JOHN HAS AN ESCAPE
On the following Monday, John, taking Jantje to drive him, departed in
a rough Scotch cart, to which were harnessed two of the best horses at
Mooifontein, to shoot buck at Hans Coetzee’s.
He reached the place at about half-past eight, and concluded, from the
fact of the presence of several carts and horses, that he was not the
only guest. Indeed, the first person whom he saw as the cart pulled up
was his late enemy, Frank Muller.
“_Kek_ (look), Baas,” said Jantje, “there is Baas Frank talking to his
servant Hendrik, that ugly Basutu with one eye.”
John, as may be imagined, was not best pleased at this meeting. He had
always disliked the man, and since Muller’s conduct on the previous
Friday, and Jantje’s story of the dark deed of blood in which he had
been the principal actor, positively he loathed the sight of him. He
jumped out of the cart, and was going to walk round to the back of the
house in order to avoid him, when Muller, suddenly seeming to become
aware of his presence, advanced to meet him with the utmost cordiality.
“How do you do, Captain?” he said, holding out his hand, which John
just touched. “So you have come to shoot buck with _Oom_ Coetzee; going
to show us Transvaalers how do to it, eh? There, Captain, don’t look as
stiff as a rifle barrel. I know what you are thinking of; that little
business at Wakkerstroom on Friday, is it not? Well, now, I tell you
what it is, I was in the wrong, and I am not afraid to say so as
between man and man. I had had a glass, that was the fact, and did not
quite know what I was about. We have got to live as neighbours here, so
let us forget all about it and be brothers again. I never bear malice,
not I. It is not the Lord’s will that we should bear malice. Hit out
from the shoulder, I say, and then forget all about it. If it hadn’t
been for that little monkey,” he added, jerking his thumb in the
direction of Jantje, who was holding the horses’ heads, “it would never
have happened, and it is not nice that two Christians should quarrel
about such as he.”
Muller jerked out this long speech in a succession of sentences,
something as a schoolboy repeats a hardly learnt lesson, fidgeting his
feet and letting his restless eyes travel about the ground as he spoke.
It was evident to John, who stood quite still and listened to it in icy
silence, that his address was by no means extemporary; clearly it had
been composed for the occasion.
“I do not wish to quarrel with anybody, _Meinheer_ Muller,” he answered
at length. “I never do quarrel unless it is forced on me, and then,” he
added grimly, “I do my best to make it unpleasant for my enemy. The
other day you attacked first my servant and then myself. I am glad that
you now see that this was an improper thing to do, and, so far as I am
concerned, there is an end of the matter,” and he turned to enter the
house.
Muller accompanied him as far as where Jantje was standing at the
horses’ heads. Here he stopped, and, putting his hand in his pocket,
took out a two-shilling piece and threw it to the Hottentot, calling to
him to catch it.
Jantje was holding the horses with one hand. In the other he held his
stick—a long walking kerrie that he always carried, the same on which
he had shown Bessie the notches. In order to secure the piece of money
he dropped the stick, and Muller’s quick eye catching sight of the
notches beneath the knob, he stooped down, picked it up, and examined
it.
“What do these mean, boy?” he asked, pointing to the line of big and
little notches, some of which had evidently been cut years ago.
Jantje touched his hat, spat upon the “Scotchman,” as the natives of
that part of Africa call a two-shilling piece,[*] and pocketed it
before he answered. The fact that the giver had murdered all his near
relations did not make the gift less desirable in his eyes. Hottentot
moral sense is not very elevated.
[*] Because once upon a time a Scotchman made a great impression on the
simple native mind in Natal by palming off some thousands of florins
among them at the nominal value of half a crown.
“No, Baas,” he said with a curious grin, “that is how I reckon. If
anybody beats Jantje, Jantje cuts a notch upon the stick, and every
night before he goes to sleep he looks at it and says, ‘One day you
will strike that man twice who struck you once,’ and so on, Baas. Look,
what a line of them there are, Baas. One day I shall pay them all back
again, Baas Frank.”
