One of the cheeriest of Christmas Days was that spent on the pleasant
banks of the Limpopo River, not many years since. Two hunting friends
were trekking through Bechuanaland towards the Zambesi, and it happened
by great good fortune that, just at the junction of the Notwani and
Limpopo Rivers, they found outspanned the wagons of two hunters and
traders southward bound from the far interior. These men were
travelling down-country with heavy loads of ivory, ostrich feathers,
skins, and other produce, and they had with them a big troop of cattle
obtained in barter. In these fitful encounters in the African
wilderness men are always well met, and it needed no pressing from the
new-found acquaintances to induce them to outspan together, and combine
forces for Christmas cheer and Christmas chatter. A brief council of
war soon settled the all-important question of commissariat.
Smallfield, the younger of the traders, had shot a good rooibok the
evening before, which furnished venison for all, and they had already
baked a store of bread from fresh Boer meal. The new-comers, on their
side, freshly equipped from Kimberley, could provide tinned
plum-puddings, tinned tomatoes, peas, jams, and other luxuries,
including dried onions, most precious of vegetables in the veldt; and
they had further some excellent Scotch whisky. They had, besides, half
a dozen brace of guinea-fowl and pheasants, shot during the day in the
jungles bordering the river, so that all the concomitants of a capital
African banquet were ready to hand.
Just at sundown the preparations were complete, and no merrier party,
you may swear, ever sat down to their Christmas meal. They supped by
the light of a roaring camp-fire, eked out by a lantern or two placed on
the cases that served for tables. The servants were enjoying themselves
at another fire at a little distance; the oxen lay peacefully at their
yokes; the wagons loomed large alongside, their white tents reflecting
cheerfully the ruddy blaze of the fire; the night was perfect, still and
warm, and the stars, like a million diamond sparks, scintillated in the
intense darkness of the dome above. What wonder, then, that all felt
happy and contented?
Supper at length over, the coffee-kettle was banished to obscurity and
the whisky produced. The travellers lit their pipes and toasted their
absent friends and each other, and then ensued a long and delightful
evening.
The traders were two capital, manly fellows, well versed in the sports
and toils and pleasures of the far interior; the new-comers themselves
had been in the hunting veldt before, and they had all, therefore, many
things in common. Many and many a yarn of the chase and adventure they
exchanged; many a head of gallant game they slew again by the cheerful
blaze. The up-country trekkers mentioned that they thought of trying a
new bit of veldt, rather away from the beaten track, if but they could
find water in the desert, and good guides and spoorers--they were bent
on entering the wild and little-known tract of country north of the road
to the Mababi veldt. "Well," said the elder of the traders--Kenstone
was his name--"you'll find game there after the rains--giraffe, gemsbok,
hartebeest, eland, koodoo, roan antelope, and perhaps a few elephant, or
a rhinoceros or two. But it's a wild, barren veldt; the country as you
go north is a good deal broken, and, unless the rains have been good,
water is terribly scarce there. As for myself," (gazing rather moodily
at the camp-fire, and stroking his thick, brown beard), "I once went
into that veldt, and never wish to see it again. I had a most uncanny
adventure there--an experience I never again wish to repeat if I live to
a hundred. In all the years (and they are close on five-and-twenty now)
I have been in the hunting veldt, I never spent so incomprehensible and
horrible a time as the few days I am thinking of. Ugh!" and the big man
shivered as he spoke.
Naturally the curiosity of his audience was at once excited. The
younger trader, Smallfield, spoke first.
"Why, George," he said, "I never heard you speak of that country. I
never even knew you had been in it. What's the yarn? It must be
something out of the common if it gives _you_ the blues. You're not
sentimental, as far as I remember."
"No, Jim," returned Kenstone, "I never mentioned the thing to you or to
any one else, bar, perhaps, two or three folks. It's eleven years gone
since it all happened. My old partner, Angus (he's down in the Colony
now), who was with me at the time, knows all about it, and I reported
some of the circumstances to a Transvaal Landdrost when we got back.
Otherwise I have never talked about the matter--I should only be
chaffed, and it's not a pleasant topic at the best of times. It gave me
a very nasty _schrijk_ [Fright] at the time, I remember. However, it's
all far enough away now; if you and these gentlemen would like to hear
the yarn, as it's Christmas-time, and we're so well met, why, I'll break
my rule and tell you all about it. And mind, what I tell you are solid
facts. You know I don't `blow,' Jim, or spout tall yarns for the
benefit of down-country folks or bar-loafers at Kimberley. What I saw I
saw, and, please God, hope never to see again."
