they lost flesh and looked altogether miserable. Fresh horses had been
brought in, but the effect was ever the same. Shortly after, two of the
Swellendam Hottentots left, and the other two, with Cupido and Mrs
Goodrick's servant, alone remained. Goodrick was now in great straits;
he could not immediately procure other native servants, and only managed
to get through his farm work with the greatest trouble and exertion.
Things drifted on uncomfortably for another week or two, and each day as
it came and went, seemed to Goodrick and his wife to increase the gloom
and uncertainty of their life in the kloof. At length a climax arrived.
Christmas, but a sombre one, had sped, and South African summer, with
its heat, its flies, and other manifold troubles, was now at its height.
On the 15th of January, 1861, a day of intense heat was experienced.
All day the landscape had sweltered under a still oppression that was
almost unbearable, and the very animals about the farm seemed touched
and depressed by some mysterious influence.
Towards nightfall dark clouds gathered together suddenly in dense
masses; in the distance, long, rolling thunder-peals were heard
approaching in strangely slow, yet none the less certain movement.
Cupido, the old Hottentot, had fidgetted about the house a good deal all
the evening, and finally, just before ten o'clock, he asked his master
if he might for that night sleep on the floor of the kitchen, in order,
as he put it, to attend more quickly to the horses if anything scared
them. Goodrick noticed that the old man looked agitated, and
good-naturedly said "Yes."
Still slowly onward marched the stormy batteries of the sky, until at
eleven o'clock they burst overhead with a terrific crash (preceded by
such lightning as only Africa can show) that literally seemed to tear
and rend each nook and corner of the gorge, reverberating with deafening
repetition from every krantz and hollow and rocky inequality in the rude
landscape. Rain fell in torrents for a time, then ceased. Again and
again the thunder broke overhead, while the lightning played with fiery
tongue upon mountain and valley, showing momentarily, with photographic
clearness, every object around. Sleep on such a night was out of the
question, and Goodrick and his wife sat together listening with solemn
faces to the hideous tumult. At length, at about twelve o'clock, the
storm for a brief space rolled away, only to return in half an hour with
increased severity.
Goodrick had gone for a few moments to the back door, which faced partly
towards the entrance to the kloof, and found Cupido standing there,
seemingly listening intently. As the tempest approached again with
renewed ferocity, some strange confused noises, shrieks and shouts as it
seemed, were borne upon the strong breeze that now preceded and hurried
along the thunder clouds.
"Hallo!" said Goodrick, "what the deuce is that? There surely can't be
a soul about on such a night as this?" Again a hideous scream was borne
up the valley. "Good God! that's the very yell we've heard so often
round here at night," repeated the Englishman. "It's not leopard, it's
not hyaena; what on earth is it, Cupido?" The Hottentot was now
trembling in every limb; his yellow, monkeylike face had turned ashy
grey, and his bleared eyes seemed full of some intense terror. "Baas,"
he stammered out, "it's Jan Prinsloo's night, and if you're wise you'll
shut the doors fast, pull down the blinds, and not stir or look out for
an hour."
"What do you mean, man?"
"I mean that the ghosts of Jan Prinsloo, who was slain here years ago,
and his murderers, are coming up the kloof." At that moment the cries
and shoutings sounded closer and closer up the valley, and it seemed as
if the rattling of horses galloping along the rock-strewn path could be
distinguished through the storm. Just then the other two Hottentots,
who at length had also heard the din, rushed across from their shed and
huddled into the kitchen. Mrs Goodrick at the same instant ran into
the room. "What's the matter, Stephen?" she cried; "I am certain there
is some dreadful work going on."
"Yes, wife, there is some devilish thing happening, and I mean to get to
the bottom of it. I haven't hunted fifteen years in the interior to be
frightened by a few strange noises." So speaking, the young farmer went
to the sitting-room, took down and rapidly loaded two rifles and his
revolver, and returned to the kitchen. Handing one rifle to the
Hottentot, he said, "Here, Cupido, take this; I know you can shoot
straight, and, if needful, you'll have to do so. Wife, give the Totties
a soupje each of brandy."
