Yet, when I had shaken off my first fears and doubts, my lot and

Marie’s were very happy, a perfect paradise, indeed, compared with what

we had gone through during that bitter time of silence and separation.

At any rate, we were acknowledged to be affianced by the little society

in which we lived, including her father, and allowed to be as much

alone together as we liked. This meant that we met at dawn only to

separate at nightfall, for, having little or no artificial light, we

went to rest with the sun, or shortly after it. Sweet, indeed, was that

companionship of perfect trust and love; so sweet, that even after all

these years I do not care to dwell upon the holy memory of those

blessed months.

So soon as the surviving Boers began to recover by the help of my

stores and medicines and the meat which I shot in plenty, of course

great discussions arose as to our future plans. First it was suggested

that we should trek to Lorenzo Marquez, and wait for a ship there to

take us down to Natal, for none of them would hear of returning

beggared to the Cape to tell the story of their failure and dreadful

bereavements. I pointed out, however, that no ship might come for a

long while, perhaps for one or two years, and that Lorenzo Marquez and

its neighborhood seemed to be a poisonous place to live in!

The next idea was that we should stop where we were, one which I rather

welcomed, as I should have been glad to abide in peace with Marie until

the six months of probation had gone by.

However, in the end this was rejected for many good reasons. Thus half

a score of white people, of whom four were members of a single family,

were certainly not strong enough to form a settlement, especially as

the surrounding natives might become actively hostile at any moment.

Again, the worst fever season was approaching, in which we should very

possibly all be carried off. Further, we had no breeding cattle or

horses, which would not live in this veld, and only the ammunition and

goods that I had brought with me.

So it was clear that but one thing remained to be done, namely, to trek

back to what is now the Transvaal territory, or, better still, to

Natal, for this route would enable us to avoid the worst of the

mountains. There we might join some other party of the emigrant

Boers—for choice, that of Retief, of whose arrival over the Drakensberg

I was able to tell them.

That point settled, we made our preparations. To begin with, I had only

enough oxen for two wagons, whereas, even if we abandoned the rest of

them, we must take at least four. Therefore, through my Kaffirs, I

opened negotiations with the surrounding natives, who, when they heard

that I was not a Boer and was prepared to pay for what I bought, soon

expressed a willingness to trade. Indeed, very shortly we had quite a

market established, to which cattle were brought that I bargained for

and purchased, giving cloth, knives, hoes, and the usual Kaffir goods

in payment for the same.

Also, they brought mealies and other corn; and oh! the delight with

which those poor people, who for months and months had existed upon

nothing but flesh-meat, ate of this farinaceous food. Never shall I

forget seeing Marie and the surviving children partake of their first

meal of porridge, and washing the sticky stuff down with draughts of

fresh, sugared milk, for with the oxen I had succeeded in obtaining two

good cows. It is enough to say that this change of diet soon completely

re-established their health, and made Marie more beautiful than she had

ever been before.

Having got the oxen, the next thing was to break them to the yoke; for,

although docile creatures enough, they had never even seen a wagon.

This proved a long and difficult process, involving many trial trips;

moreover, the selected wagons, one of which had belonged to Pereira,

must be mended with very insufficient tools and without the help of a

forge. Indeed, had it not chanced that Hans, the Hottentot, had worked

for a wagon-maker at some indefinite period of his career, I do not

think that we could have managed the job at all.

It was while we were busy with these tasks that some news arrived which

was unpleasing enough to everyone, except perhaps to Henri Marais. I

was engaged on a certain evening in trying to make sixteen of the

Kaffir cattle pull together in the yoke, instead of tying themselves

into a double knot and over-setting the wagon, when Hans, who was

helping me, suddenly called out:

“Look! baas, here comes one of my brothers,” or, in other words, a

Hottentot.

Following the line of his hand, I saw a thin and wretched creature,

clad only in some rags and the remains of a big hat with the crown out,

staggering towards us between the trees.

“Why!” exclaimed Marie in a startled voice, for, as usual, she was at

my side, “it is Klaus, one of my cousin Hernan’s after-riders.”

“So long as it is not your cousin Hernan himself, I do not care,” I

said.

Presently the poor, starved “Totty” arrived, and throwing himself down,

begged for food. A cold shoulder of buck was given to him, which he

devoured, holding it in both hands and tearing off great lumps of flesh

with his teeth like a wild beast.

When at last he was satisfied, Marais, who had come up with the other

Boers, asked him whence he came and what was his news of his master.

“Out of the bush,” he answered, “and my news of the baas is that he is

dead. At least, I left him so ill that I suppose he must be dead by

now.”

“Why did you leave him if he was ill?” asked Marais.

“Because he told me to, baas, that I might find help, for we were

starving, having fired our last bullet.”

“Is he alone, then?”

“Yes, yes, except for the wild beasts and the vultures. A lion ate the

other man, his servant, a long while ago.”

“How far is he off?” asked Marais again.

“Oh, baas, about five hours’ journey on horseback on a good road.”

(This would be some thirty-five miles.)

Then he told this story: Pereira with his two Hottentot servants, he

mounted and they on foot, had traversed about a hundred miles of rough

country in safety, when at night a lion killed and carried off one of

the Hottentots, and frightened away the horse, which was never seen

again. Pereira and Klaus proceeded on foot till they came to a great

river, on the banks of which they met some Kaffirs, who appear to have

been Zulus on outpost duty. These men demanded their guns and

ammunition to take to their king, and, on Pereira refusing to give them

up, said that they would kill them both in the morning after they had

made him instruct them in the use of the guns by beating him with

sticks.

In the night a storm came on, under cover of which Pereira and Klaus

escaped. As they dared not go forward for fear lest they should fall

into the hands of the Zulus, they fled back northwards, running all

night, only to find in the morning that they had lost their way in the

bush. This had happened nearly a month before—or, at any rate, Klaus

thought so, for no doubt the days went very slowly—during which time

they had wandered about, trying to shape some sort of course by the sun

with the object of returning to the camp. They met no man, black or

white, and supported themselves upon game, which they shot and ate raw

or sun-dried, till at length all their powder was done and they threw

away their heavy _roers_, which they could no longer carry.

It was at this juncture that from the top of a tall tree Klaus saw a

certain _koppie_ a long way off, which he recognised as being within

fifteen miles or so of Marais’s camp. By now they were starving, only

Klaus was the stronger of the two, for he found and devoured some

carrion, a dead hyena I think it was. Pereira also tried to eat this

horrible food, but, not having the stomach of a Hottentot, the first

mouthful of it made him dreadfully ill. They sought shelter in a cave

on the bank of a stream, where grew water-cresses and other herbs, such

as wild asparagus. Here it was that Pereira told Klaus to try to make

his way back to the camp, and, should he find anyone alive there, to

bring him succour.

So Klaus went, taking the remaining leg of the hyena with him, and on

the afternoon of the second day arrived as has been told.

CHAPTER X.

VROUW PRINSLOO SPEAKS HER MIND

Now, when the Hottentot’s story was finished a discussion arose. Marais

said that someone must go to see whether his nephew still lived, to

which the other Boers replied “_Ja_” in an indifferent voice. Then the

Vrouw Prinsloo took up her parable.

She remarked, as she had done before, that in her judgment Hernan

Pereira was “a stinkcat and a sneak,” who had tried to desert them in

their trouble, and by the judgment of a just God had got into trouble

himself. Personally, she wished that the lion had taken him instead of

the worthy Hottentot, although it gave her a higher opinion of lions to

conclude that it had not done so, because if it did it thought it would

have been poisoned. Well, her view was that it would be just as well to

let that traitor lie upon the bed which he had made. Moreover,

doubtless by now he was dead, so what was the good of bothering about

him?

These sentiments appeared to appeal to the Boers, for they remarked:

“_Ja_, what is the good?”

“Is it right,” asked Marais, “to abandon a comrade in misfortune, one

of our own blood?”

“_Mein Gott!_” replied Vrouw Prinsloo; “he is no blood of mine, the

evil-odoured Portuguee. But I admit he is of yours, Heer Marais, being

your sister’s son, so it is evident that you should be the one to go to

seek after him.”

“That seems to be so, Vrouw Prinsloo,” said Marais in his meditative

manner; “yet I must remember that I have Marie to look after.”

“Ach! and so had he, too, until he remembered his own skin, and went

off with the only horse and all the powder, leaving her and the rest of

us to starve. Well, you won’t go, and Prinsloo won’t go, nor my boy

either, for I’ll see to that; so Meyer must go.”

“_Nein, nein_, good vrouw,” answered Meyer, “I have those children that

are left to me to consider.”

“Then,” exclaimed Vrouw Prinsloo triumphantly, “nobody will go, so let

us forget this stinkcat, as he forgot us.”

“Does it seem right,” asked Marais again, “that a Christian man should

be left to starve in the wilderness?” and he looked at me.

“Tell me, Heer Marais,” I remarked, answering the look, “why should I

of all people go to look for the Heer Pereira, one who has not dealt

too well with me?”

“I do not know, Allan. Yet the Book tells us to turn the other cheek

and to forget injuries. Still, it is for you to judge, remembering that

we must answer for all things at the last day, and not for me. I only

know that were I your age and not burdened with a daughter to watch

over, _I_ should go.”

“Why should you talk to me thus?” I asked with indignation. “Why do you

not go yourself, seeing that I am quite ready to look after Marie?”

(Here the Vrouw Prinsloo and the other Boers tittered.) “And why do you

not address your remarks to these other _heeren_ instead of to me,

seeing that they are the friends and trek-companions of your nephew?”

At this point the male Prinsloos and Meyer found that they had business

elsewhere.

“It is for you to judge, yet remember, Allan, that it is an awful thing

to appear before our Maker with the blood of a fellow creature upon our

hands. But if you and these other hard-hearted men will not go, I at my

age, and weak as I am with all that I have suffered, will go myself.”

“Good,” said Vrouw Prinsloo; “that is the best way out of it. You will

soon get sick of the journey, Heer Marais, and we shall see no more of

the stinkcat.”

Marais rose in a resigned fashion, for he never deigned to argue with

Vrouw Prinsloo, who was too many for him, and said:

“Farewell, Marie. If I do not return, you will remember my wishes, and

my will may be found between the first leaves of our Holy Book. Get up,

Klaus, and guide me to your master,” and he administered a somewhat

vicious kick to the gorged and prostrate Hottentot.

Now Marie, who all this while had stood silent, touched me on the

shoulder and said:

“Allan, is it well that my father should go alone? Will you not

accompany him?”

“Of course,” I answered cheerfully; “on such a business there should be

two, and some Kaffirs also to carry the man, if he still lives.”

Now for the end of the story. As the Hottentot Klaus was too exhausted

to move that night, it was arranged that we should start at dawn.

Accordingly, I rose before the light, and was just finishing my

breakfast when Marie appeared at the wagon in which I slept. I got up

to greet her, and, there being no one in sight, we kissed each other

several times.

“Have done, my heart,” she said, pushing me away. “I come to you from

my father, who is sick in his stomach and would see you.”

“Which means that I shall have to go after your cousin alone,” I

replied with indignant emphasis.

She shook her head, and led me to the little shanty in which she slept.

Here by the growing light, that entered through the doorway for it had

no window, I perceived Marais seated upon a wooden stool with his hands

pressed on his middle and groaning.

“Good morning, Allan,” he said in a melancholy voice; “I am ill, very

ill, something that I have eaten perhaps, or a chill in the stomach,

such as often precedes fever or dysentery.”

“Perhaps you will get better as you walk, mynheer,” I suggested, for,

to tell the truth, I misdoubted me of this chill, and knew that he had

eaten nothing but what was quite wholesome.

“Walk! God alone knows how I can walk with something gripping my inside

like a wagon-maker’s vice. Yet I will try, for it is impossible to

leave that poor Hernan to die alone; and if I do not go to seek him, it

seems that no one else will.”

