strong, good-looking, fair-bearded man, and, sitting there easily in his
saddle, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his rifle butt resting on his right
thigh, the dying light full on his sunburnt face and arms, he looked, as
Kate thought, a true man of the veldt.
"How wonderful!" she repeated; "and what a height, and what a lovely
colour. It seems a sin to shoot her!"
"My dear Kate," answered her husband, "we want meat for the camp badly,
and the Masarwa spoorers expect it. I can't let her go."
"Well," responded Kate, "I won't see her shot, poor thing," and with one
last look at the tall creature still standing there, an almost pathetic
sight, with a half sigh she turned and went back to the waggon. As she
moved, the giraffe swung round and shuffled off. But her time had come.
Marston cantered a little wide and ahead of her. As she came past, his
rifle went up, the report rang out, and a Martini-Henry bullet drove
into the great cow's heart. She staggered, tottered twenty paces, and
then with a mighty crash fell to the earth dead.
Kate and her husband, after a cosy supper, sat long, chatting by the
camp fire that evening. She told him of her reception at the Boer
waggon. He related his adventures in the veldt that day. A little
before ten, they turned into their waggon, in the forepart of which a
comfortable kartel-bed was slung, closed the fore-clap (curtain), and
their camp presently rested in a profound peace.
But at Christina de Klerk's camp there was no peace that night. At ten
o'clock her husband's native after-rider, "September," a Hottentot, who
had before dawn on the previous morning ridden out with his master
across the plains, walked up to the camp fire, leading his lame and
foundered pony behind him. The man was himself far gone with fatigue.
His mistress had long since retired to her waggon, but he had ill news,
and he called her up. His news was this:
They had found a good troop of giraffe soon after they entered the
forest; but in a long run up to the game Adriaan de Klerk had sustained
a bad fall, pitching upon his head. He recovered in a couple of hours'
time, thanks to the Hottentot's care; but after that, September said, he
had behaved like a madman. The fall had turned his brain somehow. He
insisted, against September's entreaties, in pursuing the giraffes,
which had now got far too great an advantage. But de Klerk said,
angrily, he wanted "kameel" skins [Kameel, literally Camel, the Boer
name for giraffes], he could get 2 pounds 10 shillings apiece for them
in Marico, and he would ride till he came up with them. All through the
hot afternoon they rode without off-saddling; the Baas had a terrible
thirst, and drank up most of the water they carried. At nightfall, with
jaded horses, they off-saddled in the bush and lay down to sleep. It
was a bad night, said September. The Baas was very restless, and
constantly moaned and talked in his sleep. Before dawn he was up again,
and insisted upon going on. September begged and pleaded. He warned
his master that with failing horses and no water they might easily be
cast away and die of thirst. All Adriaan de Klerk could say was that he
was going on till he came up with the giraffes. He told September to
ride back to camp for water. The Hottentot said he would not go without
his master. De Klerk was plainly beside himself. He raised his rifle
and told the man if he did not turn his horse's head and go he would
shoot him. And so September had ridden home. His horse was lame and
knocked up; there was not another in camp. What was he to do? If the
Baas was not rescued within forty-eight hours he would die of thirst.
Christina had a stout heart, as have most of the Afrikander Dutch
women-folk, but September's story, and above all his manner, convinced
her that her husband, alone, without water, his mind wandering, was in
supreme danger. She rose from the kartel--like most up-country Boers
she slept in her clothes--buttoned her bodice, and came to the fire. An
inspection of September's pony at once convinced her that the animal was
unable to travel further. As it was, September had been compelled to
walk by its side during most of that day's journey home. It was dead
lame and suffering from the effects of fatigue and two days' thirst.
What was she to do? Christina stood there with the Hottentot by the
fire-blaze, discussing every possible plan. They might carry water by
the aid of natives. But that would involve waiting till the morning,
and even then a journey of probably more than forty miles would have to
be taken on foot. And then, as September pointed out, it was more than
likely that Masinya's people, who were not over fond of the Boers, would
point-blank refuse to go. And all this time Adriaan de Klerk, his mind
unhinged by his fall and set upon one impossible object, might be
plunging yet further into that waterless and inhospitable wilderness.
