abe, looking his lanky opponent up and down; “we’re discussin’ the points o’ traps—especially teeth. I bin caught, an’ that’s why I’m sot against teeth.”

“When did it happen, Abe?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. You know ole Hill’s garden, which held more different kinds o’ fruit-trees than I have seed in the whole country. There were a thick quince hedge down one side, and the wild pigs had made a path through it big enough to let a stoopin’ man through. Well, I were going short cut to the house one night, and I remembered this yer pig-track.”

“You always had a weakness for fruit, Abe!” remarked Amos.

“I remembered this yer track, and, follering the hedge down, I felt where the path had been worn, and, parting the quince luikeys with my hand, made a stoop forrard. My gum!—there were a click, and a yell which I ripped out, and nex’ thing I knowed somethin’ got me sore fast by the right leg in the thin of the ankle. It were a tiger trap—that’s what, and sot with teeth. Lor’ love yer! I can feel the pain of it in my leg now when I think of it, though it were over twenty-seven year ago. One iron fang scramped my shin-bone, and the back one druv clean through the flesh, while the sides of the mouth pressed in so that the blood were stopped, and the foot seemed to belong to someone else. I tell you all the blood in my body jes’ run down to the tight place to find out what the trouble was, and came rushing back with the news up to my head with a touch of fire all along. Then that held-fast leg began to throb and throb, and a hundred thousand little hammers began a-hammering all up my backbone, while cold spasms went quivering through me and outer the top of my head. I jes’ let go yell on yell, until a faintness came over me, and the sound leg which had been all on a tremble gave way, and I sot down. The wrench were terrible, and I jes’ grit my teeth, and held on till the weakness went off, when I shifted the trap a bit.”

“Why didn’t you ease the spring?”

“Why don’t a bird fly when its wing’s broken? Ease the spring! Jes’ you put your foot in this yer trap, and see if you can get the spring down with thirty pound o’ iron at the end of your foot and your muscles all turned to water—to liquid fire—with the pain of the hold. All I could do was to rub my knee and yell and bite at the quince leaves, and dig my fingers inter the flesh. After a time I found my voice ain’t got no carrying power; it came out in a hoarse whisper, and I seed if the people at the house hadn’t yeard my first call they wouldn’t catch any cry for help I could give now; so I jes’ groaned for comfort, same’s if I were a trapped tiger growling through the night. My head were tossing about from side to side like the pendulum of a clock, and one of these side swings I noticed the glare of something bright close by. I jes’ noticed it as if ’twere something of no account; for, if all the stars in heaven had taken to swinging at the ends of golden threads it wouldn’t have mattered to me as much as the flame of a tallow candle sputtering in a horn lantern. Well, each time I swung my head I seed these yer bright spots without seeing them—if you know what I mean?—when I were held still for a moment by a sound. I looked, and I saw then that they were eyes staring at me, which blinked as I stared, and turned away, then sought my face ag’in, and, narrering to a thin green slit, so looked at me. What do ye think it were?”

“A pig, of course, waiting for you to move,” said Topper.

“You can tell a pig by his grunt,” said Abe, pointedly. “Who ever seed a pig with green eyes flaming through half-closed lids? It were a tiger,” and Abe took his pipe out and impressively spat at a black-beetle that was fussily moving on a ball of earth with its hindlegs.

“A tiger?”

“Yes, sirrees! It were that—sitting down on his hams like a big dog within two yards of me. No, I were not skeered, for the burning pain in my head and the throbbing in my shin-bone didn’t give room for fear of that kind—and the tiger, he seemed to know what were up, for after a while he stretched himself out on his stummick, and yawned till I could see the gleam of his teeth. Well, I went on groanin’ and tossin’ my head, and rubbin’ my knee-cap, and chewin’ up the quince leaves, every now and then taking a look at the big crittur lying stretched in the dark with his eyes opening and shutting like’s if you moved the slide over a bull’s-eye lantern when he rolled over on his back and reached out a claw for me, like a kitten playing with a leaf. He hooked a claw inter the trousers of my well leg, and the jerk on it gave him a schreik, for he let out a growl and jumped away, looking back at me over his shoulder. Then he slunk away, but bymby when I looked ag’in he were standing up against the fence with his nose jes’ peeping round, and his near eye squintin’ at me through a hole in the leaves. That give me a queer feeling—for the beggar’d come up so sly, and I lit out a yell this time which stuck in my throat. The pain made me feel faint inside, an’ I jes’ closed my eyes. Soon’s the tiger saw I wern’t looking he jes’ poked his nose up ag’in the trap, and I yeard him licking the iron where the blood had run. Then I felt on my sound leg the pressure of his body, and yeard the snarly purr of him. Then he began licking at my trousers where the trap held fast, and I opened my eyes. The weight of his body held my leg down, and one of his paws were right into my weskit; and, blow me, if he didn’t begin shovin’ it inter my body, and opening and shutting his claws like a pleased cat, while the jar of his purring ran up through my bones, and his big tongue were rasping at my trousers. A sort o’ stupor, don’t-care-what-he-does feeling come over me, and with it the burning in the pain left my brain, and the hammering at my bones dropped away inter jes’ a sort of tired feeling. Nex’ minute I felt his tongue on my flesh—for he’d worn a hole right through them cord tweeds I were wearin’. At the taste of the blood then he purred louder than ever, and shuved his paw quicker and harder into my stummick, until I gasped for breath. Then he drew fresh blood, and his purr went inter a savage growl, while, the weight of his body lightened on my leg. I tell you, that growl brought back my luv for life in a moment. I saw that crittur would in his eagerness take a bite at my leg—then the game would be up. What d’ye think I did?”

“Began to jaw,” said Topper; “and he bolted with his tail down.”

“Jobbed him with a knife back of the head,” suggested Long Jim.

“No; what I did was a cirkimstance which only one man would think of, and that’s ole Abe Pike. I jes’ took out my ole pipe, wriggled a length of straw down the stem till it were black with nicotine, then laid it across his tongue. My! You should ’a seen him. He shook his head, tried to wipe his tongue with his paws, then give a roar, and make lightning tracks for the nearest water. His growl set the dogs going tremenjus, then I yeard ole man Hill whistlin’ ’em, and I fetched a yell that brung him up at the double. By gum! In being saved I were nearly killed!”

“How was that?”

“Why, them dogs took me for the tiger, and they tore the coat offin me, beside some skin, ’fore ole Bill see who were in the trap and took me out. That’s why I say I’m dead sot against traps with teeth.”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Abe and the Eagles.

I had not seen old Abe Pike for some weeks, having been on rinderpest guard on the Orange River, but on my return to the coast I rode over to Gum Tree Farm, where the lone blue-gum threw its pillar of cloud, in the blazing afternoon, across the doorway. Uncle Abe was lounging, as usual, by the doorway, looking listlessly at the sea.

“Well, oud baas! How goes it?”

“Is there no more cattle to kill?” he said, straightening his back and propping himself against the wall. “Think you’d be ashamed to look a beefsteak in the face after the way you been shooting them pore animiles!”

“The plague must be stamped out, Abe.”

“Oh, yes! I yeard that story before! It’s a good way to save a crittur’s life by shooting him! What beats me is why you don’t up and shoot all children sick with tyfust and grown people ailing with influenza! My gum! I’m ashamed of you!”

“Well, so long!”

“You ain’t goin’?”

“I think so; the work of shooting cattle is not pleasant, but it is less pleasant to be reminded of it.”

“Oh, go along! Put your horse in the shed and come right in. The place ain’t been the same since you’ve been away, sonny; ’sides, there’s been no one along for weeks, and I’m jes’ bu’sting with talk. You wouldn’t like to see old Abe die of untold yarns.”

So I off-saddled and knee-haltered the horse, for there was no oat-hay in the shed for him, and he had to get what picking he could from the old lands, yellow with charlock.

Abe made up the fire, and put on the kettle to boil, while from the larder he produced a slab of pork and a half-loaf—very black on the outside and very soft within.

“The last batch of baking,” he said, “was not up to the mark. The yeast gave out, and I were obliged to get a rise out of a handful of rub-rub berries. As for the pork, that came from a pig that was catched.”

“What sort of pig?”

“Well, sonny, it was this way. You know the eagles’ nest on the old yellow-wood in the big kloof? I got the pig out of there.”

“Oh, you did, did you? As far as I remember, the tree is a hundred feet high, and the nest quite sixty feet up. The pig climbed up, I presume?”

“You presoom morn’s good for you, sonny. Don’t suppose ’cos you bin to the Orange River you know everything. The pig didn’t climb up; he jes’ dropped in on passin’; paid a sort of flying visit. That nest’s as big as a cart wheel, and if you stand below and look up the trunk it shuts out the sky, while down below there’s bones enough, and of sorts, to build up the skelingtons of a entire museum. That pair of eagles used that nest going on for fifteen years, and each year when the young hatch out they kill off more dassies and cats and blue-boks than you could eat in a year.”

“You are welcome to the cats, Abe.”

“Yes, sir. Them eagles have buried, I reckon, as many as two thousand animiles in that leaf-mould cemingtary below the big tree. Well! Grub being skerce, I had a fancy to bury them young squabs of eagles, by way of satisfying my own yearning for food, and giving the ole hook-beaked pirates a hint that they hadn’t the sole right over the earth and air. Sonny, that’s a big tree, and it took me a fortnight to climb up.”

“That was quick!”

“I’ve seen quicker climbin’, but taking the size of the tree and the height of it—maybe, five hundred feet!”

“I thought the height to the nest was about sixty feet?”

“Have you clomb that tree?”

“No, Abe.”

“Well, I have; and if it’s not a mile high, it’s high enuf when you’re up aloft, with nothing to keep you from adding your bones to the pile below but an iron spike no bigger’n a nail. I camped out one day at the bottom of the tree, and it was mighty lonesome, when the wind came whisperin’ round the trees, and dark shadows peeped from behin’ the rocks, while up above the she-eagle would hiss at her mate. For about two days they took no heed of me, but the fifth day, when I was sprawling half-way up, with a looped rheim round the tree, the ole she-bird took a squint at me over the nest, and flopped down to the lowest bough, where she watched me under her brows drive in a three-inch nail. Two inches I druv it in, and when I lowered myself for another, she jes’ dropped down, clawing to the tree with her long hooked toes, and yanked that nail out.”

“Abe Pike!”

“Yes, sir; she jes’ grabbed hole of it, give it a wrench, and out it come. Then she fetched a yell loud enough almost to split the tree, and went off. Nex’ mornin’, believe me, there was that nail, and five others, outside the door! Them eagles had fetched them up to give notice it was no good. They’re mighty strong in the beak, is eagles,” said Abe, pouring out the coffee.

“But truth is stronger, eh?”

“That’s so, sonny; you take hole o’ that, and it’ll do you a heap of good. That day I druv in them nails deeper, and they held good, by reason that the ole she-bird had got lockjaw, and sot up there nursin’ her beak, with her red eyes glowing like coals. About the fifth day I were near up, when the ole man dropped a coney’s head, and by luck it took me over the head. Well, you’d hardly believe me when I tell you, that no sooner the ole girl seen this than she gave a hiss, and began scraping out of the nest all the rubbish, bones, and skin, and feathers, and sich. Whew! I tell you I had to scuttle and leave off. Well, next day she were looking out for me, and soon’s I got up dropped a full-grown blue-bok—ker-blung—and if I had not been prepared, would ha’ sent me tumbling. I climbed down, an’ roasted that there bit of venison while the two of them watched. Of course, after that meal I went home, and next mornin’, when I opened the door, blow me! if there weren’t a rock rabbit, fat as butter, jes’ outside. I ate him and stopped at home. Next mornin’ there was a brace of partridges, so I ate ’em, and stayed quiet. Next morning a big hare, an’ I ate him and stayed at home. So on till the eleventh mornin’, when there was only a black cat, with the musk of him smellin’ most awful. Of course, I wasn’t eating any such vermin, but I thought the eagles meant well, and I wasn’t blaming them. I buried that crittur two feet deep, and went hungry to bed. Next mornin’ I was outer the door before I was awake, expecting to fin’ a plump lamb, or maybe a kid or a turkey, but there was nothing, sir, but the smell of that stink eat hanging around most dreadful. Sonny, the feelings of them two eagles had been hurt. They took it as a slight that I hadn’t eaten that skunk, so I sot off to the kloof to explain matters. When I got there the ole he was sailing above the tree, with his claws tucked up, and his head on one side. When he seed me he jes’ fetched a screech like a railway engine divin’ into a tunnel, and then he settled on the tree, where, bymby, he were joined by the ole she. They jest sot there and looked, making no sign to drop anything, so I begun to climb; but they took no notice, and bymby I come to the end of the nails, and the nearest bough was six feet away. I had to give it up that day, leaving them two birds all ruffled up and mighty cold and standoffish. It was hard next mornin’ to find nothing outside the door, and I seed there was nothing left but to finish the job, and catch them young squabs. I went off to the kloof, bitter against the ingratitood of them stingy birds, which were ready to let a human bein’ starve when they had a larder jes’ stuffed with hares and things—and my hares, too! Them birds was waiting for me—throwing their beaks back and screaming like mad, while the squabs in the nest squealed till my head split. They had sense enuf to see I were angry, and they sot up that racket to starve me off; but a hungry man don’t stop to listen to speeches when his dinner is callin’ out loud for him, so I went up with my mouth full of nails. Very soon I were over the bough, and the screeching and squealing were terrible to listen to.”

