"Why, Joeboy," I cried, wiping my eyes, "you're splendid. But where's
Echo Nek?"
"Dah!" he said, pointing behind him with the dangerous-looking assagai
he carried.
"Did you see me coming?"
He nodded, it being one of his habits to say as little in English as he
could.
"Tell me: have you got anything to eat?" I said. "I'm starving."
He darted back to the other side of the ridge, and came back with the
strap of a big canvas satchel over his shoulder, the bag-part looking
bulky in the extreme.
"Um Tant Jenny," he said, frowning, as he shook the satchel, and then
proceeded to scrape off with the blade of his stabbing-assagai the large
ants which had scented the contents and were swarming to the attack.
"Is there any water near?" I asked.
"Um," said Joeboy, pointing towards the other side of the ridge.
"Then there will be grass too," I said. "Go on, and show the way.
Quick!"
The great black nodded and went off at a trot, taking me over the ridge
and down a steep slope into a large gap in the side of the hill; and a
quarter of an hour later we were alongside a bubbling stream, where
long, rich, juicy grass grew in abundance.
Directly after Sandho was grazing contentedly; and when I had drunk from
the pure fresh water, I was devouring rather than eating the magnified
salt-beef sandwiches of which the satchel contained ample store, while
Joeboy grinned to see the way in which one disappeared.
"Catch hold," I said, pushing a great sandwich towards my black
companion; but he shook his head and shrank away.
"Tant Jenny say all young Boss Val," he said, and then he laughed and
displayed a large packet carefully fastened to the inside of his shield.
This packet he opened, took out a sandwich similar to mine, then
squatted down and began to eat.
"Joeboy had plenty yes'day," he said, and he gave his front a circular
rub as if to suggest that it was still fairly stored, after which he
went on munching slowly as if to keep me company.
"Now," I said after eating a few mouthfuls, "what did my father say?"
"Big Boss say Joeboy go Echo Nek. Stop till son Val come."
"Is that all?" I said wonderingly.
"Yes; all Boss say."
As he spoke, however, Joeboy laid his sandwich upon the shield beside
him, and then began to fumble behind him in the band of his cut-down
trousers, out of a leopard-skin pocket attached to which he drew a
packet of common leather tied up with a slip of the same.
I opened the leather packet with trembling fingers, and found a letter,
which I eagerly read:
"Dear Val,--I take it for granted, my boy, that you will escape from
those ruffians and be lying in wait for my message. I find, though,
that Joeboy is missing, and if he does not return I shall have to come
and meet you myself, and then I can tell you what to do. I will,
however, write this in the hope that I can send it, as I do not want to
leave your aunt and Bob, for there is much to do, burying and hiding a
few valuables in case we are ever able to come back."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, and Joeboy half-sprang to his feet, but subsided as
I went on:
"War has broken out, the Boers having defied the British Government. It
has, of course, all been a surprise to me; but the news is coming in
fast. Hodson has been here, and he tells me the English are all
receiving orders to go. It is ruin to us, and after making such a home;
but, God help us! we must do our best.
"Of course you cannot serve against your own countrymen, and I don't
like your having anything to do with the horrible business; but if you
feel that you must join in with our people and act as a volunteer
against what is a cruel tyranny, I know you will act like a man.
"I can write no more, and Heaven knows when we may meet again. I shall
make for Natal, of course, with as much as I can save out of the wreck--
that is, as much as the enemy will let me carry off. Perhaps, though,
that will be nothing; and I must be content with getting away with our
lives, for I hear that the blacks are getting uneasy, as if they smelt
blood; and Heaven knows what may happen if they break out, for the white
man is their natural enemy in their eyes, and, friends now, they may be
our foes to-morrow.
"God bless and protect you, my boy! Aunt Jenny's dear love to you, and
she is going to help me to hold Bob in, for the young dog is mad to come
after you.
"Your father, in the dear old home he is about to quit, perhaps for
ever.
"John Moray.
"_PS_:--Good news, my boy. Joeboy has just come back, in full fighting
fig. He will bring this, and some provision for a day or two. I feel
sure you may trust him. He has been showing me what he would do to any
one who tried to hurt young Boss Val. He is like a big child; but he is
true as steel. Good-bye.