His image rose clear before her mind's eye: the thirsting, haggard man,
the sinking horse, and then the terrible end, and the vultures streaming
down from the sky! She knew but too well the danger. What, oh God!
what should she do? Leaving the tired Hottentot to squat over the fire,
she paced frantically up and down near the waggon, turning over
impossible projects in her agonised mind.
It was a glorious night. The moon, shining in unspeakable majesty, cast
its silvery spell over the distant plain and upon bush and grass near at
hand; its amazing light pierced the foliage of the acacias and wrought
wondrous patterns beneath her feet. The clear army of the stars, the
deep blue mysterious vault above, the ineffable calm of night; all these
things availed nothing to the woman's troubled soul. Her agony of mind
increased. Suddenly her eyes fell upon the white waggon tilt of the
Englishman's camp. There, of course, was a way out of the difficulty.
There were fresh horses, four or five of them. With these, help and
water could be carried to her husband!
But then, upon the instant, her thoughts ran back to the afternoon, to
her rough, unkindly reception of the Englishwoman. She knew in her
inmost soul that she had not done the right thing, thus to meet a
stranger in the veldt--even if that stranger were an Englishwoman. Was
her trouble a judgment upon her? But here her stubborn Dutch pride came
to her aid. Could she go across to that camp and ask help?
Never! Never!
The night slowly passed, and still Christina de Klerk paced up and down
the grove, sometimes resting for a brief spell upon the disselboom of
her waggon. In her agony of mind it seemed that the day would never
dawn, the light in the east never pale the sky.
At seven o'clock next morning, as Kate Marston, fresh and beaming, was
putting the finishing touches to her toilet under the waggon sail,
which, flanked by canvas screens, served as her dressing-room, her
husband called to her. She came forth, and there, wan and dishevelled,
her eyes red with weeping, stood Christina de Klerk. She told her
piteous tale. She acknowledged that she had been unpardonably rude the
afternoon before. It was a judgment upon her. A judgment sent by the
Heer God to humble her pride. And now would the Englishwoman and her
husband forgive and help her? She could not live without her husband.
She had children. They would take pity on her in her trouble. In all
her life, never had Christina de Klerk known a bitterer moment, thus to
humble herself before the detested English.
The tears sprang into Kate's eyes at the poor woman's story, her too
evident distress. "Why, Me'Vrouw de Klerk," she said cheerfully, "of
course my husband will help you. Will you not, Fred? We should be a
poor kind of English folk, indeed, if we could listen to a trouble like
yours without doing all we could for you."
"Wait ten minutes, Me'Vrouw de Klerk," said Marston, taking her by the
hand, "while I swallow some breakfast and get the nags saddled, and
we'll go at once with water on your husband's spoor." In fifteen
minutes, taking a spare horse loaded up with two vatjes of water, and
September, the Hottentot, on another fresh nag, to act as guide, he set
forth.
"Never fear, Me'Vrouw de Klerk," he said, cheerily, as, putting aside
her heartfelt, sobbing thanks, he rode off. "We shall bring your
husband back all right."
As a matter of fact Fred Marston knew that he had a difficult and
dangerous task before him, to rescue a man half out of his mind,
wandering in that terrible Thirstland. He accomplished his task, but,
as he had expected, with the greatest difficulty. He and September,
taking up the spoor of the wanderer, had followed it hour after hour
into the parched forest country. Not until half-way through the second
day did they find de Klerk, lying insensible, a mile or two beyond his
dead horse, himself nearing his end. Resting all that afternoon and
evening, they revived the Boer with the aid of water, brandy, and a
little food, and, riding all that night and part of the next day,
brought Christina de Klerk her man, safe and sound, though terribly worn
and jaded, into camp. All were fagged and knocked up; without water the
horses could have held out but a few hours longer.
How Christina passed those miserable two days of suspense she never
afterwards quite knew. But for the kindly help and sympathy of Kate
Marston, she declares she never could have got through. The next day
was New Year. De Klerk, after a long rest, was nearly his own man
again, and nothing would content the Marstons but that all should dine
together in the English camp. Sitting under the great acacia tree,
where the Marstons had outspanned, they enjoyed together a right merry
New Year's dinner.
