will--the ivory tusk, standing there in the corner of that silent room,
now a chamber of death and horror, was the tusk of the elephant seen by
Kensley in his singular dream--vision it might rather be called--of that
fateful evening. The name of the dead man upon the carpet there was
Manoel Barreto. The name of the Portuguese captain whom Kensley had in
his dream seen slain by the single-tusked elephant, more than two
hundred years agone, was Manoel Barreto too. The one was a lineal
descendant of the other. Zingesi's death was again avenged. All this,
however, Cecil Kensley, as he stood there, haggard and white-faced, knew
not--he only surmised dimly some part of it.
The clock chimed out two in soft, resonant tones. Kensley went to the
spirit-stand, poured out some brandy in a tumbler and drank it down.
Then he touched the electric bell. His man came to the door, heavy-eyed
and sleepy. At sight of Barreto's body, the scattered cards upon the
floor, his master's shirt-front soaked in blood, he turned ghastly pale
and opened his mouth to make exclamation.
"Thompson," said his master, "there has been terrible work. Go into the
street and fetch a policeman and a doctor."
Pressing a handkerchief to his wound, he sank into a chair as his man
went forth upon the errand.
The great tusk, the key to that grim tragedy, still gleamed there behind
him, cold, inscrutable, majestic, its history of blood not yet ended.
CHAPTER THREE.
JAN PRINSLOO'S KLOOF.
Far away in the gloomiest recesses of a range lying between Zwart
Ruggens and the Zwartberg, Cape Colony, not far from where the mountains
of that wild and secluded district give place to the eastern limits of
the plateau of the Great Karroo, there lies hidden, and almost unknown,
a kloof or gorge, whose dark and forbidding aspect, united to the wild
and horrid legend with which it is invested, prevents any but the chance
hunter or wandering traveller from ever invading its fastnesses. This
kloof is about seven miles from the rough track that in these regions is
dignified by the name of road; it is approached by a poort or pass
through the mountains, and the way is, even for South Africa, a rough
and dangerous one, although there are indications that a rude
waggon-track did formerly exist there. Standing upon the steep side of
this kloof are the remains of what must have once been a roomy and
substantial Boer farmhouse; but the four walls are roofless, the windows
and doorways naked and destitute of sashes, the euphorbia, the prickly
pear, and clambering weeds grow within and without, the lizard and snake
abide there, and the whole appearance of the place denotes that many
years have elapsed since Prinsloo's Kloof was tenanted by human life.
In many respects the wild kloof gives evidence that the Boer who first
tarried there had an eye for good pasturage for his flocks and herds.
The spekboom and many another succulent bush, dear to the goal breeder,
flourish amid the broken and chaotic rocks with which the hill sides are
strewn. A strong fountain of water runs with limpid current from the
mountain at the back of the house; the flat tops of the hills around are
clothed with long waving grasses, and the valley is, manifestly, well
fitted to be the nursery of a horse-breeding establishment. A tributary
of the Gamtoos River flows deeply, if fitfully, below the sheer and
overhanging cliffs in a chain of pools, called zee-koe gats (sea-cow or
hippopotamus deeps)--the hippopotamus, though his name lingers behind,
no longer revels in the flood--and the bottom of the valley is in many
parts fertile and suited for the growth of grain and fodder crops.
Broken and uncouth as are many portions of the Witteberg and Zwartberg,
the neighbourhood of Prinsloo's Kloof far surpasses them. There the
volcanic action of a bygone age has perpetrated the most extraordinary
freaks. The mountains are torn into shapes so wild and fantastic, that,
viewed in profile against the red glow of the setting sun, all manner of
weird objects may be conjured before the imagination. In some places,
as the kloof runs into the heart of the hills, the cliff sides are so
deep, so precipitous, and so narrow, that but little sunlight can
penetrate beneath, and even on a hot day of African summer a chill
strikes upon the spectator passing through.
It is not difficult to understand, from a Boer point of view, that this
stern valley was a well chosen spot in which to build a farmhouse. The
distance from a roadway, is, in Boer eyes, of no great account, and, as
a rule, the farther from human habitation the Dutch farmer can get the
better he is pleased. As for the forbidding aspect of the kloof, the
stolid, unimaginative Boer would be little troubled on that score; he
has no eye whatever for picturesque or scenic effect, and will plant
himself as readily upon the treeless wastes of the Orange Free State, or
the most stony, barren mountain-side of the Old Colony, as in the most
beautiful and wooded country that South Africa can give him.