“Why should not some of my Kaffirs go with Klaus?” I asked.

“Allan,” he replied solemnly, “if you were dying in a cave far from

help, would you think well of those who sent raw Kaffirs to succour you

when they might have come themselves, Kaffirs who certainly would let

you die and return with some false story?”

“I don’t know what I should think, Heer Marais. But I do know that if

_I_ were in that cave and Pereira were in this camp, neither would he

come himself, nor so much as send a savage to save _me_.”

“It may be so, Allan. But even if another’s heart is black, should

yours be black also? Oh! I will come, though it be to my death,” and,

rising from the stool with the most dreadful groan, he began to divest

himself of the tattered blanket in which he was wrapped up.

“Oh! Allan, my father must not go; it will kill him,” exclaimed Marie,

who took a more serious view of his case than I did.

“Very well, if you think so,” I answered. “And now, as it is time for

me to be starting, good-bye.”

“You have a good heart, Allan,” said Marais, sinking back upon his

stool and resuming his blanket, while Marie looked despairingly first

at one and then at the other of us.

Half an hour later I was on the road in the very worst of tempers.

“Mind what you are about,” called Vrouw Prinsloo after me. “It is not

lucky to save an enemy, and if I know anything of that stinkcat, he

will bite your finger badly by way of gratitude. Bah! lad, if I were

you I should just camp for a few days in the bush, and then come back

and say that I could find nothing of Pereira except the dead hyenas

that had been poisoned by eating him. Good luck to you all the same,

Allan; may I find such a friend in need. It seems to me that you were

born to help others.”

Beside the Hottentot Klaus, my companions on this unwelcome journey

were three of the Zulu Kaffirs, for Hans I was obliged to leave in

charge of my cattle and goods with the other men. Also, I took a

pack-ox, an active beast that I had been training to carry loads and,

if necessary a man, although as yet it was not very well broken.

All that day we marched over extremely rough country, till at last

darkness found us in a mountainous kloof, where we slept, surrounded by

watch-fires because of the lions. Next morning at the first light we

moved on again, and about ten o’clock waded through a stream to a

little natural cave, where Klaus said he had left his master. This cave

seemed extremely silent, and, as I hesitated for a moment at its mouth,

the thought crossed my mind that if Pereira were still there, he must

be dead. Indeed, do what I would to suppress it, with that reflection

came a certain feeling of relief and even of pleasure. For well I knew

that Pereira alive was more dangerous to me than all the wild men and

beasts in Africa put together. Thrusting back this unworthy sentiment

as best I could, I entered the cave alone, for the natives, who dread

the defilement of the touch of a corpse, lingered outside.

It was but a shallow cavity washed out of the overhanging rock by the

action of water; and as soon as my eyes grew accustomed to its gloom, I

saw that at the end of it lay a man. So still did he lie, that now I

was almost certain that his troubles were over. I went up to him and

touched his face, which was cold and clammy, and then, quite convinced,

turned to leave the place, which, I thought, if a few rocks were piled

in the mouth of it, would make an excellent sepulchre.

Just as I stepped out into the sunlight, and was about to call to the

men to collect the rocks, however, I thought that I heard a very faint

groan behind me, which at the moment I set down to imagination. Still,

I returned, though I did not much like the job, knelt down by the

figure, and waited with my hand over its heart. For five minutes or

more I stayed here, and then, quite convinced, was about to leave again

when, for the second time, I heard that faint groan. Pereira was not

dead, but only on the extreme brink of death!

I ran to the entrance of the cave, calling the Kaffirs, and together we

carried him out into the sunlight. He was an awful spectacle, mere bone

with yellow skin stretched over it, and covered with filth and clotted

blood from some hurt. I had brandy with me, of which I poured a little

down his throat, whereon his heart began to beat feebly. Then we made

some soup, and poured that down his throat with more brandy, and the

end of it was he came to life again.

For three days did I doctor that man, and really I believe that if at

any time during those days I had relaxed my attentions even for a

couple of hours, he would have slipped through my fingers, for at this

business Klaus and the Kaffirs were no good at all. But I pulled him

round, and on the third morning he came to his senses. For a long while

he stared at me, for I had laid him in the mouth of the cave, where the

light was good, although the overhanging rocks protected him from the

sun. Then he said:

“Allemachte! you remind me of someone, young man. I know. It is of that

damned English boy who beat me at the goose shooting, and made me

quarrel with _Oom_ [uncle] Retief, the jackanapes that Marie was so

fond of. Well, whoever you are, you can’t be he, thank God.”

“You are mistaken, Heer Pereira,” I answered. “I am that same damned

young English jackanapes, Allan Quatermain by name, who beat you at

shooting. But if you take my advice, you will thank God for something

else, namely, that your life has been saved.”

“Who saved it?” he asked.

“If you want to know, I did; I have been nursing you these three days.”

“You, Allan Quatermain! Now, that is strange, for certainly I would not

have saved yours,” and he laughed a little, then turned over and went

to sleep.

From that time forward his recovery was rapid, and two days later we

began our journey back to Marais’s camp, the convalescent Pereira being

carried in a litter by the four natives. It was a task at which they

grumbled a good deal, for the load was heavy over rough ground, and

whenever they stumbled or shook him he cursed at them. So much did he

curse, indeed, that at length one of the Zulus, a man with a rough

temper, said that if it were not for the Inkoos, meaning myself, he

would put his assegai through him, and let the vultures carry him.

After this Pereira grew much more polite. When the bearers became

exhausted we set him on the pack-ox, which two of us led, while the

other two supported him on either side. It was in this fashion that at

last we arrived at the camp one evening.

Here the Vrouw Prinsloo was the first to greet us. We found her

standing in the game path which we were following, quite a quarter of a

mile from the wagons, with her hands set upon her broad hips and her

feet apart. Her attitude was so defiant, and had about it such an air

of premeditation, that I cannot help thinking she had got wind of our

return, perhaps from having seen the smoke of our last fires, and was

watching for us. Also, her greeting was warm.

“Ah! here you come, Hernan Pereira,” she cried, “riding on an ox, while

better men walk. Well, now, I want a chat with you. How came it that

you went off in the night, taking the only horse and all the powder?”

“I went to get help for you,” he replied sulkily.

“Did you, did you, indeed! Well, it seems that it was you who wanted

the help, after all. What do you mean to pay the Heer Allan Quatermain

for saving your life, for I am sure he has done so? You have got no

goods left, although you were always boasting about your riches; they

are now at the bottom of a river, so it will have to be in love and

service.”

He muttered something about my wanting no payment for a Christian act.

“No, he wants no payment, Hernan Pereira, he is one of the true sort,

but you’ll pay him all the same and in bad coin if you get the chance.

Oh! I have come out to tell you what I think of you. You are a

stinkcat; do you hear that? A thing that no dog would bite if he could

help it! You are a traitor also. You brought us to this cursed country,

where you said your relatives would give us wealth and land, and then,

after famine and fever attacked us, you rode away, and left us to die

to save your own dirty skin. And now you come back here for help, saved

by him whom you cheated in the Goose Kloof, by him whose true love you

have tried to steal. Oh, _mein Gott!_ why does the Almighty leave such

fellows alive, while so many that are good and honest and innocent lie

beneath the soil because of stinkcats like you?”

So she went on, striding at the side of the pack-ox, and reviling

Pereira in a ceaseless stream of language, until at length he thrust

his thumbs into his ears and glared at her in speechless wrath.

Thus it was that at last we arrived in the camp, where, having seen us

coming, all the Boers were gathered. They are not a particularly

humorous people, but this spectacle of the advance of Pereira seated on

the pack-ox, a steed that is becoming to few riders, with the furious

and portly Vrouw Prinsloo striding at his side and shrieking abuse at

him, caused them to burst into laughter. Then Pereira’s temper gave

out, and he became even more abusive than Vrouw Prinsloo.

“Is this the way you receive me, you veld-hogs, you common Boers, who

are not fit to mix with a man of position and learning like myself?” he

began.

“Then in God’s name why do you mix with us, Hernan Pereira?” asked the

saturnine Meyer, thrusting his face forward till the Newgate fringe he

wore by way of a beard literally seemed to curl with wrath. “When we

were hungry you did not wish it, for you slunk away and left us, taking

all the powder. But now that we are full again, thanks to the little

Englishman, and you are hungry, you come back. Well, if I had my way I

would give you a gun and six days’ rations, and turn you out to shift

for yourself.”

“Don’t be afraid, Jan Meyer,” shouted Pereira from the back of the

pack-ox. “As soon as I am strong enough I will leave you in charge of

your English captain here”—and he pointed to me—“and go to tell our

people what sort of folk you are.”

“That is good news,” interrupted Prinsloo, a stolid old Boer, who stood

by puffing at his pipe. “Get well, get well as soon as you can, Hernan

Pereira.”

It was at this juncture that Marais arrived, accompanied by Marie.

Where he came from I do not know, but I think he must have been keeping

in the background on purpose to see what kind of a reception Pereira

would meet with.

“Silence, brothers,” he said. “Is this the way you greet my nephew, who

has returned from the gate of death, when you should be on your knees

thanking God for his deliverance?”

“Then go on your knees and thank Him yourself, Henri Marais,” screamed

the irrepressible Vrouw Prinsloo. “I give thanks for the safe return of

Allan here, though it is true they would be warmer if he had left this

stinkcat behind him. Allemachte! Henri Marais, why do you make so much

of this Portuguese fellow? Has he bewitched you? Or is it because he is

your sister’s son, or because you want to force Marie there to marry

him? Or is it, perhaps, that he knows of something bad in your past

life, and you have to bribe him to keep his mouth shut?”

Now, whether this last unpleasant suggestion was a mere random arrow

drawn from Vrouw Prinsloo’s well-stored quiver, or whether the vrouw

had got hold of the tail-end of some long-buried truth, I do not know.

Of course, however, the latter explanation is possible. Many men have

done things in their youth which they do not wish to see dug up in

their age; and Pereira may have learned a family secret of the kind

from his mother.

At any rate, the effect of the old lady’s words upon Marais was quite

remarkable. Suddenly he went into one of his violent and constitutional

rages. He cursed Vrouw Prinsloo. He cursed everybody else, assuring

them severally and collectively that Heaven would come even with them.

He said there was a plot against him and his nephew, and that I was at

the bottom of it, I who had made his daughter fond of my ugly little

face. So furious were his words, whereof there were many more which I

have forgotten, that at length Marie began to cry and ran away.

Presently, too, the Boers strolled off, shrugging their shoulders, one

of them saying audibly that Marais had gone quite mad at last, as he

always thought he would.

Then Marais followed them, throwing up his arms and still cursing as he

went, and, slipping over the tail of the pack-ox, Pereira followed him.

So the Vrouw Prinsloo and I were left alone, for the coloured men had

departed, as they always do when white people begin to quarrel.

“There, Allan, my boy,” said the vrouw in triumph, “I have found the

sore place on the mule’s back, and didn’t I make him squeal and kick,

although on most days of the week he seems to be such a good and quiet

mule—at any rate, of late.”

“I dare say you did, vrouw,” I said wrathfully, “but I wish you would

leave Mynheer Marais’s sore places alone, seeing that if the squeals

are for you, the kicks are for me.”

“What does that matter, Allan?” she asked. “He always was your enemy,

so that it is just as well you should see his heels when you are out of

reach of them. My poor boy, I think you will have a bad time of it

between the stinkcat and the mule, although you have done so much for

both of them. Well, there is one thing—Marie has a true heart. She will

never marry any man except yourself, Allan—even if you are not here to

marry,” she added by an afterthought.