This was quickly done; the result seemed, on the whole, satisfactory,
and the Hottentots somewhat reassured. In a few more seconds the storm
burst again in one appalling roar; after it could now be heard the
clattering of hoofs up the hillside, mingled with shrieks and shouts.
This time the tempest passed rapidly overhead, the dense black clouds
rushed on, and suddenly the moon shone out with wonderful brightness.
Onward came the strange noises, sweeping past the side of the house as
if up to the great stone cattle kraal, that lay sixty yards away. Then
was heard the loud report of a gun. Stephen could stand it no longer.
"Come on, you fellows, with me," he exclaimed, as he ran out towards the
kraal. Cupido and Mrs Goodrick, who would not be left behind, alone
followed him; the white servant woman and the remaining two Hottentots
stayed in the kitchen, halfddead with fright, the one on a chair, her
apron clasped to her head and ears, the others huddled up in a corner.
The three adventurers were not long in reaching the kraal, whence they
heard proceeding the same dreadful cries and shrieks, mingled with the
trampling of feet Goodrick first approached the entrance, which he found
wide open. The sight that met his eyes, and those of his wife and
Cupido close behind, was enough to have shaken the stoutest heart.
Under the clear illumination of the moon, which now shone forth calm and
serene, the inclosure seemed as light as day. In the far corner, to the
right hand, seventy paces distant, the half-dozen horses that had been
turned in stood huddled with their heads together like a flock of sheep.
On the opposite side from the entrance, a frightful looking group was
tearing madly round. First ran a tall, stout figure, clad in the
broad-brimmed hat and quaint old-fashioned leathern costume, which
Goodrick in a moment recognised. In its hands it grasped a huge, long,
old flint "roer," a smooth-bore elephant gun, such as the Boers used in
earlier days. The figure, as it fled, had its face half-turned to its
pursuers, who consisted of six half-naked Hottentots armed with assegais
and knives. As the chase, for such it was, swept round the kraal and
the figures approached the entrance, every face could be plainly
discerned; and this was the horrible part of it. These faces were all
the faces of the dead, gaunt, ghastly, and grim, and yet possessed of
such fiendish and dreadful expressions of anger, cruelty, and lust for
blood, as to strike a chilling terror to the hearts of the three
spectators. Brave man and ready though he was, Goodrick felt
instinctively that he was in the presence of the dead, and his rifle
hung listlessly in his hand.
Closer the fearful things approached the spellbound trio, till, when
within thirty yards, the leading figure stumbled and fell. In an
instant, with diabolical screams, the ghostly Hottentots fell upon their
quarry, plying assegai and knife. Again the awful scream that the kloof
knew so well rang out upon the night; then followed a torrent of Dutch
oaths and imprecations; and then the dying figure, casting off for a
moment its slayers, stood up and laid about it with the heavy "roer"
grasped at the end of the barrel.
The three living beings who looked upon that face will never to their
last days forget it. If the expression of every crime and evil passion
could be depicted upon the face of the dead, they shone clear under the
pale moonlight upon the face of the dying Dutchman--dying again though
dead. Once again with wild yells the Hottentots closed on their victim,
and once more rang the fiendish dying yell. Then, still more awful, the
Hottentots, as it seemed in an instant, stripped the half-dead body,
hacked off the head and limbs, and tore open the vitals, with which they
bedabbled and smeared themselves as they again tore shrieking round the
kraal. Flesh and blood could stand the sight no longer; Mrs Goodrick,
who had clung to her husband spellbound during the scene, which had
taken in its enactment but a few seconds, fainted away. Goodrick turned
to take his wife in his arms with the intention of making hurriedly for
the house. At that instant the horrid din ceased suddenly, and was
succeeded by a deathly silence. Turning once more to the kraal gate,
Goodrick at once perceived that the whole of the enactors of this awful
drama had vanished. He rubbed his eyes in vain to see if they deceived
him, but a nod from the half-dead Cupido convinced him that this was not
so. No, there was no doubt about it, the waning moon cast her pure and
silvery beams calmly and peacefully upon a silent scene. Not a trace of
the bloody drama remained; not a whisper, save of the soft night breeze,
told of the dreadful story.