When Jan Prinsloo trekked into the kloof, towards the end of the last
century, the place must have been a very paradise and nursery of game.
In the river the hippopotamus played, elephants roamed through the
valleys and poorts everywhere around, the zebras ran in large troops
upon the mountain tops, and many of the larger game, such as koodoo, the
buffalo, and the hartebeest, wandered fearlessly and free; while of the
smaller game, such as rhebok, duykerbok, and klipspringer, judging from
the abundance of the present day, there must have been literally
multitudes. To Jan Prinsloo, then, wild and sombre as the place was, it
must have appeared, as he trekked down the pass, a veritable Boer
elysium. But Jan, having played his part in the world--a part more
fierce and turbulent even than was usual to the marauding frontier Boers
of a hundred years ago--made his exit from the scene in a manner cruel
and horrible enough to match fitly with the rest of his wicked and
violent existence.
Since Jan Prinsloo's fearful ending, which will be hereafter alluded to,
the kloof has borne an evil reputation. Now and again a Boer has taken
the farm, tempted by its pastoral advantages and its low purchase-money,
but somehow, none have ever stayed upon it for long. The last tenant,
an Englishman, quitted it hastily nearly forty years ago, and ever since
then the house has become year by year more sombre and more desolate,
the footsteps of human beings now rarely penetrate thither, and even the
very Kaffirs avoid the place.
In September of the year 1860, a young English Afrikander, Stephen
Goodrick by name, who had, from the time he could handle a rifle, been
engaged in the far interior in the then lucrative, if dangerous,
occupation of elephant-hunting, having amassed, at the age of thirty,
some four or five thousand pounds, after fourteen years of hunting and
trading in Northern Bechuanaland and the Lake Ngami region, threw up the
game, and trekked down to Grahamstown with his last loads of ivory.
These disposed of and his affairs settled, he took unto himself for a
wife, a handsome, dark-eyed girl, the daughter of Scotch parents, living
near his own family in the Western Province, and then set about looking
for a farm, having determined to settle down to the more peaceful
pursuits of pastoral farming. After a month of riding hither and
thither, inspecting farms in the districts of Swellendam, Oudtshoorn,
and George, none of which pleased his fancy, he turned his attention to
the Eastern Province.
Goodrick had been long and continuously away from the Cape, and in the
brief intervals when he had rested from his hunting and trading
expeditions he had usually stayed with his father, an old colonist, in
Swellendam, a district to the south-west of the Colony. His knowledge,
therefore, of the Eastern Province was necessarily somewhat restricted.
Stephen, by chance, heard one day from a Boer trekking by with fruit and
tobacco, that another Boer named Van der Meulen was leaving his farm
near the end of Zwartberg. Losing no time, Stephen saddled up, paid
temporary farewell to his wife, whom he left at his father's house, and,
traversing Lange Kloof and crossing the Kougaberg, he entered, on the
afternoon of the third day, Prinsloo's Kloof, whither he had been
directed.
It was a glorious hot afternoon in early summer, the sun shone as only
it can in Africa, and under its brilliant rays and with the wealth of
vegetation and flower life springing up everywhere around, the kloof,
savage though it appeared, put on its mellowest aspect; and as Goodrick
rode up to the farmhouse and noticed the flocks and herds, all sleek and
in good condition, he thought that there might be worse places in which
to outspan for life than this beautiful, if solemn valley.
At the farmhouse he was welcomed by the owner. Van der Meulen, and
after a stroll round the kraals and supper over a business conversation
took place before the family retired to rest, which, as it seemed to the
young Englishman, they did hurriedly and with some odd glances at one
another. Next morning all were up early, and Goodrick rode round the
farm--all good mountain pasture, embracing some 19,000 morgen (rather
more than 40,000 acres) in its area. The Boer, in his uncouth, rough
way, warmly praised the farm; the price he asked was extremely small,
and the annual Government quit rent very trifling. Van der Meulen
explained as his reason for selling the place, apparently so much below
its value, that he had been offered, at an absurdly small price, a very
fine farm in the Transvaal by a relation who had lately annexed the best
of the land of a native chief; and, as many of his blood relations,
Voertrekkers of 1836, were settled there, he wished to quit the Colony
quickly and join them. Finally, Goodrick agreed to buy the farm,
together with part of the stock, and, early on the following morning,
left the kloof. The purchase was shortly completed at Cape Town, where
the vendor and purchaser met a week afterwards, and, the Van der Meulens
having trekked out with all their household goods and belongings, the
Englishman and his wife prepared to enter upon their property.
