"Gert."
"Baas?"
"Saddle up Aasvogel after breakfast. I am going over to Krantz Kop."
Thus Colvin Kershaw to his henchman, Gert Bondelzwart. The latter was a
bastard Griqua--an elderly man, of good height and powerful build. He
had taken part in the Langeberg rising, but had been "slim" enough to
slip away just in time, and had contrived to put a large section of
country between himself and the scene of his former misdeeds. At this
man Colvin's neighbours looked askew. He had "schelm" writ large all
over his yellow personality, they declared. Colvin himself thought them
likely to be right; but then Gert suited him. He was a good servant,
and had never given him any trouble. Moreover, he had an idea that the
fellow had, for some unaccountable reason, conceived an attachment for
himself. Anyway, he did not choose to part with him to please anybody.
"Did you hear what I said, Gert?"
"_Ja_, sir."
"Then why the devil don't you answer, and go and do what I tell you,
instead of standing there shaking your silly head as if a bee had stung
you in the ear?"
"Krantz Kop is up at the far end of the _berg_, sir. Boer _menschen_ up
there very _kwaai_."
"Well? What's that to you? I didn't say I wanted an after-rider."
"Gideon Roux very _schelm_ Boer, sir. Strange things happen at Krantz
Kop."
"Oh, go away, Gert. Get in Aasvogel from the camp--no, he's still in
the stable. Well, give him another bundle, so long."
"What am I to ride, sir?"
"You to ride? Confound you, I said I didn't want an after-rider."
"I would like to go with Baas."
Something about the persistency of the man struck Colvin. This
yellow-skinned henchman of his was a wonderful fellow, and there was
precious little he didn't know. Well, he would take him.
"You can go then, Gert. You'll have to ride Pansy, and she's in a camp
full of _kwaai_ birds. Cobus and the others can help get her out--but
hurry up, for I don't want to be kept waiting."
Colvin turned into his house and sat down to his solitary breakfast,
waited upon by Gert's wife, a middle-aged well-looking woman, as neat in
her attire and person as the table arrangements were scrupulously clean
and well served; a very jewel of a housekeeper, he was wont to declare,
for a miserable bachelor establishment in the Karroo. The house itself
was of no great pretensions--being merely a type of a not very
well-to-do farmer's residence--it having just passed out of the
possession of that class of Boer. But there was plenty of room in it,
and it could easily be improved, if its present owner made up his mind
to remain on in it. And, indeed, it was a matter not very far from
foreign to the question of improving and remaining on in it that was
occupying the said owner's mind as he sat alone at breakfast that
morning.
How would May Wenlock look in her bright, sweet freshness, making a
second at that solitary table? Her personality seemed to be creeping
more and more into his life. Why did he not ask her to share it, the
more so that he had no doubt as to what the answer would be? He was not
a conceited man, but he was a fairly experienced and clear-sighted one,
and would have been a born fool had he failed to perceive that the girl
was more than partial to him.
Propinquity--that is, opportunity--has much to answer for. They had
been thrown together a great deal, for have we not said that he had
spent some time with the Wenlocks while looking about for a farm of his
own? Moreover, he had come there handicapped by a kind of spurious
heroic glamour, in that he was supposed to have saved Frank's life on
one occasion in the Matopo Hills, what time they were hotly pressed by
the Matabele, and that rash youth had chosen to hang back when he should
have been retiring with the column. He had collected half a dozen
volunteers and brought him out just in time. To his own mind it had
been all in the day's work, but others had seen fit to make a great deal
more of it than it seemed to deserve. Of course the girl had begun by
making a sort of hero of him. Again, he himself personally was the kind
of man that women take to--cultured, travelled, well-bred, and full of
_savoir vivre_. It would have been strange if, considering the life the
girl led, the few men she saw, of her own nationality at least--for
although several of the young Dutch men around were both well-looking
and well educated, she could not take to them--she should come to think
a great deal of her brother's friend, and their only English neighbour.
Hence the intimacy that had grown and ripened between them.