"Heaven be with you, my boy!"
That last line was in Aunt Jenny's handwriting, and there were big
blotches on the paper where the ink had run, and over them came a few
lines in Bob's clumsy hand:
"Val, old chap, the dad says I'm not to come along with Joeboy to join.
I told him it was a shame, for I felt in a passion, and he knocked me
down.
"That's only my larks. He did knock me down, but not with his fist or
the handle of a--I don't know how you spell it; but I mean chambock. He
knocked me over with what he said. He told me it was my duty to stop
and help him and auntie. He might want me to fight for him and her. If
he does, I'll shove in two cartridges--I mean only one bullet; and I
don't care if the old rifle kicks till she breaks my collar-bone. I
mean to let the Boers have it for coming and upsetting us. I never knew
how nice dear old home was before. Old--"
That was the bottom of the paper; but upon turning it over, there at the
very top on the other side, and in the left-hand corner above the word
"Val," where my father had begun, was the word "Beasts," which I had
passed over unnoticed as being part of some memorandum on the paper when
my father took it up hurriedly to write.
I always was a weak, emotional sort of fellow--perhaps it was due to the
climate, and my having had the fever when we first came there--and the
writing looked very dim and blurry before my eyes; and yet I felt
inclined to laugh over what Bob had scribbled. I did laugh when my eyes
grew clear again, for Bob had, apparently at the last, taken up the pen
to write along the edge of the paper, and so badly that it was hard to
read:
"I say, Joeboy looks fizzing. He's been oiling himself over to make him
go easy, and sharpening his saygays with the scythe-rubber."
"And so there's to be no more home," I said softly as I carefully folded
up the paper and placed it in my breast. Then somehow the terrible
feeling of hunger died out, and I only drank some more water.
"Boss Val eat lot," said Joeboy, his voice making me start.
"No more, now, Joeboy," I said. "I'll wait a bit."
"Wait a bit," he said, nodding his head, and then carefully replacing
what I had left in the satchel.
"Fasten that to the back of my saddle," I said.
"Um! Joeboy carry."
"No, no," I replied. "We must part now, Joeboy. I can't go back home,
nor stay here."
Joeboy shook his head.
"No stop," he said. "All bad."
"You don't understand," I said.
"Um!" he said, nodding. "Joeboy know. Boss Val fight Boers."
"Perhaps; but you must go back and help my father if he has to leave the
farm."
There was another shake of the head and a frown; then a silence, during
which the great black seemed to be thinking out what he was to say in
English to make his meaning clear. At last it came as he sat there with
his shield on one side, his assagais on the other; and, to my surprise,
he took up the big stabbing weapon and one of the light throwing-shafts
before touching me on the chest with a finger.
"Boss John big boss," he said solemnly. "Boss Val little boss;" and he
held up the two spears to illustrate his words. "Big boss say, `Go
'long my boy.' Little boss say, `Go 'long my dad.' Joeboy say, `Don't
car'; shan't go. Got to go 'long Boss Val.'"
"My father told you this?"
"Um!" said the great fellow; "dat's all right."
"But you would be so much use to my father, Joe, to manage the bullocks
in the wagon."
"No," he said. "No bullock. Boer boy take 'em all away. Boss John no
got nothing soon."
"You are sure my father said you were to go with me, Joeboy?" I said
after a few minutes' pause.
"Um," he said, nodding his head fiercely. "Say, `Take care my boy,
Joeboy.' Joeboy take care Boss Val."
He caught up his shield and sprang to his feet, with the assagais
trembling in his big hand, looking as if he could be a terrible
adversary in a close conflict, though helpless against modern weapons of
war.
This thought made me think of myself and my own position.
"Very well, Joeboy. I say you shall come with me."
He nodded.
"But you'll have to lend me one of your assagais till I can get a
rifle."
"Boss Val got rifle gun," he said sharply.
"Where? No; I have only my knife."
Joeboy laughed, and ran to the side of the rift, where he began to
scratch in the sand, and a few inches down laid bare the muzzle of my
rifle, gave it a tug, and it came out with the well-filled bandolier
attached.