All were as keen as mustard for the story, and Kenstone went on.
"Well, let me fill my pipe, and give me another _soupje_ of whisky,
and," (nodding a health to his hearers over his glass) "here goes:--
"It was in '74 that Angus and I were making our third trip to the Lake
N'gami country. This time we had got leave from Khama to trade and hunt
in Mababi and the Chobe River country; and we meant to push even beyond,
to the region between the Sunta and the Okavango, if the fever would let
us. We made a good trek of it across the `thirst'--there had been very
late rains that year--and even after crossing the Lake River we made
good travelling well on towards the Mababi flat. We heard from the
Makobas and Masarwas along the river that there was still some water
standing in the bush on our right hand, that there were elephant in
there, and that other game was abundant. It is not often that this
veldt is accessible--from scarcity of water--and it seemed good enough
to quit the wagon road for a time, and try the bush for ivory. Before
reaching Scio Pans, therefore, we turned right-handed, and struck into
the bush with one wagon--the other, in charge of our head driver, being
sent on to the water, there to await our coming.
"We had some Masarwa bushmen with us, and they were as keen as hawks at
the prospect of showing us heavy game, and getting a liberal supply of
flesh. Northward we trekked steadily through wild desolate country for
the best part of one day, and outspanned by a desert pool for the night.
Here we were greatly disappointed to find no spoor of elephant,
although giraffe, ostrich, gemsbok, and hartebeest were fairly
plentiful. Next day at dawn we again pushed doggedly on, Angus and I
taking different directions, and riding some miles ahead of the wagon on
the look-out for elephant-spoor. I rode behind a Masarwa at a steady
pace all morning without finding the least sign of the game we wanted,
and, after an off-saddle at midday, once more pushed on in a
north-westerly direction.
"Rather suddenly we came upon a _klompje_ of giraffe, and as the
elephants seemed very much in the air and we wanted meat, I rammed the
spurs in and galloped headlong for the _kameels_ [Camels. The Boer term
for giraffe]. It was desperately hot, and we were shut up in thick
thorny bush in which not a breath of wind stirred, and I consequently
had not got my coat on. The beast I rode for, a fat, fresh young cow,
led me a pretty dance of two miles, hell for leather, at a terrific pace
through the very thorniest jungle she could pick; and although I
presently ranged close up to her rump, and with my third bullet (firing
from my horse) brought her down with a crash, she had taken pretty heavy
toll of me. My flannel shirt was torn to ribbons, and my chest and
shoulders were rarely gashed about. Never hunt `camel', gentlemen, in
thick bush, without a stout coat on; that's the advice of an old
veldt-man, and it's worth remembering. I ought to have known better
that day, but I was not prepared for game at that particular moment.
"Well, I stuck my knife into the cow's back and found her well covered
with fat, and the Masarwa coming up soon after, we set to work to skin
and cut her up. Presently, having fastened about twenty pounds of meat
to my saddle, and carrying the long, prehensile tongue dangling far
below my belt, I saddled up, leaving the Masarwa, who had a calabash of
water, to finish the job and wait for the wagon to pick him up next
morning.
"I myself took a sweep north-north-east, with the intention of working
round to the wagon before sundown.
"I had not left the Masarwa half an hour, when I suddenly, to my intense
surprise, cut the spoor of a wagon running pretty well east and west,
and going westward. It was not fresh, but at the same time not very old
either. It might have been a month or two old at most. `Now,' thought
I, `what in the mischief does this mean?' Very few hunters use this
veldt. I knew Khama had sent no wagons that way this season, and the
only white man in front of us this year was Dirk Starreberg, one of the
few Dutch hunters to whom Khama gave permission to hunt in his veldt.
Starreberg's wagon it could only be. And yet it struck me as strange
that Dirk, whom I knew well--for he was a noted interior hunter--should
be trekking in this veldt. He was, I knew, bound for the Victoria
Falls. Probably, like ourselves, enticed by the unwonted water supply
and the possibility of a slap at the elephants, he had turned off
somewhere between Nata River and Daka, and pushed across for the Chobe.