Now he sat there thinking everything out. How near he had been only the
evening before last to asking her to share his life! A fraction of a
moment more would have done it, but for the interruption--timely or
otherwise. Which was it? He loved her--how indeed could he help doing
so, when in addition to all her attractions she was always so sweet and
lovable to him? But he was not _in love_ with her. He had passed the
age for "falling in love;" had reached that wherein men become
wholesomely critical. May Wenlock _as_ May Wenlock was one
personality--and a very charming and alluring personality at that May
Wenlock with a proprietary interest, and a legally signed and sealed
vested right in himself, was another. He had not been slow to descry in
her a very strong spice of natural temper and wilfulness; and although
now her demeanour towards himself was invariably sweet and winning,
would it always be so? And this was a side of the picture which did not
allure.
Propinquity! He had seen repeated instances, of the results of this,
had even experienced some. The girl or, woman who "could not live
without you" to-day might be voting you a bore of the first water by
this time next year, or even earlier. Personally he had never felt
disposed to find fault with this development. It cut both ways, as
often as not in point of fact, his experience told him. But on one
occasion, long years ago, it had not. He had been hard hit, and the
process had left a bruise, a scar, not readily obliterated. Now,
however, applying the recollection of that case to this, he decided that
the symptoms were wanting. He was not in love with May, much as her
presence appealed to him, and yet the consciousness of what he knew his
presence meant to her afforded him a gratification he would not have
been human had he not experienced.
Preferentially, too, he was not inclined to embark in matrimony. He had
seen too much of it--too many instances of the weary humdrum chain thus
riveted, the welding together of two lives into a deteriorating round of
petty frictions which it furnished. But in this instance there was a
still greater and, to his mind, more fatal bar. With all the
advantages, the free and easy social code, and republican waiving of
social distinctions which colonial life afforded, the fact remained that
the Wenlocks were some little way from being his social equals. And he
was a great believer in birth and breeding. In which connection he
could not but admit to himself that the mere fact of the interruption by
Mrs Wenlock of their _tete-a-tete_ the other evening had jarred less
upon him than a something in her tone and speech when effecting it.
More uneasily still, he was constrained to admit that he had on certain
rare occasions detected manifestations of lack of breeding in May
herself, such indeed as he had never traced a sign of, at any time or
under any circumstances, in the De la Rey girls for instance, or in any
member of that family. And yet Stephanus de la Rey was "only a Boer."
At this juncture the sound of horse hoofs outside cut short his
meditations. The morning air was fresh and keen, and Aasvogel, a tall,
deep-shouldered iron-grey, having been stabled for some days, gave him
plenty to take care of when first mounted. But Colvin was fond of
riding, so presently, letting out the powerful animal for all he wanted
over the wide Karroo plains, a sense of keen joyous exhilaration
scattered all serious thought to the four winds of heaven.
Soon the plain was left behind, giving way to a steep, rugged
mountain-road winding between the spurs. Higher and higher it led,
overhung by craggy cliffs, resonant with the shrill scream of the
_dasje_ and the loud hoarse bark of the sentinel baboon.
"Look there, Baas," said Gert Bondelzwart, pointing to a cleft which ran
up into a krantz where the slope ended not very high overhead. "That is
where Gideon Roux shot a Kafir. He is a _schelm_ Boer is Gideon Roux."
"Was it during the war?"
"_Nee, nee_, sir. The Kafir had come to take away a girl Gideon Roux
had on his place. Gideon did not want her to go, but the Kafir
insisted--said he had been sent by her people to fetch her. So Gideon
had him tied to the waggon-wheel and thrashed him with an _agter os
sjambok_, till he should promise not to ask for the girl any more. He
would not; so Gideon left him tied up all night, promising him some more
sjambok in the morning. But by then the Kafir had managed to get loose.
He hadn't much start, though, and they hunted him with dogs. He tried
to hide in that hole there, but Gideon and Hermanus Delport they called
to him to come out. He wouldn't. He had climbed on a rock inside to
escape the dogs and was afraid to move. So they shot him dead."
"When was this, Gert, and what did they do with the body?"
"About three years ago, Baas, or it might have been four. Do with the
body? _Maagtig_, sir! There are holes and pits in these mountains
where you or I might conveniently disappear and never be heard of
again."
"Are you cooking up a yam, Gert, just to pass the time; for don't you
know that in this country you can't shoot even a Kafir and stow him
comfortably away without being tried for murder and hanged?"