“Didn’t the eagles attack you?”

“No, sonny! They were jest helpless with laughing!”

“Laughing?”

“When I threw my leg over the bough, I got the hammer ready to strike, but I seed them shakin’ all over, till some of the wing feathers dropped out, and tears were running down their beaks and droppin’ off the sharp point of the hook. It was not fear—you never seed a eagle afraid—he couldn’t be if he tried—an’ I seed at once they were laughin’ fit to die. I sot there in a tremble at the unnatural circumstance, and then began to climb till I could look into the nest. Sonny, d’you know what they were laughing at.”

“The pig in the nest.”

“Who told you?”

“Oh, I just guessed.”

“Well, I’m blessed! Ghoisters! You never seed a pig in a nest up a tree seven hundred feet high?”

“Not that I remember, Abe.”

“Gum! Yes, sir; there were a pig in that nest. Them birds, sonny, had kept me off till their squabs could fly, and then they played that joke on me. I chucked the pig out, and when I got down he were as dead as bacon. Come to think of it, sonny, it were a kind thought of them eagles to put it up there, and it makes me smile every time to think of the way them birds laughed till they shook their feathers out.”

The old man fixed his abstracted gaze on a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“I hope to train ’em next year,” he said, “to keep me in venison and lard. Going? Well, so long!”

“So long, Abe!”

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Abe’s Billy Goat.

Our Poison Club was in a flourishing condition. During the past year the members had killed off 1,500 red cats, wild dogs, jackals, seven leopards, and 500 baboons. This represented a good round sum—each tail being equivalent to a five-shilling demand on the exchequer of the country—and the chairman had called a meeting to distribute the awards.

“I have pleasure in announcing, gentlemen,” he said, “that Mr Si Amos is the champion poisoner—having placed to his credit 300 cat tails, seventy-five jackal tails, fifty-four baboon tails, and one leopard tail. In addition to the dues which are rightly his, he is entitled to the silver medal presented by the club.”

“Well done, Si! Step up!”

Silas pulled his lank figure together, hitched up his trousers, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and lumbered up the narrow passage.

“Give him pizen!” said someone in a loud voice, whereat there were cries of “Shame!”

Silas paused, balanced himself uncertainly on one leg, and searched the audience.

“It’s that Abe,” he said. “What he says don’t amount to nothin’.”

“Mr Pike,” expostulated the chairman; “I’m astonished at you.”

“Look here, Jim Hockey,” said Abe, rising up from a back seat, and pointing his pipe-stem at the chairman; “I don’t keer if you give that thing there a whole string o’ silver buttons—and Lord knows he wants ’em, to keep himself from falling to pieces—but I tell you, you’re opsettin’ the laws of nature goin’ about killing the animiles off the face of the yearth. It’s not the mean, sneaking way you’ve got inter of dropping pizen pills all over the place that riles me so much as the killin’ of ’em off by the thousan’ without takin’ any thought of what’s coming. Take baboons—”

“Are we here, Mr Chairman, to listen to a speech from Mr Pike, or are we not?” asked one member, who was credited with having opened a market in jackals’ tails.

“Take baboons,” said Abe, pointing his pipe-stem insultingly at his interrupter. “I allow they’re mean, I allow they eat your mealies, steal your fruit, kill a sheep or two, and frighten your wives; but if it warn’t for the baboons there’d be a scorpion under every stone and a centipede in every ole stump. The baboons eat them vermin. Take cats—if it warn’t for cats the lands would be swarmin’ with mice. If it warn’t for the jackals there’d be a hare in every grass clump.”

“If it warn’t for Abe Pike,” said Silas, with a look of disgust, “there’d be a durn sight less jaw.”

“Hear, hear!”

“Year away,” said Abe, “and listen to this. When you’re done killin’ all these critturs, the scorpions, an’ the centipedes, an’ the rats, an’ the snakes, an’ the spiders’ll swarm all over you. What yer got ter do is to set Nature ag’in Nature. The wild buck can look after hisself; teach the tame goat and the sheep to do the same.”

“The laws of Nature, Abe, have covered your lands with weeds.”

“Yes; and reduced his mangy live stock to one goat,” added Si.

“Laugh! yer yeller-eyed, big-footed, long-legged, two-headed, freckled-faced duffers—laugh!—but I bet you that ole goat’ll knock the stuffin’ out of your club, and purtect hisself ag’in any wild crittur, from a stink-cat to a tiger.”

“You’re jawing,” said Si; “otherwise I’d hold you to your bounce.”

Abe took from his pocket a skin purse, tightly bound with a long thong, unwound this, emptied out into his yellow hand, which shook with excitement, two bright sovereigns.

“That ain’t any wild cat tail money,” he said; “it’s the saving of sixty years’ hard work—and I stake that.”

“What’s the wager?” asked the chairman.

“That my ole goat proves to this yer club that Nature provides a way outside of pizening by holding his own ag’inst anything on two feet or four feet, ’cept a elephant or a steam roller.”

“The club takes the bet,” said the chairman, in a solemn voice and a winking eye.

“Well; jes’ take keer o’ that money until your nex’ meeting, when I’ll turn up with the ole Kapater. So long!”

“You’ll lose that money, Abe,” I said following him as he slouched away.

“It’s a heap of money,” he said; “a glittering pile that I been saving up for my ole age.”

“Call the bet off, Abe.”

“You think the ole man’s a blasteratious ijiot, sonny? Well, well! maybe. Let him stand at that till nex’ meeting.”

In three months the meeting was called, and due notice served on Mr Abe Pike and his goat. It was a full house that met in the drowsy afternoon in the big shed on Mr Hockey’s farm, and the discussion turned at once on the disposal of Abe’s money—the general opinion being that it should be given back.

“I object,” said Si Amos, who had brought with him a huge and hideous half-breed between a boar-hound and a mongrel. “That ole man’s been throwing slurs on this club, and it’s my opinion he ought to pay for it. Anyhow, I’ll ‘psa’ my dog on to his goat.”

Last of all, Abe Pike himself entered the shed, wearing an expression of profound despondency.

“Anyone got a pipe of tobacco?” he said, looking around gloomily.

There was no tobacco hospitably forthcoming, everyone being too disgusted at the thought that all the fun was off.

Abe leant wearily against the wall. “Time was,” he said, “when a man would hand you his tobacco bag as he said ‘Good-morning.’ There’s a natural meanness in pizening animiles, and it’s jes’ oozing out of yer.”

“Where’s your goat, you old humbug?”

“Gentlemen, I’m very sorry, but that goat’s woke up with a most awful temper, and I jes’ drop in t’ ask you voetsack all the dogs outer the place ’fore I bring him in.”

“Yah!” said Si Amos; “I knew he’d back down. It was part of the bet that dogs was to be brought.”

“That’s so,” said Mr Hockey.

“You won’t turn out your dogs?”

“No sir! But this yer dog’ll eat your goat, and I give you fair warning!” said Si, stirring the big mongrel with his toe.

Abe looked round, gave me a wink, and went out.

When he reappeared he was leading one of the biggest goats—a great blue “Kapater,” with a long beard, massive horns, and a boss of leather and brass over his forehead.

“Well I’m jiggered!” said one member, getting behind the table.

Someone—I don’t know who the rash individual was—said “psa,” and the big mongrel stood up, showing his teeth and growling in his throat.

Abe smiled sadly, let go his hold of the goat, pinched his ear, and then the great rout of the Poison Club began. The goat walked briskly up to the dog, reared up, brought his head down, and sent the mongrel smash under the table, where he remained whimpering; then in a brace, at a whistle from his master, the unnatural billy cleared the shed with the effectiveness of a battering ram. At the outset the strong man of the country tried to seize him by the horns, but he evaded the grasp and shot his massive enemy over a form; and when the others fled, he butted them from behind so that each man flew out headlong, helping to swell the struggling pile at the doorway. After this feat he amused himself by reducing the table and chairs to splinters, then he came to the door and stood scratching his ear with his left hind foot, while chewing the remains of the minute book.

“Fetch me a gun,” yelled Si Amos, with his hand pressed to his waistcoat.

“What will you take for that thunderstorm, Abe?” asked Mr Hockey, tenderly feeling his elbow.

“You don’t want to buy him so’s you can shoot him?”

“No; I want him as a watch dog.”

“Well, seeing’s how it’s you, you can have him for a pair of blankets and a bag of meal.”

“It’s a swap, Abe. What do you call him?”

“I calls him ‘Peaceful William.’ I s’pose the club admits it’s lost the bet; ’cos, if not, William will purceed to further business.”

“The bet’s yours, Abe. Take the money, for Heaven’s sake!”

“All right, then; I’ll kraal the goat for you.”

The goat was penned up, and Abe loaded his meal on to his horse and went off.

The club watched the old man out of sight, each member absently rubbing himself, and all of them remarkably silent.

“Oh!—’ell,” said someone, in a tone of unmistakable dismay.

We all, as one man, faced round to the kraal, and then we simultaneously skurried up to the barn roof. From this position of safety we saw Peaceful William, in a shower of dust, carefully demolish the walls of the pen and the poles that supported the thatched roof, and we fearfully gazed down upon him as he walked steadily round and round the barn, stopping at intervals to rear against the wall, to eye us threateningly. I don’t know when he left, but he was not there next morning, when, at the break of day, Abe’s voice greeted us.

“I thought I’d tell you Peaceful Billy is at my place; and he’s there when you care to fetch him. Fine sunrise, ain’t it? Nice place to see it from. Nature’s better than pizen if you take her early.”

There was a strange gurgling sound of suppressed laughter.

“I say!” It was Abe again.

“Well?”

“Goat fat ’s mighty good for bruises! So long!”

“Darn you and your goat!” growled the chairman. “Boys, I vote we descend to business.”

We descended, and while we ate our breakfast the women of the house giggled till they almost choked.

Chapter Thirty.

A Kaffir’s Play.

The red Kaffir is a man with a good deal of character, which he does his best to destroy. The pure kraal Kaffir, who lounges negligently in his red blanket or squats on his loins by the fire at night, telling interminable stories about nothing in particular, has many points which mark him from the “town boy”—the spoiled child of civilisation, who treads tenderly in his hard “Blucher” boots, and covers his corduroy trousers with bright patches of other material; who has to support his weary frame against every pillar and post and corner he comes across, and who is generally shiftless, saucy, and squalid.

The kraal Kaffir is lean, long, and tough, dignified in his movements, courteous to his friends, given over to long spells of silence broken by fits of noisy eloquence, his sullen, solemn face seldom lit up by a smile, and his black smoke-stained eyes smouldering always with an unquenchable fire, that flames out when he meets a Fingo on the highway, or when the fire-water runs through his veins at the beer-drinking.

The red Kaffir is a warrior. He is also a lawyer. I am not certain whether he most prefers to settle a dispute by argument or by the kerrie, but I think his idea of greatest happiness would be a long disputation extending over a week, to be rounded off with the clashing of kerries. Some people, who have seen the wide smile on the face of a West Coast negro, accept that all-pervading grin as the main feature of the entire black race, and argue from it that all blacks are good-tempered children, prone to every impulse. That is not true of the Kaffir. He is of the Bantu stock, which includes the Zulu and the Basuto, whose chief sentiment is stern pride of race, whose ruling expression is one of sullen reserve, and whose national impulse is to fight. They were cradled somewhere in the valley of the Nile, the hot nursery of fierce races; their remote ancestors swept South, destroying as they went, and the southernest fringe are Amaxosa of the Cape frontier, the men who have waged five separate wars with the red-coats of England and the sure-shooting border settlers. Pringle has, in these lines, given a vivid picture of the Kaffir:

“Lo! where the fierce Kaffir
Crouches by the kloof’s dark side,
Watching the settlers’ flocks afar—
Impatient waiting till the evening star
Guides him to his prey.”

