Now it chanced that some months before a young Englishman of good

family—he was named the Honourable Vavasseur Smyth—who had accompanied

an official relative to the Cape Colony, came our way in search of

sport, of which I was able to show him a good deal of a humble kind. He

had brought with him, amongst other weapons, what in those days was

considered a very beautiful hair-triggered small-bore rifle fitted with

a nipple for percussion caps, then quite a new invention. It was by a

maker of the name of J. Purdey, of London, and had cost quite a large

sum because of the perfection of its workmanship. When the Honourable

V. Smyth—of whom I have never heard since—took his leave of us on his

departure for England, being a generous-hearted young fellow, as a

souvenir of himself, he kindly presented me with this rifle,[1] which I

still have.

[1] This single-barrelled percussion-cap rifle described by Allan

Quatermain, which figures so prominently in the history of this epoch

of his life, has been sent to me by Mr. Curtis, and is before me as I

write. It was made in the year 1835 by J. Purdey, of 314½, Oxford

Street, London, and is a beautiful piece of workmanship of its kind.

Without the ramrod, which is now missing, it weighs only 5 lbs. 3¾ oz.

The barrel is octagonal, and the rifled bore, designed to take a

spherical bullet, is ½ in. in diameter. The hammer can be set to

safety on the half-cock by means of a catch behind it.

Another peculiarity of the weapon, one that I have never seen before,

is that by pressing on the back of the trigger the ordinary light pull

of the piece is so reduced that the merest touch suffices to fire it,

thus rendering it hair- triggered in the fullest sense of the word.

It has two flap-sights marked for 150 and 200 yards, in addition to the

fixed sight designed for firing at 100 yards.

On the lock are engraved a stag and a doe, the first lying down and the

second standing.

Of its sort and period, it is an extraordinarily well-made and handy

gun, finished with horn at the end of what is now called the tongue,

and with the stock cut away so as to leave a raised cushion against

which the cheek of the shooter rests.

What charge it took I do not know, but I should imagine from 2½ to 3

drachms of powder. It is easy to understand that in the hands of Allan

Quatermain this weapon, obsolete as it is to-day, was capable of great

things within the limits of its range, and that the faith he put in it

at the trial of skill at the Groote Kloof, and afterwards in the

fearful ordeal of the shooting of the vultures on the wing, upon the

Mount of Slaughter, when the lives of many hung upon his marksmanship,

was well justified. This, indeed, is shown by the results in both

cases.

In writing of this rifle, Messrs. Purdey informed me that copper

percussion caps were experimented with by Colonel Forsyth in 1820, and

that their firm sold them in 1824, at a cost of £1 15s. per 1,000,

although their use did not become general until some years later.—THE

EDITOR.

That was about six months earlier than the time of which I write, and

during those months I had often used this rifle for the shooting of

game, such as blesbuck and also of bustards. I found it to be a weapon

of the most extraordinary accuracy up to a range of about two hundred

yards, though when I rode off in that desperate hurry for Maraisfontein

I did not take it with me because it was a single barrel and too small

in the bore to load with loopers at a pinch. Still, in challenging

Pereira, it was this gun and no other that I determined to use; indeed,

had I not owned it I do not think that I should have ventured on the

match.

As it happened, Mr. Smyth had left me with the rifle a large supply of

specially cast bullets and of the new percussion caps, to say nothing

of some very fine imported powder. Therefore, having ammunition in

plenty, I set to work to practise. Seating myself upon a chair in a

deep kloof near the station, across which rock pigeons and turtle doves

were wont to fly in numbers at a considerable height, I began to fire

at them as they flashed over me.

Now, in my age, I may say without fear of being set down a boaster,

that I have one gift, that of marksmanship, which, I suppose, I owe to

some curious combination of judgment, quickness of eye, and steadiness

of hand. I can declare honestly that in my best days I never knew a man

who could beat me in shooting at a living object; I say nothing of

target work, of which I have little experience. Oddly enough, also, I

believe that at this art, although then I lacked the practice which

since has come to me in such plenty, I was as good as a youth as I have

ever been in later days, and, of course, far better than I am now. This

I soon proved upon the present occasion, for seated there in that

kloof, after a few trials, I found that I could bring down quite a

number of even the swift, straight-flying rock pigeons as they sped

over me, and this, be it remembered, not with shot, but with a single

bullet, a feat that many would hold to be incredible.

So the days passed, and I practised, every evening finding me a little

better at this terribly difficult sport. For always I learned more as

to the exact capacities of my rifle and the allowance that must be made

according to the speed of the bird, its distance, and the complications

of the wind and of the light. During those days, also, I recovered so

rapidly that at the end of them I was almost in my normal condition,

and could walk well with the aid of a single stick.

At length the eventful Thursday came, and about midday—for I lay in bed

late that morning and did not shoot—I drove, or, rather, was driven, in

a Cape cart with two horses to the place known as Groote Kloof or Great

Gully. Over this gorge the wild geese flighted from their _pans_ or

feeding grounds on the high lands above, to other _pans_ that lay some

miles below, and thence, I suppose, straight out to the sea coast,

whence they returned at dawn.

On arriving at the mouth of Groote Kloof about four o’clock in the

afternoon, my father and I were astonished to see a great number of

Boers assembled there, and among them a certain sprinkling of their

younger womankind, who had come on horseback or in carts.

“Good gracious!” I said to my father; “if I had known there was to be

such a fuss as this about a shooting match, I don’t think I could have

faced it.”

“Hum,” he answered; “I think there is more in the wind than your match.

Unless I am much mistaken, it has been made the excuse of a public

meeting in a secluded spot, so as to throw the Authorities off the

scent.”

As a matter of fact, my father was quite right. Before we arrived there

that day the majority of those Boers, after full and long discussion,

had arranged to shake the dust of the Colony off their feet, and find a

home in new lands to the north.

Presently we were among them, and I noticed that, one and all, their

faces were anxious and preoccupied. Pieter Retief caught sight of me

being helped out of the cart by my father and Hans, whom I had brought

to load, and for a moment looked puzzled. Evidently his thoughts were

far away. Then he remembered and exclaimed in his jolly voice:

“Why! here is our little Englishman come to shoot off his match like a

man of his word. Friend Marais, stop talking about your losses”—this in

a warning voice—“and give him good day.”

So Marais came, and with him Marie, who blushed and smiled, but to my

mind looked more of a grown woman than ever before; one who had left

girlhood behind her and found herself face to face with real life and

all its troubles. Following her close, very close, as I was quick to

notice, was Hernan Pereira. He was even more finely dressed than usual

and carried in his hand a beautiful new, single-barrelled rifle, also

fitted to take percussion caps, but, as I thought, of a very large bore

for the purpose of goose shooting.

“So you have got well again,” he said in a genial voice that yet did

not ring true. Indeed, it suggested to me that he wished I had done

nothing of the sort. “Well, Mynheer Allan, here you find me quite ready

to shoot your head off.” (He didn’t mean that, though I dare say he

was.) “I tell you that the mare is as good as mine, for I have been

practising, haven’t I, Marie? as the _aasvogels_” (that is, vultures)

“round the stead know to their cost.”

“Yes, Cousin Hernan,” said Marie, “you have been practising, but so,

perhaps, has Allan.”

By this time all the company of Boers had collected round us, and began

to evince a great interest in the pending contest, as was natural among

people who rarely had a gun out of their hands, and thought that fine

shooting was the divinest of the arts. However, they were not allowed

to stay long, as the Kaffirs said that the geese would begin their

afternoon flight within about half an hour. So the spectators were all

requested to arrange themselves under the sheer cliff of the kloof,

where they could not be seen by the birds coming over them from behind,

and there to keep silence. Then Pereira and I—I attended by my loader,

but he alone, as he said a man at his elbow would bother him—and with

us Retief, the referee, took our stations about a hundred and fifty

yards from this face of cliff. Here we screened ourselves as well as we

could from the keen sight of the birds behind some tall bushes which

grew at this spot.

I seated myself on a camp-stool, which I had brought with me, for my

leg was still too weak to allow me to stand long, and waited. Presently

Pereira said through Retief that he had a favour to ask, namely, that I

would allow him to take the first six shots, as the strain of waiting

made him nervous. I answered, “Certainly,” although I knew well that

the object of the request was that he believed that the outpost

geese—“spy-geese” we called them—which would be the first to arrive,

would probably come over low down and slow, whereas those that

followed, scenting danger, might fly high and fast. This, in fact,

proved to be the case, for there is no bird more clever than the

misnamed goose.

When we had waited about a quarter of an hour Hans said:

“Hist! Goose comes.”

As he spoke, though as yet I could not see the bird, I heard its cry of

“_Honk, honk_” and the swish of its strong wings.

Then it appeared, an old spur-winged gander, probably the king of the

flock, flying so low that it only cleared the cliff edge by about

twenty feet, and passed over not more than thirty yards up, an easy

shot. Pereira fired, and down it came rather slowly, falling a hundred

yards or so behind him, while Retief said:

“One for our side.”

Pereira loaded again, and just as he had capped his rifle three more

geese, also flying low, came over, preceded by a number of ducks,

passing straight above us, as they must do owing to the shape of the

gap between the land waves of the veld above through which they

flighted. Pereira shot, and to my surprise, the second, not the first,

bird fell, also a good way behind him.

“Did you shoot at that goose, or the other, nephew?” asked Retief.

“At that one for sure,” he answered with a laugh.

“He lies,” muttered the Hottentot; “he shot at the first and killed the

second.”

“Be silent,” I answered. “Who would lie about such a thing?”

Again Pereira loaded. By the time that he was ready more geese were

approaching, this time in a triangle of seven birds, their leader being

at the point of the triangle, which was flying higher than those that

had gone before. He fired, and down came not one bird, but two, namely,

the captain and the goose to the right of and a little behind it.

“Ah! uncle,” exclaimed Pereira, “did you see those birds cross each

other as I pulled? That was a lucky one for me, but I won’t count the

second if the Heer Allan objects.”

“No, I did not, nephew,” answered Retief, “but doubtless they must have

done so, or the same bullet could not have pierced both.”

Both Hans and I only looked at each other and laughed. Still we said

nothing.

From the spectators under the cliff there came a murmur of

congratulation not unmixed with astonishment. Again Pereira loaded,

aimed, and loosed at a rather high goose—it may have been about seventy

yards in the air. He struck it right enough, for the feathers flew from

its breast; but to my astonishment the bird, after swooping down as

though it were going to fall, recovered itself and flew away straight

out of sight.

“Tough birds, these geese!” exclaimed Pereira. “They can carry as much

lead as a sea-cow.”

“Very tough indeed,” answered Retief doubtfully. “Never before did I

see a bird fly away with an ounce ball through its middle.”

“Oh! he will drop dead somewhere,” replied Pereira as he rammed his

powder down.

Within four minutes more Pereira had fired his two remaining shots,

selecting, as he was entitled to do, low and easy young geese that came

over him slowly. He killed them both, although the last of them, after

falling, waddled along the ground into a tuft of high grass.

Now murmurs of stifled applause broke from the audience, to which

Pereira bowed in acknowledgment.

“You will have to shoot very well, Mynheer Allan,” said Retief to me,

“if you want to beat that. Even if I rule out one of the two birds that

fell to a single shot, as I think I shall, Hernan has killed five out

of six, which can scarcely be bettered.”

“Yes,” I answered; “but, mynheer, be so good as to have those geese

collected and put upon one side. I don’t want them mixed up with mine,

if I am lucky enough to bring any down.”

He nodded, and some Kaffirs were sent to bring in the geese. Several of

these, I noted, were still flapping and had to have their necks

twisted, but at the time I did not go to look at them. While this was

being done I called to Retief, and begged him to examine the powder and

bullets I was about to use.