Muller abruptly dropped the stick, and followed John towards the house.
It was a much better building than the Boers generally indulge in, and
the sitting-room, though innocent of flooring—unless clay and cowdung
mixed can be called a floor—was more or less covered with mats made of
springbuck skins. In the centre of the room stood a table made of the
pretty _buckenhout_ wood, which has the appearance of having been
industriously pricked all over with a darning-needle, and round it were
chairs and couches of stinkwood, and seated with rimpis or strips of
hide.
In one big chair at the end of the room, busily employed in doing
nothing, sat _Tanta_ (Aunt) Coetzee, the wife of Old Hans, a large and
weighty woman, who evidently had once been rather handsome; and on the
couches were some half-dozen Boers, their rifles in their hands or
between their knees.
It struck John as he entered that some of these did not seem best
pleased to see him, and he thought he heard one young fellow, with a
hang-dog expression of face, mutter something about the “damned
Englishman” to his neighbour rather more loudly than was necessary to
convey his sentiments. However, old Coetzee came forward to greet him
heartily enough, and called to his daughters—two fine girls, very
smartly dressed for Dutch women—to give the Captain a cup of coffee.
Then John made the rounds after the Boer fashion, and beginning with
the old lady in the chair, received a lymphatic shake of the hand from
every single soul in the room. They did not rise—it is not customary to
do so—they merely extended their paws, all of them more or less damp,
and muttered the mystic monosyllable “_Daag_,” short for good-day. It
is a very trying ceremony till one gets used to it, and John pulled up
panting, to be presented with a cup of hot coffee that he did not want,
but which it would be rude not to drink.
“The Captain is the _rooibaatje?_” said the old lady “Aunt” Coetzee
interrogatively, and yet with the certainty of one who states a fact.
John signified that he was.
“What does the Captain come to the ‘land’ for? Is it to spy?”
The whole audience listened attentively to their hostess’s question,
then turned their heads to listen for the answer.
“No. I have come to farm with Silas Croft.”
There was a general smile of incredulity. Could a _rooibaatje_ farm?
Certainly not.
“There are three thousand men in the British army,” announced the old
_vrouw_ oracularly, and casting a severe glance at the wolf in sheep’s
clothing, the man of blood who pretended to farm.
Everybody looked at John again, and awaited his answer in dead silence.
“There are more than a hundred thousand men in the regular British
army, and as many more in the Indian army, and twice as many more
volunteers,” he said, in a rather irritated voice.
This statement also was received with the most discouraging
incredulity.
“There are three thousand men in the British army,” repeated the old
lady, in a tone of certainty that was positively crushing.
“Yah, yah!” chimed in some of the younger men in chorus.
“There are three thousand men in the British army,” she repeated for
the third time in triumph. “If the Captain says that there are more he
lies. It is natural that he should lie about his own army. My
grandfather’s brother was at Cape Town in the time of Governor Smith,
and he saw the whole British army. He counted them; there were exactly
three thousand. I say that there are three thousand men in the British
army.”
“Yah, yah!” said the chorus; and John gazed at this terrible person in
bland exasperation.
“How many men do you command in the British army?” she interrogated
after a solemn pause.
“A hundred,” said John sharply.
“Girl,” said the old woman, addressing one of her daughters, “you have
been to school and can reckon. How many times does one hundred go into
three thousand?”
The young lady addressed giggled confusedly, and looked for assistance
to a sardonic Boer whom she was going to marry, who shook his head
sadly, indicating thereby that these were mysteries into which it was
not well to pry. Thrown on her own resources, she plunged into the
recesses of an intricate calculation, in which her fingers played a
considerable part, and finally, with an air of triumph, announced that
it went twenty-six times exactly.
“Yah, yah!” said the chorus, “it goes twenty-six times exactly.”
“The Captain,” said the oracular old lady, who was rapidly driving John
mad, “commands a twenty-sixth part of the British army, and he says
that he comes here to farm with Uncle Silas Croft. He says,” she went
on, with withering contempt, “that he comes here to farm when he
commands a twenty-sixth part of the British army. It is evident that he
lies.”
