It is Sunday.
Ride we behind the horseman who is picking his way down a stony path
through the ever present bush, making for yon thatched building down
there in the hollow. A low, rough shanty, built in the roughest and
readiest fashion, and of the rawest of red brick. Three windows,
cobwebbed and cloudy with many a patched-up pane of blue or brown paper,
admit light and air, and a door made to open in halves. A smaller
edifice hard by, with tumble-down mud walls and in a state of more or
less rooflessness, does duty as a stable, and in front of the two an
open space slopes down a distance of one hundred and fifty yards to the
river, whose limpid waters dash and sparkle over their stony bed,
between cactus-lined banks--the stubbornly encroaching and well-nigh
ineradicable prickly pear. Opposite rises a great cliff, whose base and
sides are set in the greenest and most luxuriant of forest trees, but
whose brow, like its stern face, is bare of foliage and stands out in
hard relief against the sky. There seems no reason why this cliff
should be there at all, seeing that the hill would have been far more
symmetrical without it, unless in its wild irregularity it were destined
for the purpose alone of giving a magnificent--if a trifle forbidding--
frontage to the ill-looking and commonplace dwelling-house. On all
sides the towering heights rise to the sky, shutting in this beautiful
and romantic spot which might be a veritable Sleepy Hollow, so far does
it seem from the sights and the sounds of men. But it must be confessed
that its beauty and romance are utterly thrown away upon its present
occupant, who is wont to describe the place as "a beastly stifling hole
out of which I'd be only too glad to clear to-morrow, by Jove; but then
one can't chuck up the lease, you know, and it isn't half a bad place
for stock, too." It rejoices in the inviting name of Spoek Krantz
(Ghost Cliff), and is held in awe and terror as an unholy and
demon-peopled locality by the superstitions natives, as well as by the
scarcely less superstitious Boer; and gruesome tales are told of
unearthly sights and sounds among the rocky caves at its base; shadowy
shapes and strange fearful cries, and now and again mysterious fires are
seen burning upon its ledges in the dead of night, while the most
careful exploration the next morning has utterly failed to discover the
smallest trace of footprint or cinder. Native tradition has stamped the
spot as one to be avoided, for the spirit of a mighty wizard claims it
as his resting-place. Even by day the place, shut in by its frowning
heights, is lonely and forbidding of aspect.
But utterly impervious to supernatural terrors is he who now dwells in
the haunted locality. The grim traditions of a savage race are to him
as mere old wives' fables, and he laughs to scorn all notion of any
awesome associations whatever. He would just like to see a ghost, that
was all, any and every night you pleased; if he didn't make it lively
for the spectral visitant with a bullet, call him a nigger. Yes, he
would admit seeing strange lights on the cliff at times, and hearing
strange sounds; but to ascribe them to supernatural agency struck him as
utter bosh. The lights were caused by a moonlight reflection, or
will-o'-the-wisps, or something of that sort; and the row, why, it was
only some jackal yowling in the krantz, and as for getting in a funk
about it, that would do for the niggers or white-livered Dutchmen, but
not for him. Tradition said that there was a secret cavern in the
cliff, but the entrance was known to very few even among the natives
themselves, and only to their most redoubted magicians. Certain it is
that no Kafir admitted knowledge of this, and when questioned carefully
evaded the subject.
And now, as the horseman we have been following emerges from the bush on
to the open space surrounding the low-roofed, thatched shanty, a man is
seated in his shirt-sleeves on a stone in front of the door, intently
watching something upon the ground. It is a large circular glass cover,
such as might be used for placing over cheese or fruit; but to a very
different use is it now being put. For imprisoned within it are two
scorpions of differing species--a red one and a black one--hideous
monsters, measuring five inches from their great lobster-like claws to
the tip of their armed tails, and there they crouch, each upon one side
of its glass prison-house, both, evidently, in that dubious state aptly
known among schoolboys as "one's funky, and t'other's afraid."
"Hold on a bit," called out the man in the shirt sleeves, but without
turning his head, as the trampling of hoofs behind him warned of the
approach of a visitor, "or, at any rate, come up quietly."
"Why, what in the name of all that's blue have you got there?" demanded
Hicks, dismounting; for he it is whom we have accompanied to this
out-of-the-way spot. "Well, I'm blest?" he continued, going off into a
roar of laughter as he approached near enough to see the other's
occupation.
"Tsh! tsh! Don't make such an infernal row, man, you'll spoil all the
fun, and make me lose my bet."
