Little Jannita sat alone beside a milk-bush. Before her and behind her
stretched the plain, covered with red sand and thorny karoo bushes; and
here and there a milk-bush, looking like a bundle of pale green rods
tied together. Not a tree was to be seen anywhere, except on the banks
of the river, and that was far away, and the sun beat on her head. Round
her fed the Angora goats she was herding; pretty things, especially the
little ones, with white silky curls that touched the ground. But Jannita
sat crying. If an angel should gather up in his cup all the tears that
have been shed, I think the bitterest would be those of children.
By and by she was so tired, and the sun was so hot, she laid her head
against the milk-bush, and dropped asleep.
She dreamed a beautiful dream. She thought that when she went back to
the farmhouse in the evening, the walls were covered with vines and
roses, and the kraals were not made of red stone, but of lilac trees
full of blossom. And the fat old Boer smiled at her; and the stick he
held across the door, for the goats to jump over, was a lily rod with
seven blossoms at the end. When she went to the house her mistress gave
her a whole roaster-cake for her supper, and the mistress’s daughter
had stuck a rose in the cake; and her mistress’s son-in-law said, “Thank
you!” when she pulled off his boots, and did not kick her.
It was a beautiful dream.
While she lay thus dreaming, one of the little kids came and licked her
on her cheek, because of the salt from her dried-up tears. And in her
dream she was not a poor indentured child any more, living with Boers.
It was her father who kissed her. He said he had only been asleep--that
day when he lay down under the thorn-bush; he had not really died. He
felt her hair, and said it was grown long and silky, and he said they
would go back to Denmark now. He asked her why her feet were bare, and
what the marks on her back were. Then he put her head on his shoulder,
and picked her up, and carried her away, away! She laughed--she could
feel her face against his brown beard. His arms were so strong.
As she lay there dreaming, with the ants running over her naked feet,
and with her brown curls lying in the sand, a Hottentot came up to her.
He was dressed in ragged yellow trousers, and a dirty shirt, and torn
jacket. He had a red handkerchief round his head, and a felt hat above
that. His nose was flat, his eyes like slits, and the wool on his head
was gathered into little round balls. He came to the milk-bush, and
looked at the little girl lying in the hot sun. Then he walked off, and
caught one of the fattest little Angora goats, and held its mouth fast,
as he stuck it under his arm. He looked back to see that she was still
sleeping, and jumped down into one of the sluits. He walked down the bed
of the sluit a little way and came to an overhanging bank, under which,
sitting on the red sand, were two men. One was a tiny, ragged, old
bushman, four feet high; the other was an English navvy, in a dark
blue blouse. They cut the kid’s throat with the navvy’s long knife, and
covered up the blood with sand, and buried the entrails and skin. Then
they talked, and quarrelled a little; and then they talked quietly
again.
The Hottentot man put a leg of the kid under his coat and left the rest
of the meat for the two in the sluit, and walked away.
When little Jannita awoke it was almost sunset. She sat up very
frightened, but her goats were all about her. She began to drive them
home. “I do not think there are any lost,” she said.
Dirk, the Hottentot, had brought his flock home already, and stood at
the kraal door with his ragged yellow trousers. The fat old Boer put his
stick across the door, and let Jannita’s goats jump over, one by one. He
counted them. When the last jumped over: “Have you been to sleep today?”
he said; “there is one missing.”
Then little Jannita knew what was coming, and she said, in a low voice,
“No.” And then she felt in her heart that deadly sickness that you feel
when you tell a lie; and again she said, “Yes.”
“Do you think you will have any supper this evening?” said the Boer.
“No,” said Jannita.
“What do you think you will have?”
“I don’t know,” said Jannita.
“Give me your whip,” said the Boer to Dirk, the Hottentot.
*****
The moon was all but full that night. Oh, but its light was beautiful!
The little girl crept to the door of the outhouse where she slept, and
looked at it. When you are hungry, and very, very sore, you do not
cry. She leaned her chin on one hand, and looked, with her great dove’s
eyes--the other hand was cut open, so she wrapped it in her pinafore.