“Yah, yah!” said the chorus.
“It is natural that he should lie!” she continued; “all Englishmen lie,
especially the _rooibaatje_ Englishmen, but he should not lie so badly.
It must vex the dear Lord to hear a man lie so badly, even though he be
an Englishman and a _rooibaatje_.”
At this point John burst from the house, and swore frantically to
himself as soon as he was outside. It is to be hoped that he was
forgiven, for the provocation was not small. It is not pleasant to be
universally set down not only as a _leugenaar_ (liar), but as one of
the very feeblest order.
In another minute old Hans Coetzee came out and patted him warmly on
the shoulder, in a way that seemed to say that, whatever others might
think of the insufficiency of his powers of falsehood, he, for one,
quite appreciated them, and announced that it was time to be moving.
Accordingly the party climbed into their carts or on to their
shooting-horses, as the case might be, and started. Frank Muller, John
noticed, was mounted as usual on his fine black horse. After driving
for more than half an hour along an indefinite kind of waggon track,
the leading cart, in which were old Hans Coetzee himself, a Malay
driver, and a coloured Cape boy, turned to the left across the open
veldt, and the others followed in turn. This went on for some time,
till at last they reached the crest of a rise that commanded a large
sweep of open country, and here Hans halted and held up his hand,
whereon the others halted too. On looking out over the vast plain
before him John discovered the reason. About half a mile beneath them
was a great herd of blesbuck feeding, three hundred or more of them,
and beyond them another herd of some sixty or seventy much larger and
wilder-looking animals with white tails, which John at once recognised
as vilderbeeste. Nearer to them again, dotted about here and there on
the plain, were a couple of dozen or so of graceful yellow springbuck.
Now a council of war was held, which resulted in the men on
horseback—among whom was Frank Muller—being despatched to circumvent
the herds and drive them towards the carts, that took up their stations
at various points, towards which the buck were likely to run.
Then came a pause of a quarter of an hour or so, till suddenly, from
the far ridge of the opposite slope, John saw a couple of puffs of
white smoke float up into the air, and one of the vilderbeeste below
rolled over on his back, kicking and plunging furiously. Thereon the
whole herd of buck turned and came thundering towards them, stretched
in a long line across the wide veldt; the springbuck first, then the
blesbuck, looking for all the world like a herd of great bearded goats,
owing to their peculiar habit of holding their long heads down as they
galloped. Behind and mixed up with them were the vilderbeeste, who
twisted and turned, and jumped into the air as though they had gone
clean off their heads and were next second going clean on to them. It
is very difficult, owing to his extraordinary method of progression, to
distinguish one part of a galloping vilderbeeste from another; now it
is his horns, now his tail, and now his hoofs that present themselves
to the watcher’s bewildered vision, and now again they all seem to be
mixed up together. On came the great herd, making the ground shake
beneath their footfall: and after them galloped the mounted Boers, from
time to time jumping off their horses to fire a shot into the line of
game, which generally resulted in some poor animal being left sprawling
on the ground, whereon the sportsmen would remount and continue the
chase.
Presently the buck were within range of some of the guns in the carts,
and a regular fusillade began. About twenty blesbuck turned and came
straight past John, at a distance of forty yards. Springing to the
ground he fired both barrels of his “Express” at them as they tore
along—alas and alas! without touching them. The first bullet struck
under their bellies, the second must have shaved their backs. Reloading
rapidly, he fired again at about two hundred yards’ range, and this
time one fell to his second barrel. But he knew that it was a chance
shot: he had fired at the last buck, and he had killed one ten paces in
front of it. In fact this sort of shooting is extremely difficult till
the sportsman understands it. The inexperienced hand firing across a
line of buck will not kill once in twenty shots, as an infinitesimal
difference in elevation, or the slightest error in judging distance—in
itself no easy art on those great plains—will spoil his aim. A Boer
almost invariably gets immediately behind a herd of running buck, and
fires at one about half-way down the line. Consequently if his
elevation is a little wrong, or if he has misjudged his sighting, the
odds are that he will hit one either in front of or behind the
particular animal fired at. All that is necessary is that the line of
fire should be good. This John soon learnt, and when he had mastered
the fact he became as good a game shot as the majority of Boers, but it
being his first attempt, much to his vexation, he did not particularly
distinguish himself that day, with the result that his friends the
Dutchmen went home firmly convinced that the English _rooibaatje_ shot
as indifferently as he lied.