"What's the bet?"
"Why, I've got five goats against that blue schimmel heifer of old
Jafta's on these two beggars, that the black one'll polish off the red
'un; but they are to go at it of their own accord, and now I've been
watching them for the last half-hour, but the beggars won't fight,"
replied the other, still without moving, or even so much as looking over
his shoulder.
"Stir them up a bit," suggested Hicks.
"Can't; it'd scratch the bet."
"Where's Jafta?"
"Oh, he wouldn't wait. Went away laughing in his sleeve. He'll laugh
the other side of his mouth, the old _schelm_, when he has to fork out."
"Well, you must have been hard up for some one to run a bet with. A
nice little occupation, too, for a Sunday morning," replied Hicks, with
sham irony.
"Sunday be somethinged. There's no Sunday on the frontier. Hullo!"
This exclamation was the result of a change of attitude on the part of
the grisly denizens of the glass. Slack began slowly to move round the
circumference of his prison, in process of which he cannoned against
red, and Greek met Greek. With claws interlaced, the venomous brutes
plied their sting-armed tails like a couple of striving demons, till at
length their grip relaxed, and red fell over on his back with his legs
doubled up and rigid.
"Hooroosh! I've won," called out our new acquaintance, jumping up
gleefully. "Hi! Jafta, Jafta!" he bawled, anxious to notify his
triumph over his sceptical retainer.
"Hold on; not so fast," put in Hicks, "t'other fellow's a gone coon,
too, or not far from it. Look," he added, pointing to the glass.
And in good sooth the victor began to show signs of approaching
dissolution, which increased to such an extent, that in a couple of
minutes he lay as rigid and motionless as the vanquished.
"Never mind, it all counts. He did polish off the other. Jafta, we'll
put my mark on that cow to-morrow."
"Nay, Baas," demurred that ancient servitor, who had just come up. He
was a wiry little old Hottentot, with a yellow skin, and beady monkey
eyes, and as ugly as the seven deadly sins. "Nay, Baas, the bet's an
even one; neither thrashed the other. Isn't it so, Baas Hicks?"
"Well, as you put it to me, I think the bet's a draw," began Hicks.
"Oh, no, that won't do," objected Jafta's master, "the black did polish
off the red, you know. If he went off himself afterwards, it was owing
to his uneasy conscience. That wasn't provided for in the agreement.
But never mind, Jafta, you can keep your old `stomp-stert' this time."
[Note 1.]
The old Hottentot grinned all over his parchment countenance, and the
numerous and grimy wrinkles thereof puckered themselves like the skin of
a withered apple. He, and his two sons, strapping lads of eighteen and
nineteen, constituted the whole staff of farm servants. No Kafir could
be induced to stay on the place, owing to its weird associations; a
circumstance which, according to its occupant, was not without its
compensating advantage, for the marauding savage, in his nocturnal
forays, at any rate kept his hands off these flocks and herds. The old
fellow, however, was fairly faithful to his employer, though not
scrupulously honest in all his dealings with the rest of mankind at
large; the place suited him, and as for ghosts, well, he had never seen
anything to frighten him.
And now the jolly frontiersman, who has been driven to so eccentric a
form of Sabbath amusement, rises, and we see a man of middle height,
with a humorous and gleeful countenance; in his eyes there lurks a
mirthful twinkle, and every sun-tanned lineament bespeaks "a character."
And he is a character. Always on the look-out for the whimsical side
of events, he is light-hearted to childishness, and has a disastrous
weakness for the perpetration of practical jokes--a vein of humour far
more entertaining to its possessor than to its victims--and game to bet
upon any and every contingency. He is about thirty, and his name is
Jack Armitage.
"Well, Hicks, old man," said this worthy. "Taken pity on my lonely
estate, eh? That's right; we'll make a day of it. Had breakfast?"
"No."
"More have I; we'll have it now. Er--Jafta!" he shouted, "Jafta! Wheel
up those chops. Sharp's the word."
"Ya, Baas. Just now?" called out that menial, and from the kitchen
sounds of hissing and sputtering betokened the preparation of a
succulent fry.
"Just now! Only listen. Why, he'll be twenty minutes at least."
"Not he," said Hicks; "he's nearly ready, I can smell that much."
"Nearly ready! Give you a dollar to five bob he's twenty minutes from
now. Is that on?" he inquired, putting out his watch to take the time.
[Rix dollar, 1 shilling 6 pence.]
