Gert Gemsbok prowled along the bank of the Orange River and bent an
attentive eye upon the brimming flood. The great stream, swollen by the
summer rains in far-off Basutoland, sped roaring down the rapids just
above the Augrabies Falls, over which it would plunge into that
mysterious, unexplored gorge through which its secret way lay for some
four hundred miles to the Atlantic Ocean. Brown with the gleanings of
tens of thousands of square miles of loamy hill and dale swept by
furious thunderstorms, clogged with the detritus gathered from flooded
flat and spate-ravaged kloof, foul with the rubbish from many a distant
mining camp on the banks of its tributary, the Vaal, the torrent swept
irresistibly on with a growling roar, the might of which could not be
realised without receding for some distance from the bank. Then it
would be felt that the air was filled with continuous thunder and that
the very earth shuddered with the throbbings of this mighty artery, as
the body of a man quivers after unwonted effort.
Flotsam and jetsam abounded in every cranny of the bank and on the
down-stream side of every point and headland. Strange objects might be
here and there seen--broken packing-cases, dead cattle, sheep, and
goats, pumpkins, skins, and old rags. In every bay of still water lay
an unsavoury jumble. Gert examined the swollen carcases one by one in
the almost vain hope of finding one not too decomposed to eat.
Walking upstream he crossed a promontory covered with scrub. Behind
this lay an inlet in the bank which was filled by a slow swirl generated
by a rapid immediately above. He paused and cast his eye over the
different objects which were slowly circling round and round. One of
these soon riveted his attention: it was a rough wooden framework
superimposed upon a strong raft, on which was stretched the body of a
man dressed in European clothing. Gert walked round the bend of the
inlet until he reached a convenient spot on its opposite face. His
practised eye recognised this as the place where the object of his
scrutiny would most probably ground or come close enough to the bank to
be caught hold of, if necessary. Having reached the spot in question,
he sat down on a willow stump and waited. The wooden raft with its
gruesome burden kept for some time circling slowly round and round the
pool, but Gert noticed that at each revolution it seemed to sweep in a
little nearer the bank. He began to note the details. The body was
that of a very tall man with a full, red beard. He was dressed in a
grey flannel shirt, which being slightly open at the throat, revealed a
brawny chest covered with russet hair. The nether limbs were clad in
moleskin trousers and strong, thick-soled boots such as miners often
wear. The feet and arms were securely bound to the sides of the
framework.
At length the raft caught against a submerged stump. To this it hung
for a moment; then it heeled over and swayed itself loose, and the
current washed it slowly against the bank, where it grounded at the
watcher's feet.
The body was horrible to look upon; the eyes were sunken out of sight or
had decomposed away--the flesh was livid. The wrists were cut by the
cords that bound them, showing that the man had been bound living upon
the raft. Into the flesh of his forehead the letter "V," about an inch
in length, had been cut. Gert waded into the water up to his waist and
paused close to the horrible object. His feet were sore from constant
wanderings over the stony mountains, and he coveted the dead man's
boots. Conquering his repugnance, he drew his knife and severed the
laces. Then he pulled the boots off and flung them high on the bank
behind him. After pausing for a few seconds he searched the trouser
pockets, but found that they contained nothing. As he did this he
averted his eyes from the dead face. His search over, he waded along
the shore towards the outside limit of the inlet, where the current was
strong, drawing the raft after him. Launched forward with his full
strength, the raft was caught by the current and swirled out into the
mid-stream, where it passed from view into the confused mass of
wave-tossed rubbish.
Gert then climbed up the bank and returned to where he had flung the
boots. Upon examining these he found that the layers of leather forming
the sole of one were gaping widely at the side. He tried to press the
layers together, but found that he could not do so owing to the presence
of some object which had evidently been inserted between them. He
pulled this out and found it to be a piece of rag in which was wrapped a
diamond as large as a hazel-nut. Searching farther, he found that in
each boot holes had been scooped out in the thick mass of leather above
the outer layer, and diamonds inserted. He found six altogether--three
in each boot. The stones were pure white, and of that peculiar
crystallisation which characterises the gems found on the banks of the
Vaal River, as distinguished from those found in what are known as the
"dry diggings."
Gert looked at the shining gems as they lay upon his hand and marvelled
exceedingly. He knew right well that the stones were diamonds, for he
had worked for a year in the Kimberley mine. He also knew that the law
forbade him to have such things in his possession, and that if caught
with them he would be liable to severe punishment. Yet here, he
thought, was the means of attaining riches; surely there must be some
way of turning to account the prize which he had honestly obtained?
With a spasm of exultant dread he slipped the stones into his skin
wallet. Then he placed a heavy pebble into each of the boots and flung
them as far as he could into the stream. He sat in thought for a few
moments; then he retraced his steps, down-stream, to a spot where had
been deposited the only half-decomposed carcase of a goat which he had
raked out of the flood. This he shouldered and carried up the rocky
gorge in which the cave was situated, in which he dwelt with his mother
and his wife.
