OVER THE WATER
Mr. Alston and Ernest carried out their plans as regarded sport. They
went up to Lydenburg and had a month’s wilderbeeste and blesbok
shooting within three days’ “trek” with an ox-waggon from that curious
little town. The style of life was quite new to Ernest, and he enjoyed
it much. They owned an ox-waggon and a span of sixteen “salted” oxen,
that is, oxen which will not die of lung-sickness, and in this
lumbering vehicle they travelled about wherever fancy or the presence
of buck took them. Mr. Alston and his boy Roger slept in the waggon,
and Ernest in a little tent which was pitched every night alongside,
and never did he sleep sounder. There was a freshness and freedom about
the life which charmed him. It is pleasant after the day’s shooting or
travelling to partake of a hearty meal, of which the _pièce de
résistance_ generally consists of a stew compounded indiscriminately of
wilderbeeste beef, bustard, partridges, snipe, rice, and compressed
vegetables—a dish, by the way, which is, if properly cooked, fit to set
before a king. And then comes the pipe, or rather a succession of
pipes, and the talk over the day’s sport, and the effect of that long
shot, and the hunting-yarn that it “reminds me” of. And after the yarn
the well-known square bottle is produced, and the tin pannikins, out of
which you have been drinking tea, are sent to the spring down in the
hollow to be washed by the Zulu “voorlooper,” who objects to going
because of the “spooks” (ghosts) which he is credibly informed inhabit
that hollow; and you indulge in your evening “tot,” and smoke more
pipes, and talk or ruminate as the fancy takes you. And then at last up
comes the splendid African moon like a radiant queen rising from a
throne of inky cloud, flooding the whole wide veldt with mysterious
light, and reveals the long lines of game slowly travelling to their
feeding-grounds along the ridges of the rolling plain.
Well, “one more drop,” and then to bed, having come to the admirable
decision—so easy to make overnight, so hard to adhere to when the time
comes—to “trek from the yoke” at dawn. And then, having undressed
yourself outside the tent, all except the flannel shirt in which you
are going to sleep—for there is no room to do so inside—you stow your
clothes and boots away under your mackintosh sheet—for clothes wet
through with dew are unpleasant to wear before the sun is up—creep on
your hands and knees into your little tenement, and wriggle between the
blankets.
For awhile, perhaps, you lie so, your pipe still between your lips, and
gazing up through the opening of the little tent at two bright
particular stars shining in the blue depths above, or watching the
waving of the tall tambouki-grass as the night-wind goes sighing
through it. And then, behold! the cold far stars draw near, grow warm
with life, and change to Eva’s eyes—if unluckily you have an Eva—and
the yellow tambouki-grass is her waving hair, and the sad whispering of
the wind her voice, which speaks and tells you that she has come from
far across the great seas to tell you that she loves you to lull you to
your rest.
What was it that frighted her so soon? The rattling of chains and the
deep lowing of the oxen, rising to be ready for the dawn. It has not
come yet; but it is not far off. See, the gray light begins to gleam
upon the oxen’s horns, and far away, there in the east, the gray is
streaked with primrose. Away with dreams, and up to pull the shivering
Kafirs from their snug lair beneath the waggon, and to give the good
nags, which must gallop wilderbeeste all to-day, a double handful of
mealies before you start.
_Ah neu-yak-trek!_ the great waggon strains and starts, and presently
the glorious sun comes up, and you eat a crust of bread as you sit on
the waggon-box, and wash it down with a mouthful of spirit, and feel
that it is a splendid thing to get up early.
Then, about half past eight, comes the halt for breakfast, and the
welcome tub in the clear stream that you have been making for, and,
after breakfast, saddle up the nags, take your bearings by the kopje,
and off after that great herd of wilderbeeste.
And so, my reader, day adds itself to day, and each day will find you
healthier, happier, and stronger than the last. No letters, no
newspapers, no duns, no women, and no babies. Think of the joy of it,
effete Caucasian, then go buy an ox-waggon and do likewise.