Christina de Klerk never forgot that time of trial. They trekked down
to the Transvaal, and Adriaan de Klerk, it is true, rode out with his
fellow-countrymen and fought in the successful Boer War of 1881. But in
their estimate of the English, individually, their feelings have never
wavered since that New Year's-tide of 1879.
"There may be bad English as there are bad Dutch," says Christina, as
she sometimes tells the tale of her man's rescue to some of her
countrywomen. "And Rhodes and Chamberlain! Ach! they are too good for
shooting even. But I believe most of the English folk have good hearts.
For my part, so long as I live, and I hope so long as my children shall
live after me, there shall be always a welcome for the English in this
house. Adriaan and I owe them far too much to forget the kindness we
received at their hands. Is it not so, Adriaan?"
And Adriaan, ponderously yet heartily, answers, "Yes."
CHAPTER SIX.
A CHRISTMAS IN THE VELDT.
At six o'clock upon a hot morning of African December, Lieutenant
Parton, of the Bechuanaland Border Police, came out of his bedroom at
the Vryburg Hotel, equipped for a long two days' ride. He was a smart
officer, and the cord uniform, big slouch hat, looped up rakishly at one
side, riding boots, and spurs, became his tall figure well enough.
In itself the blazing two days' ride and the prospect of some trouble at
the end of it were hardly sufficient to warrant the air of deep
thoughtfulness now gathered upon his dark and serious face; yet, as he
strode across the little courtyard beneath the mean shade of the two or
three straggling blue gum-trees, the grim knitting of his brows
indicated that somehow he was not altogether pleased with the journey
that lay before him.
But the lieutenant had some reason for his burden of care. The object
of the expedition upon which he was setting forth was the arrest of some
native cattle-stealers at a Bakalahari kraal, far out to the westward,
in the more desert portion of British Bechuanaland. There had been a
sudden call for troopers of the Bechuanaland Border Police up in the
northern protectorate, and it happened that the only man Parton could
take with him as orderly upon this particular morning was the very last
person in the world with whom he would have chosen to spend several
days--probably a week or more--in the closest intercourse. Trooper
Gressex, now waiting outside in front of the hotel, was that man.
Although the one was a lieutenant close upon his captaincy, the other
plain trooper in the frontier force, the two men had once been social
equals at home, and, at school and elsewhere, upon terms of considerable
intimacy. Gressex (formerly known as Tom Mainwaring) had migrated from
London society and a career of sport and pleasure, after coming somewhat
suddenly to the end of his financial tether. He had made his plunge
into obscurity and had re-appeared as an unknown trooper in the
Bechuanaland Border Police.
Parton had quitted service in a line regiment in India, where he saw
little prospect of promotion, and had accepted a commission in the same
Border Police force. The two men had first encountered one another, in
their now altered circumstances, some three months back. Upon the South
African frontier such striking changes of condition are being constantly
met with, and are borne by the less fortunate, almost invariably, with a
good-humoured, if somewhat reckless, philosophy.
In this instance Partons discovery of his old schoolfellow's altered lot
had not been altogether a welcome one; and on this particular December
morning he had, as has been hinted, a special reason for desiring any
other trooper as his orderly upon the expedition in front of him.
The lieutenant entered the coffee-room of the squat, corrugated-iron
hotel, and ate his breakfast. In ten minutes he appeared upon the
street, ready for his horse. Trooper Gressex, who was leaning against
the stoep, holding his own horse and Parton's, saluted as his officer
came forth, and answered the formal "Good morning, Gressex," with an
equally formal "Good morning, sir."
The two men mounted and rode away, no slightest sign having fallen to
denote that they had ever occupied any other relations than those of
officer and man.
Having ridden quietly half-a-mile out of the town, Parton lighted his
pipe and set his horse into a canter. Gressex rode upon his flank, and
the two steadily reeled off mile after mile of the vast sweep of grassy,
undulating plains over which their route lay. Hour after hour they rode
through the blazing day, off-saddling every three hours and giving their
nags a brief rest according to invariable South African custom. At
night, having compassed more than fifty miles, they finally halted, and
prepared to camp just within the shelter of a patch of woodland, which
here broke the monotony of the grass veldt. The horses, after a longish
graze, were tied up to a handy bush; the two men, having eaten a supper
of tinned "bully beef" and brewed a kettle of coffee, lay upon their
blankets and smoked by the pleasant firelight. The few scraps of
conversation which they exchanged related solely to the expedition
before them, Gressex having more than once made the journey to Masura's
kraal.