“What’s the good?” he asked, looking at me curiously. “Powder is

powder, and a bullet is a bullet.”

“None, I dare say. Still, oblige me by looking at them, my uncle.”

Then at my bidding Hans took six bullets and placed them in his hand,

begging him to return them to us as they were wanted.

“They must be a great deal smaller than Hernan’s,” said Retief, “who,

being stronger, uses a heavier gun.”

“Yes,” I answered briefly, as Hans put the charge of powder into the

rifle, and drove home the wad. Then, taking a bullet from Retief’s

hand, he rammed that down on to the top of it, capped the gun, and

handed it to me.

By now the geese were coming thick, for the flight was at its full.

Only, either because some of those that had already passed had sighted

the Kaffirs collecting the fallen birds and risen—an example which the

others noted from afar and followed—or because in an unknown way

warning of their danger had been conveyed to them, they were flying

higher and faster than the first arrivals.

“You will have the worst of it, Allan,” said Retief. “It should have

been shot and shot about.”

“Perhaps,” I answered, “but that can’t be helped now.”

Then I rose from my stool, the rifle in my hand. I had not long to

wait, for presently over came a wedge of geese nearly a hundred yards

up. I aimed at the first fellow, holding about eight yards ahead of him

to allow for his pace, and pressed. Next second I heard the clap of the

bullet, but alas! it had only struck the outstretched beak, of which a

small portion fell to the ground. The bird itself, after wavering a

second, resumed its place as leader of the squad and passed away

apparently unharmed.

“Baas, baas,” whispered Hans as he seized the rifle and began to

re-load, “you were too far in front. These big water-birds do not

travel as fast as the rock pigeons.”

I nodded, wishing to save my breath. Then, quivering with excitement,

for if I missed the next shot the match appeared to be lost, presently

I took the rifle from his hand.

Scarcely had I done so when a single goose came over quite as high as

the others and travelling “as though the black devil had kicked it,” as

Retief said. This time I allowed the same space to compensate for the

object’s increased speed and pressed.

Down it came like a stone, falling but a little way behind me with its

head knocked off.

“Baas, baas,” whispered Hans, “still too far in front. Why aim at the

eye when you have the whole body?”

Again I nodded, and at the same time heaved a sigh of relief. At least

the match was still alive. Soon a large flight came over, mixed up with

mallard and widgeon. I took the right-hand angle bird, so that it could

not be supposed I had “browned the lot,” as here in England they say of

one who fires at a covey and not at a particular partridge. Down he

came, shot straight through the breast. Then I knew that I had got my

nerve, and felt no more fear.

To cut a long story short, although two of them were extremely

difficult and high, one being, I should say, quite a hundred and twenty

yards above me, and the other by no means easy, I killed the next three

birds one after the other, and I verily believe could have killed a

dozen more without a miss, for now I was shooting as I had never shot

before.

“Say, nephew Allan,” asked Retief curiously in the pause between the

fifth and sixth shots, “why do your geese fall so differently to

Hernan’s?”

“Ask him! don’t talk to me,” I answered, and next instant brought down

number five, the finest shot of the lot.

A sound of wonder and applause came from all the audience, and I saw

Marie wave a white handkerchief.

“That’s the end,” said the referee.

“One minute before you stir,” I answered. “I want to shoot at something

else that is not in the match, just to see if I can kill two birds with

one bullet like the Heer Pereira.”

He granted my request with a nod, holding up his hand to prevent the

audience from moving, and bidding Pereira, who tried to interrupt, to

be silent.

Now, while the match was in progress I had noticed two falcons about

the size of the British peregrine wheeling round and round high over

the kloof, in which doubtless they bred, apparently quite undisturbed

by the shooting. Or, perhaps, they had their eyes upon some of the

fallen geese. I took the rifle and waited for a long while, till at

last my opportunity came. I saw that the larger hen falcon was about to

cross directly over the circle of its mate, there being perhaps a

distance of ten yards between them. I aimed; I judged—for a second my

mind was a kind of calculating machine—the different arcs and speeds of

the birds must be allowed for, and the lowest was ninety yards away.

Then, with something like a prayer upon my lips, I pressed while every

eye stared upwards.

Down came the lower falcon; a pause of half a second, and down came the

higher one also, falling dead upon its dead mate!

Now, even from those Boers, who did not love to see an Englishman

excel, there broke a shout of acclamation. Never had they beheld such a

shot as this; nor in truth had I.

“Mynheer Retief,” I said, “I gave you notice that I intended to try to

kill both of them, did I not?”

“You did. Allemachte! you did! But tell me, Allan Quatermain, are your

eye and hand quite human?”

“You must ask my father,” I answered with a shrug as I sat myself down

upon my stool and mopped my brow.

The Boers came up with a rush, Marie flying ahead of them like a

swallow, and their stout womenfolk waddling behind, and formed a circle

round us, all talking at once. I did not listen to their conversation,

till I heard Pereira, who was engaged in some eye-play with Marie, say

in a loud voice:

“Yes, it was pretty, very pretty, but all the same, Uncle Retief, I

claim the match, as I shot six geese against five.”

“Hans,” I said, “bring my geese,” and they were brought, each with a

neat hole through it, and laid down near those that Pereira had shot.

“Now,” I said to Retief, “examine the wounds in these birds, and then

that on the second bird which the Heer Pereira killed when he brought

down two at once. I think it will be found that his bullet must have

splintered.”

Retief went and studied all the birds, taking them up one by one. Then

he threw down the last with a curse and cried in a great voice:

“Mynheer Pereira, why do you bring shame on us before these two

Englishmen? I say that you have been using _loopers_, or else bullets

that were sawn in quarters and glued or tied with thread. Look, look!”

and he pointed to the wounds, of which in one case there were as many

as three on a single bird.

“Why not?” answered Pereira coolly. “The bargain was that we were to

use bullets, but it was never said that they should not be cut.

Doubtless the Heer Allan’s were treated in the same way.”

“No,” I answered, “when I said that I would shoot with a bullet I meant

a whole bullet, not one that had been sawn in pieces and fixed together

again, so that after it left the muzzle it might spread out like shot.

But I do not wish to talk about the matter. It is in the hands of the

Heer Pieter Retief, who will give judgment as it pleases him.”

Now, much excited argument ensued among the Boers, in the midst of

which Marie managed to whisper to me unheard:

“Oh! I am glad, Allan, for whatever they may decide, you won, and the

omen is good.”

“I don’t see what geese have to do with omens, sweetheart,” I

answered—“that is, since the time of the ancient Romans. Anyhow, I

should say that the omens are bad, for there is going to be a row

presently.”

Just then Retief put up his hand, calling out:

“Silence! I have decided. The writing of the match did not say that the

bullets were not to be cut, and therefore Hernan Pereira’s birds must

count. But that writing does say that any bird accidentally killed

should not count, and therefore one goose must be subtracted from

Pereira’s total, which leaves the two shooters equal. So either the

match is dead or, since the geese have ceased to come, it must be shot

off another day.”

“Oh! if there is any question,” said Pereira, who felt that public

opinion was much against him, “let the Englishman take the money. I

dare say that he needs it, as the sons of missionaries are not rich.”

“There is no question,” I said, “since, rich or poor, not for a

thousand pounds would I shoot again against one who plays such tricks.

Keep your money, Mynheer Pereira, and I will keep my mare. The umpire

has said that the match is dead, so everything is finished.”

“Not quite,” interrupted Retief, “for I have a word to say. Friend

Allan, you have played fair, and I believe that there is no one who can

shoot like you in Africa.”

“That is so,” said the audience of Boers.

“Mynheer Pereira,” went on Retief, “although you, too, are a fine shot,

as is well known, I believe that had you played fair also you would

have been beaten, but as it is you have saved your hundred pounds.

Mynheer Pereira,” he added in a great voice, “you are a cheat, who have

brought disgrace upon us Boers, and for my part I never want to shake

your hand again.”

Now, at these outspoken words, for when his indignation was aroused

Retief was no measurer of language, Pereira’s high-coloured face went

white as a sheet.

“_Mein Gott_, mynheer,” he said, “I am minded to make you answer for

such talk,” and his hand went to the knife at his girdle.

“What!” shouted Retief, “do you want another shooting match? Well, if

so I am ready with whole bullets or with split ones. None shall say

that Pieter Retief was afraid of any man, and, least of all, of one who

is not ashamed to try to steal a prize as a hyena steals a bone from a

lion. Come on, Hernan Pereira, come on!”

Now, I am sure I cannot say what would have happened, although I am

quite certain that Pereira had no stomach for a duel with the

redoubtable Retief, a man whose courage was as proverbial throughout

the land as was his perfect uprightness of character. At any rate,

seeing that things looked very black, Henri Marais, who had been

listening to this altercation with evident annoyance, stepped forward

and said:

“Mynheer Retief and nephew Hernan, you are both my guests, and I will

not permit quarrelling over this foolishness, especially as I am sure

that Hernan never intended to cheat, but only to do what he thought was

allowed. Why should he, who is one of the finest shots in the Colony,

though it may be that young Allan Quatermain here is even better? Will

you not say so, too, friend Retief, especially just now when it is

necessary that we should all be as brothers?” he added pleadingly.

“No,” thundered Retief, “I will not tell a lie to please you or

anyone.”

Then, seeing that the commandant was utterly uncompromising, Marais

went up to his nephew and whispered to him for a while. What he said I

do not know. The result of it was, however, that after favouring both

Retief and myself with an angry scowl, Pereira turned and walked to

where his horse stood, mounted it, and rode off, followed by two

Hottentot after-riders.

That was the last I saw of Hernan Pereira for a long while to come, and

heartily do I wish that it had been the last I ever saw of him. But

this was not to be.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PARTING

The Boers, who ostensibly had come to the kloof to see the shooting

match, although, in fact, for a very different purpose, now began to

disperse. Some of them rode straight away, while some went to wagons

which they had outspanned at a distance, and trekked off to their

separate homes. I am glad to say that before they left quite a number

of the best of them came up and congratulated me both on the defence of

Maraisfontein and on my shooting. Also not a few expressed their views

concerning Pereira in very straightforward language.

Now, the arrangement was that my father and I were to sleep that night

at Marais’s stead, returning home on the following morning. But my

father, who had been a silent but not unobservant witness of all this

scene, coming to the conclusion that after what had happened we should

scarcely be welcome there, and that the company of Pereira was to be

avoided just now, went up to Marais and bade him farewell, saying that

we would send for my mare.

“Not so, not so,” he answered, “you are my guests to-night. Also, fear

not, Hernan will be away. He has gone a journey upon some business.”

As my father hesitated, Marais added: “Friend, I pray you to come, for

I have some important words to say to you, which cannot be said here.”

Then my father gave way, to my delight and relief. For if he had not,

what chance would there have been of my getting some still more

important words with Marie? So having collected the geese and the two

falcons, which I proposed to skin for Marie, I was helped into the

cart, and we drove off, reaching Maraisfontein just as night set in.

That evening, after we had eaten, Heer Marais asked my father and

myself to speak with him in the sitting-room. By an afterthought also,

or so it seemed to me, he told his daughter, who had been clearing away

the dishes and with whom as yet I had found no opportunity to talk, to

come in with us and close the door behind her.

When all were seated and we men had lit our pipes, though apprehension

of what was to follow quite took away my taste for smoking, Marais

spoke in English, which he knew to a certain extent. This was for the

benefit of my father, who made it a point of honour not to understand

Dutch, although he would answer Marais in that language when _he_

pretended not to understand English. To me he spoke in Dutch, and

occasionally in French to Marie. It was a most curious and polyglot

conversation.