"No, it isn't. I'm not going to encourage your disgraceful and sporting
proclivities," was the reply, as they entered the house. Three
partitions boasted this domicile--a bedroom, a sitting-room, and the
kitchen aforesaid. Of ceiling it was wholly guiltless, the sole canopy
overhead being plain, unadulterated thatch; and the mud floor, plastered
over with cow-dung, after the manner of the rougher frontier houses,
gave forth a musty, uninviting odour, which it required all the ingress
of the free air of Heaven to atone for. A large, roomy wooden press,
and a row of shelves, with a green baize curtain in front, stood against
the whitewashed wall, and in the middle of the room a coarse cloth was
laid upon the wooden table, with a couple of plates and knives and
forks. Armitage dived into the press and produced a great brown loaf, a
tin of milk, and a mighty jar of quince jam.
"Hallo! the ants are in possession again," said he, surveying the jar,
whence issued an irregular crowd of those industrious insects--too
industrious sometimes. "Never mind, we can dodge them; besides, they
are fattening. Ah, that's right, Jafta,"--as that worthy entered with a
dish of fizzing chops in one hand and a pot of strong black coffee in
the other. "Now we can fall to."
"By the way, I shall have to go back soon," said Hicks. "I only came to
see if any of those sheep we lost had got in amongst Van Rooyen's, and
thought I'd sponge on you for a feed whilst I was down this way."
"Oh, that can't be allowed; I thought you had come to help a fellow kill
Sunday. Hang it, man, don't be in a hurry; stop and have some rifle
practice, and then we can take out that bees' nest down by the river.
Ah, but I forgot," he added, with a quizzical wink. "Never mind, my
boy; I don't want to spoil fun, you'll be better employed at home."
Hicks was sorely puzzled. He was a good-natured fellow, and could see
that the other had reckoned upon his company for the day. Yet he had
his reasons for wanting to get back. "Look here, Jack," he said, at
length, "I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll hold on here a little and
help you to get out that bees' nest, then you can go back with me and
we'll get to Seringa Vale just nicely in time for dinner. Will that
do?"
"All right," assented the other, "that'll do me well enough. I've had
nothing but my own blessed company for the last fortnight, except for a
Dutchman or two now and again, and a little jaw with my fellow creatures
will do me a world of good. By the way, is that chap Claverton still
with you?"
"Yes. How d'you like him?"
"Oh, he seems good enough sort, but about the most casual bird I ever
saw. He was down here one day; did he tell you about it? No! Well,
then, a couple of Dutchmen came in--Swaart Pexter and his brother
Marthinus--and Swaart, who is one of your bragging devils and `down on'
a `raw Englishman' like a ton of bricks, after yarning a little while
points to Claverton, who was sitting over there blowing a cloud in his
calm way, and says rather cheekily: `Who's that?' I told him. `Can he
talk Dutch?' was the next question. `Don't know,' says I. `How long
has he been in this country?' says he. `Tell him a year,' says
Claverton, quietly, without moving a muscle. I told him. `A year!'
says Pexter, turning up his nose more cheekily than before. `A year and
can't talk Dutch yet! He must be _domm_,' [stupid]. Thereupon
Claverton looks the fellow bang in the eyes, and says in Dutch, `Can you
talk English?' `No!' replies Pexter, with a stare of astonishment.
`And how long have _you_ been here?' `Been here!' says the other, with
a contemptuous laugh at this--to him--new proof of the other fellow's
greenness. `Why, I was born here.' `How old are you?' goes on
Claverton in a tone of friendly interest. `Forty-seven last May,' says
the Dutchman, wondering what the deuce is coming next. `Forty-seven
last May!' repeats our friend, calmly knocking the ash out of his pipe.
`That is, you have been in this country forty-seven years, and can't
talk English yet. Well, you must be _domm_!' I roared and so did
Marthinus. `Got you there, old chap,' says I. Swaart Pexter looked
rather shirty and tried to laugh it off, but Claverton had him. Had
him, sir, fairly--lock, stock, and barrel. Well, after a while we went
outside and stuck up a bottle at four hundred yards to have some rifle
practice. The Dutchmen are first-rate shots, and I--well, a buck or a
nigger would be anything but safe in front of me at that distance--but I
give you my word that none of us could touch that bottle. When we had
fired a dozen shots apiece and nearly covered the beastly thing with
dust, and ploughed up the ground all round it as if a thunderbolt had
fallen, out saunters Claverton with a yellow-backed novel in his fist.
