"I'll tell you what I mean to do; I'm just going to have a jolly rest
down at your camp for two or three days. You can go down to Gamoep and
collect the stock; I'll stay behind and cheer up the missus, eh?"
Koos bit his lip till the blood came. His face, still averted from
Nathan, turned almost purple; the veins of his temples appeared as
though they would burst. Nathan went on--"You must excuse me, old man;
I'm not a married man myself, and, what's more, I don't know that I ever
will be, but I've often thought that a married man should keep no
secrets from his wife. Don't you agree with me, eh?" Koos still
maintained silence. "Well, silence gives consent, as the copybooks say,
so I suppose you agree with me. That being so, and without for a moment
wishing to say anything that might lead your thoughts back in an
unpleasant direction--and I'm sure you'll see that it's only out of
friendship that I ask it--which is: Did you tell your wife about that
little spree the other day?"
"No," replied Koos hoarsely.
"Well, I think you've made a mistake in not doing so, and you must let
me persuade you to tell your wife all about it as soon as we get to your
camp. If you like you may put off telling her until the morning, but
you'd better get it over, as the man said when he jumped on the back of
the alligator."
"Why should I tell my wife?"
"Several reasons. One is that if she were to hear about the thing from
any one else she would think you didn't trust her, don't you know.
Another is that I have reason to suspect your wife doesn't like me quite
as well as I like her, and I want her to know what a friend I've been to
you all through this business. See?"
In the brain of Koos something seemed to snap. The tension at once
ceased, and he breathed freely. Strange lights flickered before his
eyes, and his ears were filled with extraordinary sounds. He seemed to
live through hours of rather pleasant delirium in the course of a few
seconds. The voice of Nathan recalled him to a sense of his
surroundings. Then the lights and sounds were suddenly swept away, and
the idea which had been born in the turmoil stood forth adult in
terrible and ravishing nakedness. His thirsty soul drank deep at the
cup of an awful hope, and the dunes seemed to blossom into a red-hot,
infernal garden.
"Look here, old chap," continued the Jew, plucking at his companion's
sleeve to emphasise what he said. "No nonsense, mind; you've got to
tell your wife all about it. See?"
"I'll tell her."
"Yes; and tell her, too, that she's got to make me jolly comfortable
while you're away; and, in fact, to do every blessed thing I tell her.
See?"
"Yes; I'll tell her all that."
"Now that's the way I like to hear you talk--nice and friendly, you
know. I can see we're going to be good friends right enough. I'll not
be hard on you, Koos; and if you do all I want you to, we'll both be
quite happy. See?"
Koos replied in an even, cheerful voice that he would do all he possibly
could to meet Nathan's wishes in everything. Nathan said--quite
voluntarily--that if the weather continued hot he would not insist on
being driven back through the dunes; he would submit to the
inconvenience of a two-days' journey round by Puffadder instead. Koos
expressed himself as being appropriately grateful for this evidence of
consideration.
Cordiality being thus restored, the two chatted in the friendliest
manner. In fact one would have thought that the mutually satisfactory
relations of a week previously had never been interrupted.
When the time came to make another start, Nathan asked Koos to excuse
him from getting up and helping to inspan, so Koos went around the kopje
to where the cart stood and laid out the harness ready to be placed upon
the horses.
Koos carried back to the cart from the kopje the little keg of water
which had been placed in the shade. No one ever dreams of entering
Bushmanland without at least one of such kegs. He had taken some pains
to persuade Nathan against drinking more than a mere sip. Nathan, being
accustomed to travelling in the Desert, knew that this was good advice,
however hard to follow; that one should never touch water if one can
avoid it whilst exposed to the rays of a hot sun. Nathan was extremely
proud of the self-command which he evinced in following the advice, for
he was very thirsty indeed and would have given a lot for a deep drink
of something cool.
But Koos did a very curious thing after he had laid the harness out; he
scraped a hole in the red-hot sand with his foot, and into this he
poured every drop of the contents of the little keg. He need not have
taken the trouble to scrape the hole, for the thirsty sand drank up the
water as quickly as if it had been poured into space over the edge of
the car of a balloon. However, there is nothing like being systematic
when one has important work in hand. He stowed away the empty keg under
the seat of the cart, and then went to fetch the horses.