“Young Allan,” he said, “and you, daughter Marie, I have heard stories

concerning you that, although I never gave you leave to _opsit_” (that

is, to sit up alone at night with candles, according to the Boer

fashion between those who are courting), “you have been making love to

each other.”

“That is true, mynheer,” I said. “I only waited an opportunity to tell

you that we plighted our troth during the attack of the Quabies on this

house.”

“Allemachte! Allan, a strange time to choose,” answered Marais, pulling

at his beard; “the troth that is plighted in blood is apt to end in

blood.”

“A vain superstition to which I cannot consent,” interrupted my father.

“Perhaps so,” I answered. “I know not; God alone knows. I only know

that we plighted our troth when we thought ourselves about to die, and

that we shall keep that troth till death ends it.”

“Yes, my father,” added Marie, leaning forward across the scored

yellow-wood table, her chin resting on her hand and her dark, buck-like

eyes looking him in the face. “Yes, my father, that is so, as I have

told you already.”

“And I tell you, Marie, what I have told you already, and you too,

Allan, that this thing may not be,” answered Marais, hitting the table

with his fist. “I have nothing to say against you, Allan; indeed, I

honour you, and you have done me a mighty service, but it may not be.”

“Why not, mynheer?” I asked.

“For three reasons, Allan, each of which is final. You are English, and

I do not wish my daughter to marry an Englishman; that is the first.

You are poor, which is no discredit to you, and since I am now ruined

my daughter cannot marry a poor man; that is the second. You live here,

and my daughter and I are leaving this country, therefore you cannot

marry her; that is the third,” and he paused.

“Is there not a fourth,” I asked, “which is the real reason? Namely,

that you wish your daughter to marry someone else.”

“Yes, Allan; since you force me to it, there is a fourth. I have

affianced my daughter to her cousin, Hernando Pereira, a man of

substance and full age; no lad, but one who knows his own mind and can

support a wife.”

“I understand,” I answered calmly, although within my heart a very hell

was raging. “But tell me, mynheer, has Marie affianced herself—or

perhaps she will answer with her own lips?”

“Yes, Allan,” replied Marie in her quiet fashion, “I have affianced

myself—to you and no other man.”

“You hear, mynheer,” I said to Marais.

Then he broke out in his usual excitable manner. He stormed, he argued,

he rated us both. He said that he would never allow it; that first he

would see his daughter in her grave. That I had abused his confidence

and violated his hospitality; that he would shoot me if I came near his

girl. That she was a minor, and according to the law he could dispose

of her in marriage. That she must accompany him whither he was going;

that certainly I should not do so, and much more of the same sort.

When at last he had tired himself out and smashed his favourite pipe

upon the table, Marie spoke, saying:

“My father, you know that I love you dearly, for since my mother’s

death we have been everything to each other, have we not?”

“Surely, Marie, you are my life, and more than my life.”

“Very well, my father. That being so, I acknowledge your authority over

me, whatever the law may say. I acknowledge that you have the right to

forbid me to marry Allan, and if you do forbid me—while I am under age,

at any rate—I shall not marry him because of my duty to you. But”—here

she rose and looked him full in the eyes, and oh! how stately she

seemed at that moment in her simple strength and youthful grace!—“there

is one thing, my father, that I do not acknowledge—your right to force

me to marry any other man. As a woman with power over herself, I deny

that right; and much as it pains me, my father, to refuse you anything,

I say that first I will die. To Allan here I have given myself for good

or for evil, and if I may not marry Allan, I will go to the grave

unwed. If my words hurt you, I pray you to pardon me, but at the same

time to remember that they are my words, which cannot be altered.”

Marais looked at his daughter, and his daughter looked at Marais. At

first I thought that he was about to curse her; but if this were so,

something in her eyes seemed to change his mind, for all he said was:

“Intractable, like the rest of your race! Well, Fate may lead those who

cannot be driven, and this matter I leave in the hands of Fate. While

you are under age—that is, for two years or more—you may not marry

without my consent, and have just promised not to do so. Presently we

trek from this country into far-off lands. Who knows what may happen

there?”

“Yes,” said my father in a solemn voice, speaking for the first time,

“who knows except God, Who governs all things, and will settle these

matters according to His will, Henri Marais? Listen,” he went on after

a pause, for Marais made no answer, but sat himself down and stared

gloomily at the table. “You do not wish my son to marry your daughter

for various reasons, of which one is that you think him poor and a

richer suitor has offered himself after a reverse of fortune has made

_you_ poor. Another and a greater, the true reason, is his English

blood, which you hate so much that, although by God’s mercy he saved

her life, you do not desire that he should share her life. Is it not

true?”

“Yes, it is true, Mynheer Quatermain. You English are bullies and

cheats,” he answered excitedly.

“And so you would give your daughter to one who has shown himself

humble and upright, to that good hater of the English and plotter

against his King, Hernando Pereira, whom you love because he alone is

left of your ancient race.”

Remembering the incident of the afternoon, this sarcasm reduced Marais

to silence.

“Well,” went on my father, “although I am fond of Marie, and know her

to be a sweet and noble-hearted girl, neither do I wish that she should

marry my son. I would see him wed to some English woman, and not

dragged into the net of the Boers and their plottings. Still, it is

plain that these two love each other with heart and soul, as doubtless

it has been decreed that they should love. This being so, I tell you

that to separate them and force another marriage upon one of them is a

crime before God, of which, I am sure, He will take note and pay it

back to you. Strange things may happen in those lands whither you go,

Henri Marais. Will you not, then, be content to leave your child in

safe keeping?”

“Never!” shouted Marais. “She shall accompany me to a new home, which

is not under the shadow of your accursed British flag.”

“Then I have no more to say. On your head be it here and hereafter,”

replied my father solemnly.

Now unable to control myself any longer I broke in:

“But I have, mynheer. To separate Marie and myself is a sin, and one

that will break her heart. As for my poverty, I have something, more

perhaps than you think, and in this rich country wealth can be earned

by those who work, as I would do for her sake. The man to whom you

would give her showed his true nature this day, for he who can play so

low a trick to win a wager, will play worse tricks to win greater

things. Moreover, the scheme must fail since Marie will not marry him.”

“I say she shall,” replied Marais; “and that whether she does or not,

she shall accompany me and not stay here to be the wife of an English

boy.”

“Accompany you I will, father, and share your fortunes to the last. But

marry Hernando Pereira I will not,” said Marie quietly.

“Perhaps, mynheer,” I added, “days may come when once again you will be

glad of the help of an ‘English boy.’”

The words were spoken at random, a kind of ejaculation from the heart,

caused by the sting of Marais’s cruelty and insults, like the cry of a

beast beneath a blow. Little did I know how true they would prove, but

at times it is thus that truth is mysteriously drawn from some well of

secret knowledge hidden in our souls.

“When I want your help I will ask for it,” raved Marais, who, knowing

himself to be in the wrong, strove to cover up that wrong with

violence.

“Asked or unasked, if I live it shall be given in the future as in the

past, Mynheer Marais. God pardon you for the woe you are bringing on

Marie and on me.”

Now Marie began to weep a little, and, unable to bear that sight, I

covered my eyes with my hand. Marais, who, when he was not under the

influence of his prejudices or passion, had a kind heart, was moved

also, but tried to hide his feelings in roughness. He swore at Marie,

and told her to go to bed, and she obeyed, still weeping. Then my

father rose and said:

“Henri Marais, we cannot leave here to-night because the horses are

kraaled, and it would be difficult to find them in this darkness, so we

must ask your hospitality till dawn.”

“_I_ do not ask it,” I exclaimed. “I go to sleep in the cart,” and I

limped from the room and the house, leaving the two men together.

What passed afterwards between them I do not quite know. I gathered

that my father, who, when roused, also had a temper and was mentally

and intellectually the stronger man, told Marais his opinion of his

wickedness and folly in language that he was not likely to forget. I

believe he even drove him to confess that his acts seemed cruel,

excusing them, however, by announcing that he had sworn before God that

his daughter should never marry an Englishman. Also he said that he had

promised her solemnly to Pereira, his own nephew, whom he loved, and

could not break his word.

“No,” answered my father, “because, being mad with the madness that

runs before destruction, you prefer to break Marie’s heart and perhaps

become guilty of her blood.”

Then he left him.

The darkness was intense. Through it I groped my way to the cart, which

stood where it had been outspanned on the veld at a little distance

from the house, wishing heartily, so miserable was I, that the Kaffirs

might choose that black night for another attack and make an end of me.

When I reached it and lit the lantern which we always carried, I was

astonished to find that, in a rough fashion, it had been made ready to

sleep in. The seats had been cleared out, the hind curtain fastened,

and so forth. Also the pole was propped up with an ox-yoke so as to

make the vehicle level to lie in. While I was wondering vaguely who

could have done this, Hans climbed on to the step, carrying two

karosses which he had borrowed or stolen, and asked if I was

comfortable.

“Oh, yes!” I answered; “but why were you going to sleep in the cart?”

“Baas,” he replied, “I was not; I prepared it for you. How did I know

that you were coming? Oh, very simply. I sat on the stoep and listened

to all the talk in the _sitkammer_. The window has never been mended,

baas, since the Quabies broke it. God in Heaven! what a talk that was.

I never knew that white people could have so much to say about a simple

matter. You want to marry the Baas Marais’s daughter; the baas wants

her to marry another man who can pay more cattle. Well, among us it

would soon have been settled, for the father would have taken a stick

and beaten you out of the hut with the thick end. Then he would have

beaten the girl with the thin end until she promised to take the other

man, and all would have been settled nicely. But you Whites, you talk

and talk, and nothing is settled. You still mean to marry the daughter,

and the daughter still means not to marry the man of many cows.

Moreover, the father has really gained nothing except a sick heart and

much bad luck to come.”

“Why much bad luck to come, Hans?” I asked idly, for his naïve summing

up of the case interested me in a vague way.

“Oh! Baas Allan, for two reasons. First, your reverend father, who made

me true Christian, told him so, and a prédicant so good as he, is one

down whom the curse of God runs from Heaven like lightning runs down a

tree. Well, the Heer Marais was sitting under that tree, and we all

know what happens to him who is under a tree when the lightning strikes

it. That my first Christian reason. My second black-man reason, about

which there can be no mistake, for it has always been true since there

was a black man, is that the girl is yours by blood. You saved her life

with your blood,” and he pointed to my leg, “and therefore bought her

for ever, for blood is more than cattle. Therefore, too, he who would

divide her from you brings blood on her and on the other man who tries

to steal her, blood, blood! and on himself I know not what.” And he

waved his yellow arms, staring up at me with his little black eyes in a

way that was most uncanny.

“Nonsense!” I said. “Why do you talk such bad words?”

“Because they are true words, Baas Allan. Oh, you laugh at the poor

Totty; but I had it from my father, and he from his father from

generation to generation, amen, and you will see. You will see, as I

have seen before now, and as the Heer Marais will see, who, if the

great God had not made him mad—for mad he is, baas, as we know, if you

Whites don’t—might have lived in his home till he was old, and have had

a good son-in-law to bury him in his blanket.”

Now I seemed to have had enough of this eerie conversation. Of course

it is easy to laugh at natives and their superstitions, but, after a

long life of experience, I am bound to admit that they are not always

devoid of truth. The native has some kind of sixth sense which the

civilised man has lost, or so it seems to me.

“Talking of blankets,” I said in order to change the subject, “from

whom did you get these karosses?”

“From whom? Why, from the Missie, of course, baas. When I heard that

you were to sleep in the cart I went to her and borrowed them to cover

you. Also, I had forgotten, she gave me a writing for you,” and he felt

about, first in his dirty shirt, then under his arm, and finally in his

fuzzy hair, from which last hiding place he produced a little bit of

paper folded into a pellet. I undid it and read these words, written

with a pencil and in French:—

“I shall be in the peach orchard half an hour before sunrise. Be there

if you would bid me farewell.—M.”