Aloft the infinite calm of the far-off, dark-blue heaven, now spangled
with a million stars, seemed to invite deep and peaceful sleep after a
hard day's riding. A refreshing coolness now moved upon the veldt, the
tender airs whispered softly through the long grasses, a cicada droned
drowsily in the thorn-bush; all nature promised rest. At nine o'clock
both men, lightly wrapped in their blankets, with their feet to the fire
and their heads pillowed in their saddles, were fast asleep.
At one o'clock in the still, early morning Gressex was awakened by the
sound of a voice. He rose softly upon his elbow and looked about him.
The stars shone more gloriously than ever, but the Southern Cross had
fallen from its erect position and now lay over upon its side. The
veldt was perfectly quiet, save for the plaintive wailing of a far-off
jackal, which had got their wind and was crying out the news to his
fellows. Even the cicada had ceased its weary drumming. As Gressex lay
upon his elbow listening, he perceived that the sounds he had heard came
from Parton, who was talking fitfully in his sleep. It is hard to
follow a man whose tongue labours with the difficulties of a slumbering
brain, and Gressex was not much interested in puzzling out the
intricacies of his officer's drowsy speech, but one word fell upon his
ear which instantly fixed his attention. The word was "Ella."
"Ella," muttered the sleeping man, in a curiously sententious way, "I
tell you I can't do it. It's not the least use thinking further about
him. You'll never see him again; why harp upon a broken string? Some
day I hope you'll be kind and give..."
Gressex had, after that one word, small difficulty in following the
halting speech of the sleeping man. He waited impatiently for other
sentences, but the voice was hushed again. That name, "Ella" told him a
good deal. It told him that, although in their long ride of the
previous day Parton had not reverted in the slightest degree to their
former friendship and its environments, his mind now, during the hours
of sleep, was running busily in old channels. The word "Ella" and its
associations roused many a pang and many a memory in the soul of
Gressex, as he lay there under the silent stars. A hundred questions
and doubts shaped themselves in the trooper's mind for the next hour or
more. At last sleep again overtook him and he remembered no more till
pale dawn came round and he awoke. Already the little coqui
francolins--the prettiest of all the African partridges--were calling
with sharp voices to one another near the pan of water fifty yards away,
and an early sand-grouse or two were coming in for their morning drink.
It was time to be breakfasting and away. The embers were blown up,
fresh wood was put on, and the kettle boiled for coffee. The two men,
after an exchange of "Good morning," breakfasted almost in silence, the
horses were got in from their feed of grass, saddled up, and the journey
was resumed.
The blazing morning passed, as in all these long veldt rides, in
monotonous fashion. At three o'clock, in the hottest period of the
afternoon, the two men emerged from a long two hours' stretch of bastard
yellow-wood forest. Suddenly Parton, who was a little in front, reined
up with a "Sh!" upon his lips. Gressex followed the lieutenant's glance
and saw what had arrested his progress. Half a mile to the right, just
outside the forest, a troop of noble gemsbok were resting beneath a
patch of acacia thorn trees: some were lying down, some standing, but
all, even the usually tireless sentinel nearest the waggon-track, were
overcome by the heat, and--for such suspicious game--a little relaxed in
their watchfulness. Such an opportunity was too tempting to be passed
by. A plan of operations was quickly evolved as the two men withdrew
their horses within the shelter of the wood. It was curious to observe
how instantly the prospect of sport had broken down the thick hedge of
reserve between them. They now whispered together rapidly and with
intense animation.
Gressex turned his horse's head and rode back through the forest in a
semicircle towards the game. Presently he dismounted, fastened his
horse to a bush, and then with the greatest caution stole towards the
troop. At last, from behind a screen of bush, he has the game well
before his gaze. They are a hundred and fifty yards away; between them
and the watcher's clump of bush is open grass veldt, and there is no
possibility of getting a foot nearer. Gressex sits down, sidles
imperceptibly to the left hand, and now has in front of him a fair shot.