`Doesn't your friend shoot?' asks Marthinus. `Suppose so,' says I.
`Have a shot, Claverton!' `Don't mind,' says he, taking over my gun. I
could see a malicious grin on Swaart's ugly mug, and hugely was he
preparing to chuckle over the `raw Englishman's' wide shooting.
Claverton lay down, and without much aiming--bang--crash--we could
hardly believe our eyes--the bottle had flown. By Jove it had. `Well
done,' says I, `but do that again, old chap'; yes, it was mean of me, I
allow, but I couldn't help it. `Don't want to do for all your bottles,
Armitage,' says my joker as quietly as you please, as I sent the boy to
stick up another, and I had just time to start a bet of five bob with
Marthinus in his favour when--bang--and, by Jove, sir, would you believe
it? that bottle shared the fate of the first. Well, we _were_
astonished. `Aren't you going to shoot any more?' says Marthinus,
handing over the five bob with a very bad grace. `Too hot out here,'
replies he, sloping into the shade of the house; and diving his nose
into the yellow-back again, leaves us to our bottle-breaking or rather
to our attempts at the same, for I'm dashed if we touched one after
that. After the Pexters had gone I says, `Look here, old chap, we'll
have a quiet match between ourselves, five bob on every dozen shots--you
shall give me odds.' `My dear fellow,' says he, `odds should be the
other way about. I shan't touch that bottle again three times if I
blaze away at it the whole morning.' `The Lord, you won't,' says I;
`never mind, let's try.' He did, and was as good as his word, and
handed over fifteen bob at the close of the entertainment, having hit
the mark twice to my seven times. `And how the deuce did you pink it
before--twice running can't be a fluke, you know?' I asked, when we had
done. `Well, you see, those louts were bent on seeing me shoot wide, so
I held straight just to spite them,' was his cool answer. But didn't he
tell you all about it?"
"Not a word," said Hicks. "He just said he had been down here, and a
couple of slouching Dutchmen had looked in and tried to take a rise out
of him, but didn't manage it."
"Well, he is a rum stick and no mistake. What's in the wind now?" and
as the trampling of hoofs fell upon the speaker's ear, he got up hastily
and made for the door, knocking over a wooden chair in his progress, and
treading on the tail of a mongrel puppy which had sneaked in and was
lying under the table, and which now fled, yelling disconsolately.
"Here come two chaps," he went on, shading his eyes from the sun's glare
and looking out into the _veldt_. "Dutchmen--no--one is--David Botha, I
think; t'other's Allen--no mistaking him. Wheu-uw! Now for some fun,
Hicks, my boy. We'll make him help us with the bees' nest, and if you
don't kill yourself with almighty blue fits, call me a nigger."
The two drew near. The Boer with his stolid, wooden face, slouch hat
(round which was twined a faded blue veil), and bob-tailed and ancient
tail-coat, was an ordinary specimen of his class and nation. The
Englishman, however, was not. He was rather a queer-looking fellow,
tall and loosely-built, with a great mop of yellow hair and an absent
expression of countenance. His age might have been five or
six-and-twenty. He had not been long in the colony, and was
theoretically supposed to be farming. On horseback Allen was quaint of
aspect. His seat in the saddle would not have been a good advertisement
to his riding-master, putting it mildly, and he invariably rode screws.
Moreover, he was great on jack-boots and huge spurs.
"Good day, David," said Armitage, as the Boer extended a damp and
uncleanly paw. "Hallo, Allen! you're just in the nick of time. We are
just going to get out a bees' nest, and you must come and bear a hand."
"But--er--I'm not much use at that sort of thing. Botha will help you
much better."
"Won't do, old chap--won't do," said Armitage, decisively. "In the
words of the poet, `Not to-day, baker!' So come along."
Allen's jaw fell. If there was one thing on this earth he hated, it was
depriving the little busy bee of the hard-earned fruits of his labours,
not on humanitarian grounds--oh, no--but the despoiled insects had a
knack of buzzing viciously around the noses and ears of the depredators
and their accomplices in a way that was highly trying to weak nerves, to
say nothing of the absolute certainty of two or three stings, if not
half-a-dozen. He glanced instinctively towards David Botha as though
mutely to ask: "Why the deuce won't _he_ do?" But that stolid Boer sat
puffing away at his pipe, and showed no inclination to come to the
rescue.