"Baas," whispered the Hottentot, "they'll come no more to-night."
Quickly Goodrick raised his fainting wife and carried her into the
house, where, after long and anxious tending, she was restored to
consciousness. Placing her in the sitting-room upon a couch which he
had himself made from the soft skins, "brayed" by the Kaffirs, of the
antelopes he had shot, he at length induced her to sleep, promising not
for a moment to leave her, and with his hands clasped in hers.
At length the night wore away, the sun of Africa shot his glorious rays
upward from behind the rugged mountain walls of the kloof, and broad
daylight again spread over the landscape. Goodrick was glad indeed to
find that with the bright sunshine his wife, brave-hearted woman that
she was, had shaken off much of the night's terrors; but her nerves were
much shaken. For the last time the goats were unkraaled and sent out,
with the two somewhat unwilling Hottentots, to pasture. Breakfast and
some strong coffee that followed this operation made things look
brighter; and then, taking the couch and setting it upon the stoep
(veranda), just outside the windows of their room, and placing a chair
for himself, Goodrick went out to the back and called Cupido in with him
to the "stoep," where he made the little ancient yellow man squat down.
"Cupido," said he, "I am going to inspan this morning, load up one of
the waggons, and send my wife and servant under your charge out of this
cursed place to Hemming's farm--the next one, twenty-five miles out on
the karroo. To-morrow, with the help of some Kaffirs I shall borrow
from Mr Hemming, I shall get down the horses from the mountain, load up
both the waggons with the rest of the furniture and farm tackle (as soon
as you return, which you will do very early), and trek out of the kloof,
never again to set foot in it. But first of all, you will tell me at
once, without lying, why you have never said a word to me of this
horrible secret, and what it all means. Now speak and be careful."
"Well, baas," said Cupido, speaking in Boer Dutch, the habitual language
of the Hottentots, "you have been a kind baas to me, and the jevrouw,"
(nodding to his mistress) "has been good to me too; and I will tell you
all I know about this story. I would have warned you long ago, but Baas
Van der Meulen, when he left, made me promise, under pain of being shot,
not to say anything. I believe he would have kept his word, for he
often gave me the sjambok, and I dare not speak. I was born here in the
kloof many years ago, many years even before slavery was abolished and
the emigrant Boers trekked out into the Free State and Transvaal, and
you will know that is long since.
"My father lived as a servant under that very Jan Prinsloo, whom you saw
murdered last night in yonder kraal, and many a time has he told me of
Prinsloo and his evil doings and his dreadful end. Well, Jan Prinsloo
was a grown man years before the English came across the shining waters
and took the country from the Dutch. He was one of the wild and lawless
gang settled about Bruintjes Hoogte, on the other side of Sunday River,
who bade defiance to all laws and Governments, and who, under Marthinus
Prinsloo (a kinsman of Jan's) and Adriaan Van Jaarsveld, got up an
insurrection two years after the English came, and captured Graaff
Reinet.
"General Vandeleur soon put this rising down, and Marthinus Prinsloo and
Van Jaarsveld were hanged, but Jan Prinsloo, who was implicated, somehow
retired early in the insurrection, and was pardoned. Some years before
this, Jan was fast friends, as a younger man, with Jan Bloem, who, as
you may have heard, was a noted freebooter who fled from the Colony
across the Orange River, raised a marauding band of Griquas and
Korannas, and plundered, murdered, and devastated amongst many of the
Bechuana tribes, besides trading and shooting ivory as well. The bloody
deeds of these men yet live in Bechuana story. Jan Bloem at last,
however, drank from a poisoned fountain in the Bechuana country and died
like a hyaena as he deserved. Then Jan Prinsloo took all his herds,
waggons, ivory and flocks, came back over the Orange River, sold off the
stock at Graaff Reinet, and came and settled in this kloof. He had
brought with him some poor Makatese, and these people, who are in their
way, as you know, great builders in stone, he made to build this house
and the great stone kraal out there, where we saw him last night. He
had, too, a number of Hottentots, besides Mozambique slaves, and those
he ill-treated in the most dreadful manner, far worse even than any Boer
was known to, and that is saying much. At last one day, not long after
the Bruintjes Hoogte affair, he came home in a great passion, and found
that two of the Hottentots' wives and one child had gone off without
leave to see some of their relatives, Hottentots, who were squatted some
miles away.