Even now there is not a breath of suspicion among the dozen great
antelopes out there in the open. Gressex can note easily their
striking, black and white faces and spear-like horns. The shade of the
acacias is somewhat scanty, and he can see plainly the splashes of the
sunlight gleaming through the foliage bright upon their warm grey coals.
Now he takes aim at the bull nearest, draws a long breath, and pulls
trigger. The Martini-Henry bullet flies true, and claps loudly, as upon
a barn door, on the broadside of the gallant beast. The gemsbok leaps
convulsively forward and scours away up wind. In the same instant there
is dire commotion among the troop; the recumbent antelopes spring up
wildly, and with their fellows stretch themselves at speed--and few
animals can rival this antelope in speed and staying powers--in rear of
the stricken bull. Gressex hurriedly fires another shot and misses
clean.
And now, as Parton had foreseen, his opportunity has come. The troop
will cross his front within less than half a mile. He gallops full tilt
from the sheltering woodland and rides his hardest to cut them off. He
is perfectly successful--so successful that he cuts off the main troop
from the two leading antelopes, and, while the animals stand for a
moment in utter bewilderment, he jumps off and gets his shot. The
bullet flies high, yet luckily. The vertebra of the big cow he aimed at
is severed on the instant, and she falls in her tracks, "moors dood," as
a Boer would say--as dead as mutton.
At the report of Parton's rifle, the troop scatters and flees again.
Parton jumps into the saddle and tears after Gressex's wounded bull,
which, three hundred yards in front, is manifestly failing fast. The
stout pony, now thoroughly excited with the chase, gains rapidly; the
gemsbok is pumping its life-blood from mouth and nostrils, and cannot
stand up much longer. But, suddenly, without warning, Parton's nag puts
its foot into a deep hole hidden by the long grass and goes down.
Parton is shot violently over its head and comes heavily to the veldt.
In the next three seconds Gressex's gemsbok fails suddenly, and, sinking
quietly to earth, breathes out its last.
Gressex himself is quickly on the spot and first applies himself to
Parton, who now sits ruefully with his hat off, gathering his scattered
senses and nursing a broken left arm. Gressex has once helped to set a
man's arm in the hunting field, and he now goes to work. First he cuts
quickly from a piece of fallen wood two flattish splints, then he
unwraps one of the "putties" from his legs. This winding gear makes an
admirable bandage. Next he proceeds to set the damaged limb. Luckily
it is the fore arm, and after a painful ordeal of pulling, endured with
set teeth by Parton, Gressex adjusts the broken bone and binds on the
splints. With the other "putty" a sling is then extemporised. Parton
has some brandy in a flask in his saddle-bag. He takes a pull at this,
and while Gressex cuts off the heads, tails, and some of the meat from
the slain gemsbok and fastens them upon the saddles, he sits with
somewhat more ease and contentment smoking a welcome pipe which the
trooper has filled and lighted for him after the operation. Half an
hour later the journey is resumed again. It was a long twenty miles to
the Bakalahari village to which they were travelling. The pace was
slow, out of consideration for the wounded arm, and it was not until
well on into the night that they rode into the beehive-like collection
of round native huts, and called up the two Border policemen stationed
there.
For two days the swollen and painful state of Parton's arm prevented him
from taking further action in the affair of the cattle-stealers, which
had necessitated his sudden patrol. Meanwhile he rested, gleaned
quietly all the intelligence that was to be gleaned, and prepared for
action.
He interviewed, of course, Masura, the native chief settled here, and
made a casual inquiry as to the stolen cattle, but he was careful not to
let it appear that he had made a special journey on that account. The
chief, it was well known, was not well affected to Government; but he
protested that no stolen cattle or cattle-stealers had come into his
country, and appeared to be anxious to aid in any inquiries that might
discover the marauders. To lull his suspicions, Parton, on the second
day of his arrival, requested him to send out runners to his various
cattle posts so as to ascertain whether fresh stock had lately come in.
This the chief promised to do on the following day.
But Parton had meanwhile, thanks to the alacrity of the two troopers
quartered in the town and to a native spy of theirs, gained exact
information of the whereabouts of the stolen cattle and their thieves.