After a month of this life, Mr. Alston came to the conclusion that
there would now be no danger in descending into the low country towards
Delagoa Bay in search of large game. Accordingly, having added to their
party another would-be Nimrod, a gentleman just arrived from England in
search of sport, they started. For the first month or so, things went
very well with them. They killed a good quantity of buffalo, koodoo,
eland, and water-buck, also two giraffes; but to Ernest’s great
disappointment did not come across any rhinoceros, and only got a shot
at one lion, which he missed, though there were plenty round them. But
soon the luck turned. First their horses died of the terrible scourge
of ail this part of South Africa, the horse-sickness. They had given
large prices for them, about seventy pounds each, as “salted”
animals—that is, animals that, having already had the sickness and
recovered from it, were supposed to be proof against its attacks. But
for all that they died one after another. This was only the beginning
of evils. The day after the last horse died, the companion who had
joined them at Lydenburg was taken ill of the fever. Mr. Jeffries—for
that was his name—was a very reserved English gentleman of good
fortune, something over thirty years of age. Like most people who came
into close relationship with Ernest, he had taken a considerable fancy
to him, and the two were, comparatively speaking, intimate. During the
first stages of his fever, Ernest nursed him like a brother, and was at
length rewarded by seeing him in a fair way to recovery. On one unlucky
day, however, Jeffries being so much better, Mr. Alston and Ernest went
out to try and shoot a buck, as they were short of meat, leaving the
camp in charge of the boy Roger. For a long while they could find no
game, but at last Ernest came across a fine bull-eland standing rubbing
himself against a mimosa thorn-tree. A shot from his express, planted
well behind the shoulder, brought the noble beast down quite dead, and
having laden the two Kafirs with them with the tongue, liver, and as
much of the best meat as they could carry, they started back for camp.
Meanwhile one of the sudden and tremendous thunderstorms peculiar to
South Africa came swiftly up against the wind, heralding its arrival by
a blast of ice-cold air, and presently they were staggering along in
the teeth of a fearful tempest. The whole sky was lurid with lightning,
the hills echoed with the continuous roll of thunder, and the rain came
down in sheets. In the thick of it all, exhausted, bewildered, and wet
to the skin, they reached the camp. There a sad sight awaited them. In
front of the tent which served as a hospital for Jeffries was a large
ant-heap, and on this ant-heap, clad in nothing but a flannel shirt,
sat Jeffries himself. The rain was beating on his bare head and
emaciated face, and the ice-cold breeze was tossing his dripping hair.
One hand he kept raising to the sky to let the cold water fall upon it;
the other the boy Roger held, and by it vainly attempted to drag him
back to the tent. But Jeffries was a man of large build, and the little
lad might as well have tried to drag an ox.
“Isn’t it glorious?” shouted the delirious man, as they came up. “I’ve
got cool at last!”
“Yes, and you will soon be cold, poor fellow!” muttered Mr. Alston, as
they hurried up.
They got him back into the tent, and in half an hour he was beyond all
hope. He did not rave much, but kept repeating a single word in every
possible tone, that word was:
_Alice._
At dawn on the following morning he died with it on his lips. Ernest
often wondered afterwards who “Alice” could be.
Next day they dug a deep grave under an ancient thorn-tree, and
reverently laid him to his rest. On his breast they piled great stones
to keep away the jackals, filling in the cracks with earth.
Then they left him to his sleep. It is a sad task this, burying a
comrade in the lonely wilderness.
As they were approaching the waggon again, little Roger sobbing
bitterly—for Mr. Jeffries had been very kind to him, and a first
experience of death is dreadful to the young—they met the Zulu
voorlooper, a lad called Jim, who had been out all day watching the
cattle as they grazed. He saluted Mr. Alston after the Zulu fashion, by
lifting the right arm and saying the word “Inkoos,” and then stood
still.
“Well, what is it, boy? “asked Mr. Alston. “Have you lost the oxen?”
“No, Inkoos, the oxen are safe at the yoke. It is this. When I was
sitting on the kopje yonder, watching that the oxen of the Inkoos
should not stray, an Intombi (young girl) from the kraal under the
mountain yonder came to me. She is the daughter of a Zulu mother who
fell into the hands of a Basutu dog, and my half-cousin.”
“Well?”
“Inkoos, I have met this girl before, I have met her when I have been
sent to buy ‘maas’ (buttermilk) at the kraal.”
“Good!”
“Inkoos, the girl came to bring heavy news, such as will press upon
your heart. Secocoeni, chief of the Bapedi, who lives over yonder under
the Blue Mountains, has declared war against the Boers.”
“I hear.”
“Sikukuni wants rifles for his men, such as the Boers use. He has heard
of the Inkosis hunting here. To-night he will send an Impi to kill the
Inkosis and take their guns.”
“These are the words of the Intombi?”
“Yes, Inkoos, these are her very words. She was sitting outside the
hut, grinding ‘imphi’ (Kafir corn) for beer, when she heard Secocoeni’s
messenger order her father to call the men together to kill us
to-night.”
“I hear. At what time of the night was the killing to be?”
“At the first break of the dawn, so that they may have light to take
the waggon away by.”
“Good! we shall escape them. The moon will be up in an hour, and we can
trek away.”
The lad’s face fell.