Under the fierce ordeal of war the Kaffir thrived. His limbs were free and straight, his step springy, his eyes far-seeing, his nostrils could sniff the taint in the air, his deep melodious voice could boom the war-cry or the message across the wide valleys. As a man of peace he looks squalid in his broken clothes; he moves stiffly in his boots; he sings hymns in a queer, high note, with great melancholy but little meaning; goes reeling home from dirty canteens, and is a hopelessly casual labourer. He is the victim of civilisation, of strange laws, and in the confusion of many counsellors his only hope is the goal which has been offered to the already civilised labourer of a more favoured race—three acres and several cows, with a title of his own. There lies his salvation. If he could get his title to a plot of land sufficient for his wants, he may retain some of those characteristics which made conquerors of his warrior ancestors, if not he will go under in the struggle in a pair of uncomfortable boots, with a bottle of brandy in his hands, and strange oaths of civilised man on his lips.

“Yes,” said Abe; “the Kaffir can use two things better’n a white man, easy—his tongue and his stick. I seed a Kaffir onct get the better of a fencing master.

“I were sitting in the schoolyard, away up in town, where a sergeant from the barracks were showing the big boys how to use a singlestick. There were a Kaffir, leaning his chin on the top of the gate, looking on, with no more life in his face than a chip of mahogany.

“Bymby the sergeant he spotted the Kaffir, and he sed, sed he, ‘Now, you boys; I’ll jes’ show you what singlestick play is,’ and he called to the Kaffir to come in.

“Well, the black feller, he came in—very slow, pulling his blanket up to his chin, and looking like a young horse all ready to bolt in a minnit. The end of his long kerrie peeped out below his blanket, and the sergeant touched it with his ash stick, then stood on guard.

“‘You keep your eye on my wrist-play, boys,’ sed the sergeant, swellin’ out his chest till the brass buttons nearly popped off. ‘You keep your eye on me,’ he sed, ‘and you’ll see how I get over his guard every time.’

“The Kaffir he jes’ stood there, looking solum, and the sergeant poked him in the stomjack.

“‘Yinnie!’ sed the Kaffir, backing off an’ snappin’ fire from his eyes. You see he didn’t know what the sergeant were about, and though he wern’t fool enough to strike a rooibaaitje in the town, his dander got up at that poke.

“‘Do you want to fight this chap?’ sed I.

“‘I want to show these boys what real wrist-play is,’ sed the sergeant, making an under-cut with his stick; ‘and this Kaffir will do well as a block. Tell him to put up his kerrie.’

“I jes’ tole the Kaffir, and had a quiet larf. To think of anyone bein’ sich a simple ijiot as to play at sticks with a Kaffir. I tole the ‘boy,’ and he said, ‘Yoh!’ in surprise. Then a sort of smile flickered about his mouth, and his black eyes began to shine. He let slip the blanket offen his shoulders, and caught it on his left arm. Then he took his kerrie by the end, and held it out the full length of his arm, with his head forrard and his toes apart, and back so that he leant forward. You know the fighting kerrie, about five feet long, and tough as steel.

“The sergeant—he smiled—threw forrard his right foot, balanced hisself on his left, crooked his elbow, and pointed his stick slanting.

“‘You see, boys,’ he sed; ‘you must stand naturally, with your body nicely balanced, ready to advance or retreat. Look at me, and look at the Kaffir,’ he said. ‘He stands on his toes, and if he lost his balance he would fall on his face. Watch me get over his guard.’

“‘Ready!’ he sed, and they begun.

“Well the boys watched, I tell you. There were a grunting, a clatter and a whirlwind of sticks—outer which whizzed chips of ash and bits of the basket-hilt. They didn’t see nuffing of the sergeant’s wrist-play, I tell you. No, sir, all they seed was that whirling of sticks like the spokes of a wheel, and bymby outer the dust come the sergeant.

“He didn’t look the same man. His face were red an’ angry, his basket-hilt was all smashed in, his knuckles were raw, and there were no more’n but a foot left of his stick.

“The Kaffir stood there, solum as a judge, with jes’ a touch of fire in his eyes. There were not so much as a mark on his smooth skin, as he slipped the blanket over his shoulder, and waited for more.

“The sergeant fished up sixpence, and gave it to the boy, without a word.

“‘You’d better go,’ I sed.

“‘Yoh,’ sed the Kaffir, looking at the sixpence; ‘is he done? Let him take another stick; we were but playing, and no one’s head is broken.’

“‘You go,’ I said; and he went, looking mighty troubled.

“I tell you what, sonny; the Queen should take a thousand of these yer red Kaffirs, and make soldiers of ’em for service in a hot country. Not here, of course, but away off in Injia. It’s a pity to waste ’em, and they’d do more good scouting than drinkin’ Cape brandy, lifting cattle, and loafin’ around. A black battalion of Kaffirs and Zulus would be no small pumpkins, an’ they could be officered by Colonials who know the language.”

Chapter Thirty One.

A Bugle Call.

“Hulloa, Bassie! I thought this fine morning would bring you over. The sap’s running strong, and the quail are gathering thick in the young wheat. Hear to them whistling. Where’s your gun?”

“I did not come to shoot.”

“Soh! Well, you don’t look like shooting. Been eating too much green fruit?”

“I’ve passed the green fruit stage, Abe.”

“I ain’t; there’s nothing better’n a pie of green apricots with cream, and green mealies is better’n kissing. You’re not in love, are you?”

“I have been writing poetry,” I said, with an air of unconcern; “and I want to take your opinion of it.”

“Fire away,” said Abe, fetching up a judicial expression; “it’s many a year since I learnt poetry, my boy—many a year. The ole mum onct, in the moonlight, when I were knee high, read to me outer a torn sheet she had, and these words I remember:

“‘He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God that loveth us,
He made and loveth all.’

“Long years agone the old mother read that outer a torn slip of paper, and I know it yet, sonny. I’d like to year some more.”

“I don’t think I’ll read it you, on second thoughts,” I said, with sudden doubt.

“You bet you will, sonny. A man that’s got the gift of making poetry has no occasion to stand back in the corner.”

“Well it’s only a little thing I dashed off the other night. Here it is:

“‘Oh, frog, that sits on the garden seat
(Croak, croak! where the trees hang low),
Have you ever swum in the ocean deep,
In the waves where the wild winds blow,
Where the red crabs crawl on the rocks below,
On the rocks where the dead men sleep?’”

“It’s kind o’ buttery,” said Abe slowly, “but I don’t see no sense in it. What’s a frog on a garden seat got anything to do with dead men? And crabs ain’t red.”

“Oh, that’s a poet’s licence.”

“It are, eh? Well, I won’t go to your shop for spirrits. Is there any more?”

“This is the second verse,” I said, rather discouraged:

“‘Oh, speckled toad, did you ever dream
(Croak, croak! there’s a snake on the wall),
Did you ever dream of my lady dear,
Who sometimes walks in the garden here
(While the milk in the pan is making cream),
And sings when there’s no one near?’”

“How does it sound?”

“It sounds like treacle,” said Abe, with a puzzled look; “but I don’t see what the podder’s got to do with it, anyhow; and the young woman’s got no business to be wasting her time waiting for the milk to set. Why don’t she use the cream separator?”

“I couldn’t write about a machine.”

“Why not—hum—er—hum—why not say this:

“After she turned the cream separator,
She sat and ate a cold pertater.”

“There is no sentiment in that!” I said indignantly; “and the words have no rhythm.”

“What’s rhythm?”

“Why, tone, modulation, music; you know!”

“Sonny! is there any music in the croak of a frog—is there? In course not! Now listen—what do you hear?”

I listened, and heard nothing but the drowsy hum and hollow drone of the surf.

“I can hear nothing.”

“Soh! Well, now jes’ cock yer ear, and hearken to the voice of the sea—rising and falling, soft and melancholy. Dying away to a whisper, then swellin’ up as the big wave rolls in, swinging to and fro in a great song of quiet and peace. That’s music, sonny; and when the wind rises, and in the dark of the night, the spring-tide, coming in with the power of the sea behind, thunders on the beach, there’s music there—wild and grand—and when the clouds pile up outer the sea higher and higher, and the yearth waitin’ in silence, when there is no breath of air, shakes to the rollin’ crash of the thunder—there’s music then. Where’s your potery beside them sounds and the lightning flash and the rush of the wind, and the splashing of water risin’ suddenly?”

I thrust my paper back into my pocket.

“There’s music, sonny, in the veld and bush, and in the night cries of the wild animiles and birds; but I yeard onct a sound I shall never forget, and I guess there was in it a whole book of potery. But you ain’t finished about your podder.”

“Never mind the frog, the snake has swallowed him by this. Tell me the story.”

“Well it were in the Borna Pass, time of the Kaffir War, and the ole 94th were halted in the jaws of the pass, waitin’ for the cool of the afternoon before they marched. I recomember it well—the dark woods in the narrow pass rising up till they ’most shut out the sky; the red-coats down by the water; the smoke rising in tall columns from the cooking fires; the horses standing in a bunch switching the flies offen ’em; the oxen knee-deep in the water; and a silence born of the hot sun over all. It were as quiet as Sunday down in the mouth of the pass, with the sun running up and down the bayonets like fire, and no red to stain them, for there was no news of Kaffirs within a day’s march.

“I yeard a honey-bird call outer the black of the wood, and I jes’ moved off with nothin’ mor’n a pipe and a clasp-knife.

“‘Where you going, Abe?’ said a little bugler chap, lookin’ up from the shade of a bush.

“‘Bee huntin’, sonny.’

“‘I’ll come along o’ you,’ he sed; ‘as there ain’t no bloomin’ Kafs to hunt, bees’ll do.’

“He were a little chap, with his lips all cracked by the sun, and a little nose that you couldn’t see for the freckles, and brown eyes like you see in a bird or a buck—clear and bright. Always he were on the move, like a willey-wagtail, and him and me were chums. Ah yes; many a story I tole him by the camp fire, him a sitting with his chin in his hands staring at me with his big round eyes, and they called him ‘Abe’s kid,’ ’cos I downed a fellow for boosting him with a leather belt. I tole you how a little dream lad had come to me one night outer the sea; that were he, my son—that were my little boy.”

“Did he die?” I said, looking at the old man.

“He went away, sonny, but he said he’d wait for me, and he’ll keep his word.” There was a wistful look in the old man’s face as he looked towards the sea for some time in silence. “Yes; we slipped inter the wood, the honey-bird calling—the only sound outer the great stillness of the woods, ’cept for the crushing of the dried leaves under our tread, and the bird, flitting like a shadder from tree to tree, led us on deeper and deeper into the heart of the Borna Pass, till I pulled up to take bearings.

“‘We must get away back, little chap,’ I said.

“‘Then it’s not true what you tole me about the honey-bird?’ and he looked at me askance.

“‘Why not?’ said I.

“‘’Cos there he is a calling like mad, same as ever. I don’t believe he’s a honey-bird, and I don’t believe any of them stories you’ve been tellin’ me. You’re no pal of mine,’ he said, looking at me with a wrinkle ’tween his eyes.

“‘I’m thinkin’ we’re gettin’ too far from the lines,’ I sed, ‘and you ain’t used to the bush if Kaffirs were to come.’

“‘You’re afraid,’ he sed; ‘that’s what.’

“‘Come on,’ I sed, like a fool; and I went on, stooping through the bush, going mighty quick, and him panting after me. ‘I can smell honey,’ I sed, stopping short, and noticin’ that the bird had done his flight.

“‘Garn!’ he sed, wrinkling up his little nose. There was a holler tree standin’ up in a little clearin’ no bigger’n a room, and the hum of the bees came to us as we stood.

“‘I see ’em,’ he says; ‘look at ’em streaming in! What a lark! Cut a hole with your knife,’ he says, ‘’an I’ll carry some honey back in this bugle,’ and he laughed.

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘who’s been tellin’ lies?’

“He laughed again.

“‘I takes it back, Abe,’ he says. ‘Oh my eye! Jes’ look!’

“I seed then we’d clomb high up on the left side of the pass, and from the clearin’ there was a sight of the hanging woods over against us, of the narrow path below, and the soldiers away down to the left.