“Is there any answer, baas?” asked Hans when I had thrust the note into

my pocket. “If so I can take it without being found out.” Then an

inspiration seemed to strike him, and he added: “Why do you not take it

yourself? The Missie’s window is easy to open, also I am sure she would

be pleased to see you.”

“Be silent,” I said. “I am going to sleep. Wake me an hour before the

cock-crow—and, stay—see that the horses have got out of the kraal so

that you cannot find them too easily in case the Reverend wishes to

start very early. But do not let them wander far, for here we are no

welcome guests.”

“Yes, baas. By the way, baas, the Heer Pereira, who tried to cheat you

over those geese, is sleeping in an empty house not more than two miles

away. He drinks coffee when he wakes up in the morning, and his

servant, who makes it, is my good friend. Now would you like me to put

a little something into it? Not to kill him, for that is against the

law in the Book, but just to make him quite mad, for the Book says

nothing about that. If so, I have a very good medicine, one that you

white people do not know, which improves the taste of the coffee, and

it might save much trouble. You see, if he came dancing about the place

without any clothes on, like a common Kaffir, the Heer Marais, although

_he_ is really mad also, might not wish for him as a son-in-law.”

“Oh! go to the devil if you are not there already,” I replied, and

turned over as though to sleep.

There was no need for me to have instructed that faithful creature, the

astute but immoral Hans, to call me early, as the lady did her mother

in the poem, for I do not think that I closed an eye that night. I

spare my reflections, for they can easily be imagined in the case of an

earnest-natured lad who was about to be bereft of his first love.

Long before the dawn I stood in the peach orchard, that orchard where

we had first met, and waited. At length Marie came stealing between the

tree trunks like a grey ghost, for she was wrapped in some

light-coloured garment. Oh! once more we were alone together. Alone in

the utter solitude and silence which precede the African dawn, when all

creatures that love the night have withdrawn to their lairs and hiding

places, and those that love the day still sleep their soundest.

She saw me and stood still, then opened her arms and clasped me to her

breast, uttering no word. A while later she spoke almost in a whisper,

saying:

“Allan, I must not stay long, for I think that if my father found us

together, he would shoot you in his madness.”

Now as always it was of me she thought, not of herself.

“And you, my sweet?” I asked.

“Oh!” she answered, “that matters nothing. Except for the sin of it I

wish he would shoot me, for then I should have done with all this pain.

I told you, Allan, when the Kaffirs were on us yonder, that it might be

better to die; and see, my heart spoke truly.”

“Is there no hope?” I gasped. “Will he really separate us and take you

away into the wilderness?”

“Certainly, nothing can turn him. Yet, Allan, there is this hope. In

two years, if I live, I shall be of full age, and can marry whom I

will; and this I swear, that I will marry none but you, no, not even if

you were to die to-morrow.”

“I bless you for those words,” I said.

“Why?” she asked simply. “What others could I speak? Would you have me

do outrage to my own heart and go through life faithless and ashamed?”

“And I, I swear also,” I broke in.

“Nay, swear nothing. While I live I know that you will love me, and if

I should be taken, it is my wish that you should marry some other good

woman, since it is not well or right that man should live alone. With

us maids it is different. Listen, Allan, for the cocks are beginning to

crow, and soon there will be light. You must bide here with your

father. If possible, I will write to you from time to time, telling you

where we are and how we fare. But if I do not write, know that it is

because I cannot, or because I can find no messenger, or because the

letters have miscarried, for we go into wild countries, amongst

savages.”

“Whither do you go?” I asked.

“I believe up towards the great harbour called Delagoa Bay, where the

Portuguese rule. My cousin Hernan, who accompanies us”—and she shivered

a little in my arms—“is half Portuguese. He tells the Boers that he has

relations there who have written him many fine promises, saying they

will give us good country to dwell in where we cannot be followed by

the English, whom he and my father hate so much.”

“I have heard that is all fever veld, and that the country between is

full of fierce Kaffirs,” I said with a groan.

“Perhaps. I do not know, and I do not care. At least, that is the

notion in my father’s head, though, of course, circumstances may change

it. I will try to let you know, Allan, or if I do not, perhaps you will

be able to find out for yourself. Then, then, if we both live and you

still care for me, who will always care for you, when I am of age, you

will join us and, say and do what they may, I will marry no other man.

And if I die, as may well happen, oh! then my spirit shall watch over

you and wait for you till you join me beneath the wings of God. Look,

it grows light. I must go. Farewell, my love, my first and only love,

till in life or death we meet again, as meet we shall.”

Once more we clung together and kissed, muttering broken words, and

then she tore herself from my embrace and was gone. But oh! as I heard

her feet steal through the dew-laden grass, I felt as though my heart

were being rent from my breast. I have suffered much in life, but I do

not think that ever I underwent a bitterer anguish than in this hour of

my parting from Marie. For when all is said and done, what joy is there

like the joy of pure, first love, and what bitterness like the

bitterness of its loss?

Half an hour later the flowering trees of Maraisfontein were behind us,

while in front rolled the fire-swept veld, black as life had become for

me.

CHAPTER VII.

ALLAN’S CALL

A fortnight later Marais, Pereira and their companions, a little band

in all of about twenty men, thirty women and children, and say fifty

half-breeds and Hottentot after-riders, trekked from their homes into

the wilderness. I rode to the crest of a table-topped hill and watched

the long line of wagons, one of them containing Marie, crawl away

northward across the veld a mile or more beneath.

Sorely was I tempted to gallop after them and seek a last interview

with her and her father. But my pride forbade me. Henri Marais had

given out that if I came near his daughter he would have me beaten back

with _sjambocks_ or hide whips. Perhaps he had gained some inkling of

our last farewell in the peach orchard. I do not know. But I do know

that if anyone had lifted a _sjambock_ on me I should have answered

with a bullet. Then there would have been blood between us, which is

worse to cross than whole rivers of wrath and jealousy. So I just

watched the wagons until they vanished, and galloped home down the

rock-strewn slope, wishing that the horse would stumble and break my

neck.

When I reached the station, however, I was glad that it had not done

so, as I found my father sitting on the stoep reading a letter that had

been brought by a mounted Hottentot.

It was from Henri Marais, and ran thus:—

“‘REVEREND HEER AND FRIEND QUATERMAIN,—I send this to bid you farewell,

for although you are English and we have quarrelled at times, I honour

you in my heart. Friend, now that we are starting, your warning words

lie on me like lead, I know not why. But what is done cannot be undone,

and I trust that all will come right. If not, it is because the Good

Lord wills it otherwise.’”

Here my father looked up and said: “When men suffer from their own

passion and folly, they always lay the blame on the back of

Providence.”

Then he went on, spelling out the letter:

“‘I fear your boy Allan, who is a brave lad, as I have reason to know,

and honest, must think that I have treated him harshly and without

gratitude. But I have only done what I must do. True, Marie, who, like

her mother, is very strong and stubborn in mind, swears that she will

marry no one else; but soon Nature will make her forget all that,

especially as such a fine husband waits for her hand. So bid Allan

forget all about her also, and when he is old enough choose some

English girl. I have sworn a great oath before my God that he shall

never marry my daughter with my consent.

“‘Friend, I write to ask you something because I trust you more than

these slim agents. Half the price, a very poor one, that I have for my

farm is still unpaid to me by Jacobus van der Merve, who remains behind

and buys up all our lands. It is £100 English, due this day year, and I

enclose you power of attorney to receive and give receipt for the same.

Also there is due to me from your British Government £253 on account of

slaves liberated which were worth quite £1,000. This also the paper

gives you authority to receive. As regards my claims against the said

cursed Government because of the loss brought on me by the Quabie

Kaffirs, it will not acknowledge them, saying that the attack was

caused by the Frenchman Leblanc, one of my household.’”

“And with good reason,” commented my father.

“‘When you have received these monies, if ever, I pray you take some

safe opportunity of sending them to me, wherever I may be, which

doubtless you will hear in due course, although by that time I hope to

be rich again and not to need money. Farewell and God be with you, as I

hope He will be with me and Marie and the rest of us trek-Boers. The

bearer will overtake us with your answer at our first outspan.

“‘HENRI MARAIS.’”

“Well,” said my father with a sigh, “I suppose I must accept his trust,

though why he should choose an ‘accursed Englishman’ with whom he has

quarrelled violently to collect his debts instead of one of his own

beloved Boers, I am sure I do not know. I will go and write to him.

Allan, see that the messenger and his horse get something to eat.”

I nodded and went to the man, who was one of those that had defended

Maraisfontein with me, a good fellow unless he got near liquor.

“Heer Allan,” he said, looking round to see that we were not overheard,

“I have a little writing for you also,” and he produced from his pouch

a note that was unaddressed.

I tore it open eagerly. Within was written in French, which no Boer

would understand if the letter fell into his hands:

“Be brave and faithful, and remember, as I shall. Oh! love of my heart,

adieu, adieu!”

This message was unsigned; but what need was there of signature?

I wrote an answer of a sort that may be imagined, though what the exact

words were I cannot remember after the lapse of nearly half a century.

Oddly enough, it is the things I said which I recall at such a distance

of time rather than the things which I wrote, perhaps because, when

once written, my mind being delivered, troubled itself with them no

more. So in due course the Hottentot departed with my father’s letter

and my own, and that was the last direct communication which we had

with Henri or Marie Marais for more than a year.

I think that those long months were on the whole the most wretched I

have ever spent. The time of life which I was passing through is always

trying; that period of emergence from youth into full and responsible

manhood which in Africa generally takes place earlier than it does here

in England, where young men often seem to me to remain boys up to

five-and-twenty. The circumstances which I have detailed made it

particularly so in my own case, for here was I, who should have been

but a cheerful lad, oppressed with the sorrows and anxieties, and

fettered by the affections of maturity.

I could not get Marie out of my mind; her image was with me by day and

by night, especially by night, which caused me to sleep badly. I became

morose, supersensitive, and excitable. I developed a cough, and

thought, as did others, that I was going into a decline. I remember

that Hans even asked me once if I would not come and peg out the exact

place where I should like to be buried, so that I might be sure that

there would be no mistake made when I could no longer speak for myself.

On that occasion I kicked Hans, one of the few upon which I have ever

touched a native. The truth was that I had not the slightest intention

of being buried. I wanted to live and marry Marie, not to die and be

put in a hole by Hans. Only I saw no prospect of marrying Marie, or

even of seeing her again, and that was why I felt low-spirited.

Of course, from time to time news of the trek-Boers reached us, but it

was extremely confused. There were so many parties of them; their

adventures were so difficult to follow, and, I may add, often so

terrible; so few of them could write; trustworthy messengers were so

scanty; distances were so great. At any rate, we heard nothing of

Marais’s band except a rumour that they had trekked to a district in

what is now the Transvaal, which is called Rustenberg, and thence on

towards Delagoa Bay into an unknown veld where they had vanished. From

Marie herself no letter came, which showed me clearly enough that she

had not found an opportunity of sending one.

Observing my depressed condition, my father suggested as a remedy that

I should go to the theological college at Cape Town and prepare myself

for ordination. But the Church as a career did not appeal to me,

perhaps because I felt that I could never be sufficiently good; perhaps

because I knew that as a clergyman I should find no opportunity of

travelling north when my call came. For I always believed that this

call would come.