The old lady paused a little, staring at the ground. Then she looked up

and said:

“Allan, my dear” (for she was really fond of me, and called me thus at

times), “you didn’t take the advice I gave you, namely, to look for

Pereira and not to find him. Well, I will give you some more, which you

_will_ take if you are wise.”

“What is it?” I asked doubtfully; for, although she was upright enough

in her own way, the Vrouw Prinsloo could bring herself to look at

things in strange lights. Like many other women, she judged of moral

codes by the impulses of her heart, and was quite prepared to stretch

them to suit circumstances or to gain an end which she considered good

in itself.

“Just this, lad. Do you make a two days’ march with Marie into the

bush. I want a little change, so I will come, too, and marry you there;

for I have got a prayer-book, and can spell out the service if we go

through it once or twice first.”

Now, the vision of Marie and myself being married by the Vrouw Prinsloo

in the vast and untrodden veld, although attractive, was so absurd that

I laughed.

“Why do you laugh, Allan? Anyone can marry people if there is no one

else there; indeed, I believe that they can marry themselves.”

“I dare say,” I answered, not wishing to enter into a legal argument

with the vrouw. “But you see, Tante, I solemnly promised her father

that I would not marry her until she was of age, and if I broke my word

I should not be an honest man.”

“An honest man!” she exclaimed with the utmost contempt; “an honest

man! Well, are Marais and Hernan Pereira honest men? Why do you not cut

your stick the same length as theirs, Allan Quatermain? I tell you that

your _verdomde_ honesty will be your ruin. You remember my words later

on,” and she marched off in high dudgeon.

When she had gone I went to my wagons, where Hans was waiting for me

with a detailed and interminable report of everything that had happened

in my absence. Glad was I to find that, except for the death of one

sickly ox, nothing had gone wrong. When at length he had ended his long

story, I ate some food which Marie sent over for me ready cooked, for I

was too tired to join any of the Boers that night. Just as I had

finished my meal and was thinking of turning in, Marie herself appeared

within the circle of the camp-fire’s light. I sprang up and ran to her,

saying that I had not expected to see her that evening, and did not

like to come to the house.

“No,” she answered, drawing me back into the shadows, “I understand. My

father seems very much upset, almost mad, indeed. If the Vrouw

Prinsloo’s tongue had been a snake’s fang, it could not have stung him

worse.”

“And where is Pereira?” I asked.

“Oh! my cousin sleeps in the other room. He is weak and worn out. All

the same, Allan, he wanted to kiss me. So I told him at once how

matters stood between you and me, and that we were to be married in six

months.”

“What did he say to that?” I asked.

“He turned to my father and said: ‘Is this true, my uncle?’ And my

father answered: ‘Yes, that is the best bargain I could make with the

Englishman, seeing that you were not here to make a better.’”

“And what happened then, Marie?”

“Oh, then Hernan thought a while. At last he looked up and said: ‘I

understand. Things have gone badly. I acted for the best, who went away

to try to find help for all of you. I failed. Meanwhile the Englishman

came and saved you. Afterwards he saved me also. Uncle, in all this I

see God’s hand; had it not been for this Allan none of us would be

alive. Yes, God used him that we might be kept alive. Well, he has

promised that he will not marry Marie for six months. And you know, my

uncle, that some of these English are great fools; they keep their

promises even to their own loss. Now, in six months much may happen;

who knows what will happen?’”

“Were you present when you heard all this, Marie?” I asked.

“No, Allan; I was the other side of the reed partition. But at those

words I entered and said: ‘My father and Cousin Hernan, please

understand that there is one thing which will never happen.’

“‘What is that?’ asked my cousin.

“‘It will never happen that I shall marry you, Hernan,’ I replied.

“‘Who knows, Marie, who knows?’ he said.

“‘I do, Hernan,’ I answered. ‘Even if Allan were to die to-morrow, I

would not marry you, either then or twenty years hence. I am glad that

he has saved your life, but henceforth we are cousins, nothing more.’

“‘You hear what the girl tells us,’ said my father; ‘why do you not

give up the business? What is the use of kicking against the pricks?’

“‘If one wears stout boots and kicks hard enough, the pricks give way,’

said Hernan. ‘Six months is a long time, my uncle.’

“‘It may be so, cousin,’ I said; ‘but remember that neither six months

nor six years, nor six thousand years, are long enough to make me marry

any man except Allan Quatermain, who has just rescued you from death.

Do you understand?’

“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I understand that you will not marry me. Only then

I promise that you shall not marry either Allan Quatermain or any other

man.’

“‘God will decide that,’ I answered, and came away, leaving him and my

father together. And now, Allan, tell me all that has happened since we

parted.”

So I told her everything, including the Vrouw Prinsloo’s advice.

“Of course, Allan, you were quite right,” she remarked when I had

finished; “but I am not sure that the Vrouw Prinsloo was not also right

in her own fashion. I am afraid of my cousin Hernan, who holds my

father in his hand—fast, fast. Still, we have promised, and must keep

our word.”

CHAPTER XI.

THE SHOT IN THE KLOOF

I think it was about three weeks after these events that we began our

southward trek. On the morning subsequent to our arrival at Marais’s

camp, Pereira came up to me when several people were present, and,

taking my hand, thanked me in a loud voice for having saved his life.

Thenceforward, he declared, I should be dearer to him than a brother,

for was there not a blood bond between us?

I answered I did not think any such bond existed; indeed, I was not

sure what it meant. I had done my duty by him, neither less nor more,

and there was nothing further to be said.

It turned out, however, that there was a great deal further to be said,

since Pereira desired to borrow money, or, rather, goods, from me. He

explained that owing to the prejudices of the vulgar Boers who remained

alive in that camp, and especially of the scandalous-tongued Vrouw

Prinsloo, both he and his uncle had come to the conclusion that it

would be wise for him to remove himself as soon as possible. Therefore

he proposed to trek away alone.

I answered that I should have thought he had done enough solitary

travelling in this veld, seeing how his last expedition had ended. He

replied that he had, indeed, but everyone here was so bitter against

him that no choice was left. Then he added with an outburst of truth:

“Allemachte! Mynheer Quatermain, do you suppose that it is pleasant for

me to see you making love all day to the maid who was my betrothed, and

to see her paying back the love with her eyes? Yes, and doubtless with

her lips, too, from all I hear.”

“You could leave her whom you called your betrothed, but who never was

betrothed to anyone but me with her own will, to starve in the veld,

mynheer. Why, then, should you be angry because I picked up that which

you threw away, that, too, which was always my own and not yours? Had

it not been for me, there would now be no maid left for us to quarrel

over, as, had it not been for me, there would be no man left for me to

quarrel with about the maid.”

“Are you God, then, Englishman, that you dispose of the lives of men

and women at your will? It was He Who saved us, not you.”

“He may have saved you, but it was through me. I carried out the rescue

of these poor people whom you deserted, and I nursed you back to life.”

“I did not desert them; I went to get help for them.”

“Taking all the powder and the only horse with you! Well, that is done

with, and now you want to borrow goods to pay for cattle—from me, whom

you hate. You are not proud, Mynheer Pereira, when you have an end to

serve, whatever that end may be,” and I looked at him. My instinct

warned me against this false and treacherous man, who, I felt, was even

then plotting in his heart to bring some evil upon me.

“No, I am not proud. Why should I be, seeing that I mean to repay you

twice over for anything which you may lend me now?”

I reflected a while. Certainly our journey to Natal would be pleasanter

if Pereira were not of the company. Also, if he went with us, I was

sure that before we came to the end of that trek, one or other of us

would leave his bones on the road. In short, not to put too fine a

point on it, I feared lest in this way or in that he would bring me to

my death in order that he might possess himself of Marie. We were in a

wild country, with few witnesses and no law courts, where such deeds

might be done again and again and the doer never called to account for

lack of evidence and judges.

So I made up my mind to fall in with his wishes, and we began to

bargain. The end of it was that I advanced him enough of my remaining

goods to buy the cattle he required from the surrounding natives. It

was no great quantity, after all, seeing that in this uncivilised place

an ox could be purchased for a few strings of beads or a cheap knife.

Further, I sold him a few of the beasts that I had broken, a gun, some

ammunition and certain other necessaries, for all of which things he

gave me a note of hand written in my pocket-book. Indeed, I did more;

for as none of the Boers would help him I assisted Pereira to break in

the cattle he bought, and even consented when he asked me to give him

the services of two of the Zulus whom I had hired.

All these preparations took a long while. If I remember right, twelve

more days had gone by before Pereira finally trekked off from Marais’s

camp, by which time he was quite well and strong again.

We all assembled to see the start, and Marais offered up a prayer for

his nephew’s safe journey and our happy meeting again in Natal at the

laager of Retief, which was to be our rendezvous, if that leader were

still in Natal. No one else joined in the prayer. Only Vrouw Prinsloo

audibly added another of her own. It was to the effect that he might

not come back a second time, and that she might never see his face

again, either at Retief’s laager or anywhere else, if it would please

the good Lord so to arrange matters.

The Boers tittered; even the Meyer children tittered, for by this time

the hatred of the Vrouw Prinsloo for Hernan Pereira was the joke of the

place. But Pereira himself pretended not to hear, said good-bye to us

all affectionately, adding a special petition for the Vrouw Prinsloo,

and off we went.

I say “we went” because with my usual luck, to help him with the

half-broken oxen, I was commandeered to accompany this man to his first

outspan, a place with good water about twelve miles from the camp,

where he proposed to remain for the night.

Now, as we started about ten o’clock in the morning and the veld was

fairly level, I expected that we should reach this outspan by three or

four in the afternoon, which would give me time to walk back before

sunset. In fact, however, so many accidents happened of one sort or

another, both to the wagon itself, of which the woodwork had shrunk

with long standing in the sun, and to the cattle, which, being unused

to the yoke, tied themselves in a double knot upon every opportunity,

that we only arrived there at the approach of night.

The last mile of that trek was through a narrow gorge cut out by water

in the native rock. Here trees grew sparsely, also great ferns, but the

bottom of the gorge, along which game were accustomed to travel, was

smooth enough for wagons, save for a few fallen boulders, which it was

necessary to avoid.

When at length we reached the outspan I asked the Hottentot, Klaus, who

was assisting me to drive the team, where his master was, for I could

not see him anywhere. He answered that he had gone back down the kloof

to look for something that had fallen from the wagon, a bolt I think he

said.

“Very good,” I replied. “Then tell him, if we do not meet, that I have

returned to the camp.”

As I set out the sun was sinking below the horizon, but this did not

trouble me overmuch, as I had a rifle with me, that same light rifle

with which I had shot the geese in the great match. Also I knew that

the moon, being full, would be up presently.

The sun sank, and the kloof was plunged in gloom. The place seemed

eerie and lonesome, and suddenly I grew afraid. I began to wonder where

Pereira was, and what he might be doing. I even thought of turning back

and finding some way round, only having explored all this district

pretty thoroughly in my various shooting expeditions from the camp, I

knew there was no practicable path across those hills. So I went on

with my rifle at full cock, whistling to keep up my courage, which, of

course, in the circumstances was a foolish thing to do. It occurred to

me at the time that it was foolish, but, in truth, I would not give way

to the dark suspicions which crossed my mind. Doubtless by now Pereira

had passed me and reached the outspan.

The moon began to shine—that wonderful African moon, which turns night

to day—throwing a network of long, black shadows of trees and rocks

across the game track I was following. Right ahead of me was a

particularly dark patch of this shadow, caused by a projecting wall of

cliff, and beyond it an equally bright patch of moonlight. Somehow I

misdoubted me of that stretch of gloom, for although, of course, I

could see nothing there, my quick ear caught the sound of movements.