These poor animals were standing, only a few hundred yards away, perched
like so many goats upon a low ledge of light-coloured stone. This was
more bearable to their feet than the red, scorching sand. The docile,
well-trained brutes stood still until Koos went up and caught them. He
laughed so heartily that the tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was
hardly able to untie the hobble-knots from the forelegs of the youngest
horse, which, being given to roaming, it was always necessary to secure.
He led the horses back to the cart, and in a few minutes they stood in
the traces uneasily shifting their feet from time to time, and looking
round impatiently for the signal to start. Koos called to Nathan, who
came forward and took his place, with many groanings, upon the hard,
unprotected seat of the vehicle.
A start was made. Nathan seemed to fry in the heat. There was no
longer a track, for whenever the wind blew the ever-shifting sand would
have obliterated the trail of an army in an hour. Koos, however, knew
every turn and changing fold in the limbs of the dune-monster, and took
advantage of each depression, enabling him to force through one after
another of the interminable series of tentacle-like ridges at its most
vulnerable point.
The heat was indescribable. The horses broke into a lather of sweat at
every ascent. This at once dried into adhesive flakes of white paste
whenever the course led downhill. Nathan suffered increasing agonies
from thirst, but he still listened to the persuasions of his companion
against drinking whilst in the hot sunlight, and thus relaxing his pores
until every drop of moisture drained out of his body. He accordingly,
with increased admiration for his own powers of endurance, determined to
hold out to the last extremity. From his manner it might have been
supposed that this exercise of obvious discretion for his own advantage
was really a something which Koos ought to have been extremely grateful
for.
Twenty torrid miles of the dune-ground had to be travelled; on a day
such as this, better fifty in the open Desert. After they had covered
about eight miles, Nathan found his thirst absolutely intolerable, so he
made Koos stop the cart and get the keg out from under the seat.
"Allemagtig!" exclaimed Koos, "the keg is empty!"
"Empty!" shrieked Nathan in agony. "Then I'll die of thirst. Look
here, you damned murdering hound; I'll make you swing for this."
Koos replied to the effect that he was very sorry; he supposed the cork
must have sprung out from the jolting. Nathan's moods alternated
between the whimperingly pathetic and the impotently furious; his words,
between blasphemous revilings and minor-keyed entreaties. Koos did his
best to comfort him, promising water within two hours at the most.
The course now led up a deep and narrow passage between two branches
which were rooted in the main dune almost at the same point, and which
ran parallel for several miles. One of these had to be crossed close to
its point of origin at a spot where it curved slightly, and where the
winds had blown a shallow gap. This locality was like the innermost
circle of hell. As the horses bravely struggled up to the gap through
the scorching sand, into which they sank above their fetlocks, Koos
leaped out of the cart so as to ease the strain, and asked Nathan to do
the same. Nathan, however, plaintively declined, saying that he could
not walk ten yards in the sand.
They reached the top of the ascent, and Koos stopped the horses for the
purpose of giving them a blow. Then he climbed into the cart and took
his seat beside his suffering companion. After they had rested for a
couple of minutes, Nathan said, in tones of husky despair--
"Go on, Koos, for God's sake! I'm dying of thirst!"
Koos gathered the reins up preparatory to making a start. Then he asked
Nathan to stand up for a moment so that he might adjust the seat.
Nathan, groaning, leant forward and crouched with his hands on the
splash-board. Koos seized him between his huge hands, lifted him high
with a wrench, and flung him down the side of the dune.
The reins he had gripped between his knees, the whip stood ready at his
hand. In a moment the team, refreshed by the short pause, were dragging
the cart down the side of the dune at a floundering gallop.
After going for about two hundred yards Koos hauled the horses back
almost upon their haunches, and the cart suddenly stopped. He looked
round; Nathan was stumbling slowly down the sandy slope, falling every
few yards. Koos allowed him to come to within about fifty yards of the
cart, and then he urged the horses into a walk. Nathan made a desperate
effort and broke into a staggering run, which somewhat decreased the
distance. Koos then whipped the horses into a trot, and he heard behind
him a hoarse and stifled cry as of a wild beast in agony. After a few
minutes he again pulled the team into a walk and looked back. A
motionless figure lay huddled with its face upon the sand.
Koos uttered a wild laugh, frightful to hear, and urged the horses
forward at a mad gallop.