“Alas!” he said, “it is impossible; there is a spy watching the camp
now. He is up there among the rocks; I saw him as I brought the oxen
home. If we move he will report it, and we shall be overtaken in an
hour.”
Mr. Alston thought for a moment, and then made up his mind with the
rapidity that characterises men who spend their lives in dealing with
savage races.
“Mazooku!” he called to a Zulu who was sitting smoking by the
camp-fire, a man whom Ernest had hired as his particular servant. The
man rose and came to him, and saluted.
He was not a very tall man; but, standing there nude except for the
“moocha” round his centre, his proportions, especially those of the
chest and lower limbs, looked gigantic. He had been a soldier in one of
Cetywayo’s regiments, but having been so indiscreet as to break through
some of the Zulu marriage laws, had been forced to fly for refuge to
Natal, where he had become a groom, and picked up a peculiar language,
which he called English. Even among a people where all the men are
fearless he bore a reputation for bravery. Leaving him standing awhile,
Mr. Alston rapidly explained the state of the case to Ernest, and what
he proposed to do. Then turning, he addressed the Zulu:
“Mazooku, the Inkoos here, your master, whom you black people have
named Mazimba, tells me that he thinks you a brave man.”
The Zulu’s handsome face expanded into a smile that was positively
alarming in its extent.
“He says that you told him that when you were Cetywayo’s man in the
Undi Regiment, you once killed four Basutos, who set upon you
together.”
Mazooku lifted his right arm and saluted, by way of answer, and then
glanced slightly at the assegai-wounds on his chest.
“Well, I tell your master that I do not believe you. It is a lie you
speak to him; you ran away from Cetywayo because you did not like to
fight and be killed as the king’s ox, as a brave man should.”
The Zulu coloured up under his dusky skin, and again glanced at his
wounds.
“Ow-w!” he said.
“Bah! there is no need for you to look at those scratches; they were
left by women’s nails. You are nothing but a woman. Silence! who told
you to speak? If you are not a woman, show it. There is an armed Basutu
among those rocks. He watches us. Your master cannot eat and sleep in
peace when he is watched. Take that big stabbing assegai you are so
fond of showing, and kill him, or die a coward! He must make no sound,
remember.”
Mazooku turned towards Ernest for confirmation of the order. A Zulu
always likes to take his orders straight from his own chief. Mr. Alston
noticed it, and added:
“I am the Inkoosi’s mouth, and speak his words.”
Mazooku saluted again, and turning, went to the waggon to fetch his
assegai.
“Tread softly, or you will wake him; and he will run from so great a
man,” Mr. Alston called after him sarcastically.
“I go among the rocks to seek ‘mouti’” (medicine), the Zulu answered
with a smile.
“We are in a serious mess, my boy,” said Mr. Alston to Ernest, “and it
is a toss-up if we get out of it. I taunted that fellow so that there
may be no mistake about the spy. He must be killed, and Mazooku would
rather die himself than not kill him now.”
“Would it not have been safer to send another man with him?”
“Yes; but I was afraid that if the scout saw two men coming towards him
he would make off, however innocent they might look. Our horses are
dead, and if that fellow escapes we shall never get out of this place
alive. It would be folly to expect Basutos to distinguish between Boers
and Englishmen when their blood is up; and besides, Secocoeni has sent
orders that we are to be killed, and they would not dare to disobey.
Look, there goes Mr. Mazooku with an assegai as big as a fire-shovel.”
The kopje, or stony hill, where the spy was hid, was about three
hundred yards from the little hollow in which the camp was formed, and
across the stretch of bushy plain between the two Mazooku was quietly
strolling, his assegai in one hand and two long sticks in the other.
Presently he vanished in the shadow, for the sun was rapidly setting,
and, after what seemed a long pause to Ernest, who was watching his
movements through a pair of field-glasses, reappeared walking along the
shoulder of the hill right against the sky-line, his eyes fixed upon
the ground as though he were searching among the crevices of the rocks
for the medical herbs which Zulus prize.
All of a sudden Ernest saw the stalwart form straighten itself and
spring down into a dip, which hid it from sight, with the assegai in
its hand raised to the level of its head. Then came a pause, lasting
perhaps for twenty seconds. On the farther side of the dip was a large
flat rock, which was straight in a line with the fiery ball of the
setting sun. Suddenly a tall figure sprang up out of the hollow on to
this rock, followed by another figure, in whom Ernest recognised
Mazooku. For a moment the two men, looking from their position like
people afire, struggled together on the top of the flat stone, and
Ernest could clearly distinguish the quick flash of their spears as
they struck at each other; then they vanished together over the edge of
the stone.