I halted for a moment. Then, reflecting that these were doubtless

caused by some night-walking creature, which, even should it chance to

be dangerous, would flee at the approach of man, I plunged into it

boldly. As I emerged at the other end—the shadow was eighteen or twenty

paces long—it occurred to me that if any enemy were lurking there, I

should be an easy target as I entered the line of clear light. So,

almost instinctively, for I do not remember that I reasoned the thing

out, after my first two steps forward in the light I gave a little

spring to the left, where there was still shadow, although it was not

deep. Well was it for me that I did so, for at that moment I felt

something touch my cheek and heard the loud report of a gun immediately

behind me.

Now, the wisest course would have been for me to run before whoever had

fired found time to reload. But a kind of fury seized me, and run I

would not. On the contrary, I turned with a shout, and charged back

into the shadow. Something heard me coming, something fled in front of

me. In a few seconds we were out into the moonlight beyond, and, as I

expected, I saw that this something was a man—Pereira!

He halted and wheeled round, lifting the stock of his gun, club

fashion.

“Thank God! it is you, Heer Allan,” he said; “I thought you were a

tiger.”

“Then it is your last thought, murderer,” I answered, raising my rifle.

“Don’t shoot,” he said. “Would you have my blood upon you? Why do you

want to kill me?”

“Why did you try to kill me?” I answered, covering him.

“I try to kill you! Are you mad? Listen, for your own sake. I sat down

on the bank yonder waiting for the moon, and, being tired, fell asleep.

Then I woke up with a start, and, thinking from the sounds that a tiger

was after me, fired to scare it. Allemachte! man, if I had aimed at

you, could I have missed at that distance?”

“You did not quite miss, and had I not stepped to the left, you would

have blown my head off. Say your prayers, you dog!”

“Allan Quatermain,” he exclaimed with desperate energy, “you think I

lie, who speak the truth. Kill me if you will, only then remember that

you will hang for it. We court one woman, that is known, and who will

believe this story of yours that I tried to shoot you? Soon the Kaffirs

will come to look for me, probably they are starting already, and will

find my body with your bullet in my heart. Then they will take it back

to Marais’s camp, and I say—who will believe your story?”

“Some, I think, murderer,” but as I spoke the words a chill of fear

struck me. It was true, I could prove nothing, having no witnesses, and

henceforward I should be a Cain among the Boers, one who had slain a

man for jealousy. His gun was empty; yes, but it might be said that I

had fired it after his death. And as for the graze upon my cheek—why, a

twig might have caused it. What should I do, then? Drive him before me

to the camp, and tell this tale? Even then it would be but my word

against his. No, he had me in a forked stick. I must let him go, and

trust that Heaven would avenge his crime, since I could not. Moreover,

by now my first rage was cooling, and to execute a man thus—

“Hernan Pereira,” I said, “you are a liar and a coward. You tried to

butcher me because Marie loves me and hates you, and you want to force

her to marry you. Yet I cannot shoot you down in cold blood as you

deserve. I leave it to God to punish you, as, soon or late, He will,

here or hereafter; you who thought to slaughter me and trust to the

hyenas to hide your crime, as they would have done before morning. Get

you gone before I change my mind, and be swift.”

Without another word he turned and ran swiftly as a buck, leaping from

side to side as he ran, to disturb my aim in case I should shoot.

When he was a hundred yards away or more I, too, turned and ran, never

feeling safe till I knew there was a mile of ground between us.

It was past ten o’clock that night when I got back to the camp, where I

found Hans the Hottentot about to start to look for me, with two of the

Zulus, and told him that I had been detained by accidents to the wagon.

The Vrouw Prinsloo was still up also, waiting to hear of my arrival.

“What was the accident, Allan?” she asked. “It looks as though there

had been a bullet in it,” and she pointed to the bloody smear upon my

cheek.

I nodded.

“Pereira’s?” she asked again.

I nodded a second time.

“Did you kill him?”

“No; I let him go. It would have been said that I murdered him,” and I

told her what had happened.

“_Ja_, Allan,” she remarked when I had finished. “I think you were

wise, for you could have proved nothing. But oh! for what fate, I

wonder, is God Almighty saving up that stinkcat. Well, I will go and

tell Marie that you are back safe, for her father won’t let her out of

the hut so late; but nothing more unless you wish it.”

“No, Tante; I think nothing more, at any rate at present.”

Here I may state, however, that within a few days Marie and everyone

else in the camp knew the story in detail, except perhaps Marais, to

whom no one spoke of his nephew. Evidently Vrouw Prinsloo had found

herself unable to keep secret such an example of the villainy of her

aversion, Pereira. So she told her daughter, who told the others

quickly enough, though I gathered that some of them set down what had

happened to accident. Bad as they knew Pereira to be, they could not

believe that he was guilty of so black a crime.

About a week later the rest of us started from Marais’s camp, a place

that, notwithstanding the sadness of many of its associations, I

confess I left with some regret. The trek before us, although not so

very long, was of an extremely perilous nature. We had to pass through

about two hundred miles of country of which all we knew was that its

inhabitants were the Amatonga and other savage tribes. Here I should

explain that after much discussion we had abandoned the idea of

retracing the route followed by Marais on his ill-fated journey towards

Delagoa.

Had we taken this it would have involved our crossing the terrible

Lobombo Mountains, over which it was doubtful whether our light cattle

could drag the wagons. Moreover, the country beyond the mountains was

said to be very bare of game and also of Kaffirs, so that food might be

lacking. On the other hand, if we kept to the east of the mountains the

veld through which we must pass was thickly populated, which meant that

in all probability we could buy grain.

What finally decided us to adopt this route, however, was that here in

these warm, low-lying lands there would be grass for the oxen. Indeed,

now, at the beginning of spring, in this part of Africa it was already

pushing. Even if it were not, the beasts could live upon what herbage

remained over from last summer and on the leaves of trees, neither of

which in this winter veld ever become quite lifeless, whereas on the

sere and fire-swept plains beyond the mountains they might find nothing

at all. So we determined to risk the savages and the lions which

followed the game into these hot districts, especially as it was not

yet the fever season or that of the heavy rains, so that the rivers

would be fordable.

I do not propose to set out our adventures in detail, for these would

be too long. Until the great one of which I shall have to tell

presently, they were of an annoying rather than of a serious nature.

Travelling as we did, between the mountains and the sea, we could not

well lose our way, especially as my Zulus had passed through that

country; and when their knowledge failed us, we generally managed to

secure the services of local guides. The roads, however, or rather the

game tracks and Kaffir paths which we followed, were terrible, for with

the single exception of that of Pereira for part of the distance, no

wagon had ever gone over them before. Indeed, a little later in the

year they could not have been travelled at all. Sometimes we stuck in

bogs out of which we had to dig the wheels, and sometimes in the rocky

bottoms of streams, while once we were obliged literally to cut our way

through a belt of dense bush from which it took us eight days to

escape.

Our other chief trouble came from the lions, whereof there were great

numbers in this veld. The prevalence of these hungry beasts forced us

to watch our cattle very closely while they grazed, and at night,

wherever it was possible, to protect them and ourselves in _bomas_, or

fences of thorns, within which we lit fires to scare away wild beasts.

Notwithstanding these precautions, we lost several of the oxen, and

ourselves had some narrow escapes.

Thus, one night, just as Marie was about to enter the wagon where the

women slept, a great lion, desperate with hunger, sprang over the

fence. She leapt away from the beast, and in so doing caught her foot

and fell down, whereon the lion came for her. In another few seconds

she would have been dead, or carried off living.

But as it chanced, Vrouw Prinsloo was close at hand. Seizing a flaming

bough from the fire, that intrepid woman ran at the lion and, as it

opened its huge mouth to roar or bite, thrust the burning end of the

bough into its throat. The lion closed its jaws upon it, then finding

the mouthful not to its taste, departed even more quickly than it had

come, uttering the most dreadful noises, and leaving Marie quite

unhurt. Needless to say, after this I really worshipped the Vrouw

Prinsloo, though she, good soul, thought nothing of the business, which

in those days was but a common incident of travel.

I think it was on the day after this lion episode that we came upon

Pereira’s wagon, or rather its remains. Evidently he had tried to trek

along a steep, rocky bank which overhung a stream, with the result that

the wagon had fallen into the stream-bed, then almost dry, and been

smashed beyond repair.

The Tonga natives of the neighbourhood, who had burned most of the

woodwork in order to secure the precious iron bolts and fittings,

informed us that the white man and his servants who were with the wagon

had gone forward on foot some ten days before, driving their cattle

with them. Whether this story were true or not we had no means of

finding out. It was quite possible that Pereira and his companions had

been murdered, though as we found the Tongas very quiet folk if well

treated and given the usual complimentary presents for wayleaves, this

did not seem probable. Indeed, a week later our doubts upon this point

were cleared up thus.

We had reached a big kraal called Fokoti, on the Umkusi River, which

appeared to be almost deserted. We asked an old woman whom we met where

its people had gone. She answered that they had fled towards the

borders of Swaziland, fearing an attack from the Zulus, whose

territories began beyond this Umkusi River. It seemed that a few days

before a Zulu impi or regiment had appeared upon the banks of the

river, and although there was no war at the time between the Zulus and

the Tongas, the latter had thought it wise to put themselves out of

reach of those terrible spears.

On hearing this news we debated whether it would not be well for us to

follow their example and, trekking westwards, try to find a pass in the

mountains. Upon this point there was a division of opinion among us.

Marais, who was a fatalist, wished to go on, saying that the good Lord

would protect us, as He had done in the past.

“Allemachte!” answered the Vrouw Prinsloo. “Did He protect all those

who lie dead at Marais’s camp, whither your folly led us, mynheer? The

good Lord expects us to look after our own skins, and I know that these

Zulus are of the same blood as Umsilikazi’s Kaffirs, who have killed so

many of our people. Let us try the mountains, say I.”

Of course her husband and son agreed with her, for to them the vrouw’s

word was law; but Marais, being, as usual, obstinate, would not give

way. All that afternoon they wrangled, while I held my tongue,

declaring that I was willing to abide by the decision of the majority.

In the end, as I foresaw they would, they appealed to me to act as

umpire between them.

“Friends,” I answered, “if you had asked me my opinion before, I should

have voted for trying the mountains, beyond which, perhaps, we might

find some Boers. I do not like this story of the Zulu impi. I think

that someone has told them of our coming, and that it is us they mean

to attack and not the Tongas, with whom they are at peace. My men say

that it is not usual for impis to visit this part of the country.”

“Who could have told them?” asked Marais.

“I don’t know, mynheer. Perhaps the natives have sent on word, or

perhaps—Hernan Pereira.”

“I knew that you would suspect my nephew, Allan,” he exclaimed angrily.

“I suspect no one; I only weigh what is probable. However, it is too

late for us to move to-night either south or westwards, so I think I

will sleep over the business and see what I can find out from my

Zulus.”

That night, or rather the following morning, the question was settled

for us, for when I woke up at dawn, it was to see the faint light

glimmering on what I knew must be spears. We were surrounded by a great

company of Zulus, as I discovered afterwards, over two hundred strong.

Thinking that after their fashion they were preparing to attack us at

dawn, I called the news to the others, whereon Marais rushed forward,

just as he had left his bed, cocking his roer as he came.

“For the love of God, do not shoot!” I said. “How can we resist so

many? Soft words are our only chance.”

Still he attempted to fire, and would have done so had I not thrown

myself upon him and literally torn the gun from his hand. By this time

the Vrouw Prinsloo had come up, a very weird spectacle, I recollect, in

what she called her “sleep-garments,” that included a night-cap made of

a worn jackal skin and a kind of otter-pelt stomacher.

“Accursed fool!” she said to Marais, “would you cause all our throats

to be cut? Go forward, you, Allan, and talk to those _swartzels_” (that

is, black creatures), “gently, as you would to a savage dog. You have a

tongue steeped in oil, and they may listen to you.”