Jumping into the cart again, and leaving the dead blesbuck to look
after itself for the present—not a very safe thing to do in a country
where there are so many vultures—John, or rather Jantje, put the horses
into a gallop, and away they went at full tear. It was a most exciting
mode of progression, bumping along furiously with a loaded rifle in his
hands over a plain on which antheaps as large as an armchair were
scattered like burnt almonds on a cake. Then there were the antbear
holes to reckon with, and the little swamps in the hollows, and other
agreeable surprises. But the rush and exhilaration of the thing were
too great to allow him much time to think of his neck, so away they
flew, hanging on to the cart as best they could, and trusting to
Providence to save them from complete disaster. Now they were bounding
over an antheap, now one of the horses was on his nose, but somehow
they always escaped the last dire catastrophe, thanks chiefly to the
little Hottentot’s skilful driving.
Whenever the game was within range they pulled up, and John would
spring from the cart and let drive, then jump in and follow on again.
This went on for nearly an hour, in which time he had fired
twenty-seven cartridges and killed three blesbuck and wounded a
vilderbeeste, which they proceeded to chase. But the vilderbeeste was
struck in the rump, and an antelope so wounded will travel far, and go
very fast also, so that some miles of ground had been covered before it
began to rest, only to start on again as they drew near. At last, on
crossing the crest of a little rise, John saw what at first he took to
be his vilderbeeste, dead. A second look, however, showed him that,
although it was a dead vilderbeeste, most undoubtedly it was not the
one which he had wounded, for that animal was standing, its head
hanging, about one hundred and twenty yards beyond the other buck,
which, no doubt, had fallen to somebody else’s rifle, or else had been
hit farther back and come here to die. Now this vilderbeeste lay within
a hundred yards of them, and Jantje pointed out to John that his best
plan would be to get out of the cart and creep on his hands and knees
up to the dead animal, from the cover of which he would get a good shot
at his own wounded bull.
Accordingly Jantje having withdrawn with the cart and horses out of
sight under the shelter of the rise, John crouched upon his hands and
knees and proceeded to carry out his stalk. All went well till he was
quite close to the dead cow, and was congratulating himself on the
prospect of an excellent shot at the wounded bull, when suddenly
something struck the ground violently just beneath his body, throwing
up a cloud of earth and dust. He stopped amazed, and at that instant
heard the report of a rifle somewhat to his right and knew that a
bullet had passed beneath him. Scarcely had he realised this when there
was a sudden commotion in his hair, and the soft black felt hat that he
was wearing started from his head, apparently of its own accord, and,
after twirling round twice or thrice in the air, fell gently to the
earth, just as the sound of a second report reached his ears. It was
now evident that somebody was firing at him; so, jumping up from his
crouching position, John tossed his arms into the air and sprang and
shouted in a way that left no mistake as to his whereabouts. In another
minute he saw a man on horseback, cantering easily towards him, in whom
he had little difficulty in recognising Frank Muller. He picked up his
hat; there was a bullet-hole right through it. Then, full of wrath, he
advanced to meet Frank Muller.
“What the devil do you mean by firing at me?” he asked.
“_Allemachter, carle!_” (Almighty, my dear fellow) was the cool answer,
“I thought that you were a vilderbeeste calf. I galloped the cow and
killed her, and she had a calf with her, and when I got the cartridges
out of my rifle—for one stuck and took me some time—and the new ones
in, I looked up, and there, as I thought, was the calf. So I got my
rifle on and let drive, first with one barrel and then with the other,
and when I saw you jump up like that and shout, and that I had been
firing at a man, I nearly fainted. Thank the Almighty I did not hit
you.”