By this time the wooden raft with its dread enigma had been whirled down
the rapids and dashed to pieces over the Augrabies Falls. What dread
tragedy had resulted in the voyage of this ark with its single gruesome
passenger upon the bosom of the brown flood through the scorched
Desert--what terrible act of crime or retribution had sent this sign to
be revealed for an instant to the startled ken of a prowling savage,
will probably never be explained until all mysteries are unlocked!
Gert Gemsbok, the Koranna Hottentot, was a remarkable man. In the
rebellion of the Griqua and Koranna Clans, which broke out upon the
northern border of the Cape Colony in 1879, he had taken a prominent
part. Captured with arms in his hands and identified as having led a
certain band of rebels which was concerned in some serious depredations,
he was sentenced by the Special Court to a severe flogging and a long
term of imprisonment. He served the first part of his sentence at the
Breakwater Convict Station, Cape Town, but was afterwards transferred to
one of the Diamond Mining Compounds at Kimberley. Upon his discharge he
took service as a labourer at the mines, with the view of making
sufficient money to enable him to return half-way across the continent
to the Desert which he loved, and somewhere within the indefinite bounds
of which he hoped to find traces of his family. He attained his object;
he found his old mother and his wife living close to Namies in
Bushmanland, in great misery from want, and suffering from incurable
disease. His two children were dead. The two women were unwholesome
and in every way unpleasant to look upon, besides being almost helpless,
but Gert, no less than they, was happy in the reunion.
Having still a few pounds left from his earnings at the diamond fields,
he bought a few articles of clothing for the two women from a wandering
hawker. Then the problem as to how they were to exist loomed up. Gert
could easily get work among the Trek-Boers, as a shepherd, but how was
he to support the two helpless women out of his earnings, which only
amounted to eight fat-tailed sheep per annum? The thing was almost
impossible, but he succeeded in doing it.
Soon, however, he again fell upon evil days. This time he suffered for
righteousness' sake. The Hottentots are, probably, the most untruthful
race under the sun, but this Hottentot invariably made a point of
telling the truth, and misfortune fell upon him in consequence. A
certain Trek-Boer named Willem Bester was charged with a serious crime
before the Special Magistrate for the Northern Border. Gert,
unfortunately for himself, had been a witness to the act, and was,
accordingly, called upon to give evidence. Instead of sensibly lying,
and thus exonerating the accused, who was related to his master, poor
Gert injudiciously told the truth. As a result Bester was convicted and
sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. The consequences were
disastrous to the veracious exception to the rule of his race. He was
dismissed from his employment and turned adrift. He tried to obtain
service everywhere, but found that he was boycotted--driven away with
contumely from every Trek-Boer's camp at which he applied.
So the three miserable beings wandered about the Desert from water-place
to water-place, digging for "veld-kost"--the generic name by which the
many species of edible bulbs, leaves, and tubers with which the fringe
of the Desert abounds, are known. In the short and adventitious spring,
when the leaves appearing through the sand indicated the proper spots to
dig at, life was comparatively easy, but after the northern winds had
scorched away the herbage it was only by a bitter struggle that body and
soul could be kept together. Each year, when the Orange River came down
in flood, the three wretched creatures would occupy a cave close to its
southern bank just above the Augrabies Falls. Here, especially when the
rains had been very heavy in the Orange Free State or the upper reaches
of the Vaal River, they used to reap a rich harvest of garbage.
Six years of this life had passed prior to the finding of the mysterious
corpse and the diamonds.
The cave was an oval chamber in the sheer granite wall in which the
flank of a mighty mountain ended. The floor was of dry sand, and there
was no drip from the smoke-stained roof to cause inconvenience. Here it
was cool in the hottest weather, and when the cold eastern winds
shrieked in arid wrath down the black gorges, the three waifs lay snug
and warm. The furniture of the cave consisted of a few miserable skins,
two or three earthern pots of native make, a bow and a quiverful of
poisoned arrows, and a few blunted iron spikes, the latter being used in
the root-digging operations. A musical instrument, which will hereafter
be described, completes the inventory.
Gert was an old man. His limbs were half-crippled by rheumatism, and
his sight had begun to weaken. The Hottentots are a thin-skinned race,
and flogging is to them a very terrible punishment. Gert had never
fully recovered from his experience of the lash. Had his physical
vigour been greater he might have been able to kill game from time to
time, especially when the trek-bucks crossed the Desert. As things
were, his hunting never yielded him more than a few snakes and lizards
and an occasional jackal. On very rare occasions he managed to get a
shot at a klipspringer antelope; only, however, after lying in wait for
hours at a time in a red-hot rock-cleft, on the faint chance of the
bucks being startled in one of the hollows and running past him on their
way to the next. But these waitings were usually unsuccessful and he
could not afford to lose the time which they took up.