“‘Now you’ve seed the bee-tree,’ I says, ‘we mus’ go back.’

“‘Jes’ a little honey, Abe,’ he says; ‘jes’ a little to take back, else that Jimmy’ll never b’lieve I been up here.’

“I were looking across at the dark wood, and I said to him quietly, ‘Get behind the tree,’ for I’d seed a Kaffir stretched out on a grey rock that stood outer the bush.

“‘What’s the row?’ he says, looking a little scared. Maybe ’cos I looked the same.

“‘Take off that coat,’ I sed; for the red showed up plain.

“‘Take off the Queen’s coat?’ he sed, going red and white; ‘not me!’

“‘My lad,’ I sed to him quiet; ‘there are Kaffirs in the bush.’

“‘What larx,’ he sed in a whisper, and his eyes opening wide as he stared at me.

“‘And if you keep your coat on they’ll see you.’

“‘Let ’em,’ he said, swallering his throat.

“‘Take it off,’ I said.

“‘Not me.’

“‘Then I leave you.’ And with that I slipped away, but turned on my tracks and come back softly to peer at him. He were still standing behin’ the tree, looking away off at the soldiers, but his coat were buttoned up tight to his throat I went up to him tip-toe and touched him on the soldier, and he gave a low cry and jumped aside with his fists up. When he seed who it were, the tears came into his eyes.

“‘Abe Pike,’ he sed, tremblin’, ‘that’s a mean trick to play on a boy—a mean dirty trick.’

“I allow it were mean, but I thought I’d skeer him into taking off that red rag. Then I give it up. ‘Come on,’ I sed, ‘foller me; stop when I stop, run when I run, and keep quiet.’

“So we sot off tenderly through the bush, and we hadn’t gone mor’n fifty paces when I smelt the Kaffirs. I sank down; he did, too, and I peered through the shadders. A sound came to us—the sound of naked feet, of moving branches—and I knew the pass were full of men.

“He touched me on the arm as the bugle call to ‘fall in’ rang along into the still pass, ekering as it went from side to side.

“I put my mouth to his ear to tell him the Kaffirs were swarming, and that we could not go on, but must go up the ridge and work round to the troops.

“‘What are the Kaffirs doing?’ he sed.

“‘They are making an ambush.’

“‘And the General doesn’t know?’

“‘No, sonny, he doesn’t.’

“‘And they’ll march in and be stabbed,’ he whispered, with his eyes round and staring.

“‘Oh, they’ll fight their way out,’ I sed. ‘Come on after me.’

“‘Good-bye,’ he said, sitting down. ‘You go on—I’m tired.’

“‘I’ll carry you, little chap,’ says I, and I picked him up, but he was heavy for his size, and the bush was thick, and more than that, he kicked.

“So I sot him down, and I yeard a Kaffir calling out to his friends to know what the noise was. I motioned to him to come, but he sot there, with his face white, and shook his head; then he altered his mind. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I’ll foller—go quick!’ So I sot off up the ridge through the wood, slipping from tree to tree, thinking he were coming, when all of a sudden outer the wood, ringing out clear and loud, a bugle sounded the alarm. I looked round and the boy were not there. I ran back, and saw him with the bugle to his lips, and his cheeks swelling as he blew another blast. I can hear it now—the call of that little chap, with the muttered cries of the Kaffirs, and the sound of their naked feet running, as they came up.

“‘You little devil,’ I yelled; ‘they’ll kill you. Run!’

“He gave me one look over his shoulder, and he put his life into that last blow. As the last note went swinging away, there came an answering note from the regiment—to form square.

“‘That’ll be Jimmy,’ he said. And the next minnit an assegai struck him on the neck, and he fell into my arms.”

Abe stopped, and looked away.

“What, then?” I said, touching him on the shoulder.

“I don’t know, sonny, what happened, till I laid him down afore the General.”

“You carried him out?”

“I s’pose so—I s’pose so—seeing as we were both there; and my clothes were in rags from the thorns, and my head cut open with a kerrie. Yes, I laid him afore the General.

“‘What’s this?’ he says.

“‘General,’ I said, ‘this boy has saved the regiment; he could a’ run—but he didn’t.’

“‘Who sounded the alarm?’ he sed.

“‘It was him, and the pass is full of Kaffirs.’

“The General stooped down, and looked into the little feller’s face.

“‘Damn you, man,’ he said, turning on me; ‘what did you take him into the wood for?’

“The little chap opened his eyes, and they were fixed, all glazed, on the General, and the officers stood around, looking, and the soldiers in the square.

“The General brought his hand to his cap, then he wheeled round: ‘Ninety fourth—present—arms!’

“The ranks came to a salute, and the officers brought their heels together and their swords up.

“The little chap let his eyes scan the lines.

“‘They are saluting you, my brave boy,’ said the General.

“I felt him move in my arms, and I lifted his hand to his head to salute. Then he sighed, then he smiled, and his eyes closed. ‘I’ll wait for you, Abe,’ he said, and he was dead.

“‘Ninety-fourth,’ said the General, ‘the enemy’s in the pass.’

“They came by in columns, and as they passed, they looked at the little chap and saluted, and they went on in silence with their mouths shut.

“They clean frightened the Kaffirs that time; and next day—they buried the little chap—the band playing—and all the regiment in full dress. My little chap—my little chap!” said Abe, in a whisper—“‘I’ll wait for you, Abe,’ he sed. And when he sounds the bugle ole Abe’ll go. Yes, I sit and listen for it.” He sat still, looking toward the sea, and I went quietly away.

Chapter Thirty Two.

The “Red” Kaffirs!

I found Abe Pike one afternoon poring over a newspaper, tracing each word with a horny finger, and laboriously spelling out the long words.

“Getting hints about pumpkin-growing, Abe?”

“No, sonny; jes’ studying how to give spoon-food to infants, and you’ve come in time.”

The old man looked vexed. He suddenly rolled the paper into a ball, and threw it at a lizard.

“It’s mean!” he said; “danged mean!”

“What?”

He held out his hand, and I mechanically gave him my tobacco pouch.

“Ever been to England?” he said.

“Yes; you know I have.”

“Soh! Is the people there white?”

“Of course!”

“Same as you and me?”

“A little whiter, I should say, Abe. What are you driving at?”

“Look here, sonny! I’ve been in this country, man an’ boy, ever since I were born; and, you b’lieve me, I never get hole of a paper from the Ole Land but there’s some abuse of us colonists. That’s why I ask you is they white.”

“What have they been saying now?”

“Saying; why the same old story—that we’re a hard lot, always driving the Kaffirs, an’ killing ’em, an’ stealing their lands, an’ ’busin’ their women-folk, and grindin’ ’em down.”

“Well; what does it matter!”

“It matters the hull sackful. Look at me—I’ve never been to England, but all the same it’s my home. I love the ole flag, and cry ‘Hurrah’ for the Queen; an’, ole as I am, I’d boost anybody over the head as ’ud up an’ say England was not the best and the biggest and the grandest country in the world. Yessir!”

“She’s not very big, Abe.”

“Soh! Well, she’s big enough to spread her arms all round the yearth, and fetch anybody on the other side ‘ker-blum’ with a man-o’-war’s big gun. We give her all—it ain’t much, maybe—an’ we get back a crop of suspicions. That’s why I ask, is the people in the Ole Land white?”

“We are all of one family, Abe, and relations don’t compliment each other.”

“Who’s crying out for compliments? I leave ’em to the chaps over in England, who praise each other to their face in the halls, and tell each other what fine fellows they are to save the Kaffirs from them cruel, savageous colonists. May the Lord look up and down ’em for the mischief they’ve done.”

“You seem very bitter, Abe.”

“Well, the reading in that paper has lef a bitter taste. You see, sonny, I recomember the wars of the ‘thirties’ and the ‘forties,’ when your father were a boy—and his uncles and brothers, and sisters and wives—the whole lot of us—were raw to the land—when the country all round were wild—and the Kaffirs hangin’ on the frontier like a great dark wave way out on the sea—ready to rush in and sweep us offern the land. Three times they rushed in—three times we had to leave our homes, our flocks, our crops, and make for the posts. Then we had to fight ’em back, and those people away over in England each time ’ud fetch a howl that reached across the sea about the cruelty of the colonists—with never a word about the burnt houses, and the cattle swept off, and the women and children.

“Look here, sonny,” said Abe, his face growing dark; “I’ll tell you somethin’ I seed when I was a grown boy—somethin’ about one of these very wars the people at home have blamed us for making for our own gain.

“The Kaffirs were over yonder; about twenty miles away across the Chumie, and the farmers were scattered all about, thinkin’ of nothin’ at all but the mealie crop, and the wheat nearly ripe, and the pumpkin patches—for they had been through hard times, and the season were good. Jes’ away back of this place, where the three springs of the Kleinemonde rise out of the flats, there were a little valley no bigger’n ten acres, set around with small hills, and the water runnin’ through and round it under big yellerwood and Kaffir plum trees; while in the water stood clumps of palmeit and tree ferns, yeller and green, and rustlin’ to the wind. Beyond the hills the grass veld rolled away to the Fish River bush, over here towards the Kaffirs, and the Kowie bush ’way back. On the grass veld were a many herd of bucks—springbok and blesbok—while in the thick bush were koodoo and buffel—ay, an’ elephant!

“It is a mooi place now, that little valley; but I tell you then it were a spot to make a man look and long. But it were risky. The Fish River bush were a leetle too close, in case the Kaffirs raided.

“Howsomdever, there were one man who took the risk. He were ole Mr Tolver—a farmer from Devonshire, and with him were seven sons—two on ’em born here, the rest away in the ole country. My gum! you should a seed ’em. The ole man hisself were not so big, though he were broad an’ deep; but four of his boys were over six feet, and the other three were growing fast. Ole Mr Tolver druv his stake into the little valley. ‘This is my settlement,’ he sez to the Government officer who came riding round, and tried to persuade him to give it up, because of its aloneness. ‘Here I am,’ he sez, ‘and here I stays, and durn the Kaffirs!’

“‘You’re a stubborn man, Tolver,’ sez the officer, ‘but I have warned you. If the Kaffirs come they would cut you off before you could reach Grahamstown.’

“‘Jes’ cast your eyes over my boys,’ sez Tolver; and the boys laughed, and stood in a row.

“There was Jake at the top, six-foot-four, with a yeller beard, and eyes blue as a bit of sky. Slow he were and heavy in his tread, with a hand like a leg o’ mutton and a heart soft as a woman. He were courtin’ a girl over at Clumber. I seed him offen there, but all the time you’d a thought he were there to play with the little girl, and not her big sister. Nex’ to him were Oll, with a smooth face and a bull neck, and brown eyes that were always laughing. He took arter his mother. Arter him come Seth—long and thin and solum, with a habit of croonin’ to hisself. And nex’ him were Harry—the devil of the family; straight as a ramrod, handsome, and hot-tempered. He were a fine young chap, and the girls ran when he came in sight to put their hair straight. Then come one below six foot—young Willie, who took after his brother Jake, and jes’ follered Harry like a shadder. Nex’ him were barefooted Jimmy—a boy that was a born hunter, and knew more about animiles and how to cotch ’em than any man; an’ last of all were the baby Tom. Tho’ they called him ‘baby,’ he were as big a’most as you, with the hair sticking through a hole in his felt hat, and bare brown legs.

“There they stood in a row—the seven sons; and the officer threw his eye along ’em.

“‘By God!’ he sed, ‘they’re fine chips from the ole country. Well, you’ll do as you like, Tolver; but take my advice—build a house with stone walls out in the clearing, and don’t have a thatch-roof.’

“Well; he rode off, and Tolver squatted in that little valley, clearing out the bush from the centre, and growing a’most anything. Many a time I went over there to climb the trees for plums with Tom, or go off bee huntin’ with Jimmie, and in the quiet of the evenin’ I’ve sot outside with the others, while Seth he played on his concertina bellers, making the saddest music, fit to make you roll over an’ cry.

“One night I went over, so to be ready to go on a long hunt nex’ day with Jimmie, and down the hill there came a Kaffir, with his kerrie across his shoulder, and his arms resting on the stick by the wrists, after their way of walking.

“‘Gumela!’ he sed, and stood near by, waiting, drawin’ his red blanket round him, and his face set like a block o’ wood.

“Ole baas Tolver he jes’ grunted, and the Kaffir he stood there lookin’.

“Arter a time the ole baas up and sed—‘Jake, fetch him a stick o’ tobacco!’