She looked across the plain at the sand and the low karoo-bushes, with
the moonlight on them.
Presently, there came slowly, from far away, a wild springbuck. It
came close to the house, and stood looking at it in wonder, while
the moonlight glinted on its horns, and in its great eyes. It stood
wondering at the red brick walls, and the girl watched it. Then,
suddenly, as if it scorned it all, it curved its beautiful back and
turned; and away it fled over the bushes and sand, like a sheeny streak
of white lightning. She stood up to watch it. So free, so free! Away,
away! She watched, till she could see it no more on the wide plain.
Her heart swelled, larger, larger, larger: she uttered a low cry; and
without waiting, pausing, thinking, she followed on its track. Away,
away, away! “I--I also!” she said, “I--I also!”
When at last her legs began to tremble under her, and she stopped to
breathe, the house was a speck behind her. She dropped on the earth, and
held her panting sides.
She began to think now.
If she stayed on the plain they would trace her footsteps in the morning
and catch her; but if she waded in the water in the bed of the river
they would not be able to find her footmarks; and she would hide, there
where the rocks and the kopjes were.
So she stood up and walked towards the river. The water in the river
was low; just a line of silver in the broad bed of sand, here and there
broadening into a pool. She stepped into it, and bathed her feet in the
delicious cold water. Up and up the stream she walked, where it rattled
over the pebbles, and past where the farmhouse lay; and where the rocks
were large she leaped from one to the other. The night wind in her face
made her strong--she laughed. She had never felt such night wind before.
So the night smells to the wild bucks, because they are free! A free
thing feels as a chained thing never can.
At last she came to a place where the willows grew on each side of the
river, and trailed their long branches on the sandy bed. She could not
tell why, she could not tell the reason, but a feeling of fear came over
her.
On the left bank rose a chain of kopjes and a precipice of rocks.
Between the precipice and the river bank there was a narrow path covered
by the fragments of fallen rock. And upon the summit of the precipice a
kippersol tree grew, whose palm-like leaves were clearly cut out against
the night sky. The rocks cast a deep shadow, and the willow trees, on
either side of the river. She paused, looked up and about her, and then
ran on, fearful.
“What was I afraid of? How foolish I have been!” she said, when she came
to a place where the trees were not so close together. And she stood
still and looked back and shivered.
At last her steps grew wearier and wearier. She was very sleepy now, she
could scarcely lift her feet. She stepped out of the river-bed. She only
saw that the rocks about her were wild, as though many little kopjes had
been broken up and strewn upon the ground, lay down at the foot of an
aloe, and fell asleep.
*****
But, in the morning, she saw what a glorious place it was. The rocks
were piled on one another, and tossed this way and that. Prickly
pears grew among them, and there were no less than six kippersol trees
scattered here and there among the broken kopjes. In the rocks there
were hundreds of homes for the conies, and from the crevices wild
asparagus hung down. She ran to the river, bathed in the clear cold
water, and tossed it over her head. She sang aloud. All the songs she
knew were sad, so she could not sing them now, she was glad, she was so
free; but she sang the notes without the words, as the cock-o-veets do.
Singing and jumping all the way, she went back, and took a sharp stone,
and cut at the root of a kippersol, and got out a large piece, as long
as her arm, and sat to chew it. Two conies came out on the rock above
her head and peeped at her. She held them out a piece, but they did not
want it, and ran away.
It was very delicious to her. Kippersol is like raw quince, when it is
very green; but she liked it. When good food is thrown at you by
other people, strange to say, it is very bitter; but whatever you find
yourself is sweet!
When she had finished she dug out another piece, and went to look for
a pantry to put it in. At the top of a heap of rocks up which she
clambered she found that some large stones stood apart but met at the
top, making a room.
“Oh, this is my little home!” she said.
At the top and all round it was closed, only in the front it was open.
There was a beautiful shelf in the wall for the kippersol, and she
scrambled down again. She brought a great bunch of prickly pear, and
stuck it in a crevice before the door, and hung wild asparagus over it,
till it looked as though it grew there. No one could see that there was
a room there, for she left only a tiny opening, and hung a branch of
feathery asparagus over it. Then she crept in to see how it looked.