“Yes,” I answered; “that seems the best thing to do. If I should not

return, give my love to Marie.”

So I beckoned to the headman of my Zulus whom I had hired at Delagoa,

to accompany me, and marched forward boldly quite unarmed. We were

encamped upon a rise of ground a quarter of a mile from the river, and

the impi, or those of them whom we could see, were at the foot of this

rise about a hundred and sixty yards away. The light was growing now,

and when I was within fifty paces of them they saw me. At some word of

command a number of men rushed toward me, their fighting shields held

over their bodies and their spears up.

“We are dead!” exclaimed my Kaffir in a resigned voice. I shared his

opinion, but thought I might as well die standing as running away.

Now I should explain that though as yet I had never mixed with these

Zulus, I could talk several native dialects kindred to that which they

used very well indeed. Moreover, ever since I had hired men of their

race at Delagoa, I had spent all my spare time in conversing with them

and acquiring a knowledge of their language, history and customs. So by

this time I knew their tongue fairly, although occasionally I may have

used terms which were unfamiliar to them.

Thus it came about that I was able to shout to them, asking what was

their business with us. Hearing themselves addressed in words which

they understood, the men halted, and seeing that I was unarmed, three

of them approached me.

“We come to take you prisoners, white people, or to kill you if you

resist,” said their captain.

“By whose order?” I asked.

“By the order of Dingaan our king.”

“Is it so? And who told Dingaan that we were here?”

“The Boer who came in front of you.”

“Is it so?” I said again. “And now what do you need of us?”

“That you should accompany us to the kraal of Dingaan.”

“I understand. We are quite willing, since it lies upon our road. But

then why do you come against us, who are peaceful travellers, with your

spears lifted?”

“For this reason. The Boer told us that there is among you a ‘child of

George’” (an Englishman), “a terrible man who would kill us unless we

killed or bound him first. Show us this child of George that we may

make him fast, or slay him, and we will not hurt the rest of you.”

“I am the child of George,” I answered, “and if you think it necessary

to make me fast, do so.”

Now the Zulus burst out laughing.

“You! Why, you are but a boy who weighs no more than a fat girl,”

exclaimed their captain, a great, bony fellow who was named Kambula.

“That may be so,” I answered; “but sometimes the wisdom of their

fathers dwells in the young. I am the son of George who saved these

Boers from death far away, and I am taking them back to their own

people. We desire to see Dingaan, your king. Be pleased therefore to

lead us to him as he has commanded you to do. If you do not believe

what I tell you, ask this man who is with me, and his companions who

are of your own race. They will tell you everything.”

Then the captain Kambula called my servant apart and talked with him

for a long while.

When the interview was finished he advanced to me and said:

“Now I have heard all about you. I have heard that although young you

are very clever, so clever that you do not sleep, but watch by night as

well as by day. Therefore, that I, Kambula, name you Macumazahn,

Watcher-by-night, and by that name you shall henceforth be known among

us. Now, Macumazahn, son of George, bring out these Boers whom you are

guiding that I may lead them in their moving huts to the Great Place,

Umgungundhlovu, where dwells Dingaan the king. See, we lay down our

spears and will come to meet them unarmed, trusting to you to protect

us, O Macumazahn, Son of George,” and he cast his assegai to the

ground.

“Come,” I said, and led them to the wagons.

CHAPTER XII.

DINGAAN’S BET

As I advanced to the wagons accompanied by Kambula and his two

companions, I saw that Marais, in a state of great excitement, was

engaged in haranguing the two Prinsloo men and Meyer, while the Vrouw

Prinsloo and Marie appeared to be attempting to calm him.

“They are unarmed,” I heard him shout. “Let us seize the black devils

and hold them as hostages.”

Thereon, led by Marais, the three Boer men came towards us doubtfully,

their guns in their hands.

“Be careful what you are doing,” I called to them. “These are envoys,”

and they hung back a little while Marais went on with his haranguing.

The Zulus looked at them and at me, then Kambula said:

“Are you leading us into a trap, Son of George?”

“Not so,” I answered; “but the Boers are afraid of you and think to

take you prisoners.”

“Tell them,” said Kambula quietly, “that if they kill us or lay a hand

on us, as no doubt they can do, very soon every one of them will be

dead and their women with them.”

I repeated this ultimatum energetically enough, but Marais shouted:

“The Englishman is betraying us to the Zulus! Do not trust him; seize

them as I tell you.”

What would have happened I am sure I do not know; but just then the

Vrouw Prinsloo came up and caught her husband by the arm, exclaiming:

“You shall have no part in this fool’s business. If Marais wishes to

seize the Zulus, let him do so himself. Are you mad or drunk that you

should think that Allan would wish to betray Marie to the Kaffirs, to

say nothing of the rest of us?” and she began to wave an extremely

dirty _vatdoek_, or dishcloth, which she always carried about with her

and used for every purpose, towards Kambula as a sign of peace.

Now the Boers gave way, and Marais, seeing himself in a minority,

glowered at me in silence.

“Ask these white people, O Macumazahn,” said Kambula, “who is their

captain, for to the captain I would speak.”

I translated the question, and Marais answered:

“I am.”

“No,” broke in Vrouw Prinsloo, “_I_ am. Tell them, Allan, that these

men are all fools and have given the rule to me, a woman.”

So I told them. Evidently this information surprised them a little, for

they discussed together. Then Kambula said:

“So be it. We have heard that the people of George are now ruled by a

woman, and as you, Macumazahn, are one of that people, doubtless it is

the same among your party.”

Here I may add that thenceforward the Zulus always accepted the Vrouw

Prinsloo as the _Inkosikaas_ or chieftainess of our little band, and

with the single exception of myself, whom they looked upon as her

“mouth,” or _induna_, would only transact business with or give

directions to her. The other Boers they ignored completely.

This point of etiquette settled, Kambula bade me repeat what he had

already told me, that we were prisoners whom he was instructed by

Dingaan to convey to his Great Place, and that if we made no attempt to

escape we should not be hurt upon the journey.

I did so, whereon the vrouw asked as I had done, who had informed

Dingaan that we were coming.

I repeated to her word for word what the Zulus had told me, that it was

Pereira, whose object seems to have been to bring about my death or

capture.

Then the vrouw exploded.

“Do you hear that, Henri Marais?” she screamed. “It is your stinkcat of

a nephew again. Oh! I thought I smelt him! Your nephew has betrayed us

to these Zulus that he may bring Allan to his death. Ask them, Allan,

what this Dingaan has done with the stinkcat.”

So I asked, and was informed they believed that the king had let

Pereira go on to his own people in payment of the information that he

had given him.

“My God!” said the vrouw, “I hoped that he had knocked him on the head.

Well, what is to be done now?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. Then an idea occurred to me, and I said to

Kambula:

“It seems to be me, the son of George, that your king wants. Take me,

and let these people go on their road.”

The three Zulus began to discuss this point, withdrawing themselves a

little way so that I could not overhear them. But when the Boers

understood the offer that I had made, Marie, who until now had been

silent, grew more angry than ever I had seen her before.

“It shall not be!” she said, stamping her foot. “Father, I have been

obedient to you for long, but if you consent to this I will be obedient

no more. Allan saved my cousin Hernan’s life, as he saved all our

lives. In payment for that good deed Hernan tried to murder him in the

kloof—oh! be quiet, Allan; I know all the story. Now he has betrayed

him to the Zulus, telling them that he is a terrible and dangerous man

who must be killed. Well, if he is to be killed, I will be killed with

him, and if the Zulus take him and let us free, I go with him. Now make

up your mind.”

Marais tugged at his beard, staring first at his daughter and then at

me. What he would have answered I do not know, for at that moment

Kambula stepped forward and gave his decision.

It was to the effect that although it was the Son of George whom

Dingaan wanted, his orders were that all with him were to be taken

also. Those orders could not be disobeyed. The king would settle the

matter as to whether some of us were to be killed and some let free, or

if all were to be killed or let free, when we reached his House.

Therefore he commanded that “we should tie the oxen to the moving huts

and cross the river at once.”

This was the end of that scene. Having no choice we inspanned and

continued our journey, escorted by the company of two hundred savages.

I am bound to say that during the four or five days that it took us to

reach Dingaan’s kraal they behaved very well to us. With Kambula and

his officers, all of them good fellows in their way, I had many

conversations, and from them learned much as to the state and customs

of the Zulus. Also the peoples of the districts through which we passed

flocked round us at every outspan, for most of them had never seen a

white man before, and in return for a few beads brought us all the food

that we required. Indeed, the beads, or their equivalents, were nothing

but a present, since, by the king’s command, they must satisfy our

wants. This they did very thoroughly. For instance, when on the last

day’s trek, some of our oxen gave out, numbers of Zulus were inspanned

in place of them, and by their help the wagons were dragged to the

great kraal, Umgungundhlovu.

Here an outspan place was assigned to us near to the house, or rather

the huts, of a certain missionary of the name of Owen, who with great

courage had ventured into this country. We were received with the

utmost kindness by him and his wife and household, and it is impossible

for me to say what pleasure I found, after all my journeyings, in

meeting an educated man of my own race.

Near to our camp was a stone-covered koppie, where, on the morning

after our arrival, I saw six or eight men executed in a way that I will

not describe. Their crime, according to Mr. Owen, was that they had

bewitched some of the king’s oxen.

While I was recovering from this dreadful spectacle, which,

fortunately, Marie did not witness, the captain Kambula arrived, saying

that Dingaan wished to see me. So taking with me the Hottentot Hans and

two of the Zulus whom I had hired at Delagoa Bay—for the royal orders

were that none of the other white people were to come, I was led

through the fence of the vast town in which stood two thousand huts—the

“multitude of houses” as the Zulus called it—and across a vast open

space in the middle.

On the farther side of this space, where, before long, I was fated to

witness a very tragic scene, I entered a kind of labyrinth. This was

called _siklohlo_, and had high fences with numerous turns, so that it

was impossible to see where one was going or to find the way in or out.

Ultimately, however, I reached a great hut named _intunkulu_, a word

that means the “house of houses,” or the abode of the king, in front of

which I saw a fat man seated on a stool, naked except for the _moocha_

about his middle and necklaces and armlets of blue beads. Two warriors

held their broad shields over his head to protect him from the sun.

Otherwise he was alone, although I felt sure that the numerous passages

around him were filled with guards, for I could hear them moving.

On entering this place Kambula and his companions flung themselves upon

their faces and began to sing praises of which the king took no notice.

Presently he looked up, and appearing to observe me for the first time

asked:

“Who is that white boy?”

Then Kambula rose and said:

“O king, this is the Son of George, whom you commanded me to capture. I

have taken him and the _Amaboona_” (that is, the Boers), “his

companions, and brought them all to you, O king.”

“I remember,” said Dingaan. “The big Boer who was here, and whom

Tambusa”—he was one of Dingaan’s captains—“let go against my will, said

that he was a terrible man who should be killed before he worked great

harm to my people. Why did you not kill him, Kambula, although it is

true he does not look very terrible?”

“Because the king’s word was that I should bring him to the king

living,” answered Kambula. Then he added cheerfully: “Still, if the

king wishes it, I can kill him at once.”

“I don’t know,” said Dingaan doubtfully; “perhaps he can mend guns.”

Next, after reflecting a while, he bade a shield-holder to fetch

someone, I could not hear whom.

“Doubtless,” thought I to myself, “it is the executioner,” and at that

thought a kind of mad rage seized me. Why should my life be ended thus

in youth to satisfy the whim of a savage? And if it must be so, why

should I go alone?

In the inside pocket of my ragged coat I had a small loaded pistol with

two barrels. One of those barrels would kill Dingaan—at five paces I

could not miss that bulk—and the other would blow out my brains, for I

was not minded to have my neck twisted or to be beaten to death with

sticks. Well, if it was to be done, I had better do it at once. Already

my hand was creeping towards the pocket when a new idea, or rather two

ideas, struck me.