I caught at it with a cry of eager joy, and began to carefully dust away
every particle of sand that clung to it before slipping on the belt,
forgetting the aching pains in my wrists and left leg, as something like
a glow of confidence ran through me. Then came back the thought of
home, with its smiling fields, orchard, and garden around the house we
had raised upon the land won from the wilderness; and the thought that I
was to be exiled from it all in consequence of this war; and the
injustice of the Boers raised a spirit of anger against them which
helped me to pull myself together and frowningly resolve to prove myself
a man.
"Action, action," I muttered. "I should have liked to go back and see
them all again; but I must begin at once, before I am taken. What would
they do with me?" I said aloud; and a glance at Joeboy's face showed me
that, awkward though he was at speaking, he comprehended every word I
had said.
"Big Boss Boer," he said, nodding, "say Boss Val come fight. No Boss
Val fight? _Whish, whish, whish, crack, cruck_!"
He went through the movement of one wielding a bullock-lash, and
imitated the sound it made through the air and the loud cracking when it
struck home upon quivering flesh. Then he went on, "Boss Val no fight
now! _Bang, bang_!"
"Flog me the first time I refuse, Joeboy, and shoot me the next time."
"Um."
"Well, then, we will not give them the chance."
Joeboy shook his head violently.
"What Joeboy do now, Boss?"
"Rub my wrists, Joeboy," I said, stripping up my sleeves and showing him
their bruised state and my swollen arms.
He understood why they were so, and took first one and then the other in
his big soft grey palms, to mould and knead and rub them with untiring
patience for long enough, the effect being pleasurable in the extreme.
But I checked him when he was in the midst of it, and pointed to my leg.
"Boer tie up leg?" he said wonderingly.
I explained what was wrong, and he knelt before me, carefully removing
my laced-up boot, and giving me sickening pain as he drew off my coarse
home-knitted stocking, to lay bare the wrenched and swollen foot and
ankle.
"Um!" he said. "Boss Val come to water."
He lifted me to the edge of the stream as easily as if I had been a
child, and when I sat down, carefully bathed the joint for fully
half-an-hour, dried it by pouring sand over it again and again, and then
as tenderly as a woman replaced stocking and boot, which latter he laced
very loosely.
"Boss Val go one leg when off Sandho."
"Yes, Joeboy," I said; "but it will soon get better."
"Um!" he said, and he looked at me inquiringly, as if for orders.
"Now we must be off, Joeboy, before the Boers hunt me out."
"Um!" he said, in token of assent; and upon my calling Sandho to my side
Joeboy helped me to mount, securing the satchel to my saddle in
obedience to my orders; and, making for Echo Nek, we went steadily on,
my intention being to get through the pass and some distance on the
other side towards the Natal border before dark.
"We shall know the road better there, Joeboy," I said after we had been
walking some time; "it all seems strange to me here."
"Joeboy know," he said.
"What! the way about here?" I said, in surprise. "When did you come?"
"Long while," he replied. "Lost bullock. Come here."
"Oh!"--then I remembered. "Of course. You were gone a fortnight."
"Um!" said Joeboy.
"And my father thought you had run away, and that we should never see
you again."
"How Joeboy run away? Bullock no run. Run other way."
"Yes," I said, laughing; "they are always ready to go in the wrong
direction. Do you know"--I was going to say something about the rising
of one of the rivers up in the mountains somewhere near, but I stopped
short, for my companion suddenly darted to Sandho's head and pressed him
sidewise towards a pile of rocks which offered plenty of shelter from
anything in front.
"What is it, Joeboy?" I said. "A good shot at something?"
For answer he pointed upward at the rocks beside the pass which went by
the name of Echo Nek--the place which we had nearly reached, this great
gap in the mountains being the only spot for many miles on either side
where a horse could cross. As to wagons, a far greater detour was
necessary to find a road.
I looked in the direction he pointed out, but for some moments I could
see nothing. Then a faint gleam from something moving gave me warning
of what had taken place, and directly after I caught sight of the bearer
of the rifle from whose barrel the sunlight had flashed.