“By Jove!” said Ernest, who was trembling with excitement, “I wonder
how it has ended?”
“We shall know presently,” answered Mr. Alston, coolly. “At any rate,
the die is cast one way or other, and we may as well make a bolt for
it. Now, you Zulus, down with those tents and get the oxen inspanned,
and look quick about it, if you don’t want a Basutu assegai to send you
to join the spirit of Chaka.”
The voorlooper Jim had by this time communicated his alarming
intelligence to the driver and other Kafirs, and Mr. Alston’s
exhortation to look sharp was quite unnecessary. Ernest never saw camp
struck or oxen inspanned with such rapidity before. But before the
first tent was fairly down, they were all enormously relieved to see
Mazooku coming trotting cheerfully across the plain, droning a little
Zulu song as he ran. His appearance, however, was by no means cheerful,
for he was perfectly drenched with blood, some of it flowing from a
wound in his left shoulder, and the rest evidently, till recently, the
personal property of somebody else. Arrived in front of where Mr.
Alston and Ernest were standing, he raised his broad assegai, which was
still dripping blood, and saluted.
“I hear,” said Mr. Alston.
“I have done the Inkoosi Mazimba’s bidding. There were two of them; the
first I killed easily in the hollow, but the other, a very big man,
fought well for a Basutu. They are dead, and I threw them into a hole,
that their brothers might not find them easily.”
“Good! go wash yourself and get your master’s things into the waggon.
Stop! let me sew up that cut. How came you to be so awkward as to get
touched by a Basutu?”
“Inkoos, he was very quick with his spear, and he fought like a cat.”
Mr. Alston did not reply, but, taking a stout needle and some silk from
a little housewife he carried in his pocket, he quickly stitched up the
assegai-gash, which, fortunately, was not a deep one. Mazooku stood
without flinching till the job was finished, and then retired to wash
himself at the spring.
The short twilight rapidly faded into darkness, or rather into what
would have been darkness, had it not been for the half-grown moon,
which was to serve to light them on their path. Then, a large fire
having been lit on the site of the camp to make it appear as though it
were still pitched there, the order was given to start. The oxen,
obedient to the voice of the driver, strained at the trek-tow, the
waggon creaked and jolted, and they began their long flight for life.
The order of march was as follows: Two hundred yards ahead of the
waggon walked a Kafir, with strict orders to keep his eyes very wide
open indeed, and report in the best way possible, under the
circumstances, if he detected any signs of an ambush. At the head of
the long line of cattle, leading the two front oxen by a “reim,” or
strip of buffalo-hide, was the Zulu boy Jim, to whose timely discovery
they owed their lives, and by the side of the waggon the driver, a Cape
Hottentot, plodded along in fear and trembling. On the waggon-box
itself, each with a Winchester repeating rifle on his knees, and
keeping a sharp lookout into the shadows, sat Mr. Alston and Ernest. In
the hinder part of the waggon, also armed with a rifle and keeping a
keen look-out, sat Mazooku. The other servants marched alongside, and
the boy Roger was asleep inside, on the “cartle,” or hide bed.
And so they travelled on hour after hour. Now they bumped down terrific
hills strewn with boulders, which would have smashed anything less
solid than an African ox-waggon to splinters; now they crept along a
dark valley, that looked spiritual and solemn in the moonlight,
expecting to see Secocoeni’s Impi emerge from every clump of bush; and
now again they waded through mountain-streams. At last, about midnight,
they reached a plain dividing two stretches of mountainous country, and
here they halted for a while to give the oxen, which were fortunately
in good condition and fat after their long rest, a short
breathing-time. Then on again through the long, quiet night, on, still
on, till the dawn found them the other side of the wide plain at the
foot of the mountain-range.
Here they rested for two hours, and let the oxen fill themselves with
the lush grass. They had travelled thirty miles since the yokes were
put upon their necks—not far according to our way of journeying, but
very far for cumbersome oxen over an almost impassable country. As soon
as the sun was well up they inspanned again, and hurried forwards,
bethinking them of the Basutu horde who would now be pressing on their
spoor; on with brief halts through all that day and the greater part of
the following night, till the cattle began to fall down in the
yokes—till at last they crossed the boundary and were in Transvaal
territory.
When dawn broke, Mr. Alston took the glasses and examined the track
over which they had fled. There was nothing to be seen except a great
herd of hartebeest.
“I think that we are safe now,” he said, at last, “and thank God for
it. Do you know what those Basutu devils would have done if they had
caught us?”
“What?”
“They would have skinned us, and made our hearts and livers into
‘mouti’ (medicine), and eaten them to give them the courage of the
white man.”
“By Jove!” said Ernest.