The first was that if I shot Dingaan the Zulus would probably massacre

Marie and the others—Marie, whose sweet face I should never see again.

The second was that while there is life there is hope. Perhaps, after

all, he had not sent for an executioner, but for someone else. I would

wait. A few minutes more of existence were worth the having.

The shield-bearer returned, emerging from one of the narrow,

reed-hedged passages, and after him came no executioner, but a young

white man, who, as I knew from the look of him, was English. He saluted

the king by taking off his hat, which I remember was stuck round with

black ostrich feathers, then stared at me.

“O Tho-maas” (that is how he pronounced “Thomas”), said Dingaan, “tell

me if this boy is one of your brothers, or is he a Boer?”

“The king wants to know if you are Dutch or British,” said the white

lad, speaking in English.

“As British as you are,” I answered. “I was born in England, and come

from the Cape.”

“That may be lucky for you,” he said, “because the old witch-doctor,

Zikali, has told him that he must not kill any English. What is your

name? Mine is Thomas Halstead. I am interpreter here.”

“Allan Quatermain. Tell Zikali, whoever he may be, that if he sticks to

his advice I will give him a good present.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Dingaan suspiciously.

“He says he is English, no Boer, O king; that he was born across the

Black Water, and that he comes from the country out of which all the

Boers have trekked.”

At this intelligence Dingaan pricked up his ears.

“Then he can tell me about these Boers,” he said, “and what they are

after, or could if he were able to speak my tongue. I do not trust you

to interpret, you Tho-maas, whom I know to be a liar,” and he glowered

at Halstead.

“I can speak your tongue, though not very well, O king,” I interrupted,

“and I can tell you all about the Boers, for I have lived among them.”

“_Ow!_” said Dingaan, intensely interested. “But perhaps you are also a

liar. Or are you a praying man, like that fool yonder, who is named

Oweena?”—he meant the missionary Mr. Owen—“whom I spare because it is

not lucky to kill one who is mad, although he tries to frighten my

soldiers with tales of a fire into which they will go after they are

dead. As though it matters what happens to them after they are dead!”

he added reflectively, taking a pinch of snuff.

“I am no liar,” I answered. “What have I to lie about?”

“You would lie to save your own life, for all white men are cowards;

not like the Zulus, who love to die for their king. But how are you

named?”

“Your people call me Macumazahn.”

“Well, Macumazahn, if you are no liar, tell me, is it true that these

Boers rebelled against their king who was named George, and fled from

him as the traitor Umsilikazi did from me?”

“Yes,” I answered, “that is true.”

“Now I am sure that you are a liar,” said Dingaan triumphantly. “You

say that you are English and therefore serve your king, or the

_Inkosikaas_” (that is the Great Lady), “who they tell me now sits in

his place. How does it come about then that you are travelling with a

party of these very _Amaboona_ who must be your enemies, since they are

the enemies of your king, or of her who follows after him?”

Now I knew that I was in a tight place, for on this matter of loyalty,

Zulu, and indeed all native ideas, are very primitive. If I said that I

had sympathy with the Boers, Dingaan would set me down as a traitor. If

I said that I hated the Boers, then still I should be a traitor because

I associated with them, and a traitor in his eyes would be one to be

killed. I do not like to talk religion, and anyone who has read what I

have written in various works will admit that I have done so rarely, if

ever. Yet at that moment I put up a prayer for guidance, feeling that

my young life hung upon the answer, and it came to me—whence I do not

know. The essence of that guidance was that I should tell the simple

truth to this fat savage. So I said to him:

“The answer is this, O king. Among those Boers is a maiden whom I love

and who betrothed herself to me since we were ‘so high.’ Her father

took her north. But she sent a message to me saying that her people

died of fever and she starved. So I went up in a ship to save her, and

have saved her, and those who remained alive of her people with her.”

“_Ow!_” said Dingaan; “I understand that reason. It is a good reason.

However many wives he may have, there is no folly that a man will not

commit for the sake of some particular girl who is not yet his wife. I

have done as much myself, especially for one who was called Nada the

Lily, of whom a certain Umslopogaas robbed me, one of my own blood of

whom I am much afraid.”[2]

[2] _See_ the Author’s book named “Nada the Lily.”

For a while he brooded heavily, then went on:

“Your reason is good, Macumazahn, and I accept it. More, I promise you

this. Perhaps I shall kill these Boers, or perhaps I shall not kill

them. But if I make up my mind to kill them, this girl of yours shall

be spared. Point her out to Kambula here—not to Tho-maas, for he is a

liar and would tell me the wrong one—and she shall be spared.”

“I thank you, O king,” I said; “but what is the use of that if I am to

be killed?”

“I did not say that you were to be killed, Macumazahn, though perhaps I

shall kill you, or perhaps I shall not kill you. It depends upon

whether I find you to be a liar, or not a liar. Now the Boer whom

Tambusa let go against my wish said that you are a mighty magician as

well as a very dangerous man, one who can shoot birds flying on the

wing with a bullet, which is impossible. Can you do so?”

“Sometimes,” I answered.

“Very good, Macumazahn. Now we will see if you are a wizard or a liar.

I will make a bet with you. Yonder by your camp is a hill called ‘Hloma

Amabutu,’ a hill of stones where evildoers are slain. This afternoon

some wicked ones die there, and when they are dead the vultures will

come to devour them. Now this is my bet with you. When those vultures

come you shall shoot at them, and if you kill three out of the first

five on the wing—not on the ground, Macumazahn—then I will spare these

Boers. But if you miss them, then I shall know that you are a liar and

no wizard, and I will kill them every one on the hill Hloma Amabutu. I

will spare none of them except the girl, whom perhaps I will take as a

wife. As to you, I will not yet say what I will do with you.”

Now my first impulse was to refuse this monstrous wager, which meant

that the lives of a number of people were to be set against my skill in

shooting. But young Thomas Halstead, guessing the words that were about

to break from me, said in English:

“Accept unless you are a fool. If you don’t he will cut the throats of

every one of them and stick your girl into the _emposeni_” (that is

harem), “while you will become a prisoner as I am.”

These were words that I could not resent or neglect, so although

despair was in my heart, I said coolly:

“Be it so, O king. I take your wager. If I kill three vultures out of

five as they hover over the hill, then I have your promise that all

those who travel with me shall be allowed to go hence in safety.”

“Yes, yes, Macumazahn; but if you fail to kill them, remember that the

next vultures you shoot at shall be those that come to feed upon their

flesh, for then I shall know that you are no magician, but a common

liar. And now begone, Tho-maas. I will not have you spying on me; and

you, Macumazahn, come hither. Although you talk my tongue so badly, I

would speak with you about the Boers.”

So Halstead went, shrugging his shoulders and muttering as he passed

me:

“I hope you really _can_ shoot.”

After he had left I sat alone for a full hour with Dingaan while he

cross-examined me about the Dutch, their movements and their aims in

travelling to the confines of his country.

I answered his questions as best I could, trying to make out a good

case for them.

At length, when he grew weary of talking, he clapped his hands, whereon

a number of fine girls appeared, two of whom carried pots of beer, from

which he offered me drink.

I replied that I would have none, since beer made the hand shake and

that on the steadiness of my hand that afternoon depended the lives of

many. To do him justice he quite understood the point. Indeed, he

ordered me to be conducted back to the camp at once that I might rest,

and even sent one of his own attendants with me to hold a shield over

my head as I walked so that I should be protected from the sun.

“_Hamba gachle_” (that is “Go softly”), said the wicked old tyrant to

me as I departed under the guidance of Kambula. “This afternoon, one

hour before sundown, I will meet you at Hloma Amabutu, and there shall

be settled the fate of these _Amaboona_, your companions.”

When I reached the camp it was to find all the Boers clustered together

waiting for me, and with them the Reverend Mr. Owen and his people,

including a Welsh servant of his, a woman of middle age who, I

remember, was called Jane.

“Well,” said the Vrouw Prinsloo, “and what is your news, young man?”

“My news, aunt,” I answered, “is that one hour before sundown to-day I

have to shoot vultures on the wing against the lives of all of you.

This you owe to that false-hearted hound Hernan Pereira, who told

Dingaan that I am a magician. Now Dingaan would prove it. He thinks

that only by magic can a man shoot soaring vultures with a bullet, and

as he is determined to kill you all, except perhaps Marie, in the form

of a bet he has set me a task which he believes to be impossible. If I

fail, the bet is lost, and so are your lives. If I succeed I think your

lives will be spared, since Kambula there tells me that the king always

makes it a point of honour to pay his bets. Now you have the truth, and

I hope you like it,” and I laughed bitterly.

When I had finished a perfect storm of execration broke from the Boers.

If curses could have killed Pereira, surely he would have died upon the

spot, wherever he might be. Only two of them were silent, Marie, who

turned very pale, poor girl, and her father. Presently one of them, I

think it was Meyer, rounded on him viciously and asked him what he

thought now of that devil, his nephew.

“I think there must be some mistake,” answered Marais quietly, “since

Hernan cannot have wished that we should all be put to death.”

“No,” shouted Meyer; “but he wished that Allan Quatermain should, which

is just as bad; and now it has come about that once more our lives

depend upon this English boy.”

“At any rate,” replied Marais, looking at me oddly, “it seems that he

is not to be killed, whether he shoots the vultures or misses them.”

“That remains to be proved, mynheer,” I answered hotly, for the

insinuation stung me. “But please understand that if all of you, my

companions, are to be slaughtered, and Marie is to be put among this

black brute’s women, as he threatens, I have no wish to live on.”

“My God! does he threaten that?” said Marais. “Surely you must have

misunderstood him, Allan.”

“Do you think that I should lie to you on such a matter—” I began.

But, before I could proceed, the Vrouw Prinsloo thrust herself between

us, crying:

“Be silent, you, Marais, and you too, Allan. Is this a time that you

should quarrel and upset yourself, Allan, so that when the trial comes

you will shoot your worst and not your best? And is this a time, Henri

Marais, that you should throw insults at one on whom all our lives

hang, instead of praying for God’s vengeance upon your accursed nephew?

Come, Allan, and take food. I have fried the liver of that heifer which

the king sent us; it is ready and very good. After you have eaten it

you must lie down and sleep a while.”

Now among the household of the Reverend Mr. Owen was an English boy

called William Wood, who was not more than twelve or fourteen years of

age. This lad knew both Dutch and Zulu, and acted as interpreter to the

Owen family during the absence on a journey of a certain Mr. Hulley,

who really filled that office. While this conversation was taking place

in Dutch he was engaged in rendering every word of it into English for

the benefit of the clergyman and his family. When Mr. Owen understood

the full terror of the situation, he broke in saying:

“This is not a time to eat or to sleep, but a time to pray that the

heart of the savage Dingaan may be turned. Come, let us pray!”

“Yes,” rejoined Vrouw Prinsloo, when William Wood had translated. “Do

you pray, _Predicant_, and all the rest of you who have nothing else to

do, and while you are about it pray also that the bullets of Allan

Quatermain may not be turned. As for me and Allan, we have other things

to see to, so you must pray a little harder to cover us as well as

yourselves. Now you come along, nephew Allan, or that liver may be

overdone and give you indigestion, which is worse for shooting than

even bad temper. No, not another word. If you try to speak any more,

Henri Marais, I will box your ears,” and she lifted a hand like a leg

of mutton, then, as Marais retreated before her, seized me by the

collar as though I were a naughty boy and led me away to the wagons.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REHEARSAL

By the women’s wagon we found the liver cooked in its frying-pan, as

the vrouw had said. Indeed, it was just done to a turn. Selecting a

particularly massive slice, she proceeded to take it from the pan with

her fingers in order to set it upon a piece of tin, from which she had

first removed the more evident traces of the morning meal with her

constant companion, the ancient and unwashen _vatdoek_. As it chanced

the effort was not very successful, since the boiling liver fat burnt

the vrouw’s fingers, causing her to drop it on the grass, and, I am

sorry to add, to swear as well. Not to be defeated, however, having

first sucked her fingers to ease their smart, she seized the sizzling

liver with the _vatdoek_ and deposited it upon the dirty tin.