The man shook his head, with a very humorous look upon his yellow face.
It bordered almost upon amused contempt.
"It can be done, sir, and it was done. All the country knows it.
Gideon Roux and Hermanus Delport only laugh. Not a man in the
Wildschutsberg or the Rooi-Ruggensberg would dare accuse them, or dare
come forward to give evidence. _Nee_, sir, not a man, white, brown, or
black. There are very _schelm_ Boers in these mountains, and whoever
tried to stir up that affair his life would not be worth a tickey. They
would shoot him as they did the Kafir."
Colvin reined in his horse to the slowest of foot-paces, and stared at
the cleft as though struck with an idea.
"Have you ever been into that hole, Gert?"
"_Nee_, sir."
"Then how do you know there is a rock in there the Kafir could jump on
to escape Gideon Roux's dogs?"
"That is the story, Baas."
"Well, I'm going to have a look inside there. You remain here with the
horses, and if anyone passes you can say I have gone after a reebok
under the krantz."
The ascent, though steep, was not long, and soon Colvin was standing
within the mouth of the hole. It was a jagged fissure--running about
twenty feet into the cliff, then narrowing to a low tunnel of about ten
more.
Yes, this was quite correct. There was a rock--or rather a boulder.
Colvin pictured, by the light of a flaming vesta, the hunted man
standing gingerly on the apex of this to avoid the excited springs and
snaps of the dogs. There was no sign, however, of any human remains--
but--wait. Hallo! what was this?
The tunnel, which narrowed in from the end of the fissure, was half
blocked. Colvin lighted another vesta, and bent down. Through the
piled-up dust he made out what looked like a square rectangular stone.
Stone? No--it was wood. It was one of three long flat packing-cases,
piled one on top of the other. His nerves tingled with excitement.
What discovery was he on the point of making? At any rate, whatever it
might be, he would make it.
Now that his vision was accustomed to the semi-gloom he had no need of
artificial light. The glimmering that entered from the outer day was
sufficient. He hauled out the uppermost case. But how to open it?
That might be done. Fortunately, he was provided with a large
pocket-knife, containing various appliances which included a strong
screwdriver. What was he going to discover? Human remains? Perhaps.
Why, there might be others stowed away in like manner; victims of the
wild and lawless inhabitants of this remote mountain district.
Then it occurred to him that the chest was very heavy. What on earth
could it contain, and, by the way, what right had he to pry into its
contents? For a moment he paused. But the curiosity and excitement
attending upon this discovery were too great. Possibly, even, these
chests and their contents had lain there for years and years unknown to
anybody--even to the owner of the wild, and stony, and scattered
stock-run on which they were hidden, but remembering Gert's story that
did not seem likely. Anyway, he would share the mystery with whoever
held it. That could do no harm to anybody.
The lid was strongly screwed down. A few minutes of vigorous perspiring
work and it was up. Whatever the contents were, they were protected by
a thick wrapper of oilskin. This he proceeded to unwind, but carefully,
so as to be able to replace it readily. Then a quantity of tow, also
well oiled, and then--
No human remains, no shining coins, no old and massive silver, no
treasure of any kind met his eager gaze. But there, in the top of the
box, lay several rifles in a row.
He took one out, carried it as near the light of day as he dared go, and
examined it. The weapon was one of the newest pattern--a Mauser. The
others on the top layers were all alike. Allowing for the depth of the
chest, he reckoned that it must contain at least a couple of dozen
rifles. Here was a discovery. What was the meaning of this secret
armoury? There could be only one. For only one purpose could these
weapons be stowed away thus in the caves of the rocks--for the arming of
the rebel Boers when the word went forth for them to rise, and join
their brethren in the Transvaal and Free State, to throw off the British
yoke from the Zambesi to Cape Agulhas.
Replacing the rifle, he rapidly screwed down the case, and stowed it
away in the hole whence he had taken it, carefully piling up the dust
and loose earth against it and the others so as to obviate all trace of
interference. Hardly had he done so than the sound of hoof-strokes and
harsh voices without struck upon his ear. Peering cautiously forth, he
beheld, down upon the track from which he had ascended, two armed and
mounted Boers, and they were in close confabulation with Gert
Bondelzwart, his retainer.