There was a glorious soft green light. Then she went out and picked some
of those purple little ground flowers--you know them--those that keep
their faces close to the ground, but when you turn them up and look at
them they are deep blue eyes looking into yours! She took them with a
little earth, and put them in the crevices between the rocks; and so
the room was quite furnished. Afterwards she went down to the river and
brought her arms full of willow, and made a lovely bed; and, because the
weather was very hot, she lay down to rest upon it.
She went to sleep soon, and slept long, for she was very weak. Late in
the afternoon she was awakened by a few cold drops falling on her face.
She sat up. A great and fierce thunderstorm had been raging, and a
few of the cool drops had fallen through the crevice in the rocks. She
pushed the asparagus branch aside, and looked out, with her little hands
folded about her knees. She heard the thunder rolling, and saw the red
torrents rush among the stones on their way to the river. She heard the
roar of the river as it now rolled, angry and red, bearing away stumps
and trees on its muddy water. She listened and smiled, and pressed
closer to the rock that took care of her. She pressed the palm of her
hand against it. When you have no one to love you, you love the dumb
things very much. When the sun set, it cleared up. Then the little girl
ate some kippersol, and lay down again to sleep. She thought there was
nothing so nice as to sleep. When one has had no food but kippersol
juice for two days, one doesn’t feel strong.
“It is so nice here,” she thought as she went to sleep, “I will stay
here always.”
Afterwards the moon rose. The sky was very clear now, there was not a
cloud anywhere; and the moon shone in through the bushes in the door,
and made a lattice-work of light on her face. She was dreaming a
beautiful dream. The loveliest dreams of all are dreamed when you are
hungry. She thought she was walking in a beautiful place, holding her
father’s hand, and they both had crowns on their heads, crowns of wild
asparagus. The people whom they passed smiled and kissed her; some gave
her flowers, and some gave her food, and the sunlight was everywhere.
She dreamed the same dream over and over, and it grew more and more
beautiful; till, suddenly, it seemed as though she were standing quite
alone. She looked up: on one side of her was the high precipice, on the
other was the river, with the willow trees, drooping their branches into
the water; and the moonlight was over all. Up, against the night sky the
pointed leaves of the kippersol trees were clearly marked, and the rocks
and the willow trees cast dark shadows.
In her sleep she shivered, and half awoke.
“Ah, I am not there, I am here,” she said; and she crept closer to the
rock, and kissed it, and went to sleep again.
It must have been about three o’clock, for the moon had begun to sink
towards the western sky, when she woke, with a violent start. She sat
up, and pressed her hand against her heart.
“What can it be? A cony must surely have run across my feet and
frightened me!” she said, and she turned to lie down again; but soon she
sat up. Outside, there was the distinct sound of thorns crackling in a
fire.
She crept to the door and made an opening in the branches with her
fingers.
A large fire was blazing in the shadow, at the foot of the rocks. A
little Bushman sat over some burning coals that had been raked from it,
cooking meat. Stretched on the ground was an Englishman, dressed in a
blouse, and with a heavy, sullen face. On the stone beside him was Dirk,
the Hottentot, sharpening a bowie knife.
She held her breath. Not a cony in all the rocks was so still.
“They can never find me here,” she said; and she knelt, and listened to
every word they said. She could hear it all.
“You may have all the money,” said the Bushman; “but I want the cask of
brandy. I will set the roof alight in six places, for a Dutchman burnt
my mother once alive in a hut, with three children.”
“You are sure there is no one else on the farm?” said the navvy.
“No, I have told you till I am tired,” said Dirk; “The two Kaffirs have
gone with the son to town; and the maids have gone to a dance; there is
only the old man and the two women left.”
“But suppose,” said the navvy, “he should have the gun at his bedside,
and loaded!”
“He never has,” said Dirk; “it hangs in the passage, and the cartridges
too. He never thought when he bought it what work it was for! I only
wish the little white girl was there still,” said Dirk; “but she is
drowned. We traced her footmarks to the great pool that has no bottom.”