Stephen Goodrick, then, with two waggons, carrying his wife, her white
female servant, and a quantity of furniture and household and farming
necessaries, and taking with him four Hottentots and half-a-dozen
horses, trekked again through Lange Kloof, over the Kougaberg, and
thence through a country partly mountain, partly karroo, until one
afternoon early in October, the waggons crossed the deep and dangerous
drift of the river, and went up through the poort that led into
Prinsloo's Kloof. After a most difficult and tedious piece of
travelling for some seven miles--for the half-forgotten waggon-track lay
up and down precipitous ascents and declivities, littered here and there
with huge boulders, or hollowed out into dangerous spruits and holes--at
length the stout but wearied oxen faced the last steep hill to the
farmhouse, and with many a pistol crack of the great whip, many a
Hottentot curse directed at Zwartland, Kleinboy, Engelschman, Akerman,
and the rest, dragged their heavy burdens up to the open space that had
been cleared in front of the homestead. It had been arranged that Van
der Meulen's eldest son should remain upon the farm until Goodrick and
his wife had arrived, and further, that an old Hottentot, Cupido by
name, who knew the farm and its ways well, and two young Kaffirs, who
had lately arrived from the Transkei in search of work, should transfer
their services to the new-comer.
These four being therefore ready, having already brought in and kraaled
the goats for the night, they assisted the Englishman to outspan his
oxen and unload the waggons. After two or three hours' hard work, a
good portion of the waggons was unloaded, and part of the furniture
arranged in the house; three of the horses were placed for the night in
the rough building adjoining the dwelling-house that served for a
stable, while the remainder had been turned into a large stone kraal
which lay on the other flank of the house. Meanwhile the white servant
had prepared the supper, which partaken of, the wearied travellers
retired to rest. About the middle of the night Goodrick and his wife
were suddenly aroused by a great commotion in the stable; the horses
were trampling, plunging and squealing as if suddenly disturbed or
scared. Then there rose upon the night, as it seemed just outside the
house, a wild scream, hideous in its intensity and full of horror.
Hastily thrusting on some clothes and taking a lantern, Goodrick ran
round to the stable. The night, though there was no moon, was not dark,
and the stars shone clear in the firmament above. Nothing was to be
seen, no sound could be heard save the snorting of the horses, and the
weird cry of a leopard (strangely different, as the hearer well knew,
from the scream heard just previously) that sounded from the rocks a
mile or so away on the right. Quickly entering the stable, Stephen was
astonished to find the horses in a profuse sweat, trembling, their
halters broken, their eyes startled and excited, and their whole
demeanour indicating intense fear. What could be the cause? There was,
apparently, no wild animal about, nothing in the stable calculated to
excite alarm; the animals were old comrades, and not likely to have been
fighting. Goodrick was altogether puzzled, and, leaving the stable,
went to a shed in rear of the house, where the natives slept, and roused
the old Hottentot. The man could give no reason for the disturbance.
Wolves (hyaenas) were not likely to approach the house, and the tigers
(leopards) had not been very troublesome lately, and he could think of
nothing else to explain the matter. There was a scared look in the old
man's face, which Goodrick thought nothing of at the time, but which he
afterwards remembered. After some little trouble, fresh halters were
procured, the horses tied up and soothed, and the two again retired,
Cupido being cautioned to keep his ears open against further
disturbance. Nothing further occurred during the night.
Next morning, after seeing the goats unkraaled, watered and despatched
to their day's pasturage in charge of the two Kaffir herds, Goodrick
asked the young Boer at breakfast if he had heard the noise among the
horses, and the wild scream, and what could be the cause, and if there
was any cattle-stealing about this wild neighbourhood. Young Van der
Meulen's heavy, immovable countenance changed slightly, but he replied
that he could give no explanation except that perhaps a leopard might
have been prowling about; they were pretty numerous in the kloof.