John listened coldly. “I suppose that I am bound to believe you,
_Meinheer_ Muller,” he said. “But I have been told that you have the
most wonderful sight of any man in these parts, which makes it odd that
at three hundred yards you should mistake a man upon his hands and
knees for a vilderbeeste calf.”
“Does the Captain think, then, that I wished to murder him;
especially,” he added, “after I shook his hand this morning?”
“I don’t know what I think,” answered John, looking straight into
Muller’s eyes, which fell before his own. “All I know is that your
curious mistake very nearly cost me my life. Look here!” and he took a
lock of his brown hair out of the crown of his perforated hat and
showed it to the other.
“Ay, it was very close. Let us thank God that you escaped.”
“It could not well have been closer, _Meinheer_. I hope that, for your
own sake and for the sake of the people who go out shooting with you,
you will not make such a mistake again. Good-morning!”
The handsome Boer, or Anglo-Boer, sat on his horse stroking his
beautiful beard and gazing curiously after John Niel’s sturdy
English-looking figure as he marched towards the cart, for, of course,
the wounded vilderbeeste had long ago vanished.
“I wonder,” he said to himself aloud, as he turned his horse’s head and
rode leisurely away, “if the old _volk_ are right after all, and if
there is a God.” Frank Muller was sufficiently impregnated with modern
ideas to be a free-thinker. “It almost seems like it,” he went on,
“else how did it come that the one bullet passed under his belly and
the other just touched his head without harming him? I aimed carefully
enough too, and I could make the shot nineteen times out of twenty and
not miss. Bah, a God! I snap my fingers at Him. Chance is the only god.
Chance blows men about like the dead grass, till death comes down like
the veldt fire and devours them. But there are men who ride chance as
one rides a young colt—ay, who turn its headlong rushing and rearing to
their own ends—who let it fly hither and thither till it is weary, and
then canter it along the road that leads to triumph. I, Frank Muller,
am one of those men. I never fail in the end. I will kill that
Englishman. Perhaps I will kill old Silas Croft and the Hottentot too.
Bah! they do not know what is coming. I know; I have helped to lay the
mine; and unless they bend to my will I shall be the one to fire it. I
will kill them all, and I will take Mooifontein, and then I will marry
Bessie. She will fight against it, but that will make it all the
sweeter. She loves that _rooibaatje_; I know it; and I will kiss her
over his dead body. Ah! there are the carts. I don’t see the Captain.
Driven home, I suppose, on account of the shock to his nerves. Well, I
must talk to those fools. Lord, what fools they are with their chatter
about the ‘land,’ and the ‘_verdomde Britische Gouvernment_.’ They
don’t know what is good for them. Silly sheep, with Frank Muller for a
shepherd! Ay, and they shall have Frank Muller for a president one day,
and I will rule them too. Bah! I hate the English; but I am glad that I
am half English for all that, for that is where I get the brains! But
these people—fools, fools! Well, I shall pipe and they shall dance!”
“Baas,” said Jantje to John, as they were driving homewards, “Baas
Frank shot at you.”
“How do you know that?” asked John.
“I saw him. He was stalking the wounded bull, and not looking for a
calf at all. There was no calf. He was just going to fire at the
wounded bull when he turned and saw you, and he knelt down on one knee
and covered you, and before I could do anything he fired, and then when
he saw that he had missed you he fired again, and I don’t know how it
was that he did not kill you, for he is a wonderful shot with a
rifle—he never misses.”
“I will have the man tried for attempted murder,” said John, bringing
the butt-end of his rifle down with a bang on to the bottom of the
cart. “A villain like that shall not go scot-free.”
Jantje grinned. “It is no use, Baas. He would get off, for I am the
only witness. A jury won’t believe a black man in this country, and
they would never punish a Boer for shooting at an Englishman. No, Baas!
you should lie up one day in the veldt where he is going to pass and
shoot _him_. That is what I would do if I dared.”