_UP IN THE MORNING._
YES, Jack left his father writhing on the ground and ran away. But it
was to find Tottie. Ah, where was Tottie? Jack reached the hut, and it
was empty.
Suddenly the two men looked up and missed him, and the shouts for the
"The child! the child!" roused poor Tottie from her hiding-place.
At the first alarm she had crept into the "sloot," that is, the deep
ditch which ran round the back of the farm. But the thought that Jack
was missing conquered her terror, and she crawled out, plastered with
mud from head to foot.
No one could have taken her for a woman; for she crept on her hands and
knees, listening with her ear to the ground, as she heard the patter of
the sheep, and felt sure that the thieves were driving them away. She
was the first to catch sight of Jack coming out of her hut, and made
signs to him to hide himself. He darted back into the corner of the
hut, crouching in the dark, and waited while the sheep went by.
He heard his father's voice shouting "Jack!" round the burning house,
but he dared not answer.
After a while, Tottie, still crawling on her hands and knees, peeped
in at the door to see if he were safe. How she hugged him in her joy
at their great deliverance, for she assured him that the thieves were
gone; yet they dared not venture forth too soon. Tottie lay with her
ear to the ground, almost afraid to breathe, listening to the roar of
the flames and the falling of the rafters. A stealthy step was drawing
near the hut; a gasping sigh was heard in the very doorway. Jack clung
to Tottie now and shivered. A head was put in at the door. It was his
father.
"Safe! All safe!" was echoed from lip to lip, as the four seated
themselves on the ground, for the white-haired Hottentot was behind his
master.
Then Tottie got up and found some food and water that were in the hut,
and pressed them all to eat.
"The utmost we can do now," said Jack's father, "is to protect
ourselves. The thieves must take what they will."
"They are gone," cried Tottie.
But the cautious old Hottentot dared not believe her; so they sat still
and listened until the day began to break. Jack's head was resting on
his father's shoulder but no one slept.
The flames were over but a dull, red glow still lit up the gray of the
western sky when Mr. Treby ventured forth to reconnoitre.
The sheepfold and the shed were still standing, but not one lamb was
left. His house lay in ruins. Every leaf in his garden which the sun
had spared was burned and blackened with the fire.
But the agony of the night, when for one brief hour his
scarcely-rescued Jack was missing, made him think far less of the
actual loss than he would otherwise have done.
He fed the oxen, which were still lowing in the stalls, and dressed
his blistered arms with a handful of their meal, thankful to find the
little hut he used as a store still standing.
He had gone the round of the farm, and was slowly returning, when
something moving on the other side of the sloot attracted his
attention. Keeping a keen lookout, he crossed the ditch with his rifle
on his shoulder, when he saw Vickel stretching out her long legs and
gaping. His own shirt was dropping into tinder, and her beautiful gray
wings were singed and shrivelled.
At the sound of her master's voice, the frightened bird ran after him,
and tucking her head under his arm, expressed her consternation by
sundry hoarse screams as he took her back with him to the Hottentot's
hut.
Up sprang Jack, almost as overjoyed to find Vickel safe as his father
had been to find him uninjured on Tottie's lap.
"Never so bad but it might be worse," said Jack's father, stroking the
curly head more fondly than ever. "Jump on Vickel's back and ride after
me, for I cannot bear you out of my sight. You could not know what you
were doing to run away from me as you did in the night. You might have
been killed."
"I was looking for Tottie," said Jack repentantly. He was afraid that
he had made his father angry; for Mr. Treby turned his head away, but
it was to brush the tears from his eyes, as he murmured,—
"God bless you, my brave, true-hearted boy!" Then he added with a
laugh, "We must all to work. The first thing is to ask our neighbours
to help us to get back the sheep. I shall send the Hottentot to
Scarsdorp. Tottie must watch the ruins. She is better able to take care
of herself than you think, for you can't beat her at hide-and-seek.
Then you and I, Jack, must take the ox-waggon, and try the temper of
our neighbour the Boer. We English do not reckon them the best of
friends, for they do not want us here. But I found a stray cow of his
last year, so he owes me a good turn."