Stephen explained that he and the Hottentots had spoored everywhere
around the stable for leopards, but could find no trace.
Here the subject dropped, and Van der Meulen relapsed into silence,
except when the Englishman asked him what game there was about the
hills. "You will find," he said, "plenty of small buck--klipspringers,
rhebok, and duykerbok, and there are still a fair number of koodoo
which, however, take some stalking. Then on the berg tops there are
several troops of zebras, as well as hyaenas and leopards; but the
zebras we have seldom shot, they take so much climbing after, and you
know we Dutchmen prefer riding to walking. You will find also lots of
springbok and steinbok and some black wildebeest (gnu) on the plains
beyond the mountains. Yes, I have had many a _mooi schiet op de plaats_
(pretty shoot on the farm)." Suddenly the young man's heavy features
changed again as he said, "Allemaghte! (Almighty) but I shall be glad
to get out of this place; I hate it! I want again to get on to the
Transvaal high veldt, where I trekked through two years ago, and where
you can shoot as many blauuw wildebeest (brindled gnu), blessbok,
quagga, springbok, and hartebeest as you want in a day's ride. Ja! that
is the land for me; these gloomy poorts and kloofs are only fit for
leopards and spooks (ghosts). Then, you know, Mynheer, the Transvaal is
free; we never loved your Government, which is always wanting from us
this, that and the other, and I shall be glad to trek out. Up in
Zoutpansberg we shall be able to hunt the kameel (giraffe), and the
zwart-wit-pens (sable antelope), and elephant, as much as we like, and
for our winter pasture we shall not have to pay a single rix-dollar.
Ja! I have had enough of Prinsloo's Kloof, and never wish to see it
again." This long speech delivered, the Boer relapsed into silence.
There was a curious look on the young man's face as he had spoken, which
Goodrick and his wife could not quite define or understand.
An hour afterwards Van der Meulen had slung his rifle on his back,
packed some biltong (sun-dried meat) in his pockets, saddled up his
horse, and bidden farewell to the tenants of the kloof. The Englishman
and his young wife watched his retreating form as it slowly proceeded
down the valley, and presently disappeared amidst a grove of acacia
trees that margined the river; then they turned to the house. "I don't
quite understand that fellow," said Stephen, "do you, Mary? I can't
help thinking there was something behind what he said. Why were his
people so eager to leave this farm? However, dearest, the farm is a
good one and a cheap one; we are young and strong and ought to be as
happy as any two people in the Colony."
"Yes, Stephen," said his wife, "I thought there was something queer in
what the young man said, but it could have been only fancy. I am sure
we ought to be happy and contented, and with you by my side, I shall
always be so."
In a few weeks' time Goodrick had increased his stock of goats, and had
bought a sufficient number of horses to start a stud farm upon the
mountains around. Things seemed to be going well with him. The pasture
was in splendid condition, the valleys and kloofs that led into the
mountains literally blazed with flowers of every conceivable hue, from
the great pink or crimson blossomed aloes, that gave warmth to the
towering brown rocks above, to the lovely heaths, irises, and
pelargoniums that clothed as with a brilliant carpet the bottom grounds.
The house had been thoroughly cleansed, put into order, and the new
furniture settled into it, and young Mrs Goodrick busily employed her
days in household duties. Her husband had had several good days'
shooting about the hills, and had brought in two koodoos (one of the
largest and most magnificent of South African antelopes), whose noble
spiral horns now adorned the dining-room, besides many a head of smaller
antelopes and innumerable francolins, pheasants, ducks, and other
feathered game.
Yet, somehow, though things had so far gone well, the young couple were
not quite comfortable. The disturbances among the horses, although not
repeated for several nights, had occasionally happened; the same horrid
scream had been heard, and their causes had so far completely baffled
Stephen Goodrick. He had tried all sorts of plans, changed the horses,
and even had them all turned loose together in the great stone kraal,
but with the same results. They were found over and over again at
night, mad with fear and drenched with sweat, trampling and plunging in
the stable, or tearing about the inclosure.