“Jake riz up, and there seemed no end to him, and he reached out a long arm with a yank of black tobak.

“‘Yoh!’ sed the Kaffir.

“‘Oll,’ said the ole baas; ‘step inside for a strip of meat. Seth, put another stick on the fire. You, Harry, draw a bucket o’ water from the spring.’

“As, one arter the other, these big chaps riz up from the ground, and went striding off about their jobs which the ole man had set them a-purpose, the Kaffir looked more an’ more s’prised.

“‘Sit and eat,’ sed the ole baas.

“‘Inkosi,’ sed the Kaffir; and he squatted down to the fire, with his hands out to the blaze, and his black eyes half-closed; while the meat spluttered on the coals, giving off a fine smell.

“‘Willie,’ sed the ole man; ‘fetch out the guns and give ’em a clean up.’

“Willie sprang up—nearly six foot of him—and the Kaffir looked roun’ the fire at the other two boys.

“‘Yoh,’ he said, ‘these men are like trees;’ and his eyes shone in the light, and on his breast there gleamed white a string of tiger claws.

“So he sot and eat, and then he said he were going on to the Kasouga to see his brother, who was herding cattle for a white man.

“When he went the ole man laughed in his beard. ‘I guess,’ he sed, ‘he’ll see we’re too much of a mouthful in case they mean trouble.’

“‘I hope we haven’t frightened him,’ sed Harry; ‘things are gettin’ too quiet.’

“‘The quieter the better,’ sed Jake; ‘we don’t wan’t any Kaffirs swooping down here. I didn’t like the look of that fellow; he said too little.’

“‘Phooh!’ said Harry, ‘I’d take him with one hand.’

“‘I’ll jes’ walk over to Clumber,’ sed Jake, stretching hisself, ‘and fetch the sweet pertaters for sowing to-morrow.’

“Harry laughed.

“‘You’re getting nervous, Jake,’ he sed, ‘now you’re in love. There’s somethin’ sweeter’n pertaters over yonder.’

“Jake laid Harry on his back—not so’s to hurt him, and swung off inter the dark, while me and Jimmie and Tom reckoned that Harry was the chap if there was any trouble.

“Early next morn, me and Jim stretched away across the veld, towards the Fish River, carrying a tin for the honey and a hunk of black bread.

“We’d gone about six miles when Jimmie stubbed his toe, and sit down, with a holler, to nurse it.

“‘My gum!’ he sed, ‘it’s bad; I guess we’ll go back and leave this trip for nex’ week. There’s a honey-tree near home, and we’ll go there.’

“I were ’leven and he were sixteen, and what he sed I’d got to do, so we turned back, and he limpin’.

“All o’ a sudden, when we got in a dip, he give over limpin’. ‘Abe,’ he says, breathin’ hard, ‘there were a Kaffir watching us. Now you go along home—quick! Don’t say nothin’ to father. Maybe the chap’s up to no mischief, but if he is, I’ll find out.’

“‘Come back with me,’ I sed, skeered.

“‘Do what I tell you,’ he sez; and when I started to go, he slipped away to the left, up the hill. Well, I went on, gettin’ more and more skeered, till I saw the house, then I jes’ hid away and waited for Jim. Bymby, in the afternoon, here he came running, and I run to meet him when he slowed down.

“‘Whatjer see?’ I asked him.

“‘Nothin’,’ he sez.

“‘Whatjer run for, then?’

“‘To keep warm,’ he sez, though the sweat were running off him.

“Well, when we got to the clearin’ we met Jake hauling on a big stump.

“‘Well, youngsters,’ he says; wiping his forehead with the back of his hand; ‘had a good time?’

“‘Jake,’ said Jimmie, ‘there’s Kaffirs over yonder.’

“‘What’s that! Are you joking?’

“‘There’s Kaffirs over yonder,’ sed Jimmie, staring at his brother; ‘and the chap as was here last night is with ’em. I heard them call him. His name’s Tyali.’

“‘My God!’ said Jake, going white. ‘Tell father,’ he sed, and then he ran.

“I laughed, sneering at Jake, and Jimmie hit me in the side, though his mouth were twitching.

“‘What the row?’ sed Harry, coming up.

“‘Kaffirs!’ sed Jimmie, scowling after Jake.

“‘Hurrah!’ sed Harry, and threw up his hat.

“‘What’s all this I yere from Jake?’ said ole man Tolver, striding up. ‘So,’ he sed, when Jimmie tole him, putting the ends of his beard into his mouth, which were a trick he had when thinking. ‘So; they’re coming. Well, let ’em come! I tole that Guv’ment chap I’d stay here, and here I’ll stay. If any of you boys would like to go, you’d better clear now.’

“They were all of them together—all but Jake, and he had gone running into the house.

“‘It’s too much trouble to run,’ said Oll, biting on a piece of grass. ‘’Sides, I ain’t finished “scoffling” the mealies. I’ll stay.’

“The ole baas he jes’ grunted.

“‘So’ll I,’ said Seth.

“‘Ef you all went,’ said Harry, with his eyes shining, ‘I’d stop.’

“The ole baas he jes’ grunted ag’in.

“‘An’ me,’ said Willie; ‘and me too’—‘and me,’ said Jim and baby Tom.

“‘Thank you, my sons,’ sed Tolver, softly, and jes’ then Jake came outer the house—Jake the biggest and the oldest, and the kindest of the brothers. In his hand he carried a big chopping axe, which were like a little stick in his grasp. He looked at his brothers, and his father looked at him.

“‘I’m going over to Clumber,’ he sed.

“‘So,’ sed his father; and they all stood silent.

“‘Yes,’ sed Jake after a time, ‘I give ’em warning.’

“‘And take yourself out of danger,’ sed the ole baas quietly.

“Jake looked at his father rather sad-like, and then he said: ‘Shall I take Jim and Tom with me?’

“‘I won’t go,’ sed Tom, turning red.

“Jimmie sed nothin’, but his lip trembled. He thought a heap of Jake, and here he seed him turnin’ tail.

“‘Abe,’ said Jake, speaking quietly; ‘you’ve got no part in this—come with me.’

“‘I’m not running away,’ I sed. ‘I’ll stay with Harry.’

“Jake opened his mouth as if he’d speak, then he turned on his heel and strode away with his axe over his shoulder.

“His brothers turned to look after him, and ole Tolver, he called out in a hard voice, ‘Don’t you come back here again. You’re no son of mine.’ Jake he gave no sign, and I seed Jimmie’s face working.

“‘Yah! you’re afraid like him,’ I sed.

“‘You lie,’ he sed, and hit me ’longside the jaw.

“‘Be quiet, boys,’ said Oll Tolver, ketching Jim by the arm.

“‘Seth,’ said the ole baas, speaking short and firm. ‘Get ter the top of that hill, and keep a sharp look-out. Willie and Jim, bring the cows into the kraal. Oll and Harry, fill the water barrel, and put it inside the house. Tom and you, Abe, move all the things outer the big room, and get the guns ready.’

“Seth sot off up the hill at a lope, and the other boys all went about their work, and got things to rights in no time. Then we hung about fidgettin’—picking things up and putting them down, and looking up to Seth all the time.

“Arter a long time Seth lifted up his hand, and we all stood in a bunch watching him till our eyes ached—then here he come down the hill like a cart wheel, while the big chaps grabbed their guns, and I bolted inter the house.

“‘Are they coming?’ shouted Harry.

“Seth nodded as he ran.

“‘How many?’

“‘One,’ said Seth, with a gasp.

“‘Good lord!’ said Harry, throwing his rifle down.

“‘I say,’ sed Seth, drawlin’ out his words—his neck was that long; ‘you fellows jes’ slouch around ’s if you were at work. I’m goin’ to meet this chap. Maybe he’s a spy.’

“‘Seth’s right,’ said the ole baas; and the boys put the guns away, and scattered about as if they were restin’.

“Seth slipped a naked hunting-knife inside the band of his trousers, and lounged away up the path; and bymby, when he nearly got to the top, a Kaffir came over the ridge, stood a moment looking, then come down. He carried his blanket over his right shoulder.

“When they met, the Kaffir he took snuff, and Seth he gave him a bit of tobacco. Then they talked and talked, and the Kaffir, he kep’ his eye on the house, and arter a time he kep’ movin’ around—’s if he’d like to get behind Seth—and Seth all the time he kep’ his face to the t’other. Then the Kaffir went away back, and Seth went up to the ridge again, and there was another spell of waiting.

“Then Harry sed he weren’t going to fool about any more, and he made tracks for the little wood above the clearing, and Willie follered. No sooner’d they got clear than here comes Seth again, like a streak.

“‘It’s all right,’ he sed; ‘they’re comin’ thick. The veld’s red with ’em.’

“They gave a hail for Harry and went inside, and each one looked to see the shiny, brass caps were hard down on the nipple—while Tom, he laid out the round bullets, and the greased rags for wroppin’ ’em in, and the slugs handy. Seth were tellin’ how the Kaffir ast him questions, and how he seed the assegai under his blanket—then there came a deep sound rolling along the ground, which made me hide away in the barrel churn, and made the brothers all go silent. It were the war song of the red Kaffirs, deep from their chests, slow and boomin’, and solum, and in between there were the shrill crying of the women, follering behind the fightin’ men with the mats and the pots.

“Ole baas Tolver stood at the door looking for Harry, and he give a shout for him to hurry; and the Kaffirs came over the crest of the hill. Jimmie pushed his rifle through a hole in the wall, with a gasp in his throat.

“‘Don’t shoot!’ sed his father; and he looked away to the woods for his two sons. And so they stood, waiting and watching.

“I crept out of the barrel to see what they were looking at so set, and there I seed the Kaffirs slipping down the hill, from rock to rock, edging all the time towards the wood, and others coming up over the ridge, their bodies stripped and oiled for war, and their faces smeared with red clay.

“‘My God!’ sed the ole man under his breath; then he bellered out ‘Run!’

“I looked between his legs, and seed Harry and Willie comin’ up from the wood, and walkin’ jes’ ’s if they were comin’ in to dinner.

“The Kaffirs yelled when they seed them, and started running. Harry threw up his gun, and they dropped down, hiding away behind nothing. I yeard Harry laugh. Well, they came on at that fool pace, and all on a sudden the Kaffirs came leaping and dodging down. The two brothers they stood still, with their rifles up and fired; then they come on loading, and fired again.

“‘Run, Willie,’ sed Harry; ‘let’s see who can get in first,’ and with that he made to run, and Willie let out full speed, with the Kaffirs yelling like mad. When he got near the door he looked round and seed Harry walking backwards with his rifle ready, and the Kaffirs hanging away back and whizzing their assegais. He made ’s if to start back, but the ole man caught him by the arm and yanked him in.

“‘Fire!’ sed the ole baas, and he and the three boys blazed away, Jimmy letting rip a handful of slugs.

“Well, the Kaffirs they dropped, crawling for shelter, and Harry came in as cool as you please, with an assegai in his hand that he picked up. Then he seed me crouching down, and laugh’d a’most till he cried, for I were covered with the leavings of the churn.

“They took their places inside the room, each one at a hole, and began firing by fits and starts, Tom standin’ ready with a charge of powder from the horn each time.

“‘They’re going to rush the cattle,’ sed Oll; ‘and we can’t prevent ’em from here. Some of us had better get into the shed.’

“Well, three of them boys went out—Oll, and Harry, and Willie—and there were a terrible how-de-do out there, shoutin’ an’ whistlin’, and bangin’; the dogs barking fit to bust themselves, the ole red bull bellering, and the fowls that had flew to the roof cackling all together. My! I were skeered, and Tom, he looked if he’d bolt inter the tub along with me, but he jes’ kep on pouring out the powder.

“Then I yeard ‘Hurrah,’ and ole Tolver tore open the door, and Tom most split his throat.

“The Kaffirs were on the run, and when I crep’ out, I seed Harry a tearin’ up the hill arter them, with Will at his heels, then—oh, lad!—oh, lad!—from the wood there came out, swift and silent, a party of Kaffirs led by the chief Tyali, and they cut between the three boys and the house.

“I yeard Oll shout, ‘Back! Turn back!’ then again, ‘Together, brothers!’—and the three, clubbing their rifles, went straight at the chief and his men, an’ ole Tolver dancing about at the door, fearing to shoot, and Tom staring with his eyes wide, and the powder running from the horn on the floor.