Jack felt like a man as he followed his father from place to place,
sometimes riding on Vickel's back, sometimes jumping down when he
thought he could help in his father's preparations. He filled a sack
with mealies, as they call the Indian corn, ready to feed the oxen by
the way.
Soon after the sun had risen, whilst the morning air blew cool and
fresh, Jack was seated by his father's side in the front of the big,
lumbering ox-waggon. Everything which Mr. Treby had been able to save
from the fire was packed inside, for he was afraid to leave them in an
open shed, with no better guard than Tottie.
The fowls had all been scared away by the sight of the flames, and were
wandering at will amongst the low bushes which dotted the plain they
were crossing.
The sky above their heads was one unclouded blue, and in the red sand
which covered the plain the dusty ants were fighting.
It was no easy matter to find the right path in such a wilderness
of sand and bush, where there were no hills or trees to serve as
land-marks. Jack's father had to look carefully on the ground for the
ruts which had been made by the wheels of the post-cart.
Jack knew that post-cart well with its six gray horses. It was their
one link with the outward world. How often he had stood beside his
father listening for the loud blast of the bugle which heralded its
coming! For the arrival of the English mail is a day of joy to the
colonist.
Presently Jack's father looked up and pointed with his whip to a heavy
cloud of dust.
"It is the mail!" he exclaimed. "For once I am fortunate."
"No, father," persisted Jack, who was looking the other way; "I am
positive it is Vickel."
Nearer and nearer came the storm of dust thrown up by the galloping
horses, but Jack's eye was fastened on a light-gray figure skimming
above that billowy sea of reddening sand.
Mr. Treby drew his waggon out of the path and halted. As the Pretoria
mail-cart came in sight, with its usual freight of passengers filling
the seats and even clinging to the sides, Mr. Treby waved his
handkerchief, and the six powerful grays drew up, stamping and snorting.
"Any letters for me?" he asked anxiously.
"Any mischief doing in this neighbourhood?" was the answering inquiry,
as Mr. Wilton, the postman, opened his bag and sorted over its contents
for an English newspaper.
"We noticed an uncommon glow in the sky at our last halting-place," put
in one of the passengers.
"A little past midnight," added another.
"We have kept a sharp lookout as we came along," continued the postman.
"We were all of one opinion—there was a fire somewhere out on the
veldt," for so the great African plains are usually called.
"A fire!" repeated Mr. Treby bitterly. "Look yonder, where the
smoke-wreath rises above a smouldering ash-heap, where last night,
gentlemen, you would have seen a happy home—my home," he repeated in
tones that wakened the sympathy of his auditors.
For in those far-off wilds, Englishmen meet as brothers. Each is ready
to help the other; for who can tell that, in the next turn of fortune's
wheel, their own need may not be as pressing.
Grave and anxious faces were turned to Mr. Treby, and many a
deep-voiced exclamation of anger and pity interrupted his account of
the night-attack upon his farm.
"It is the beginning of a general rising among the Kafirs," said one.
"A very ominous occurrence," observed another, shaking his head.
"I'll do as you desire," promised Wilton. "I'll gallop on to Pretoria
as hard as my horses can go and lodge the information with the captain
of the mounted police. Had not you better come too?"
"No," returned Jack's father; "the journey would be too long for me.
I was a poor man yesterday; to-day I'm but ten steps from beggarhood.
I am on my way to warn my neighbour, Van Immerseel. He counts his
sheep by the thousand, and the next attack may be upon them. It was
the sheep the villains wanted; and I had no help on the farm but one
old Hottentot and his wife, so that I was single-handed against five.
They thought to stop my rifle by flinging the firebrand on the thatch;
and indeed they gave me enough to do to rescue my little boy from the
flames."
"Cheer up, old fellow," said one, "and tell us what we can do for you."
"A round of shot and a coat, if it is not asking too much," ventured
Jack's father. "I shall be able to dig out something from the ruins as
the ashes cool; but my bullets will be melted into one lump by this
time and my money into another."