"When these women came back in the evening, Prinsloo made their husbands
tie them and the child to two trees, and then and there, after flogging
them frightfully, he shot the poor creatures dead, child and all. As
for the husbands, he sjambokked them nearly to death for letting their
wives go, and then turned in to his `brandwein' and bed. That night all
his Hottentots, including seven men who had witnessed the cruel deed--
God knows such deeds were common enough in those wild days--fled through
the darkness out of the kloof, and never stopped till they reached the
thick bush-veldt country, between Sunday River and the Great Fish River.
Just at that time, other Hottentots, roused by the evil deeds of the
Boers, rose in arms, and joined hands with the Kaffirs, who were then
advancing from beyond the Fish River.
"Well, the Kaffirs and Hottentots, to the number of 700, for some time
had all their own way, and ravaged, plundered, burned, and murdered,
among the Boers and their farms, even up to Zwartberg and Lange Kloof,
between here and the sea. While they were in that neighbourhood, a band
of them, inspired by the seven Hottentots of Prinsloo's Kloof, came up
the Gamtoos River, in this direction, and met with Jan Prinsloo and a
few other Boers, who were trekking out of the disturbed district with
their waggons, and who had come to reconnoitre in a poort, fifteen miles
away from here. All the Boers were surprised and slain, excepting
Prinsloo; and while the Kaffirs and other Hottentots stayed to plunder
the waggons, Prinsloo's seven servants, who were all mounted on stolen
horses, chased him, like `wilde honde' hunting a hartebeest, for many
hours; for Jan rode like a madman, and gave them the slip for three
hours, while he lay hid up in a kloof, until, at last, as night came on,
they pressed him into his own den here.
"It was yesterday, but years and years ago, just when the summer is
hottest and the thunder comes on, and just in such a storm as last
night's, that the maddened Hottentots, thirsting for the murderer's
blood, hunted Prinsloo up through the poort. They were all light men
and well mounted, and towards the end gained fast upon him, although
Jan, who rode a great `rooi schimmel' (red roan) horse, the best of his
stud, rode as he had never ridden before. Up the kloof they clattered,
the Hottentots close at his heels now; Prinsloo galloped to the great
kraal there, jumped off his horse, and ran inside, like a leopard among
his rocks, fastening the gate behind him, and there determined to make a
last desperate stand for it.
"The Hottentots soon forced the gate and swarmed over the walls, not,
however, before one was killed by Prinsloo's great elephant `roer.'
Round the kraal they chased him, giving him no time to load again; at
last, as you know, he fell and was slain, and the Hottentots cut off his
head, and arms, and legs, and tore out his black heart, and in their
mad, murderous joy and fury, smeared themselves with his blood. Then
the men looted the house, set fire to what they could, and afterwards
rejoined their comrades next morning. They told my father, who had
known Prinsloo, the whole story when they got back. These six men were
all killed in a fight soon afterwards when the insurrection was put
down, and the Kaffirs and Hottentots were severely punished.
"Well, ever since that night the thing happens once a year upon the same
night. Many Boers have tried to live in this place since that time, but
have always left in a hurry after a few weeks' trial. I believe one man
did stay for nearly two years; but he was deaf, and knew nothing of what
was going on around, until one Prinsloo's night when he saw something
that quickly made him trek I once saw the scene we witnessed last night;
it was many years ago, when I was a young man in the service of a Boer,
who had just come here--before then I had been with my father in the
service of another Boer, forty miles away towards Sunday River. Next
morning after seeing Prinsloo and his murderers, my master trekked out
horror-stricken. I never thought to have seen the horrible thing again,
but eight months ago, when the Van der Meulens came here, I was hard up
and out of work, and though I didn't half like coming into the kloof
again, I thought, perhaps, after so many years, the ghosts might have
vanished. I hadn't been many nights here, though, before I knew too
well I was mistaken. Even then I would have left, but Van der Meulen
swore I should not. He and his family came here soon after Prinsloo's
night, and left before it came round again; but after the old man and
his sons had twice been face to face with Jan's spook prowling about the
stable and kraals, and even looking in at the windows, they were not
long before they wanted to clear out, and now you know their reason,
baas."