“Then there were a whirling crowd of men, and the smack of sticks—and the ‘thud—thud—thud,’—and groans—and out of the pack Oll lurched, carrying Willie, whose head lay back limp.

“He came along like a tipsy man—rolling—with his mouth fixed in a smile, and the blood running from his head.

“When he were near the door a Kaffir stabbed him in the back, and the ole baas shot the Kaffir.

“Then Oll reeled back, and he spoke in gasps, ‘I can’t—go—any—further—father—take Will—he’s hurt,’—then he jes’ sank to the ground, and rolled over.

“Seth brought Willie in, and laid him down on the floor.

“And ole man Tolver stood outside the door calling for a loaded gun; and then he sprang at a Kaffir who were stooping to stab Oll, and broke the stock of his gun.

“I were by the door, ’cause I had no strength to move, and I seed someone pass.

“‘Get into the house, father,’ he sed, ‘and hold it.’

“It were Jake; and in his hand he held the axe he took away in the morning.

“He put his hand on his father’s shoulder a moment ‘Get back,’ he sed, ‘for the sake of the boys,’ and then he ran up to where the Kaffirs still swarmed around Harry. He opened a lane with his axe. I tell you I thought it were like splitting water-melons, and I laughed, and Jimmie, he cried. The Kaffirs gave way, crouching and holding their shields up. Then Jake lifted Harry, who were on his knees, and carried him down. As he came, the whole lot of them—maybe five hundred—came with a rush; then Jimmie dashed out, and took Harry from his brother, and Jake stood out alone.

“‘Shut the door!’ he shouted loud and stern; ‘do you hear—shut it!’

“The old baas looked wildly at Seth; and Seth he shook his head.

“‘Shut it,’ sed Jake; ‘in the name of our mother!’ and the ole man with a sort of groan pulled the door to, jamming my fingers.

“Outside were the noise of that fight, and inside were silence, and white set faces, and the tears running from Jimmie’s eyes.

“‘Let me out!’ he cried; ‘let me out!’ he kep’ on cryin’—‘let me out!’ and then he struggled to open the door.

“Then we heard Jake again.

“‘Good-bye,’ he sed; and we held our breath, till the fierce shout rose higher and higher, and we knew Jake were dead.

“Then the ole man’s beard curled up. He forgot about his other sons. He opened the door, and with a roar he ran into the Kaffirs, and Jimmie with him. Seth were follering, too, when an assegai whizzed into the room, and a Kaffir stood at the doorway, when Seth jabbed him in the stomach with the muzzle, and druv his fist into the face of another; then he pulled-to the door, and there were only him and Tom and me, with Willie dead and Harry gasping.

“Then Seth began to sing. He’d stop to shoot, then he’d sing again; and the sound of his singing were worse than the yelling of the Kaffirs swarming all round the house. Tom he stood up in the room tremblin’ and loadin’, his face black where the smoke stuck to the tears, and once and again he’d jump to a hole and shoot.

“And at last an ole pot leg struck Seth on the head and he sot down.

“He put his hand to his head and looked at the blood; then he shook his head and laughed a strange laugh.

“‘It’s all over,’ he sed—‘dang it.’ Then he saw Harry, and he said softly: ‘Poor chap,’ then he stared at Willie, and his eye came on to me watchin’ him.

“‘Abe,’ he sed, ‘you’ll find my concertina hanging up; jes’ hand it to me.’

“Well, I gave it him, and bolted back into the tub, and he began to play.

“The Kaffirs stopped, and I yeard one call out ‘Yinny!’ and others said ‘Yoh!’ and you could hear them trying to peep in.

“‘Tom,’ he said soft.

“‘Yes, Seth.’

“‘You and Abe get into the mealie pit in the pantry. Maybe, they’ll not see you.’

“Tom he shook his head, and banged the gun—and the Kaffirs came hard at the door.

“Seth he went on playing, and Harry rolled over. ‘I’ve got a pain,’ he muttered; ‘mother, I’ve got a pain,’—and Seth he went on playing softer and softer.

“Then I crawled away inter the dark of the pantry—inter the mealie hole.”

Abe stopped, and his face looked grey and aged.

“Well, Abe?”

“That’s all sonny. They did not find me.”

“And what became of Tom?”

“He went with his brothers, sonny. Seven better boys you’d never want to meet, and seven finer men you could not. They all went—in that one day—and the Kaffirs swep’ on over the land.”

Chapter Thirty Three.

Out of the Deep Sea.

“I see that the magistrate at Port Nolloth has seen the sea-serpent. It was a mile out at sea—raised its head ten feet from the water, and remained in sight for an hour.”

“Is he partickler about the ten feet?” said Abe Pike.

“Yes, he is explicit on that point.”

“Seems to me it’s difficult to judge that height at a distance of a mile,” said Abe; “but, come to think of it, there was a magistrate at Mossel Bay who had the same luck about two years ago. He seed the serpent sporting around for a hour off the coast, and the crittur raised its head somewhere about ten feet. So I guess it’s the same that’s cruising off Port Nolloth.”

“Ever been to Port Nolloth?” asked Long Jim. “Well, I have; and the country’s that lonesome and sand-blown, and gen’rally lost to all sense of what’s fittin’ for human beings to admire, that I’m not surprised the magistrate thought he saw something.”

“Don’t you believe in sea-serpents, Jim?”

“What, me! Well onct I spent a whole hour trying to smash a sea-serpent with rocks, and at the end of that time I found the thing were sea-bamboo—round and smooth, and tapering away to a point like a moving tail. No, sir; give me something I can see and feel.”

“’Cording to all accounts,” said Abe, drily, “if you did feel the crittur, it would be when passing down his throat.”

“Of course you’ve seen one, Abe?” said Si Amos with a slight sneer.

“I have,” said Abe, quietly, as he reached over for the demijohn of Cango.

“Did he lift his head ten feet from the sea?” asked Long Jim.

“I see what it is,” said Abe; “you fellows been listening to my exper’ences so long that you think I’m lying; and I’m not gwine to sacrifice my self-respeck by telling you things you don’t believe. That’s so!”

There was a long pause, as no one felt disposed to make the needed sacrifice to Abe’s exacting honour.

“Was it a big snake?” asked Long Jim presently.

“Pretty big,” said Abe, shortly.

“Twenty feet?” asked Jim, anxiously.

Mr Pike smiled.

“Not so much?” said Jim.

“About a quarter of a mile long,” said Abe, rising. “Well, I guess I’ll go. So long.”

“Stay a moment,” said Jim, firmly; “I can’t let you go without saying that Abe Pike’s word’s as true as steel. A quarter of a mile, you said?”

“Might a been a yard shorter,” said Abe, carelessly, as he paused at the door.

“Come back, old man,” said Jim. “Take this chair—and there’s more in the jug. So; that’s good. A quarter of a mile,” he muttered. “Well, that’s good enough for a stretcher.”

“If you come along with me, Jim,” said Abe, “I’ll tell you about it. But I’m not laying myself open to words from them as is full of suspicion as a family of jackals.”

“That’s not fair to me,” I said. “I’ve swallowed—I mean I’ve accepted—all your stories without question.”

“And me, too,” said Si, with a gulp. “Try some of this Transvaal tabak—it’s first rate.”

Abe permitted himself to be appeased. He filled his pipe, and as he leant back in the chair with his heels up on the chimney, and a glass in one hand, a reminiscent look overspread his rugged face.

“This yer exper’ence happened to me away back ’fore you younkers wore shoes—but I never told it, as I were afraid of skeering the wits outer you. That’s so. The Little Kleinemonde over yonder were a blind river, same as now, with a stretch of beach about 200 yards wide ’tween its lip and the sea-foam hissing along the hard sands where the little tumble-crabs swarm in their shells, and the air comes bubbling up outer the sea-worm’s holes. It were more lonely than now—for there’s town families as picnic there for weeks in their tents—and you can hear the little children laugh—and sometimes see a string of girls holding hands and jumping up in the foam. There was never a soul then on the wide, white beach, that stretched away miles east and west—with black rocks running out into the breakers—and back of the beach the high white sandhills, rimmed on the top with thick berry bushes. It were that lonely that sometimes I could have a run away, and the birds that flitted along, hunting for what the tide cast up—the oyster catcher and the curlew made it lonelier with their wild cries. And the river lay back, still and quiet, without a current—between the dark woods—quiet and still—crouching down behind the stretch of beach sand—as if it feared the roaring surf—always tossing and thundering jest across that narrow riband. And the waves came always rushing in, as though they would like to wash away the sand strip and pour their waters over the silent river—and in the spring tides I seed the outermost fringe of foam sweep a’most up to the lip of the river—and go back and come up again—swinging to and fro—till sometimes a little trickle of the salt water would fall into the dead stream, where a many fishes gathered, hoping to get out at last into the great wild waters. I caught fish there at them times—going into ten pounds—springers and steinbrasse. Well, one day there came a great storm of rain—like a cloudburst—and every cattle track and footpath were a running stream—and every river bed were filled to the brim. And in the night I yeard the thunder of the waves at the fall of the spring tide. My! How they roared through the night—and crashed as the big waves curled over and smote the water with the blow of a falling rock. The night were that wild that I could get no sleep—and went to the door to look out. The ground was wet and steaming, and the sound of running water came from every dip and hollow. I sed to myself the dead river will be alive, and the tide and flood will cut a passage deep and wide through the beach, and there will be a litter heaped along the tide mark all down the beach, with good pickings for the first man. So I put a sack over my head, and taking the old muzzle-loader, stepped out into the slushy dark, and squelched away over the sodden veld towards the Kleinemonde. I struck the ridge above the river jest about sunrise, and the light coming through the mist showed up the wildest sight of tossing waters and a beach all strewn with trees and litter of seaweed. As I thought, the dead river was alive and roaring into the seas through a broad channel cut deep into the sand. I went down to the beach and watched the flood pour out, while the spray from the waves druv stinging against my face. I tell you, it was a sight to stand and watch, not heeding the wind or the wet—and the savageness of it gripped hold of me. Bymby I crept along the beach, in and out the piled masses o’ rubbish—finding a many dead birds and sich things—then about noon I was back ag’in at the river—where the incoming tide, all red with the wash from the land, was rolling back the river water and damming up the channel ag’in with tons of sand and seaweed. I made a fire under the shelter of the wood and cooked a fat duck I picked up, and when I finished him off I dried myself by the fire while I watched the river. Jes’ then I seed something in the river that made me jump behind a tree—the black fin of the biggest shark you ever seed, standing out maybe a yard high—and raking back maybe twelve feet—with spikes all along. ‘Lord luv me!’ thinks I; ‘what in thunder’s that?’ And I let drive with both barrels, and the thing darted off with a rush that sent a wave up both sides of the banks among the trees—and far up the river I seed the sun shine on the curve of his body as he turned to come down—and I cut my stick. When I got home I set to and bent a fish-hook outen a steel stable rake—lashing on a line of buffalo rheims. I went back, baited the hook with a sea-bird that I had picked up, and let it run out, taking a bend round the tree with the rheim. The crittur I reckoned was still there—for why, he couldn’t get out by reason of the silting up of the channel—though I could see no sign of him—and he paid no heed to the bait. Well, I were getting tired, when I noticed some cattle at the bend on the other side, where there’s a bit of the flat with a ‘salt lick’—that’s a favourite place for them, by reason of the salt in the soil. They were jest capering around with their tails up, then standing to stare at something in the river, with a ole black bull nearer than the rest, pawing at the ground. I could tell there was some crittur there that they didn’t like—maybe a tiger—but I could see nix beyond a rock or tree stump. As I watched, wondering what could ha’ disturbed them, the ole bull shook his head, then fetched a deep beller and rolled on a few yards—while the cows and young stock behind came together in a bunch. Then the bull stood ag’in—pawing the wet ground—and Lord sakes!—jes’ then that rock riz out of the river.”

“What’s that?”

“Yessir!” and Abe wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “My sakes! I jes’ sunk inter the rushes in a tremble, and the ole bull, with a beller that rolled down the river, turned to run. He never got mor’n ten yards when he were caught by the neck, and I yeard his bones crunch.”

“What caught him?”