There was despair in the laugh with which this was said, but it was
the despair of a brave man who, when he feels the wreck of hope, still
works on.
More than one shot-case was opened and the contents divided, before Mr.
Treby had finished speaking.
"What will you take for the fore ox with the crumpled horn?" asked a
dark-haired man, who was holding on by the side of the post-cart.
"Market price," answered Jack's father eagerly.
Of course there was a show of disputing over the worth of the stalwart
beast, after the usual fashion of buyers and sellers; but it did not
last long. Mr. Treby unyoked the leader from his team and tied him by a
long rope to the back of the post-cart.
While the stranger was counting out the ten pounds in English money,
which he finally agreed to give for the ox, Vickel overtook the waggon.
She flew wheeling round and round for a while, drawing nearer with
every circle, until Jack, who had been listening most eagerly to the
conversation, perceived her manœuvres. So, whilst his father was busy
with the ox, he crept to the back of the waggon, and parting the heavy
tilt, took her in.
Vickel sprang up eagerly enough at the sight of her Jack's face; but
when she felt the waggon move she was frightened.
Jack's arm was round her neck in a moment, as if he thought he could
hold her against her will.
"I'll keep you somehow, Vic," he whispered. "You have grown such a big
chick I can't hold you. Come, you must go; bye-bye."
Pushing his fingers through a little hole in the sack of mealies, he
got a few in his hand, and whilst she was picking them up, he slipped
off one of his stockings. He poured another handful of the mealies into
it and held it before Vic. Down went the long beak, snapping at the
corn, which slipped lower and lower in the stocking. This was just what
Jack wanted.
"You good old darling!" he exclaimed, pulling it right over her head
and half-way down her long neck, until it fitted. The big bird became
as passive as a dove. She folded her long legs under her and sat down
on the sack of mealies. Much elated with his success, Jack climbed on
to her back and held the stocking fast with both hands.
"Well done, my little man," said a diamond-digger who had been watching
him from the back of the post-cart. "You've learned the trick of the
ostrich-catchers, I can see."
"She is mine," answered Jack proudly. "She has followed me right across
the veldt like a dog."
"And what shall I give you for her?" asked stranger, shaking some gold
in his hand.
"I sell Vickel!" exclaimed Jack in anger and disgust. "No, never."
Mr. Treby hesitated for a moment. "In such a strait as ours, Jack—" he
began.
Jack looked up into his father's face, and burst into a flood of tears.
"No, I can't do it, gentlemen; it would break his heart. I can't part
them. She has been his only playfellow, you see. Thanks, many, all the
same," added Mr. Treby, turning to the kindly passengers.
There was a broad grin on the diamond-digger's face; but the postman
laughed good-naturedly. "How about the coat?" he asked.
"I can pay for it now," put in Jack's father, "if any one of you could
accommodate me."
But not for love or money could a coat be obtained, simply because not
one of those travel-stained, way-worn travellers had a second with him.
"Passengers by the Government mail from Natal to Pretoria have for the
most part to leave their luggage behind them for the transport-rider's
waggon," explained the postman. "Is there anything I can bring you from
Pretoria as I return?"
Jack's father considered a moment or two, counted the money in his
hand, and dictated a short list of necessaries, which the postman wrote
down in his pocket-book.
As he gathered up his reins, he tossed a broken biscuit to the sobbing
child, and with a chorus of farewell wishes from the passengers, set
off his horses at a rattling pace. The lumbering waggon was soon
distanced.
Mr. Treby saw the passengers lean forward in anxious discussion;
and many a backward glance was cast upon the burnt rags, which were
dropping from him at every step. But he knew that his wants would not
be forgotten; and more than that, his warning would be faithfully given
to every farm-house on their route.
He was lost in his own thoughts, whilst Jack munched his biscuit in
silence, watching his father's troubled countenance.
A groan burst from Mr. Treby's lips as the post-cart was lost to sight,
and not a sight or sound of human being disturbed the stillness of that
vast treeless plain.
Then two small fearless arms were clasped about his neck, and little
loving kisses covered his bearded face as Jack whispered, "Did you
really mind me keeping Vickel?"