She listened to every word, and they talked on.
Afterwards, the little Bushman, who crouched over the fire, sat up
suddenly, listening.
“Ha! what is that?” he said.
A Bushman is like a dog: his ear is so fine he knows a jackal’s tread
from a wild dog’s.
“I heard nothing,” said the navvy.
“I heard,” said the Hottentot; “but it was only a cony on the rocks.”
“No cony, no cony,” said the Bushman; “see, what is that there moving in
the shade round the point?”
“Nothing, you idiot!” said the navvy. “Finish your meat; we must start
now.”
There were two roads to the homestead. One went along the open plain,
and was by far the shortest; but you might be seen half a mile off. The
other ran along the river bank, where there were rocks, and holes, and
willow trees to hide among. And all down the river bank ran a little
figure.
The river was swollen by the storm full to its banks, and the willow
trees dipped their half-drowned branches into its water. Wherever there
was a gap between them, you could see it flow, red and muddy, with the
stumps upon it. But the little figure ran on and on; never looking,
never thinking; panting, panting! There, where the rocks were the
thickest; there, where on the open space the moonlight shone; there,
where the prickly pears were tangled, and the rocks cast shadows, on it
ran; the little hands clinched, the little heart beating, the eyes fixed
always ahead.
It was not far to run now. Only the narrow path between the high rocks
and the river.
At last she came to the end of it, and stood for an instant. Before her
lay the plain, and the red farmhouse, so near, that if persons had been
walking there you might have seen them in the moonlight. She clasped her
hands. “Yes, I will tell them, I will tell them!” she said; “I am almost
there!” She ran forward again, then hesitated. She shaded her eyes from
the moonlight, and looked. Between her and the farmhouse there were
three figures moving over the low bushes.
In the sheeny moonlight you could see how they moved on, slowly and
furtively; the short one, and the one in light clothes, and the one in
dark.
“I cannot help them now!” she cried, and sank down on the ground, with
her little hands clasped before her.
*****
“Awake, awake!” said the farmer’s wife; “I hear a strange noise;
something calling, calling, calling!”
The man rose, and went to the window.
“I hear it also,” he said; “surely some jackal’s at the sheep. I will
load my gun and go and see.”
“It sounds to me like the cry of no jackal,” said the woman; and when he
was gone she woke her daughter.
“Come, let us go and make a fire, I can sleep no more,” she said; “I
have heard a strange thing tonight. Your father said it was a jackal’s
cry, but no jackal cries so. It was a child’s voice, and it cried,
‘Master, master, wake!’”
The women looked at each other; then they went to the kitchen, and made
a great fire; and they sang psalms all the while.
At last the man came back; and they asked him, “What have you seen?”
“Nothing,” he said, “but the sheep asleep in their kraals, and the
moonlight on the walls. And yet, it did seem to me,” he added, “that
far away near the krantz by the river, I saw three figures moving. And
afterwards--it might have been fancy--I thought I heard the cry again;
but since that, all has been still there.”
*****
Next day a navvy had returned to the railway works.
“Where have you been so long?” his comrades asked.
“He keeps looking over his shoulder,” said one, “as though he thought he
should see something there.”
“When he drank his grog today,” said another, “he let it fall, and
looked round.”
Next day, a small old Bushman, and a Hottentot, in ragged yellow
trousers, were at a wayside canteen. When the Bushman had had brandy, he
began to tell how something (he did not say whether it was man, woman,
or child) had lifted up its hands and cried for mercy; had kissed a
white man’s hands, and cried to him to help it. Then the Hottentot took
the Bushman by the throat, and dragged him out.
Next night, the moon rose up, and mounted the quiet sky. She was full
now, and looked in at the little home; at the purple flowers stuck about
the room, and the kippersol on the shelf. Her light fell on the willow
trees, and on the high rocks, and on a little new-made heap of earth
and round stones. Three men knew what was under it; and no one else ever
will.
Lily Kloof, South Africa.