My father, who wished that I should hear another kind of call, was

vexed with me over this matter. He desired earnestly that I should

follow the profession which he adorned, and indeed saw no other open

for me any more than I did myself. Of course he was right in a way,

seeing that in the end I found none, unless big game hunting and Kaffir

trading can be called a profession. I don’t know, I am sure. Still,

poor business as it may be, I say now when I am getting towards the end

of life that I am glad I did not follow any other. It has suited me;

that was the insignificant hole in the world’s affairs which I was

destined to fit, whose only gifts were a remarkable art of straight

shooting and the more common one of observation mixed with a little

untrained philosophy.

So hot did our arguments become about this subject of the Church, for,

as may be imagined, in the course of them I revealed some unorthodoxy,

especially as regards the matter of our methods of Christianising

Kaffirs, that I was extremely thankful when a diversion occurred which

took me away from home. The story of my defence of Maraisfontein had

spread far, and that of my feats of shooting, especially in the Goose

Kloof, still farther. So the end of it was that those in authority

commandeered me to serve in one of the continual Kaffir frontier wars

which was in progress, and instantly gave me a commission as a kind of

lieutenant in a border corps.

Now the events of that particular war have nothing to do with the

history that I am telling, so I do not propose even to touch on them. I

served in it for a year, meeting with many adventures, one or two

successes, and several failures. Once I was wounded slightly, twice I

but just escaped with my life. Once I was reprimanded for taking a

foolish risk and losing some men. Twice I was commended for what were

called gallant actions, such as bringing a wounded comrade out of

danger under a warm fire, mostly of assegais, and penetrating by night,

almost alone, into the stronghold of a chieftain, and shooting him.

At length that war was patched up with an inconclusive peace and my

corps was disbanded. I returned home, no longer a lad, but a man with

experience of various kinds and a rather unique knowledge of Kaffirs,

their languages, history, and modes of thought and action. Also I had

associated a good deal with British officers, and from them acquired

much that I had found no opportunity of studying before, especially, I

hope, the ideas and standards of English gentlemen.

I had not been back at the Mission Station more than three weeks, quite

long enough for me to begin to be bored with idleness and inactivity,

when that call for which I had been waiting came at last.

One day a _smous_, that is a low kind of white man, often a Jew, who

travels about trading with unsophisticated Boers and Kaffirs, and

cheating them if he can, called at the station with his cartful of

goods. I was about to send him away, having no liking for such gentry,

when he asked me if I were named Allan Quatermain. I said “Yes,”

whereon he replied that he had a letter for me, and produced a packet

wrapped up in sail-cloth. I asked him whence he had it, and he answered

from a man whom he had met at Port Elizabeth, an east coast trader,

who, hearing that he was coming into the Cradock district, entrusted

him with the letter. The man told him that it was very important, and

that I should reward the bearer well if it were delivered safely.

While the Jew talked (I think he was a Jew) I was opening the

sail-cloth. Within was a piece of linen which had been oiled to keep

out water, addressed in some red pigment to myself or my father. This,

too, I opened, not without difficulty, for it was carefully sewn up,

and found within it a letter-packet, also addressed to myself or my

father, in the handwriting of Marie.

Great Heaven! How my heart jumped at that sight! Calling to Hans to

make the _smous_ comfortable and give him food, I went into my own

room, and there read the letter, which ran thus:

“MY DEAR ALLAN,—I do not know whether the other letters I have written

to you have ever come to your hands, or indeed if this one will. Still,

I send it on chance by a wandering Portuguese half-breed who is going

to Delagoa Bay, about fifty miles, I believe, from the place where I

now write, near the Crocodile River. My father has named it

Maraisfontein, after our old home. If those letters reached you, you

will have learned of the terrible things we went through on our

journey; the attacks by the Kaffirs in the Zoutpansberg region, who

destroyed one of our parties altogether, and so forth. If not, all that

story must wait, for it is too long to tell now, and, indeed, I have

but little paper, and not much pencil. It will be enough to say,

therefore, that to the number of thirty-five white people, men, women

and children, we trekked at the beginning of the summer season, when

the grass was commencing to grow, from the Lydenburg district—an awful

journey over mountains and through flooded rivers. After many delays,

some of them months long, we reached this place, about eight weeks ago,

for I write to you at the beginning of June, if we have kept correct

account of the time, of which I am not certain.

“It is a beautiful place to look at, a flat country of rich veld, with

big trees growing on it, and about two miles from the great river that

is called the Crocodile. Here, finding good water, my father and Hernan

Pereira, who now rules him in all things, determined to settle,

although some of the others wished to push on nearer to Delagoa Bay.

There was a great quarrel about it, but in the end my father, or rather

Hernan, had his will, as the oxen were worn out and many had already

died from the bites of a poisonous fly which is called the tsetse. So

we lotted out the land, of which there is enough for hundreds, and

began to build rude houses.

“Then trouble came upon us. The Kaffirs stole most of our horses,

although they have not dared to attack us, and except two belonging to

Hernan, the rest died of the sickness, the last of them but yesterday.

The oxen, too, have all died of the tsetse bites or other illnesses.

But the worst is that although this country looks so healthy, it is

poisoned with fever, which comes up, I think, in the mists from the

river. Already out of the thirty-five of us, ten are dead, two men,

three women, and five children, while more are sick. As yet my father

and I and my cousin Pereira have, by God’s mercy, kept quite well; but

although we are all very strong, how long this will continue I cannot

tell. Fortunately we have plenty of ammunition and the place is thick

with game, so that those of the men who remain strong can kill all the

food we want, even shooting on foot, and we women have made a great

quantity of biltong by salting flesh and drying it in the sun. So we

shall not actually starve for a long while, even if the game goes away.

“But, dear Allan, unless help comes to us I think that we shall die

every one, for God alone knows the miseries that we suffer and the

horrible sights of sickness and death that are around us. At this

moment there lies by me a little girl who is dying of fever.

“Oh, Allan, if you can help us, do so! Because of our sick it is

impossible for us to get to Delagoa Bay, and if we did we have no money

to buy anything there, for all that we had with us was lost in a wagon

in a flooded river. It was a great sum, for it included Hernan’s rich

fortune which he brought from the Cape with him in gold. Nor can we

move anywhere else, for we have no cattle or horses. We have sent to

Delagoa Bay, where we hear these are to be had, to try to buy them on

credit; but my cousin Hernan’s relations, of whom he used to talk so

much, are dead or gone away, and no one will trust us. With the

neighbouring Kaffirs, too, who have plenty of cattle, we have

quarrelled since, unfortunately, my cousin and some of the other Boers

tried to take certain beasts of theirs without payment. So we are quite

helpless, and can only wait for death.

“Allan, my father says that he asked your father to collect some monies

that were owing to him. If it were possible for you or other friends to

come to Delagoa in a ship with that money, I think that it might serve

to buy some oxen, enough for a few wagons. Then perhaps we might trek

back and fall in with a party of Boers who, we believe, have crossed

the Quathlamba Mountains into Natal. Or perhaps we might get to the Bay

and find a ship to take us anywhere from this horrible place. If you

could come, the natives would guide you to where we are.

“But it is too much to hope that you will come, or that if you do come

you will find us still alive.

“Allan, my dearest, I have one more thing to say, though I must say it

shortly, for the paper is nearly finished. I do not know, supposing

that you are alive and well, whether you still care for me, who left

you so long ago—it seems years and years—but _my_ heart is where it

was, and where I promised it should remain, in your keeping. Of course,

Hernan has pressed me to marry him, and my father has wished it. But I

have always said no, and now, in our wretchedness, there is no more

talk of marriage at present, which is the one good thing that has

happened to me. And, Allan, before so very long I shall be of age, if I

live. Still I dare say you no longer think of marriage with me, who,

perhaps, are already married to someone else, especially as now I and

all of us are no better than wandering beggars. Yet I have thought it

right to tell you these things, which you may like to know.

“Oh, why did God ever put it into my father’s heart to leave the Cape

Colony just because he hated the British Government and Hernan Pereira

and others persuaded him? I know not, but, poor man, he is sorry enough

now. It is pitiful to see him; at times I think that he is going mad.

“The paper is done, and the messenger is going; also the sick child is

dying and I must attend to her. Will this letter ever come to your

hands, I wonder? I am sending with it the little money I have to pay

for its delivery—about four pounds English. If not, there is an end. If

it does, and you cannot come or send others, at least pray for us. I

dream of you by night and think of you by day, for how much I love you

I cannot tell.

“In life or death I am

“Your MARIE.”

Such was this awful letter. I still have it; it lies before me, those

ragged sheets of paper covered with faint pencil-writing that is

blotted here and there with tear marks, some of them the tears of Marie

who wrote, some of them the tears of me who read. I wonder if there

exists a more piteous memorial of the terrible sufferings of the

trek-Boers, and especially of such of them as forced their way into the

poisonous veld around Delagoa, as did this Marais expedition and those

under the command of Triechard. Better, like many of their people, to

have perished at once by the spears of Umzilikazi and other savages

than to endure these lingering tortures of fever and starvation.

As I finished reading this letter my father, who had been out visiting

some of his Mission Kaffirs, entered the house, and I went into the

sitting-room to meet him.

“Why, Allan, what is the matter with you?” he asked, noting my

tear-stained face.

I gave him the letter, for I could not speak, and with difficulty he

deciphered it.

“Merciful God, what dreadful news!” he said when he had finished.

“Those poor people! those poor, misguided people! What can be done for

them?”

“I know one thing that can be done, father, or at any rate can be

attempted. I can try to reach them.”

“Are you mad?” he asked. “How is it possible for you, one man, to get

to Delagoa Bay, buy cattle, and rescue these folk, who probably are now

all dead?”

“The first two things are possible enough, father. Some ship will take

me to the Bay. You have Marais’s money, and I have that five hundred

pounds which my old aunt in England left me last year. Thank Heaven!

owing to my absence on commando, it still lies untouched in the bank at

Port Elizabeth. That is about eight hundred pounds in all, which would

buy a great many cattle and other things. As for the third, it is not

in our hands, is it? It may be that they cannot be rescued, it may be

that they are dead. I can only go to see.”

“But, Allan, Allan, you are my only son, and if you go it is probable

that I shall never see you more.”

“I have been through more dangers lately, father, and am still alive

and well. Moreover, if Marie is dead”—I paused, then went on

passionately—“Do not try to stop me, for I tell you, father, I will not

be stopped. Think of the words in that letter and what a shameless

hound I should be if I sat here quiet while Marie is dying yonder.

Would you have done so if Marie had been my mother?”

“No,” answered the old gentleman, “I should not. Go, and God be with

you, Allan, and me also, for I never expect to see you again.” And he

turned his head aside for a while.

Then we went into matters. The _smous_ was summoned and asked about the

ship which brought the letter from Delagoa. It seemed that she was an

English-owned brig known as the _Seven Stars_, and that her captain,

one Richardson, proposed to sail back to the Bay on the morrow, that

was the third of July, or in other words, within twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours! And Port Elizabeth was one hundred and eighteen

miles away, and the _Seven Stars_ might leave earlier if she had

completed her cargo and wind and weather served. Moreover, if she did

leave, it might be weeks or months before any other ship sailed for

Delagoa Bay, for in those days, of course, there were no mail boats.

I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and from a

calendar we had, which gave the tides at Port Elizabeth and other South

African harbours, it did not seem probable that the _Seven Stars_ would

sail, if she kept to her date, before about eight on the morrow. One

hundred and twenty miles to be covered in, say, fourteen hours over

rough country with some hills! Well, on the other hand, the roads were

fairly good and dry, with no flooded rivers to cross, although there

might be one to swim, and there was a full moon. It could be

done—barely, and now I was glad indeed that Hernan Pereira had not won

my swift mare in that shooting match.