“There, nephew,” she said triumphantly, “there are more ways of killing

a cat than by drowning. What a fool I was not to think of the _vatdoek_

at first. Allemachte! how the flesh has burnt me; I don’t suppose that

being killed would hurt much more. Also, if the worst comes to the

worst, it will soon be over. Think of it, Allan, by to-night I may be

an angel, dressed in a long white nightgown like those my mother gave

me when I was married, which I cut up for baby-clothes because I found

them chilly wear, having always been accustomed to sleep in my vest and

petticoat. Yes, and I shall have wings, too, like those on a white

gander, only bigger if they are to carry _my_ weight.”

“And a crown of Glory,” I suggested.

“Yes, of course, a crown of Glory—very large, since I shall be a

martyr; but I hope one will only have to wear it on Sundays, as I never

could bear anything heavy on my hair; moreover, it would remind me of a

Kaffir’s head-ring done in gold, and I shall have had enough of

Kaffirs. Then there will be the harp,” she went on as her imagination

took fire at the prospect of these celestial delights. “Have you ever

seen a harp, Allan? I haven’t except that which King David carries in

the picture in the Book, which looks like a broken _rimpi_ chair frame

set up edgeways. As for playing the thing, they will have to teach me,

that’s all, which will be a difficult business, seeing that I would

sooner listen to cats on the roof than to music, and as for making it—”

So she chattered on, as I believe with the object of diverting and

amusing me, for she was a shrewd old soul who knew how important it was

that I should be kept in an equable frame of mind at this crisis in our

fates.

Meanwhile I was doing my best with the lump of liver, that tasted

painfully of _vatdoek_ and was gritty with sand. Indeed, when the

vrouw’s back was turned I managed to throw the most of it to Hans

behind me, who swallowed it at a gulp as a dog does, since he did not

wish to be caught chewing it.

“God in heaven! how fast you eat, nephew,” said the vrouw, catching

sight of my empty tin. Then, eyeing the voracious Hottentot

suspiciously, she added: “That yellow dog of yours hasn’t stolen it,

has he? If so, I’ll teach him.”

“No, no, vrouw,” answered Hans in alarm. “No meat has passed my lips

this day, except what I licked out of the pan after breakfast.”

“Then, Allan, you will certainly have indigestion, which is just what I

wanted to avoid. Have I not often told you that you should chew your

bit twenty times before you swallow, which I would do myself if I had

any back teeth left? Here, drink this milk; it is only a little sour

and will settle your stomach,” and she produced a black bottle and

subjected it to the attentions of the _vatdoek_, growing quite angry

when I declined it and sent for water.

Next she insisted upon my getting into her own bed in the wagon to

sleep, forbidding me to smoke, which she said made the hand shake.

Thither, then, I went, after a brief conversation with Hans, whom I

directed to clean my rifle thoroughly. For I wished to be alone and

knew that I had little chance of solitude outside of that somewhat

fusty couch.

To tell the truth, although I shut my eyes to deceive the vrouw, who

looked in occasionally to see how I was getting on, no sleep came to me

that afternoon—at least, not for a long while. How could I sleep in

that hot place when my heart was torn with doubt and terror? Think of

it, reader, think of it! An hour or two, and on my skill would hang the

lives of eight white people—men, women, and children, and the safety or

the utter shame of the woman whom I loved and who loved me. No, she

should be spared the worst. I would give her my pistol, and if there

were need she would know what to do.

The fearful responsibility was more than I could bear. I fell into a

veritable agony; I trembled and even wept a little. Then I thought of

my father and what he would do in such circumstances, and began to pray

as I had never prayed before.

I implored the Power above me to give me strength and wisdom; not to

let me fail in this hour of trouble, and thereby bring these poor

people to a bloody death. I prayed till the perspiration streamed down

my face; then suddenly I fell into sleep or swoon. I don’t know how

long I lay thus, but I think it must have been the best part of an

hour. At last I woke up all in an instant, and as I woke I distinctly

heard a tiny voice, unlike any other voice in the whole world, speak

inside my head, or so it seemed to me, saying:

“_Go to the hill Hloma Amabutu, and watch how the vultures fly. Do what

comes into your mind, and even if you seem to fail, fear nothing._”

I sat up on the old vrouw’s bed, and felt that some mysterious change

had come over me. I was no longer the same man. My doubts and terrors

had gone; my hand was like a rock; my heart was light. I knew that I

should kill those three vultures. Of course the story seems absurd, and

easy to be explained by the state of my nerves under the strain which

was being put upon them, and for aught I know that may be its true

meaning. Yet I am not ashamed to confess that I have always held, and

still hold, otherwise. I believe that in my extremity some kindly Power

did speak to me in answer to my earnest prayers and to those of others,

giving me guidance and, what I needed still more, judgment and

calmness. At any rate, that this was my conviction at the moment may be

seen from the fact that I hastened to obey the teachings of that tiny,

unnatural voice.

Climbing out of the wagon, I went to Hans, who was seated near by in

the full glare of the hot sun, at which he seemed to stare with

unblinking eyes.

“Where’s the rifle, Hans?” I said.

“_Intombi_ is here, baas, where I have put her to keep her cool, so

that she may not go off before it is wanted,” and he pointed to a

little grave-like heap of gathered grass at his side.

The natives, I should explain, named this particular gun _Intombi_,

which means a young girl, because it was so much slimmer and more

graceful than other guns.

“Is it clean?” I asked.

“Never was she cleaner since she was born out of the fire, baas. Also,

the powder has been sifted and set to dry in the sun with the caps, and

the bullets have been trued to the barrel, so that there may be no

accidents when it comes to the shooting. If you miss the _aasvogels_,

baas, it will not be the fault of _Intombi_ or of the powder and the

bullets; it will be your own fault.”

“That’s comforting,” I answered. “Well, come on, I want to go to the

Death-hill yonder.”

“Why, baas, before the time?” asked the Hottentot, shrinking back a

little. “It is no place to visit till one is obliged. These Zulus say

that ghosts sit there even in the daylight, haunting the rocks where

they were made ghosts.”

“Vultures sit or fly there also, Hans; and I would see how they fly,

that I may know when and where to shoot at them.”

“That is right, baas,” said the clever Hottentot. “This is not like

firing at geese in the Groote Kloof. The geese go straight, like an

assegai to its mark. But the _aasvogels_ wheel round and round, always

on the turn; it is easy to miss a bird that is turning, baas.”

“Very easy. Come on.”

Just as we were starting Vrouw Prinsloo appeared from behind the other

wagon, and with her Marie, who, I noticed, was very pale and whose

beautiful eyes were red, as though with weeping.

The vrouw asked me where we were going. I told her. After considering a

little, she said that was a good thought of mine, as it was always well

to study the ground before a battle.

I nodded, and led Marie aside behind some thorn trees that grew near.

“Oh! Allan, what will be the end of this?” she asked piteously. High as

was her courage it seemed to fail her now.

“A good end, dearest,” I answered. “We shall come out of this hole

safely, as we have of many others.”

“How do you know that, Allan, which is known to God alone?”

“Because God told me, Marie,” and I repeated to her the story of the

voice I had heard in my dream, which seemed to comfort her.

“Yet, yet,” she exclaimed doubtfully, “it was but a dream, Allan, and

dreams are such uncertain things. You may fail, after all.”

“Do I look like one who will fail, Marie?”

She studied me from head to foot, then answered:

“No, you do not, although you did when you came back from the king’s

huts. Now you are quite changed. Still, Allan, you may fail, and

then—what? Some of those dreadful Zulus have been here while you were

sleeping, bidding us all make ready to go to the Hill of Death. They

say that Dingaan is in earnest. If you do not kill the vultures, he

will kill us. It seems that they are sacred birds, and if they escape

he will think he has nothing to fear from the white men and their

magic, and so will make a beginning by butchering us. I mean the rest

of us, for I am to be kept alive, and oh! what shall I do, Allan?”

I looked at her, and she looked at me. Then I took the double-barrelled

pistol out of my pocket and gave it to her.

“It is loaded and on the half-cock,” I said.

She nodded, and hid it in her dress beneath her apron. Then without

more words we kissed and parted, for both of us feared to prolong that

scene.

The hill Hloma Amabutu was quite close to our encampment and the huts

of the Reverend Mr. Owen, scarcely a quarter of a mile off, I should

say, rising from the flat veld on the further side of a little

depression that hardly amounted to a valley. As we approached it I

noticed its peculiar and blasted appearance, for whereas all around the

grass was vivid with the green of spring, on this place none seemed to

grow. An eminence strewn with tumbled heaps of blackish rock, and among

them a few struggling, dark-leaved bushes; that was its appearance.

Moreover, many of these boulders looked as though they had been

splashed and lined with whitewash, showing that they were the

resting-place of hundreds of gorged vultures.

I believe it is the Chinese who declare that particular localities have

good or evil influences attached to them, some kind of spirit of their

own, and really Hloma Amabutu and a few other spots that I am

acquainted with in Africa give colour to the fancy. Certainly as I set

foot upon that accursed ground, that Golgotha, that Place of Skulls, a

shiver went through me. It may have been caused by the atmosphere,

moral and actual, of the mount, or it may have been a prescience of a

certain dreadful scene which within a few months I was doomed to

witness there. Or perhaps the place itself and the knowledge of the

trial before me sent a sudden chill through my healthy blood. I cannot

say which it was, but the fact remains as I have stated, although a

minute or two later, when I saw what kind of sleepers lay upon that

mount, it would not have been necessary for me to seek any far-fetched

explanation of my fear.

Across this hill, winding in and out between the rough rocks that lay

here, there and everywhere like hailstones after a winter storm, ran

sundry paths. It seems that the shortest road to various places in the

neighbourhood of the Great Kraal ran over it, and although no Zulu ever

dared to set foot there between sun-set and rise, in the daytime they

used these paths freely enough. But I suppose that they also held that

this evil-omened field of death had some spirit of its own, some

invisible but imminent fiend, who needed to be propitiated, lest soon

he should claim them also.

This was their method of propitiation, a common one enough, I believe,

in many lands, though what may be its meaning I cannot tell. As the

traveller came to those spots where the paths cut across each other, he

took a stone and threw it on to a heap that had been accumulated there

by the hands of other travellers. There were many such heaps upon the

hill, over a dozen, I think, and the size of them was great. I should

say that the biggest contained quite fifty loads of stones, and the

smallest not fewer than twenty or thirty.

Now, Hans, although he had never set foot there before, seemed to have

learned all the traditions of the place, and what rites were necessary

to avert its curse. At any rate, when we came to the first heap, he

cast a stone upon it, and begged me to do the same. I laughed and

refused, but when we reached the second heap the same thing happened.

Again I refused, whereon, before we came to a third and larger pile,

Hans sat down upon the ground and began to groan, swearing that he

would not go one step farther unless I promised to make the accustomed

offering.

“Why not, you fool?” I asked.

“Because if you neglect it, baas, I think that we shall stop here for

ever. Oh! you may laugh, but I tell you that already you have brought

ill-luck upon yourself. Remember my words, baas, when you miss two of

the five _aasvogels_.”

“Bosh!” I exclaimed, or, rather, its Dutch equivalent. Still, as this

talk of missing vultures touched me nearly, and it is always as well to

conform to native prejudices, at the next and two subsequent heaps I

cast my stone as humbly as the most superstitious Zulu in the land.