"Hicks, give Allen one of those big tins to put the honey in while I
hunt up some brown paper to make a smoke with," said Armitage, as they
went into the house. It had been arranged that Allen should hold the
receptacle for the honey, otherwise he would inevitably have sloped off.
They went down to the river bank, Armitage leading the way. A keg fixed
in the fork of a small tree constituted the hive, and the busy insects
were winging in and out with a murmuring hum. Armitage divested himself
of his coat so that the bees shouldn't get up the sleeves, as he said,
and slouched his hat well over his face and neck; then with a chisel he
removed the head of the keg, while Hicks ignited the brown paper and
made the very deuce of a smoke.
"Not much in it--quite the wrong time of year to take it," said
Armitage, as the waxen combs in the hive were disclosed to view. "Never
mind, they'll make a lot more. Oh-h!" as one of the outraged insects
playfully stung him on the ear. "Come a little nearer, Allen;" and he
threw a couple of combs into the tin dish, while Hicks stood close at
hand plying the smoke with all the energy of a Ritualistic thurifer.
"Oh-h--ah!" echoed Allen, in dismal staccato, as he received a sting on
the hand, and another on the back of the neck.
"Hang it, man, don't drop the concern!" exclaimed Armitage, pitching
another comb or two into the large tin; nor was the warning altogether
ill-timed, for poor Allen was undergoing a _mauvais quart d'heure_ with
a vengeance, ducking his head spasmodically as the angry insects
"bizzed" savagely around his ears, and all the time looking intensely
wretched under the infliction.
And in truth the fun began to wax warm. Armitage's hat was invisible
beneath the clusters of bees which swarmed over it, while others were
crawling about on his clothes. Now and then he would give vent to an
ejaculation, as a sting, inflicted more viciously than usual, told
through even his hardened skin; but he kept on manfully at his task,
cutting out the combs and depositing them in the tin, while the air was
filled with buzzing angry bees and suffocating smoke.
"Think we've got enough now," he said at last, drawing his face out of
the cask, and quickly heading up the latter. Allen, to whom this dictum
was like a reprieve to a condemned criminal, gave a sigh of relief, and
began to breathe freely again. But his self-gratulation was somewhat
premature, for at that moment a bee insinuated itself into his thick,
frizzly-hair just above the neck, and began stinging like mad. Crash!
Down went the tin containing the honey-combs, while the victim danced
and capered and executed the most grotesque contortions for a moment;
then, in a perfect frenzy, away he rushed to the nearest point of the
river--a long, deep reach--where he plunged his head into the water, and
losing his centre of gravity, ended by incontinently tumbling in, while
the spectators were obliged to lie down and indulge their paroxysms of
uncontrollable mirth to the very uttermost.
"Oh, oh, oh-h-h!" roared Armitage. "P-pick him out, some one; I'm n-not
equal to it." And he lay back on the sward and howled again.
And in good sooth the warning came none too soon, for at that point the
current flowed swift and deep, and poor Allen, what with his exertions
and the weight of his jack-boots, was in a state of dire exhaustion, and
a few moments more would have put an end to his hopes and fears. Hicks
and the Dutchman, who had managed to recover themselves, ran down to the
water's edge, and shouted to him to seize a branch which swept the
surface, and at length the involuntary swimmer was fished out and stood
dripping and shivering, and looking inexpressibly foolish, on the bank.
"Oh-h, Lord! oh, Lord!" roared Armitage, bursting out afresh as he
picked up the fallen tin, and gathered up the fragments that remained.
"I never saw anything to beat that, by the holy poker I never did! Come
along, old man. We'll tog you out while I get out some of these stings.
The brutes must have been under the impression that I was a jolly
pincushion, and have used me accordingly."
"Dud--dud--don't think I'll go up to Seringa Vale to-day," stuttered
Allen, as soon as he recovered breath. He feared the chaff which he
knew full well awaited him on the strength of this latest escapade.
"Nonsense, man! We'll tog you out in no time, and then we'll all ride
over together and have a jolly day of it," said Armitage.
Allen yielded, and was speedily arrayed in various garments which didn't
fit him. The jack-boots were inevitably left behind, to the great
concern of their owner, for there was no possibility of their being dry
before sundown at the earliest. Towards noon the horses were brought
round and saddled, and having locked up the house the three started,
while the Dutchman took his leave and rode off home to regale his
_vrouw_ and _hinders_, and his cousins and his aunts, with the story--
highly coloured--of the "raw Englishman's" discomfiture.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. "Stump tail." Taillessness is frequent among colonial cattle--
the result of inoculation.