Gert Gemsbok reached the cave with his unsavoury burthen. This he flung
down on the ground outside, for its stench would have made the air of
the cave unbearable. It was bad enough to have to eat such stuff
without breathing it as well. Having skinned the leg of the carcase he
cut up some of the meat and put it into one of the pots. From a crevice
in the wall he took out a handful of strong-smelling herbs; these he
broke up and added to the stew with the object of deadening the
effluvium.
After supper he related his adventure to the two women. The mother was
half in her dotage, and had almost reverted to the animal in the course
of the years of misery which she had lived through. The wife became
wild with excitement at the idea of once more having money and being
able to purchase longed-for luxuries. She tried to persuade Gert to
start at once on a journey across the Desert to Kenhardt for the purpose
of realising his property and obtaining coffee, sugar, and tobacco. The
memory of these things, none of which had been tasted for years,
continually tantalised her. Gert, however, mindful of former
experiences, had no intention of placing himself within the power of the
law again.
The old woman had originally come from Great Namaqualand; she belonged
to the Bondleswartz Clan. She was continually urging her son to remove
to the land of her birth; but this he could never be persuaded to do.
He always clung to the hope of being able to remove to some civilised
locality where coffee and tobacco would be obtainable.
One mitigation of all this misery existed. This Hottentot was an
artist, carrying in his heart a spark of that quality which we call
genius, and which might be called the flower that bears the pollen which
fertilises the human mind, and without which the soul of man would not
exist, nor would his understanding have sought for aught beyond the
satisfaction of his material senses. Gert Gemsbok was a musician. His
instrument was of a kind which is in more or less common use among the
Hottentots, and which is known as a "ramkee." The ramkee is very like a
banjo rudely constructed. In the hands of a skilful player its tones
may be pleasing to the ear. One peculiarity of the performance is that
a great deal of the fingering--if one may use the term--is done with the
chin. There are usually four strings, but some instruments contain as
many as seven.
In Gert Gemsbok's ramkee the drum was made from a cross section of an
ebony log, which had been hollowed out with infinite labour until only a
thin cylinder of hard, sonorous wood was left. Across this was
stretched the skin of an antelope, and inside were several layers of
gum--this for the sake of enriching the tone. The bridge was the
breast-bone of a wild goose; the strings were made of the sinews of a
number of wild animals, selected after a long series of experiments as
to their respective suitability to the different parts of the gamut.
The elder woman was almost totally deaf, and the younger too much
preoccupied by her physical ailments to pay much heed to the music. The
musician, however, required no audience to enable him to reap the
fullest enjoyment from the exercise of his art. He loved music for its
proper sake, and under its influence could soar away above his sordid
surroundings into a heaven of his own creation.
His favourite air was one which ran somewhat as follows. Upon it he
would improvise and invent fantastic arabesques and ingenious
variations:--
The old woman became more and more feeble, until at length she seemed to
lose every faculty except an appetite for certain kinds of food. She
lay for weeks without speaking. One night she surprised the others by
complaining, in a very distinct voice, of feeling cold. Gert stirred up
the embers and threw a few twigs upon them. Soon after this she said--
"Now I am going over the river."
Next morning they found she was dead.
Gert walled up the mouth of the cave with the heaviest stones he could
move, leaving the body inside. Then he and his wife departed. He made
up his mind to attempt once more to obtain employment. Perhaps after
six years his crime of truth-telling might have been forgotten or
condoned. He now had an object in life--the realisation of the property
which Fate had thrown in his way. He would first return to Namies,
which was a place of congregating for Trek-Boers. Possibly he might be
able to get employment there. Even if unsuccessful, however, there was
still veld-kost to be had, and there were only two mouths to feed now.
Alone, he might easily have made his way to other parts and disposed of
the diamonds--even a tithe of their value would have made him a rich
man--but his wife could only hobble a couple of miles a day at the very
most. He could, of course, have left her to starve, but the thought of
doing this never so much as crossed his mind.
So Gert Gemsbok, as stout-hearted as any paladian who ever carried a
lance to the Holy Land, packed up his bundle of worn, dirty skins, and
tied the pots on the top of it with some withes of twisted bark. He hid
his bow and arrows in a dry crevice against the possibility of future
needs--they would have been regarded, and rightly so, as the Mark of the
Beast among the Trek-Boers. Then, with his ramkee slung under his arm
and his miserable old wife hobbling upon cranky legs behind him--
blinking in the sunlight to which she had been long unaccustomed--he
struck boldly back to renew the battle of life among the men who had
driven him forth to herd with the wild beasts.
His six diamonds, wrapped in a dirty rag, were sewn in a row along the
bottom of his skin wallet.