“A mouth! It were a mouth that caught him, set in a head like a water barrel, with a neck behind thick as a blue-gum tree, blue along the top and white below. Shaped like a snake it were. It caught the bull by the neck, and lay outstretched, sucking his blood, while the four legs of the poor crittur beat the air, and the cows standing off rushed about lowing. Eighty yards he was distant, and for all I were in a lather from fear, I plunked a bullet jes’ back of the opened jaws. Believe me, at the sound of the gun them cows, with their tails up, charged down on that sarpint. Yessirs, they went for him like a troop of hosses. Some of them took the neck flying, without attempting any mischief, but two old cows went slap at the body with their horns down, druving them in till the blood spurted high. Then he let go o’ the bull, swept the cows off their feet, and with a snort slid into the river, and came charging down like a steam tug for the mouth—his head lifted high up, and the waves streaming as he went I let drive at him as he went by, clean into the head—and at the shot he towered up like a column—and, so lifting himself, flung half his length onto the sand bar. Then he wriggled and writhed till the bulk of his middle lay high and dry, and the tail of him, twenty yards up the river, lashed the water with blows that sounded like cannon—till the swell of the waves he raised floated him off, and I saw him cut through the waves out into the deep sea beyond.”

“Is that all?”

“Yessir, that’s all; and if you’d a been there ’sted of me, Si Amos, I guess you’d a said it was too much—a darn sight too much for your nerves. As for me, I niver went near the place for a year, and when there’s a spring-tide I keep indoors. One thing I seed, and that was a growth of barnacles and seaweed on his back, which explains why it is that some folk say the sea-serpent has got a mane like a hoss.”

Chapter Thirty Four.

The Young Burgher.

The little Dutch village was astir, where almost hidden by the trees of the orchards and quince hedges grown high, it stood beneath the bare rock-bound hills beyond Kambula.

The Zulus had lifted the cattle when they grazed homewards at dusk amid the thin scattering of dark mimosas on the grey plain. The herdsman lay, with his face to the sky, unburied yet, with a terrible wound in his breast, and the long, ugly slit downwards through the abdomen that told of Zulu work.

And the Commando was turning out.

Ten men, sitting loosely in their saddles, were all there were—big, gaunt men with shaggy beards and lined faces of the colour of smoked leather. Of untanned leather, too, were their trousers and veldschoens. Each one carried his food in the small saddle-bag of “rattel” skin, food of the scantiest—a strip of biltong, a pound or two of “ash cookies”—and slung from each bent shoulder was the powder-flask and bullet-bag.

Ten men and a boy—and he alone showed excitement in the brightness of his brown eyes and the firm set of his mouth. A boy so brown that you would have said he was of coloured origin, and with clothes so worn that no street boy would have envied him. A sullen boy and dull of wit you would have thought from his narrow forehead and bent brows, but there was one who did not think so.

“Oh, my kind!” she said, standing by the gate in the quince hedge; “they do not want one so young. And there is the wood to be brought in.”

“Ja!” said one burgher, taking his pipe from his mouth; “he is altogether too young for this work. Let him stay.”

“Hear to Oom Jan,” cried the woman, stepping across a tiny stream that gurgled pleasantly in its narrow bed beside the road; and she laid a restraining hand on the old rheim that did service for the boy’s reins. “Come, my son—my little one.”

The boy looked steadily at his mother. “I am not little any more,” he said.

“It is true,” said the big man who led the little band, turning slowly in his saddle. “He is no longer little. He must come!”

The woman let go her hold and stood back humbly, while her tear-stained face was turned appealingly at the man—her own man; and the burghers, smoking, took advantage of the pause to look back at their own wives and children, who stood out in the solitary street, drawing comfort from each other.

“We must all give,” he said.

“Why should I give all?” she cried with renewed hope. “My husband and my son. Let him stay. Oh! let him stay!”

“Ride!” said the Commandant, sternly; then he sighed, and rode on in silence, never turning.

The boy kept his eyes fixed on his father’s broad back; then a lump came into his throat.

Oom Jan touched him on his shoulder, and the boy started.

“Do not leave her so, neef,” he said.

The boy looked back and waved his ragged cap. “I will come ’gain soon, little mother,” he shouted.

“If the Groot Herr wills,” muttered Oom Jan.

The boy looked at him sharply, then rode on with his head up and his hand firmer upon the stock of his long rifle, as long almost as himself. Already his keen young eyes swept the veld for signs of the Zulus—and he had forgotten the little house and the little patient mother.

The village soon was left behind, and the little band went slowly over the ridge and down the long slope, into a narrow valley, and at dusk reached the broken veld that stretches up to the frowning height of Hlobane. It was very silent. The burghers smoked, but talked not; and very plain, and seeming very near, came the dismal baying of a Zulu dog from a lofty kraal on Zunguin Nek, where a fire gleamed red through the dark.

“There are men there,” said the Commandant in a guttural whisper. “We must ride hard in the morning when we return.”

“Ja!” said Oom Jan; “else they will cut us off. I hope they will eat and drink much this night, so that they sleep fast.”

The other burghers glanced up at the red fire and round into the darkness, as if calculating which way they would ride in case they were cut off.

Young Piet Uys breathed hard. He had often looked at the steep height of Zunguin’s Kop from afar—and now the dark mass that seemed to shut out half the sky oppressed him with the sense of hidden danger. Moreover, he was hungry and cold. They had been four hours in the saddle, and it was surely time they stopped? Why didn’t they tell his father that the horses would grow tired, and that men couldn’t go on all night without feeding and warming themselves?

“There is water here,” he ventured, “and good grass.”

“Ja!” growled Oom Jan.

“Perhaps we will stop soon,” said the boy timidly.

A burgher on his left grunted, and young Piet felt that he had said something stupid. There was deeper silence now, for they were riding in a hollow, and he heard the sound of eating. Why were they eating? Perhaps they would not stop!

“If we stop,” said Oom Jan, as if answering his thoughts, “we shall not get there before sun-up.”

Young Piet sighed heavily and thought of his rheim bed at home, and then of the little mother. He felt now why it was she cried when he left. This was weary work—this blundering on over rocks and through cold streams, with none of the rush and excitement he had pictured.

“And if we do not get there before sun-up,” continued Oom Jan, in his slow way, “we lose the cattle and all.”

“Hold still!” came a muttered command from the leader.

The men drew up, and the horses shook their heads, then pricked their ears, as out of the darkness ahead came the murmur of a chant, swelling up to a deep boom, and sinking again till almost inaudible.

“They dance and make merry,” said the leader. “Ride!”

Once more the horses moved on, picking their way, while each man unslung his rifle and held it with the butt on his thigh. And louder rose that monotonous chant, mounting to the shrill notes of the women’s voices, and sinking to the menacing bass of the warrior’s deep chest notes; and presently there suddenly started out of the gloom a score of gleaming fires in a circle at the base of a vast bulk that stood for Hlobane.

“Pipes out!” said the leader. “Groot Andries, and you Dick Stoffel, and you Piet Uys, will stand here, keeping out of sight, and fire on the Zulus if they follow. The rest—ride!”

The two burghers and the boy remained, and the others filed out of sight. Slowly the time passed to these three as they crouched behind rocks, with their horses tethered in a hollow, and the cold wind of the early morning numbing their fingers and biting their poorly-clad bodies, till the grey of the dawn appeared and threw the mountain of Hlobane into relief. The singing had died away as the wind rose, the fires were dim, and the silence of the early morn was over the land.

“Look!” said Groot Andries, pointing a huge hand, and a mile off on the buttress of the mountain young Piet saw a dark mass in motion, with a few moving specks behind.

He drew his breath in sharply, and the misery left his face. “They are driving the cattle,” he said.

“Ja!” said Andries, moving in his lair to get more comfortable, and sighting along his rifle.

How quickly they come. Piet could see the gleam of tossing horns—and then he counted the riders, with his father riding last. “They have not been seen,” he whispered.

“Oh, ja!” growled Stoffel, “the verdomde folk come.”

Piet raised his head, and his heart almost stopped, as on the left of the cattle he saw Zulus running like greyhounds, speeding to reach a kopje by which the cattle must be driven, and his startled glance roaming further, marked a thin grey whisp of smoke curling up the mountain’s dark side, while his ear caught the hoarse sound of the Zulu horn spreading the alarm.

Groot Andries turned his head and looked long.

“Alle magtij!” he cried; “they sleep not up there. May the Groot Heer help us out for our wives sake.”

Young Piet stared at the big man, then glanced back up Zunguin’s rock-rimmed summit, and saw tiny dark figures like ants hurrying amid the huge rocks. He moistened his lips, and looked at his horse.

“Mount and ride, neef,” said Andries, softly. “Keep towards the Blood River over by Kopje Alleen. Go, little neef.”

“Ja!” growled Stoffel, who was smoking furiously; “loop, little one!”

Young Piet stared at them wildly, then he looked ahead and saw the cattle coming on in a mass, with his own red heifer leading. He saw, too, his father stand alone, looking back, while the other burghers rode hard behind the cattle, and the Zulus poured along untiring. Why did his father stop? Could he not see the warriors?

“Father,” he screamed; “ride!” He would have risen, but a heavy hand was laid upon him.

“Remember the order,” growled Stoffel—“to keep ourselves hid.”

“I will be still,” said Piet, quietly. Then he saw his father throw up his gun and shoot, while another burgher halted and wheeled round with his rifle ready. With a rush the cattle swept by—the burghers after.

Not one drew rein. Not even the Commandant, who simply glanced at the three forms as he went by, last of all, saying briefly, “Shoot straight, and follow fast!”

“Wait, little neef,” said Andries, “and don’t fire anyhow, but single out your man. Then load, mount, and gallop.”

Piet was calm now that he was called upon to act. He dropped a warrior in his stride, loaded quickly, making the ramrod spring, and was waiting by his horse with the reins of the other two all ready for their riders.

“Good neef,” said Andries, as he swung into the saddle, and having momentarily checked the enemy’s advance, they dashed after their comrades. A quarter of a mile further on they passed an ambush, where three other burghers were lying in readiness, and then they dashed up to the cattle with a whoop. Young Piet, flushed with his act, looked for approval from his father, but the Commandant’s gaze was fixed anxiously ahead on a column of dark figures leaping like antelopes down Zunguin’s side. From the rear, too, came the loud slap of three rifles, and the angry war shout of the Hlobane warriors.

“They will head the cattle off,” said Stoffel; “and we will be caught between two fires. Let us leave the cattle and ride to the left, when they will let us go free.”

“That is a bad word,” said the Commandant, sternly. “We go back with the cattle or not at all.”

They rode, then, into a stretch of donga-worn country, where they had to slow up; and the cattle, no longer hard pressed, stood to get their wind, with their heads down and tongues lolling out.

It was only a brief rest; but the Zunguin warriors profited by it, and their fleetest men were already rounding the cattle to turn them up the hill. There rang out the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the black warriors pitched forward on his face.

“Keep your fire,” said the Commandant, sternly, as he looked round at his son. “Was that you, Piet? It was a good shot, my little one.”

Piet hung his head, and looked askance to see whether any of the men were laughing at him, but they were never so far from laughter as then. Several were hedging away to the left, looking at the Commandant out of the tail of their small eyes, ready for the bolt across the rolling plain to the Blood River.

“We must turn the cattle,” said the leader. “Come, all together,” and he moved on up the hill. But no one followed.

“If we are killed,” said Oom Jan, slowly, “our wives and children will suffer more than if we return not with the cattle.”

“Ja, ja! that is altogether true,” said the others, eagerly.

The Commandant glanced back and saw that he was alone.

“Keep the Kaffirs back,” he said, without any anger, “and I will myself turn them.”

So he urged on his great horse up the hill, while the others faced about and fired, not recklessly, but only when they were sure.

Young Piet looked after his father and feared, and urged his horse forward, and drew back as he saw dark figures crouching low along the hillside, and flitting swiftly from rock to rock. Up the hill his father went, menacing now one warrior, now another, with his rifle, getting at last above the cattle, then with a roar he turned and swept the herd before him down on to the rolling grass veld again.

All would have been well if the burghers had stood fast a moment longer, but seeing the cattle safe they galloped after, and the Zulus, fearing to be baulked of their prey, made their last effort.

“My Gott!” cried the Commandant, “why do you run? Hold them back!” But the men had got the madness of flight in their blood now, and nothing would hold them, though the Zulus were now out on the plain and without shelter. So once again he stood alone, checking the rush of the foe with his menacing rifle before he galloped on. Assegais whizzed by his head; then his horse reared with a shrill scream of pain, and he was hurled headlong.

When he presently sat up with a ringing in his head, he saw the Zulus standing away off with the assegais poised, and he attempted to rise.

“My leg is broken,” he muttered.

“Lay still, my father. Oom Jan will come for you.”