"Yes, Cupido, to my cost, I do," said Goodrick, "I don't suppose I shall
ever come across that delightful family again, for it is a far cry to
Zoutpansberg, in the north of the Transvaal, and a wild enough country
when you get there. But tell me, why is it that this dreadful thing is
always in and out of the stables and kraals frightening the horses?"
"Well, baas, I am not certain, but I believe, for my father always told
me so, that Prinsloo was very fond of horseflesh, extraordinarily so for
a Boer; for you know as a rule they don't waste much time on their
horses, and use them but ill. He had the finest stud in the Colony, and
took great pains and trouble with it; and they say that Jan's ghost is
still just as fond as ever of his favourites, and is always in and out
of the stable in consequence. Anyhow, the horses don't care about it,
as you know, they seem just as scared at him as any human being."
Cupido, like all Hottentots, could tell a story with the dramatic force
and interest peculiar to his race, and the bald translation here given
renders very scant justice to the grim legend that came from his lips.
After the quaint little yellow man had finished, Mrs Goodrick gave him
some coffee, and immediately afterwards the party set about loading up
one waggon with a part of the furniture. This done, and Mrs Goodrick
and her servant safely installed, Cupido, the oxen being inspanned, took
the leading riems of the two first oxen and acted as foreloper, while
Goodrick sat on the box and wielded the whip.
Twelve miles away beyond the poort that opened into the kloof there was
a Kaffir kraal, and having arrived there, Goodrick was able to hire a
leader, and Cupido having relieved his master of the whip and received
instructions to hasten to Hemming's farm as quickly as possible with his
mistress, Goodrick saddled and bridled his horse, which had been tied to
the back of the waggon, and rode back to his farm. The night passed
quietly away; the two remaining Hottentots begged to be allowed to sleep
in the kitchen, and this favour their master not unwillingly accorded
them. Next morning, at ten o'clock, Cupido, who had trekked through a
good part of the night, arrived, and with him came Mr Hemming, the
farmer, and four of his Kaffirs. Hearing of his neighbour's trouble,
and having seen Mrs Goodrick comfortably settled with his own wife, he
had good-naturedly come to his assistance. "So Jan Prinsloo has driven
you out at last," said he, upon meeting Goodrick. "I heard from your
wife last evening what you had seen the night before. I was afraid it
would happen and would have warned you in time if I had known. But I
never even heard that the Van der Meulens had sold the farm till they
had cleared out and I met you about a month after you had been here; and
as you were a determined looking Englishman, and the half-dozen people
who have tried the farm in the last twenty years have been superstitious
Dutch, I thought perhaps you might succeed in beating the ghost where
they failed. I haven't been in the kloof for many years, and after this
experience, which bears out what my father and others who knew the story
well have always told me, I shan't be in a hurry to come in here again.
It's a strange thing, and I don't think, somehow, the curse that seems
on the place will ever disappear."
"Nor I," said Goodrick, "I'm not in a hurry to try it. I never believed
in spooks till the night before last, for I never thought they were
partial to South Africa; but after what I saw I can never again doubt
upon that subject. The shock to me was terrible enough, and what my
wife suffered must have been far worse."
With the willing aid of his neighbour and his Kaffirs, as well as his
own Hottentots, Goodrick got clear of the kloof that day, and, after a
few days spent at Mr Hemming's, trekked away again for Swellendam, to
his father's house. Six months later he finally settled in a fertile
district not far from Swellendam, where he and his wife and family still
remain. Cupido died in his service some fourteen years since. After
much trouble Goodrick sold his interest in Prinsloo's Kloof and the farm
around for a sum much less even than what he gave Van der Meulen for it;
it is only fair to say he warned the purchaser of the evil reputation of
the place before this was done. It is a singular fact that on his way
to take possession of the kloof the new purchaser fell ill and died, and
the place has never since been occupied.