I called to Hans, who was loafing about outside, and said quietly:

“I ride to Port Elizabeth, and must be there by eight o’clock to-morrow

morning.”

“Allemachte!” exclaimed Hans, who had been that road several times.

“You will go with me, and from Port Elizabeth on to Delagoa Bay. Saddle

the mare and the roan horse, and put a headstall on the chestnut to

lead with you as a spare. Give them all a feed, but no water. We start

in half an hour.” Then I added certain directions as to the guns we

would take, saddle-bags, clothes, blankets and other details, and bade

him start about the business.

Hans never hesitated. He had been with me through my recent campaign,

and was accustomed to sudden orders. Moreover, I think that if I had

told him I was riding to the moon, beyond his customary exclamation of

“Allemachte!” he would have made no objection to accompanying me

thither.

The next half-hour was a busy time for me. Henri Marais’s money had to

be got out of the strong box and arranged in a belt of buck’s hide that

I had strapped about me. A letter had to be written by my father to the

manager of the Port Elizabeth bank, identifying me as the owner of the

sum lodged there in my name. A meal must be eaten and some food

prepared for us to carry. The horses’ shoes had to be seen to, and a

few clothes packed in the saddle-bags. Also there were other things

which I have forgotten. Yet within five-and-thirty minutes the long,

lean mare stood before the door. Behind her, with a tall crane’s

feather in his hat, was Hans, mounted on the roan stallion, and leading

the chestnut, a four-year-old which I had bought as a foal on the mare

as part of the bargain. Having been corn fed from a colt it was a very

sound and well-grown horse, though not the equal of its mother in

speed.

In the passage my poor old father, who was quite bewildered by the

rapidity and urgent nature of this business, embraced me.

“God bless you, my dear boy,” he said. “I have had little time to

think, but I pray that this may be all for the best, and that we may

meet again in the world. But if not, remember what I have taught you,

and if I survive you, for my part I shall remember that you died trying

to do your duty. Oh, what trouble has the blind madness of Henri Marais

brought upon us all! Well, I warned him that it would be so. Good-bye,

my dear boy, good-bye: my prayers will follow you, and for the

rest—Well, I am old, and what does it matter if my grey hairs come with

sorrow to the grave?”

I kissed him back, and with an aching heart sprang to the saddle. In

five more minutes the station was out of sight.

Thirteen and a half hours later I pulled rein upon the quay of Port

Elizabeth just, only just, in time to catch Captain Richardson as he

was entering his boat to row out to the _Seven Stars_, on which the

canvas was already being hoisted. As well as I could in my exhausted

state, I explained matters and persuaded him to wait till the next

tide. Then, thanking God for the mare’s speed—the roan had been left

foundered thirty miles away, and Hans was following on the chestnut,

but not yet up—I dragged the poor beast to an inn at hand. There she

lay down and died. Well, she had done her work, and there was no other

horse in the country that could have caught that boat.

An hour or so later Hans came in flogging the chestnut, and here I may

add that both it and the roan recovered. Indeed I rode them for many

years, until they were quite old. When I had eaten, or tried to eat

something and rested awhile, I went to the bank, succeeded in

explaining the state of the case to the manager, and after some

difficulty, for gold was not very plentiful in Port Elizabeth, procured

three hundred pounds in sovereigns. For the other two he gave me a bill

upon some agent in Delagoa Bay, together with a letter of

recommendation to him and the Portuguese governor, who, it appeared,

was in debt to their establishment. By an afterthought, however,

although I kept the letters, I returned him the bill and spent the £200

in purchasing a great variety of goods which I will not enumerate, that

I knew would be useful for trading purposes among the east coast

Kaffirs. Indeed, I practically cleared out the Port Elizabeth stores,

and barely had time, with the help of Hans and the storekeepers, to

pack and ship the goods before the _Seven Stars_ put out to sea.

Within twenty-four hours from the time I had left the Mission Station,

Hans and I saw behind us Port Elizabeth fading into the distance, and

in front a waste of stormy waters.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CAMP OF DEATH

Everything went well upon that voyage, except with me personally. Not

having been on the ocean since I was a child, I, who am naturally no

good sailor, was extremely ill as day by day we ploughed through seas

that grew ever more rough. Also, strong as I was, that fearful ride had

overdone me. Added to these physical discomforts was my agonising

anxiety of mind, which I leave anyone with imagination to picture for

himself. Really there were times when I wished that the _Seven Stars_

would plunge headlong to the bottom of the deep and put an end to me

and my miseries.

These, however, so far as the bodily side of them was concerned, were,

I think, surpassed by those of my henchman Hans, who, as a matter of

fact, had never before set foot in any kind of boat. Perhaps this was

fortunate, since had he known the horrors of the ocean, much as he

loved me, he would, I am sure, by one means or another, have left me to

voyage in the _Seven Stars_ alone. There he lay upon the floor of my

little cabin, rolling to and fro with the violent motion of the brig,

overcome with terror. He was convinced that we were going to be

drowned, and in the intervals of furious sea-sickness uttered piteous

lamentations in Dutch, English, and various native tongues, mingled

with curses and prayers of the most primitive and realistic order.

After the first twenty-four hours or so he informed me with many moans

that the last bit of his inside had just come out of him, and that he

was now quite hollow “like a gourd.” Also he declared that all these

evils had fallen upon him because he had been fool enough to forsake

the religion of his people (what was that, I wonder), and allow himself

to be “washed white,” that is, be baptised, by my father.

I answered that as he had become white instead of staying yellow, I

advised him to remain so, since it was evident that the Hottentot gods

would have nothing more to do with one who had deserted them. Thereon

he made a dreadful face, which even in the midst of my own woes caused

me to laugh at him, uttered a prolonged groan, and became so silent

that I thought he must be dead. However, the sailor who brought me my

food—such food!—assured me that this was not so, and lashed him tight

to the legs of the bunk by his arm and ankle so as to prevent him from

being rolled to bits.

Next morning Hans was dosed with brandy, which, in his empty condition,

made him extremely drunk, and from that time forward began to take a

more cheerful view of things. Especially was this so when the hours for

the “brandy medicine” came round. Hans, like most other Hottentots,

loved spirits, and would put up with much to get them, even with my

father’s fiery indignation.

I think it was on the fourth day that at length we pitched and rolled

ourselves over the shallow bar of Port Natal and found ourselves at

peace for a while under shelter of the Point in the beautiful bay upon

the shores of which the town of Durban now stands. Then it was but a

miserable place, consisting of a few shanties which were afterwards

burnt by the Zulus, and a number of Kaffir huts. For such white men as

dwelt there had for the most part native followings, and, I may add,

native wives.

We spent two days at this settlement of Durban, where Captain

Richardson had some cargo to land for the English settlers, one or two

of whom had started a trade with the natives and with parties of the

emigrant Boers who were beginning to enter the territory by the

overland route. Those days I passed on shore, though I would not allow

Hans to accompany me lest he should desert, employing my time in

picking up all the information I could about the state of affairs,

especially with reference to the Zulus, a people with whom I was

destined ere long to make an intimate acquaintance. Needless to say, I

inquired both from natives and from white men whether anything was

known of the fate of Marais’s party, but no one seemed even to have

heard of them. One thing I did learn, however, that my old friend,

Pieter Retief, with a large following, had crossed the Quathlamba

Mountains, which we now know as the Drakensberg, and entered the

territory of Natal. Here they proposed to settle if they could get the

leave of the Zulu king, Dingaan, a savage potentate of whom and of

whose armies everyone seemed to live in terror.

On the third morning, to my great relief, for I was terrified lest we

should be delayed, the _Seven Stars_ sailed with a favouring wind.

Three days later we entered the harbour of Delagoa, a sheet of water

many miles long and broad. Notwithstanding its shallow entrance, it is

the best natural port in Southeastern Africa, but now, alas! lost to

the English.

Six hours later we anchored opposite a sandbank on which stood a

dilapidated fort and a dirty settlement known as Lorenzo Marquez, where

the Portuguese kept a few soldiers, most of them coloured. I pass over

my troubles with the Customs, if such they could be called. Suffice it

to say that ultimately I succeeded in landing my goods, on which the

duty chargeable was apparently enormous. This I did by distributing

twenty-five English sovereigns among various officials, beginning with

the acting-governor and ending with a drunken black sweep who sat in a

kind of sentry box on the quay.

Early next morning the _Seven Stars_ sailed again, because of some

quarrel with the officials, who threatened to seize her—I forget why.

Her destination was the East African ports and, I think, Madagascar,

where a profitable trade was to be done in carrying cattle and slaves.

Captain Richardson said he might be back at Lorenzo Marquez in two or

three months’ time, or he might not. As a matter of fact the latter

supposition proved correct, for the _Seven Stars_ was lost on a

sandbank somewhere up the coast, her crew only escaping to Mombasa

after enduring great hardships.

Well, she had served my turn, for I heard afterwards that no other ship

put into the Bay for a whole year from the date she left it. So if I

had not caught her at Port Elizabeth I could not have come at all,

except, of course, overland. This at best must have taken many months,

and was moreover a journey that no man could enter on alone.

Now I get back to my story again.

There was no inn at Lorenzo Marquez. Through the kindness of one of his

native or half-breed wives, who could talk a little Dutch, I managed,

however, to get a lodging in a tumble-down house belonging to a

dissolute person who called himself Don José Ximenes, but who was

really himself a half-breed. Here good fortune befriended me. Don José,

when sober, was a trader with the natives, and a year before had

acquired from them two good buck wagons. Probably they were stolen from

some wandering Boers or found derelict after their murder or death by

fever. These wagons he was only too glad to sell for a song. I think I

gave him twenty pounds English for the two, and thirty more for twelve

oxen that he had bought at the same time as the wagons. They were fine

beasts of the Afrikander breed, that after a long rest had grown quite

fat and strong.

Of course twelve oxen were not enough to draw two wagons, or even one.

Therefore, hearing that there were natives on the mainland who

possessed plenty of cattle, I at once gave out that I was ready to buy,

and pay well in blankets, cloth, beads and so forth. The result was

that within two days I had forty or fifty to choose from, small animals

of the Zulu character and, I should add, unbroken. Still they were

sturdy and used to that veld and its diseases. Here it was that my

twelve trained beasts came in. By putting six of them to each wagon,

two as fore- and two as after-oxen, and two in the middle, Hans and I

were able to get the other ten necessary to make up a team of sixteen

under some sort of control.

Heavens! how we worked during the week or so which went by before it

was possible for me to leave Lorenzo Marquez. What with mending up and

loading the wagons, buying and breaking in the wild oxen, purchasing

provisions, hiring native servants—of whom I was lucky enough to secure

eight who belonged to one of the Zulu tribes and desired to get back to

their own country, whence they had wandered with some Boers, I do not

think that we slept more than two or three hours out of the

twenty-four.

But, it may be asked, what was my aim, whither went I, what inquiries

had I made? To answer the last question first, I had made every

possible inquiry, but with little or no result. Marie’s letter had said

that they were encamped on the bank of the Crocodile River, about fifty

miles from Delagoa Bay. I asked everyone I met among the

Portuguese—who, after all, were not many—if they had heard of such an

encampment of emigrant Boers. But these Portuguese appeared to have

heard nothing, except my host, Don José, who had a vague recollection

of something—he could not remember what.

The fact was at this time the few people who lived at Lorenzo Marquez

were too sodden with liquor and other vices to take any interest in

outside news that did not immediately concern them. Moreover, the

natives whom they flogged and oppressed if they were their servants, or

fought with if they were not, told them little, and almost nothing that

was true, for between the two races there was an hereditary hate

stretching back for generations. So from the Portuguese I gained no

information.