The big man looked round and saw his son standing behind, with his rifle ready, facing the warriors, alone. “Oh, Heer! Oh, Heer!” he groaned. “My son, why are you here?”

“Oom Jan will come,” muttered the boy, huskily.

“Anything but this,” cried the big man. Then he said sternly, “Give me your rifle, Piet, and run—run for your mother’s sake. Run, you are untired and the Kaffirs have come miles. Your rifle—quick!”

Young Piet shook his head. “Oom Jan will come,” he whispered.

The Zulus, silent with quivering nostrils and gleaming eyes, drew in closer.

The veld echoed the sound of rapid hoof-beats.

Old Piet Uys raised himself on his arm and looked over the veld. He saw his burghers coming; but they were far, and he faintly heard Oom Jim’s voice ring out in encouragement.

“Run, my little one,” he repeated; “run, I order you! Your father tells you,” and the man looked sternly at his son.

The boy shook his head, his lips parted, but the words never came. The next instant his rifle spoke its last message, and the Zulus rushed in.

They found them both; the boy lying across his father’s broad breast. And the little mother sat tearless through the night crying that “The Groot Heer was good, but he had taken all—all,” while Oom Jan wept like a child.

Chapter Thirty Five.

Uncle Abe and the Snake.

The day was wet, the ploughing was over, and as we had an idle spell, what more natural than that most of us should find business at the store? where we sat on bags and boxes, and smoked and talked, or sometimes sang beautifully to the wailing tunes from Long Jim’s concertina. This day old Abe Pike, humped up on the counter, with his heels drumming against the side of it, was holding forth on the iniquity of Parliament, when a stranger entered, wringing wet, and Abe stopped to investigate his appearance.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said the stranger—a townsman evidently, from his dress and assurance.

“Take a seat,” said Abe, pointing with his boot at a box of soap. “Not walking, are yer?” with a curious glance at the stranger’s knickerbockers. “Going far? Stopping here long? Stranger, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes,” said the newcomer with a laugh. “I’ve come thirty miles since breakfast.”

“Grub early?”

“I beg your pardon? Oh, no; had breakfast at eight, left at nine.”

“Phew!” said Abe, “thirty miles in four hours. Must be a good horse you’ve got.”

“It is rather,” said the stranger, with a curious smile.

“Hoss knocked up, I s’pose. Been riding too hard?”

“No, not at all. He’s good for another thirty miles before sunset,” and he gave us a wink.

Abe looked gravely at the stranger for some seconds, while one by one, on some excuse or other, we went outside to look at the stranger’s horse. We found a new pattern bicycle in the shed—new to us—and we returned to the room looking as much unconcerned as we could, but eager to get a rise out of Abe.

“That’s a fine animal,” said Long Jim; “clean in the limbs, with plenty of grit, and full of fire. Never turned a hair, too, what’s more!”

Abe looked at Long Jim, who was trying to suppress a smile; then he relit the pipe he had suffered to go out.

“Reminds me,” he said, “of that there hoss Topgallant, which carried me one hundred miles twixt sun-up and sun-down.” Fixing his eyes on—the stranger, he launched into a long yarn about some impossible incident. He was not, however, up to his usual form, being suspicious of our nods and winks, and the stranger was not astonished.

“It’s a curious thing,” he said, “that people are slow to believe in things which have not come under their own observation unless they read of them in print. Now this very morning I met with an experience which may seem to you incredible.”

“Go ahead,” said Long Jim. “If you’ve got a story, tell it, and we’d be thankful to you, after the stuff we’ve been obliged to swallow from Mr Pike there.”

“If I may say so,” said the stranger, “his story was fair, but it lacked circumstance. There is an art in building up a story which perhaps my friend on the counter has missed.”

“Fire away,” said Abe, grimly. “I’m not too old to larn.”

“Thank you. Of course, you all know the long descent into Blaauw Krantz, and the sharp elbow bend in the wood near the bottom before the steep fall into the river. Of course. Well, I have been in the habit of riding out on Saturday evenings to visit a farmhouse on this side, and, as a precautionary measure, I ring the bell continuously while riding down the slope.”

Abe arrested the narrative by a gesture—“Whatjer carry a bell for?” he asked, suspiciously.

“To warn people ahead. You see,” with a slight movement of the eyelids, “I travel so fast that I am obliged to herald my approach.”

“Better carry a trumpet,” growled Abe. “Well, ring along.”

“You are doubtless aware,” continued the stranger, with a keen look at the old man, “that snakes are sensitive to the influence of music.”

“I’ve marked that circumstance,” said Abe, with a lingering on the word. “Why there’s a snake in our Chapel as beats time to the ‘Ole Hundred,’ and many a time I’ve—”

“Oh! shut up,” said Long Jim. “You were saying, sir—”

“My bell,” continued the stranger, speaking more rapidly and keeping his eye on Abe, “has a most melodious tinkle, and on the second occasion of my visit to the house I have mentioned I noticed just at the elbow bend what appeared to be the head and neck of a large snake thrust out from the bush. On my next visit I observed the same spot more carefully, and saw that I had not been mistaken. On three separate occasions that snake was there, evidently attracted by the music of the bell.”

“Why—” began Abe.

“I understand what you mean,” exclaimed the stranger. “Why did I not stop? Because I was travelling too fast; and whenever I returned up the hill, going naturally slower, I could never see the slightest trace of the snake. To come to the climax, this morning I sounded the bell as usual, and on nearing the bend I saw that there were two snakes, and that one of them, in order probably to hear the music more distinctly, had glided partly into the road with his head raised about three feet. To take the bend I was obliged to keep on the outer edge, which brought me closer to the snake than I could wish—and evidently too close for his comfort—for as I whizzed by he lost his presence of mind, and, instead of retreating, advanced, with the result that his head and neck went through the spokes of the front wheel.”

“Front wheel!” said Abe with a snap.

“Certainly—the front wheel of the bicycle.”

“A bysticle!” ejaculated Abe, with a snort of disgust that would have sent us into an explosion of laughter if we had not been too much absorbed in the story.

“Of course, the revolution of the wheel swung the remainder of the body clear of the bush, and the tail whizzed by my head. To my fear and horror, the next instant my left wrist was seized as in a grasp of iron by the tail. The head, after one or two sickening thuds on the hard road, which must have temporarily stunned the creature, slipped out on the left side, when the momentum of the wheel immediately strung the entire body straight out behind me, where it streamed with all its twenty pounds weight acting as a brake.”

“A brake?” said Long Jim.

“Yes, sir. As the tail seized my wrist, the curve of it took a bend also round the handle bar. To that circumstance I owe my life. The slackening in the speed of the machine, over which I had lost control, owing to the dead weight of the serpent, prevented what would most certainly have been a fatal smash among the boulders in the river bed. As it was, the bicycle narrowly missed a large rock, and ran straight into deep water, where it was, of course, brought to a stop. You notice that my clothes are wringing wet still. I was, of course, thrown out of the saddle by the jerk of the sudden stoppage, but as my wrist was manacled to the handle bar I was in danger of suffocation by drowning.”

The stranger paused, and Abe observed him with an admiring glance.

“How did you escape?” asked Long Jim.

“Why, sir, owing to the gratitude of that serpent. The cold bath revived him, and when he realised the situation, he swam ashore and drew me out with the machine. Yes, gentlemen, I assure you that was the case. Then he unwound his tail and moved his wounded head, while regarding me with a bright, but rather disconcerting, stare. I realised in a flash what he was waiting for, and I rang the bell for five minutes, when he slowly moved off into the wood, looking very sick from the severe bashing. I do not ask you to believe the story, gentlemen, but I am convinced that if the next time you come down Blaauw Krantz on a bicycle you ring your bell you will credit me with keeping to the exact facts.”

“That beats your yarns, Abe Pike,” said Si Amos, who had often been the butt of the old man; “beats them to smithers.”

“Jest does, and no mistake,” said Long Jim.

“Why, Abe couldn’t tell a story like that, with ‘circumstance’ in it, to save his life,” said a third.

Abe shook his head sadly, and left the store, the stranger bidding him good-bye very politely, then turning to join in the laugh. He was a very pleasant young fellow, and he received our open flattery with a quite affable air.

Old Abe, however, had not retired vanquished from the scene. When we trooped out of the store we saw him lost in solemn contemplation of the stranger’s bicycle.

“A good horse, is it not?” said the stranger slyly. “Like to mount?”

“Sir,” said Abe, “allow an old man to shake hands with you. I’m thankful for your offer, but I won’t mount now.” The boys laughed. “No, sir, not now; but, if you’re coming down Blaauw Krantz next Saturday week I’ll meet you at the top and ride down.”

“Can you manage a bicycle?”

“I can’t now; but I’ll larn. Is it a go?”

“Let him,” said Long Jim, “and we’ll all be at the bottom to pick him up.”

The stranger at last consented, very reluctantly; and it was agreed that on the day named we should be at the “drift”. Abe disappeared for several days, returning at the end of that time with several scratches on his hands and a decided stiffness in his legs. He would say nothing to satisfy our curiosity beyond the simple remark that he had been “Larning to steer a lightning wheel-barrer down a hill.”

On the appointed day, having satisfied ourselves that Abe Pike meant to stick to his contract, we all rode off to the “drift” to await the descent and pick up the pieces.

The stranger kept up his side of the agreement; and, as it turned out, he gave up his machine into the shaky control of Uncle Abe, after much advice upon the art of steering round a corner on a slope.

Precisely at noon we heard, far up the hill, coming out of the dense wood which hid the road and the curve from our view, the silver tinkle of a bell rung continuously. Clear and sharp the sound came to us as we waited in silence, for the space of a minute, growing louder, till suddenly it ceased. After waiting a minute we all mounted and galloped up. At the great elbow bend we saw the stranger tearing down on foot, but there was no sign of Abe or of the machine.

On the road, however, there was the track of the wheel in the dust—a track that faded away up the road, but stopped short at the bend.

“Where the blazes!” said Long Jim, looking around and up into the sky.

“What’s that in the trees?” said Si, pointing down into the forest below the bend.

“It’s my cycle!” gasped the stranger, as he came up. “What a mad fool I was to let him ride.”

“Damn your cycle!” said Jim; “where’s the old man?”

We peered over the edge, and saw him in a thicket blinking up at us.

We had him out and up in no time, while two men climbed the tree to recover the machine, the stranger dancing about as if he were on hot bricks.

“Is it injured?” he kept on crying.

“Injured be blowed,” growled Si Amos; “it’ll be injured sharp enough if the old man’s hurt.”

“Who said I was hurt,” said Abe suddenly, sitting up and feeling his body. “I’m all right; but, boys, my sakes, you’ll never b’lieve me, never!”

“What’s happened? Are you all right? Sure?”

Abe slowly rose and felt himself. “Yes. You listen,” he said, solemnly. “The stranger’s right about them snakes—dead right.”

“It’s no time to joke,” said the stranger, looking ruefully at the bent spokes and twisted handle bar.

“You’re right there; no man would joke who’s jest escaped from death. No, sir; I tell you, jes’ as I came to this yer bend I looked out for the snake, but instead of the snake I seed—and my heart jumped into my throat at the sight—a thick rope stretched right across the road from the bank on this side to the tree on the other, raised about two feet from the level. The next instant I went smash into it.”

“Who could have done that trick?” said Long Jim, with a dangerous look.

“The snake,” said Abe, with a croak.

“The snake!”

“Yessir. I seed the glisten of his scales jes’ as I went flying into the bush.”

“The snake!” said the stranger. “Absurd! Rot!”

“It were the snake—the friend of the crittur you hurt,” said Abe with a groan. “You see as I allow he were determined to have revenge, and when he heard the bell he hitched his jaw to that root hanging down the bank, and he stretched his tail round the bough of that tree on the other side. A twenty-foot rock snake he were. I guess he’s got the stomach-ache from the hit I give him.”

For a moment there was intense silence as the boys grasped the situation, then they laughed till they sat down.

“Whatjer laughing at?” said Abe, solemnly, though his lips twitched either with fun or pain.

The stranger smiled sadly, then he laughed too. “Old man,” he said, “let us shake again. You have beaten me. I confess I was lying, and you have taken a strong measure to punish me.”

“You was lying!” said Abe, opening his eyes and looking the picture of astonishment. “Then why did that durned snake upset me?”

Then he fell back in a swoon, for he had been sore hurt—and we carried him to the nearest homestead, while Si Amos rode furiously for a Doctor, and Long Jim went about on tip-toe from the room to the door and back in a state of restless anxiety.

The End.