Cupido and the Kaffirs, and his own Swellendam Hottentots, had been
questioned and cross-examined, but to no purpose. Twice had Goodrick
remained on the watch all night. On one occasion he believed he had
seen a figure move quickly past him in the darkness, and the horses had
been disturbed at the same time; but nothing further could be traced and
no spoor of man or quadruped was ever discovered. The thing was a
mystery. At length, one moonlight night, Goodrick ran out, hearing the
now familiar noises, and, taking with him his great brindled dog, which
had often hunted elephants, rhinoceros, buffalo and lion, he quickly
went round to the stable.
At this moment the two Kaffir herds also came running out on hearing the
noise. Just as they approached the stable together they beheld a figure
pass through the open doorway, as they supposed, and swiftly glide away
to the hillside. The dark figure was clad in a broad-brimmed Boer hat
and quaintly cut old-fashioned dress, as Goodrick could plainly notice.
Stephen shouted, and with the Kaffirs gave chase, but after a few
minutes' running the man suddenly vanished into the bushy scrub that
grew on the mountain-side, and no further trace could be found, although
the Kaffirs hunted everywhere around.
Meanwhile Stephen turned for his dog, surprised that the animal, usually
so fierce and impetuous, had not led the chase. To his utter
astonishment, "Tao" was close at his heels, his tail between his legs,
his hackles up, and with every symptom of terror upon him. The thing
was incomprehensible; the dog had never feared man or beast in his life
before, and many a time and oft had faced, as they turned at bay, the
fierce and snarling lion, the dangerous sable antelope with his
scimitar-like horns, and the wounded and screaming elephant. At length,
turning back, they entered the stable; to their surprise the door was
locked, and on being opened the horses as usual were loose and in the
last extremity of fright. Nothing more could be done that night. In
the morning the Kaffirs and Hottentots searched everywhere for spoor,
but could find no trace of the midnight marauder. Cupido, indeed, shook
his head, rolled his bloodshot-looking eyes, and appeared to take the
occurrence as a matter of course.
Three mornings afterwards the two Kaffirs came to Stephen, declared that
they had seen on the previous night the same dark figure just outside
their sleeping shed; that the terrible expression on the face of this
apparition, which they saw distinctly in the moonlight, had made them
utterly sick and terror-stricken; that the thing was a thing of
witchcraft, and that nothing would induce them to stay another night on
the farm.
"We like the N'kose (chief or master) well," they said, "but we dare not
stay in this country or we shall be slain by the witchcraft we see
around us; why do you not get a `smeller out' to cleanse this place from
the evil?" The two men, who, in daylight, were, as most Kaffirs are,
bold, hardy fellows, were evidently in earnest in what they said, and
though Goodrick, who could ill afford to part with them at a moment's
notice, offered them increased wages, they steadfastly declined. At
length finding he could not shake their resolution, he reluctantly paid
them their money and let them go. Goodrick learned some months
afterwards from a friend, that these men had marched straight for the
boundary of the Colony, crossed the Kei, and rejoined their own tribe,
the Gaikas, in Kaffraria.
Goodrick now began to think somewhat seriously of the matter, and to ask
himself with inward misgivings what it all meant. Brave man though he
was, like most mortals he was not quite proof against superstition, and
he began to find himself half fearing that there was something not quite
canny about the place. How else could he account for the locked door,
the suddenly vanishing figure, the sickening yell, and the lack of
footmarks? However, he kept his thoughts from his wife, and made some
excuse about a quarrel with the Kaffirs as to wages, to explain their
sudden departure. She, although accepting the explanation, seemed
uneasy, and at last burst out, "Oh, Stephen, I think there is something
wrong about this kloof--some dreadful mystery we know nothing of. Have
you ever noticed that even the Kaffirs in the kraal a few miles beyond
the poort never enter here? Not a soul amongst the farmers comes near
us, and as for `Tao' he never seems happy now and is always restless,
suspicious and alarmed."
That same night the wild, unearthly scream rose again; the same tumult
was heard in the stable; Stephen rushed out, and once again, under the
clear moonlight, he saw the figure passing in front of him. This time
he had his rifle loaded, and after calling once, fired. Still the
figure retreated; another shot was fired, but to no purpose; the figure
apparently glided imperceptibly onwards, and then suddenly disappeared,
as it seemed, sheer into the earth. Goodrick knew so well his powers
with the rifle, with which he was famous as a deadly shot, that he could
not bring himself to believe he had missed twice within fifty yards.
From this incident he could form no other conclusion, and he shivered as
he thought so, than that the night disturber was not of human mould.