Then I turned to the Kaffirs, especially to those from whom I had

bought the cattle. _They_ had heard that some Boers reached the banks

of the Crocodile moons ago—how many they could not tell. But that

country, they said, was under the rule of a chief who was hostile to

them, and killed any of their people who ventured thither. Therefore

they knew nothing for certain. Still, one of them stated that a woman

whom he had bought as a slave, and who had passed through the district

in question a few weeks before, told him that someone had told her that

these Boers were all dead of sickness. She added that she had seen

their wagon caps from a distance, so, if they were dead, “their wagons

were still alive.”

I asked to see this woman, but the native refused to produce her. After

a great deal of talk, however, he offered to sell her to me, saying

that he was tired of her. So I bargained with the man and finally

agreed for her purchase for three pounds of copper wire and eight yards

of blue cloth. Next morning she was produced, an extremely ugly person

with a large, flat nose, who came from somewhere in the interior of

Africa, having, I gathered, been taken captive by Arabs and sold from

hand to hand. Her name, as near as I can pronounce it, was Jeel.

I had great difficulty in establishing communication with her, but

ultimately found that one of my newly hired Kaffirs could understand

something of her language. Even then it was hard to make her talk, for

she had never seen a white man, and thought I had bought her for some

dreadful purpose or other. However, when she found that she was kindly

treated, she opened her lips and told me the same story that her late

master had repeated, neither more nor less. Finally I asked her whether

she could guide me to the place where she had seen the “live wagons.”

She answered: “Oh, yes,” as she had travelled many roads and never

forgot any of them.

This, of course, was all I wanted from the woman, who, I may add,

ultimately gave me a good deal of trouble. The poor creature seemed

never to have experienced kindness, and her gratitude for the little I

showed her was so intense that it became a nuisance. She followed me

about everywhere, trying to do me service in her savage way, and even

attempted to seize my food and chew it before I put it into my own

mouth—to save me the trouble, I suppose. Ultimately I married her,

somewhat against her will, I fear, to one of the hired Kaffirs, who

made her a very good husband, although when he was dismissed from my

service she wanted to leave him and follow me.

At length, under the guidance of this woman, Jeel, we made a start.

There were but fifty miles to go, a distance that on a fair road any

good horse would cover in eight hours, or less. But we had no horses,

and there was no road—nothing but swamps and bush and rocky hills. With

our untrained cattle it took us three days to travel the first twelve

miles, though after that things went somewhat better.

It may be asked, why did I not send on? But whom could I send when no

one knew the way, except the woman, Jeel, whom I feared to part with

lest I should see her no more? Moreover, what was the use of sending,

since the messengers could take no help? If everyone at the camp was

dead, as rumour told us—well, they were dead. And if they lived, the

hope was that they might live a little longer. Meanwhile, I dared not

part with my guide, nor dared I leave the relief wagons to go on with

her alone. If I did so, I knew that I should never see them again,

since only the prestige of their being owned by a white man who was not

a Portuguese prevented the natives from looting them.

It was a truly awful journey. My first idea had been to follow the

banks of the Crocodile River, which is what I should have attempted had

I not chanced on the woman, Jeel. Lucky was it that I did not do so,

since I found afterwards that this river wound about a great deal and

was joined by impassable tributaries. Also it was bordered by forests.

Jeel’s track, on the contrary, followed an old slave road that, bad as

it was, avoided the swampy places of the surrounding country, and those

native tribes which the experience of generations of the traders in

this iniquitous traffic showed to be most dangerous.

Nine days of fearful struggle had gone by. We had camped one night

below the crest of a long slope strewn with great rocks, many of which

we were obliged to roll out of the path by main force in order to make

a way for the wagons. The oxen had to lie in their yokes all night,

since we dared not let them loose fearing lest they should stray; also

lions were roaring in the distance, although, game being plentiful,

these did not come near to us. As soon as there was any light we let

out the teams to fill themselves on the tussocky grass that grew about,

and meanwhile cooked and ate some food.

Presently the sun rose, and I saw that beneath us was a great stretch

of plain covered with mist, and to the north, on our right, several

denser billows of mist that marked the course of the Crocodile River.

By degrees this mist lifted, tall tops of trees appearing above it,

till at length it thinned into vapour that vanished away as the sun

rose. As I watched it idly, the woman, Jeel, crept up to me in her

furtive fashion, touched me on the shoulder and pointed to a distant

group of trees.

Looking closely at these trees, I saw between them what at first I took

for some white rocks. Further examination, as the mist cleared,

suggested to my mind, however, that they might be wagon tilts. Just

then the Zulu who understood Jeel’s talk came up. I asked him as well

as I could, for at that time my knowledge of his tongue was very

imperfect, what she wished to say. He questioned her, and answered that

she desired to tell me that those were the moving houses of the

Amaboona (the Boer people), just where she had seen them nearly two

moons ago.

At this tidings my heart seemed to stand still, so that for more than a

minute I could not speak. There were the wagons at last, but—oh! who

and what should I find in them? I called Hans and bade him inspan as

quickly as possible, explaining to him that yonder was Marais’s camp.

“Why not let the oxen fill themselves first, baas?” he answered. “There

is no hurry, for though the wagons are there, no doubt all the people

are dead long ago.”

“Do what I bid you, you ill-omened beast,” I said, “instead of croaking

of death like a crow. And listen: I am going to walk forward to that

camp; you must follow with the wagons as fast as they can travel.”

“No, baas, it is not safe that you should go alone. Kaffirs or wild

beasts might take you.”

“Safe or not, I am going; but if you think it wise, tell two of those

Zulus to come with me.”

A few minutes later I was on the road, followed by the two Kaffirs

armed with spears. In my youth I was a good runner, being strong of leg

and light in body, but I do not think that I ever covered seven miles,

for that was about the distance to the camp, in quicker time than I did

that morning. Indeed, I left those active Kaffirs so far behind that

when I approached the trees they were not in sight. Here I dropped to a

walk, as I said to myself—to get my breath. Really it was because I

felt so terrified at what I might find that I delayed the discovery

just for one minute more. While I approached, hope, however faint,

still remained; when I arrived, hope might be replaced by everlasting

despair.

Now I could see that there were some shanties built behind the wagons,

doubtless those “rude houses” of which Marie had written. But I could

not see anyone moving about them, or any cattle or any smoke, or other

sign of life. Nor could I hear a single sound.

Doubtless, thought I to myself, Hans is right. They are all long dead.

My agony of suspense was replaced by an icy calm. At length I knew the

worst. It was finished—I had striven in vain. I walked through the

outlying trees and between two of the wagons. One of these I noticed,

as we do notice things at such times, was the same in which Marais had

trekked with his daughter, his favourite wagon that once I had helped

to fit with a new dissel-boom.

Before me were the rough houses built of the branches of trees, daubed

over with mud, or rather the backs of them, for they faced west. I

stood still for a moment, and as I stood thought that I heard a faint

sound as of someone reciting slowly. I crept along the end of the

outermost house and, rubbing the cold sweat from my eyes, peeped round

the corner, for it occurred to me that savages might be in possession.

Then I saw what caused the sound. A tattered, blackened, bearded man

stood at the head of a long and shallow hole saying a prayer.

It was Henri Marais, although at the time I did not recognise him, so

changed was he. A number of little mounds to the right and left of him

told me, however, that the hole was a grave. As I watched two more men

appeared, dragging between them the body of a woman, which evidently

they had not strength to carry, as its legs trailed upon the ground.

From the shape of the corpse it seemed to be that of a tall young

woman, but the features I could not see, because it was being dragged

face downwards. Also the long hair hanging from the head hid them. It

was dark hair, like Marie’s. They reached the grave, and tumbled their

sad burden into it; but I—I could not stir!

At length my limbs obeyed my will. I went forward to the men and said

in a hollow voice in Dutch:

“Whom do you bury?”

“Johanna Meyer,” answered someone mechanically, for they did not seem

to have taken the trouble to look at me. As I listened to those words

my heart, which had stood still waiting for the answer, beat again with

a sudden bound that I could hear in the silence.

I looked up. There, advancing from the doorway of one of the houses,

very slowly, as though overpowered by weakness, and leading by the hand

a mere skeleton of a child, who was chewing some leaves, I saw—I saw

_Marie Marais!_ She was wasted to nothing, but I could not mistake her

eyes, those great soft eyes that had grown so unnaturally large in the

white, thin face.

She too saw me and stared for one moment. Then, loosing the child, she

cast up her hands, through which the sunlight shone as through

parchment, and slowly sank to the ground.

“She has gone, too,” said one of the men in an indifferent voice. “I

thought she would not last another day.”

Now for the first time the man at the head of the grave turned. Lifting

his hand, he pointed to me, whereon the other two men turned also.

“God above us!” he said in a choked voice, “at last I am quite mad.

Look! there stands the _spook_ of young Allan, the son of the English

prédicant who lived near Cradock.”

As soon as I heard the voice I knew the speaker.

“Oh, Mynheer Marais!” I cried, “I am no ghost, I am Allan himself come

to save you.”

Marais made no answer; he seemed bewildered. But one of the men cried

out crazily:

“How can you save us, youngster, unless you are ready to be eaten?

Don’t you see, we starve, we starve!”

“I have wagons and food,” I answered.

“Allemachte! Henri,” exclaimed the man, with a wild laugh, “do you hear

what your English _spook_ says? He says that he has wagons and _food,

food, food!_”

Then Marais burst into tears and flung himself upon my breast, nearly

knocking me down. I wrenched myself free of him and ran to Marie, who

was lying face upwards on the ground. She seemed to hear my step, for

her eyes opened and she struggled to a sitting posture.

“Is it really you, Allan, or do I dream?” she murmured.

“It is I, it is I,” I answered, lifting her to her feet, for she seemed

to weigh no more than a child. Her head fell upon my shoulder, and she

too began to weep.

Still holding her, I turned to the men and said:

“Why do you starve when there is game all about?” and I pointed to two

fat elands strolling among the trees not more than a hundred and fifty

yards away.

“Can we kill game with stones?” asked one of them, “we whose powder was

all burnt a month ago. Those buck,” he added, with a wild laugh, “come

here to mock us every morning; but they will not walk into our

pitfalls. They know them too well, and we have no strength to dig

others.”

Now when I left my wagons I had brought with me that same Purdey rifle

with which I had shot the geese in the match against Pereira, choosing

it because it was so light to carry. I held up my hand for silence, set

Marie gently on the ground, and began to steal towards the elands.

Taking what shelter I could, I got within a hundred yards of them, when

suddenly they took alarm, being frightened, in fact, by my two Zulu

servants, who were now arriving.

Off they galloped, the big bull leading, and vanished behind some

trees. I saw their line, and that they would appear again between two

clumps of bush about two hundred and fifty yards away. Hastily I raised

the full sight on the rifle, which was marked for two hundred yards,

lifted it, and waited, praying to God as I did so that my skill might

not fail me.

The bull appeared, its head held forward, its long horns lying flat

upon the back. The shot was very long, and the beast very large to

bring down with so small a bullet. I aimed right forward—clear of it,

indeed—high too, in a line with its backbone, and pressed the trigger.

The rifle exploded, the bullet clapped, and the buck sprang forward

faster than ever. I had failed! But what was this? Suddenly the great

bull swung round and began to gallop towards us. When it was not more

than fifty yards away, it fell in a heap, rolled twice over like a shot

rabbit, and lay still. That bullet was in its heart.

The two Kaffirs appeared breathless and streaming with perspiration.

“Cut meat from the eland’s flank; don’t stop to skin it,” I said in my

broken Zulu, helping the words out with signs.

They understood, and a minute later were at work with their assegais.

Then I looked about me. Near by lay a store of dead branches placed

there for fuel.