By this time we had reached the summit, which may have been two hundred

yards long. It was hog-backed in shape, with a kind of depression in

the middle cleared of stones, either by the hand of man or nature, and

not unlike a large circus in its general conformation.

Oh! the sight that met my eyes. All about lay the picked and scattered

bones of men and women, many of them broken up by the jaws of hyenas.

Some were quite fresh, for the hair still clung to the skulls, others

blanched and old. But new or ancient there must have been hundreds of

them. Moreover, on the sides of the hill it was the same story, though

there, for the most part, the bones had been gathered into gleaming

heaps. No wonder that the vultures loved Hloma Amabutu, the Place of

Slaughter of the bloody Zulu king.

Of these horrible birds, however, at the moment not one was to be seen.

As there had been no execution for a few hours they were seeking their

food elsewhere. Now, for my own purposes, I wanted to see them, since

otherwise my visit was in vain, and presently bethought myself of a

method of securing their arrival.

“Hans,” I said, “I am going to pretend to kill you, and then you must

lie quite still out there like one dead. Even if the _aasvogels_ settle

on you, you must lie quite still, so that I may see whence they come

and how they settle.”

The Hottentot did not take at all kindly to this suggestion. Indeed, he

flatly refused to obey me, giving sundry good reasons. He said that

this kind of rehearsal was ill-omened; that coming events have a way of

casting their shadow before, and he did not wish to furnish the event.

He said that the Zulus declared that the sacred _aasvogels_ of Hloma

Amabutu were as savage as lions, and that when once they saw a man down

they would tear him to pieces, dead or living. In short, Hans and I

came to an acute difference of opinion. As for every reason it was

necessary that my view should prevail, however, I did not hesitate to

put matters to him very plainly.

“Hans,” I said, “you have to be a bait for vultures; choose if you will

be a live bait or a dead bait,” and I cocked the rifle significantly,

although, in truth, the last thing that I wished or intended to do was

to shoot my faithful old Hottentot friend. But Hans, knowing all I had

at stake, came to a different conclusion.

“Allemachte! baas,” he said, “I understand, and I do not blame you.

Well, if I obey alive, perhaps my guardian Snake” (or spirit) “will

protect me from the evil omen, and perhaps the _aasvogels_ will not

pick out my eyes. But if once you send a bullet through my stomach—why,

then everything is finished, and for Hans it is ‘Good night, sleep

well.’ I will obey you, baas, and lie where you wish, only, I pray you,

do not forget me and go away, leaving me with those devil birds.”

I promised him faithfully that I would not. Then we went through a very

grim little pantomime. Proceeding to the centre of the arena-like

space, I lifted the gun, and appeared to dash out Hans’ brains with its

butt. He fell upon his back, kicked about a little, and lay still. This

finished Act 1.

Act 2 was that, capering like a brute of a Zulu executioner, I retired

from my victim and hid myself in a bush on the edge of the plateau at a

distance of forty yards. After this there was a pause. The place was

intensely bright with sunshine and intensely silent; as silent as the

skeletons of the murdered men about me; as silent as Hans, who lay

there looking so very small and dead in that big theatre where no grass

grew. It was an eerie wait in such surroundings, but at length the

curtain rang up for Act 3.

In the infinite arch of blue above me I perceived a speck, no larger

than a mote of dust. The _aasvogel_ on watch up there far out of the

range of man’s vision had seen the deed, and, by sinking downwards,

signalled it to his companions that were quartering the sky for fifty

miles round; for these birds prey by sight, not by smell. Down he came

and down, and long before he had reached the neighbourhood of earth

other specks appeared in the distant blue. Now he was not more than

four or five hundred yards above me, and began to wheel, floating round

the place upon his wide wings, and sinking as he wheeled. So he sank

softly and slowly until he was about a hundred and fifty feet above

Hans. Then suddenly he paused, hung quite steady for a few seconds,

shut his wings and fell like a bolt, only opening them again just

before he reached the earth.

Here he settled, tilting forward in that odd way which vultures have,

and scrambling a few awkward paces until he gained his balance. Then he

froze into immobility, gazing with an awful, stony glare at the

prostrate Hans, who lay within about fifteen feet of him. Scarcely was

this _aasvogel_ down, when others, summoned from the depths of sky, did

as he had done. They appeared, they sank, they wheeled, always from

east to west, the way the sun travels. They hovered for a few seconds,

then fell like stones, pitched on to their beaks, recovered themselves,

waddled forward into line, and sat gazing at Hans. Soon there was a

great ring of them about him, all immovable, all gazing, all waiting

for something.

Presently that something appeared in the shape of an _aasvogel_ which

was nearly twice as big as any of the others. This was what the Boers

and the natives call the “king vulture,” one of which goes with every

flock. He it is who rules the roost and also the carcase, which without

his presence and permission none dare to attack. Whether this vile fowl

is of a different species from the others, or whether he is a bird of

more vigorous growth and constitution that has outgrown the rest and

thus become their overlord, is more than I can tell. At least it is

certain, as I can testify from long and constant observation, that

almost every flock of vultures has its king.

When this particular royalty had arrived, the other _aasvogels_, of

which perhaps there were now fifty or sixty gathered round Hans, began

to show signs of interested animation. They looked at the king bird,

they looked at Hans, stretching out their naked red necks and winking

their brilliant eyes. I, however, did not pay particular attention to

those upon the earth, being amply occupied in watching their fellows in

the air.

With delight I observed that the vulture is a very conservative

creature. They all did what doubtless they have done since the days of

Adam or earlier—wheeled, and then hung that little space of time before

they dropped to the ground like lead. This, then, would be the moment

at which to shoot them, when for four or five seconds they offered

practically a sitting target. Now, at that distance, always under a

hundred yards, I knew well that I could hit a tea plate every shot, and

a vulture is much larger than a tea plate. So it seemed to me that,

barring accidents, I had little to fear from the terrible trial of

skill which lay before me. Again and again I covered the hovering birds

with my rifle, feeling that if I had pressed the trigger I should have

pierced them through.

Thinking it well to practise, I continued this game for a long while,

till at last it came to an unexpected end. Suddenly I heard a scuffling

sound. Dropping my glance I saw that the whole mob of _aasvogels_ were

rushing in upon Hans, helping themselves forward by flapping their

great wings, and that about three feet in front of them was their king.

Next instant Hans vanished, and from the centre of that fluffy,

stinking mass there arose a frightful yell.

As a matter of fact, as I found afterwards, the king vulture had

fastened on to his snub nose, whilst its dreadful companions, having

seized other portions of his frame, were beginning to hang back after

their fashion in order to secure some chosen morsel. Hans kicked and

screamed, and I rushed in shouting, causing them to rise in a great,

flapping cloud that presently vanished this way and that. Within a

minute they had all gone, and the Hottentot and I were left alone.

“That is good,” I said. “You played well.”

“Good! baas,” he answered, “and I with two cuts in my nose in which I

can lay my finger, and bites all over me. Look how my trousers are

torn. Look at my head—where is the hair? Look at my nose. Good! Played

well! It is those _verdomde aasvogels_ that played. Oh! baas, if you

had seen and smelt them, you would not say that it was good. See, one

more second and I, who have two nostrils, should have had four.”

“Never mind, Hans,” I said, “it is only a scratch, and I will make you

a present of some new trousers. Also, here is tobacco for you. Come to

the bush; let us talk.”

So we went, and when Hans was a little composed I told him all that I

had observed about the habits of the _aasvogel_ in the air, and he told

me all that he had observed about their habits on the ground, which, as

I might not shoot them sitting, did not interest me. Still, he agreed

with me that the right moment to fire would be just before they

pounced.

Whilst we were still talking we heard a sound of shouts, and, looking

over the brow of the hill that faced towards Umgungundhlovu, we saw a

melancholy sight. Being driven up the slope towards us by three

executioners and a guard of seven or eight soldiers, their hands tied

behind their backs, were three men, one very old, one of about fifty

years of age, and one a lad, who did not look more than eighteen. As I

soon heard, they were of a single family, the grandfather, the father,

and the eldest son, who had been seized upon some ridiculous charge of

witchcraft, but really in order that the king might take their cattle.

Having been tried and condemned by the _Nyangas_, or witch-doctors,

these poor wretches were now doomed to die. Indeed, not content with

thus destroying the heads of the tribe, present and to come, for three

generations, all their descendants and collaterals had already been

wiped out by Dingaan, so that he might pose as sole heir to the family

cattle.

Such were the dreadful cruelties that happened in Zululand in those

days.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PLAY

The doomed three were driven by their murderers into the centre of the

depression, within a few yards of which Hans and I were standing.

After them came the head executioner, a great brute who wore a

curiously shaped leopard-skin cap—I suppose as a badge of office—and

held in his hand a heavy kerry, the shaft of which was scored with many

notches, each of them representing a human life.

“See, White Man,” he shouted, “here is the bait which the king sends to

draw the holy birds to you. Had it not been that you needed such bait,

perhaps these wizards would have escaped. But the Black One said the

little Son of George, who is named Macumazahn, needs them that he may

show his magic, and therefore they must die to-day.”

Now, at this information I turned positively sick. Nor did it make me

feel better when the youngest of the victims, hearing the executioner’s

words, flung himself upon his knees, and began to implore me to spare

him. His grandfather also addressed me, saying:

“Chief, will it not be enough if I die? I am old, and my life does not

matter. Or if one is not sufficient, take me and my son, and let the

lad, my grandson, go free. We are all of us innocent of any witchcraft,

and he is not even old enough to practise such things, being but an

unmarried boy. Chief, you, also, are young. Would not your heart be

heavy if you had to be slain when the sun of your life was still new in

the sky? Think, White Chief, what your father would feel, if you have

one, should he be forced to see you killed before his eyes, that some

stranger might use your body to show his skill with a magic weapon by

slaying the wild things that would eat it.”

Now, almost with tears, I broke in, explaining to the venerable man as

well as I could that their horrible fate had nothing to do with me. I

told him that I was innocent of their blood, who was forced to be there

to try to shoot vultures on the wing in order to save my white

companions from a doom similar to their own. He listened attentively,

asking a question now and again, and when he had mastered my meaning,

said with a most dignified calmness:

“Now I understand, White Man, and am glad to learn that you are not

cruel, as I thought. My children,” he added, turning to the others,

“let us trouble this _Inkoos_ no more. He only does what he must do to

save the lives of his brethren by his skill, if he can. If we continue

to plead with him and stir his heart to pity, the sorrow swelling in it

may cause his hand to shake, and then they will die also, and their

blood be on his head and ours. My children, it is the king’s will that

we should be slain. Let us make ready to obey the king, as men of our

House have always done. White lord, we thank you for your good words.

May you live long, and may good fortune sleep in your hut to the end.

May you shoot straight, also, with your magic tool, and thereby win the

lives of your company out of the hand of the king. Farewell, _Inkoos_,”

and since he could not lift his bound hands in salutation, he bowed to

me, as did the others.

Then they walked to a little distance, and, seating themselves on the

ground, began to talk together, and after a while to drone some strange

chant in unison. The executioners and the guards also sat down not far

away, laughing, chatting, and passing a horn of snuff from hand to

hand. Indeed, I observed that the captain of them even took some snuff

to the victims, and held it in his palm beneath their noses while they

drew it up their nostrils and politely thanked him between the sneezes.

As for myself, I lit a pipe and smoked it, for I seemed to require a

stimulant, or, rather, a sedative. Before it was finished Hans, who was

engaged in doctoring his scratches made by the vultures’ beaks with a

concoction of leaves which he had been chewing, exclaimed suddenly in

his matter-of-fact voice:

“See, baas, here they come, the white people on one side and the black

on the other, just like the goats and the sheep at Judgment Day in the

Book.”