“Have you fire?” I asked of the skeleton Boers, for they were nothing

more.

“_Nein, nein_,” they answered; “our fire is dead.”

I produced the tinder-box which I carried with me, and struck the

flint. Ten minutes later we had a cheerful blaze, and within

three-quarters of an hour good soup, for iron pots were not

wanting—only food to put into them. I think that for the rest of that

day those poor creatures did little else but eat, sleeping between

their meals. Oh! the joy I had in feeding them, especially after the

wagons arrived, bringing with them salt—how they longed for that

salt!—sugar and coffee.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PROMISE

Of the original thirty-five souls, not reckoning natives, who had

accompanied Henri Marais upon his ill-fated expedition, there now

remained but nine alive at the new Maraisfontein. These were himself,

his daughter, four Prinsloos—a family of extraordinary constitution—and

three Meyers, being the husband of the poor woman I had seen committed

to the grave and two of her six children. The rest, Hernan Pereira

excepted, had died of fever and actual starvation, for when the fever

lessened with the change of the seasons, the starvation set in. It

appeared that, with the exception of a very little, they had stored

their powder in a kind of outbuilding which they constructed, placing

it at a distance for safety’s sake. When most of the surviving men were

away, however, a grass fire set light to this outbuilding and all the

powder blew up.

After this, for a while they supplied the camp with food by the help of

such ammunition as remained to them. When that failed they dug pits in

which to catch game. In time the buck came to know of these pits, so

that they snared no more.

Then, as the “biltong” or sun-dried meat they had made was all

consumed, they were driven to every desperate expedient that is known

to the starving, such as the digging up of bulbs, the boiling of grass,

twigs and leaves, the catching of lizards, and so forth. I believe that

they actually ate caterpillars and earthworms. But after their last

fire went out through the neglect of the wretched Kaffir who was left

to watch it, and having no tinder, they failed to relight it by

friction, of course even this food failed them. When I arrived they had

practically been three days without anything to eat except green leaves

and grass, such as I saw the child chewing. In another seventy hours

doubtless every one of them would have been dead.

Well, they recovered rapidly enough, for those who had survived its

ravages were evidently now impervious to fever. Who can tell the joy

that I experienced as I watched Marie returning from the very brink of

the grave to a state of full and lovely womanhood? After all, we were

not so far away from the primitive conditions of humanity, when the

first duty of man was to feed his women and his children, and I think

that something of that instinct remains with us. At least, I know I

never experienced a greater pleasure than I did, when the woman I

loved, the poor, starving woman, ate and ate of the food which _I_ was

able to give her—she who for weeks had existed upon locusts and herbs.

For the first few days we did not talk much except of the immediate

necessities of the hour, which occupied all our thoughts. Afterwards,

when Marais and his daughter were strong enough to bear it, we had some

conversation. He began by asking how I came to find them.

I replied, through Marie’s letter, which, it appeared, he knew nothing

of, for he had forbidden her to write to me.

“It seems fortunate that you were disobeyed, mynheer,” I said, to which

he answered nothing.

Then I told the tale of the arrival of that letter at the Mission

Station in the Cape Colony by the hand of a wandering _smous_, and of

my desperate ride upon the swift mare to Port Elizabeth, where I just

succeeded in catching the brig _Seven Stars_ before she sailed. Also I

told them of the lucky chances that enabled me to buy the wagons and

find a guide to their camp, reaching it but a few hours before it was

too late.

“It was a great deed,” said Henri Marais, taking the pipe from his

mouth, for I had brought tobacco among my stores. “But tell me, Allan,

why did you do it for the sake of one who has not treated you kindly?”

“I did it,” I answered, “for the sake of one who has always treated me

kindly,” and I nodded towards Marie, who was engaged in washing up the

cooking pots at a distance.

“I suppose so, Allan; but you know she is affianced to another.”

“I know that she is affianced to me, and to no other,” I answered

warmly, adding, “And pray where is this other? If he lives I do not see

him here.”

“No,” replied Marais in a curious voice. “The truth is, Allan, that

Hernan Pereira left us about a fortnight before you came. One horse

remained, which was his, and with two Hottentots, who were also his

servants, he rode back upon the track by which we came, to try to find

help. Since then we have heard nothing of him.”

“Indeed; and how did he propose to get food on the way?”

“He had a rifle, or rather they all three had rifles, and about a

hundred charges between them, which escaped the fire.”

“With a hundred charges of powder carefully used your camp would have

been fed for a month, or perhaps two months,” I remarked. “Yet he went

away with all of them—to find help?”

“That is so, Allan. We begged him to stay, but he would not; and, after

all, the charges were his own property. No doubt he thought he acted

for the best, especially as Marie would have none of him,” Marais added

with emphasis.

“Well,” I replied, “it seems that it is I who have brought you the

help, and not Pereira. Also, by the way, mynheer, I have brought you

the money my father collected on your account, and some £500 of my own,

or what is left of it, in goods and gold. Moreover, Marie does not

refuse me. Say, therefore, to which of us does she belong?”

“It would seem that it should be to you,” he answered slowly, “since

you have shown yourself so faithful, and were it not for you she would

now be lying yonder,” and he pointed to the little heaps that covered

the bones of most of the expedition. “Yes, yes, it would seem that it

should be to you, who twice have saved her life and once have saved

mine also.”

Now I suppose that he saw on my face the joy which I could not conceal,

for he added hastily: “Yet, Allan, years ago I swore on the Book before

God that never with my will should my daughter marry an Englishman,

even if he were a good Englishman. Also, just before we left the

Colony, I swore again, in her presence and that of Hernan Pereira, that

I would not give her to you, so I cannot break my oath, can I? If I

did, the good God would be avenged upon me.”

“Some might think that when I came here the good God was in the way of

being avenged upon you for the keeping of that evil oath,” I answered

bitterly, glancing, in my turn, at the graves.

“Yes, they might, Allan,” he replied without anger, for all his

troubles had induced a reasonable frame of mind in him—for a while.

“Yet, His ways are past finding out, are they not?”

Now my anger broke out, and, rising, I said:

“Do you mean, Mynheer Marais, that notwithstanding the love between us,

which you know is true and deep, and notwithstanding that I alone have

been able to drag both of you and the others out of the claws of death,

I am never to marry Marie? Do you mean that she is to be given to a

braggart who deserted her in her need?”

“And what if I do mean that, Allan?”

“This: although I am still young, as you know well I am a man who can

think and act for himself. Also, I am your master here—I have cattle

and guns and servants. Well, I will take Marie, and if any should try

to stop me, I know how to protect myself and her.”

This bold speech did not seem to surprise him in the least or to make

him think the worse of me. He looked at me for a while, pulling his

long beard in a meditative fashion, then answered:

“I dare say that at your age I should have played the same game, and it

is true that you have things in your fist. But, much as she may love

you, Marie would not go away with you and leave her father to starve.”

“Then you can come with us as my father-in-law, Mynheer Marais. At any

rate, it is certain that I will not go away and leave her here to

starve.”

Now I think that something which he saw in my eye showed him that I was

in earnest. At least, he changed his tone and began to argue, almost to

plead.

“Be reasonable, Allan,” he said. “How can you marry Marie when there is

no prédicant to marry you? Surely, if you love her so much, you would

not pour mud upon her name, even in this wilderness?”

“She might not think it mud,” I replied. “Men and women have been

married without the help of priests before now, by open declaration and

public report, for instance, and their children held to be born in

wedlock. I know that, for I have read of the law of marriage.”

“It may be, Allan, though I hold no marriage good unless the holy words

are said. But why do you not let me come to the end of my story?”

“Because I thought it was ended, Mynheer Marais.”

“Not so, Allan. I told you that I had sworn that she should never marry

you with my will. But when she is of age, which will be in some six

months’ time, my will counts no longer, seeing that then she is a free

woman who can dispose of herself. Also I shall be clear of my oath, for

no harm will come to my soul if that happens which I cannot help. Now

are you satisfied?”

“I don’t know,” I answered doubtfully, for somehow all Marais’s

casuistry, which I thought contemptible, did not convince me that he

was sincere. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “Much may chance in six

months.”

“Of course, Allan. For instance, Marie might change her mind and marry

someone else.”

“Or I might not be there to marry, mynheer. Accidents sometimes happen

to men who are not wanted, especially in wild countries or, for the

matter of that, to those who are.”

“Allemachte! Allan, you do not mean that I—”

“No, mynheer,” I interrupted; “but there are other people in the world

besides yourself—Hernan Pereira, for example, if he lives. Still, I am

not the only one concerned in this matter. There is Marie yonder. Shall

I call her?”

He nodded, preferring probably that I should speak to her in his

presence rather than alone.

So I called Marie, who was watching our talk somewhat anxiously while

she went about her tasks. She came at once, a very different Marie to

the starving girl of a while before, for although she was still thin

and drawn, her youth and beauty were returning to her fast under the

influences of good food and happiness.

“What is it, Allan?” she asked gently. I told her all, repeating our

conversation and the arguments which had been used on either side word

for word, as nearly as I could remember them.

“Is that right?” I asked of Marais when I had finished.

“It is right; you have a good memory,” he answered.

“Very well. And now what have you to say, Marie?”

“I, dear Allan? Why, this: My life belongs to you, who have twice saved

this body of mine from death, as my love and spirit belong to you.

Therefore, I should have thought it no shame if I had been given to you

here and now before the people, and afterwards married by a clergyman

when we found one. But my father has sworn an oath which weighs upon

his mind, and he has shown you that within six months—a short six

months—that oath dies of itself, since, by the law, he can no longer

control me. So, Allan, as I would not grieve him, or perhaps lead him

to say and do what is foolish, I think it would be well that we should

wait for those six months, if, on his part, he promises that he will

then do nothing to prevent our marriage.”

“_Ja, ja_, I promise that then I will do nothing to prevent your

marriage,” answered Marais eagerly, like one who has suddenly seen some

loophole of escape from an impossible position, adding, as though to

himself, “But God may do something to prevent it, for all that.”

“We are every one of us in the hand of God,” she replied in her sweet

voice. “Allan, you hear, my father has promised?”

“Yes, Marie, he has promised—after a fashion,” I replied gloomily, for

somehow his words struck a chill through me.

“I have promised, Allan, and I will keep my promise to you, as I have

kept my oath to God, attempting to work you no harm, and leaving all in

His hands. But you, on your part, must promise also that, till she is

of age, you will not take Marie as a wife—no, not if you were left

alone together in the veld. You must be as people who are affianced to

each other, no more.”

So, having no choice, I promised, though with a heavy heart. Then, I

suppose in order to make this solemn contract public, Marais called the

surviving Boers, who were loitering near, and repeated to them the

terms of the contract that we had made.

The men laughed and shrugged their shoulders. But Vrouw Prinsloo, I

remember, said outright that she thought the business foolish, since if

anyone had a right to Marie, I had, wherever I chose to take her. She

added that, as for Hernan Pereira, he was a “sneak and a stinkcat,” who

had gone off to save his own life, and left them all to die. If _she_

were Marie, should they meet again, she would greet him with a pailful

of dirty water in the face, as she herself meant to do if she got the

chance.

Vrouw Prinsloo, it will be observed, was a very outspoken woman and, I

may add, an honest one.

So this contract was settled. I have set it out at length because of

its importance in our story. But now I wish—ah! how I wish that I had

insisted upon being married to Marie then and there. If I had done so,

I think I should have carried my point, for I was the “master of many

legions” in the shape of cattle, food and ammunition, and rather than

risk a quarrel with me, the other Boers would have forced Marais to

give way. But we were young and inexperienced; also it was fated

otherwise. Who can question the decrees of Fate written immutably,

perhaps long before we were born, in the everlasting book of human

destinies?