Thus reasoning, I turned my horse's head, and, with the westering sun
now on my right flank, struck homeward for the wagon. I rode on for
half a mile, and then came another strange thing. As I crossed an open
glade I saw coming towards me the figure of a man. I knew in a moment
who it was. The slouching walk, the big, burly form, the vast red
beard, the rifle carried--as Dirk always carried his--by the muzzle end,
with the stock poised behind his shoulder--it was none but Dirk
Starreberg himself. But there was something amiss with him. He looked
worn and troubled, almost distraught, it seemed to me, at that distance;
and he gazed neither to right nor left of him, but passed hurriedly and
very swiftly in front of me at a distance of about eighty paces.
"`Hallo! Dirk!' I shouted. `Allemaghte! war loup jij? Wacht een
bitje, Dirk!' (Almighty! where are you off to? Wait a little, Dirk!)
To my utter astonishment, the man took not the slightest notice, but
passed on. I became indignant, and yelled, `Dirk, Dirk, have you no
manners? It's me, George Kenstone. I want you. Stop!' Still the man
passed on. In another moment he had reached the bush again. He turned
now, beckoned to me with his right hand, and, in another instant, had
disappeared into the low forest.
"I was extremely annoyed, and after staring like a fool for a second or
two, struck in spurs rather sharply and galloped after him. I was not
three seconds in reaching the bush where he had entered, but, to my
surprise, Dirk had vanished. I searched hither and thither, shouted--
ay, swore--but still no Dirk. I came back, at length, to the point
where I had last seen the Boer. Surprise Number 3. There was my own
spoor as plain as a pikestaff in the red sand, but of Dirk Starreberg
_not one trace of spoor was to be seen_!
"Now, spoor, as you all know, is a thing that never lies. I had seen
Dirk cross the clearing and enter the bush at this point. Where were
his tracks? I got off my horse and hunted carefully every bit of the
way across the glade where I had seen Dirk pass. I am a reasonable good
veldt-man, but--so help me God!--I never could find one trace of the
man's spoor, this way or that. I rubbed my eyes. It was
incomprehensible. I searched again and again, carefully and
methodically, with the same result. There was always my own and my
horse's spoor, but no one else's.
"By this time I was not a little bothered. There must be some infernal
mystery which I could not fathom. My eyesight had never yet failed me.
It was broad daylight, and I was neither asleep, nor dreaming, nor
drunk. An old childish superstition crept for an instant upon my mind,
to be instantly cast aside. And yet the flesh, even of grown manhood,
is weak. I remember distinctly that I shivered, blazing hot as was the
afternoon. The bush seemed very still and lonely, and I am bound to say
it suddenly struck me it was time to move for the wagon. I got on to my
good nag, walked him away, and presently set him into a brisk canter,
which I only once slackened till I made the camp, just at sundown, a
couple of hours later.
"I told Angus what I had seen. He laughed, and told me I had evidently
missed the spoor, although he admitted that it was strange that Dirk had
made no sign when I hailed him; and next morning we moved on rapidly,
picked up the meat of the dead giraffe, and then a little later struck
the wagon-spoor I had found yesterday. This we followed briskly until
four o'clock p.m., when we came upon an old outspan, and discovery
Number 4.
"Here was a good-sized water-pit in limestone formation. There were the
remains of the camp-fire; and it was evident, from several indications,
that the wagon, whosever it was, had stood at least two days at this
spot. The camel-thorn trees [Giraffe-acacias] grew pretty thickly all
around, and there was a good deal of bush, and altogether it was a
sequestered, silent spot. Lying by the largest of the dead fires was an
object that instantly quickened our interest in the mystery we were
unravelling--the skeleton of a man, clean-picked by the foul vultures,
but apparently untouched by jackals or hyaenas. There were still the
tattered remains of clothing upon it, and one velschoen--a Boer
velschoen--upon the right foot. I turned over the poor bleached
framework to try and discover some inkling of its end. As I did so, out
pattered from the skull on to the sand a solid Martini-Henry bullet,
slightly flattened on one side of its apex, manifestly from impact with
some bone it had encountered--probably a cheek-bone. A closer scrutiny
revealed a big hole in rear of the skull just behind the right ear.
"`By George!' exclaimed Angus, who was bending over me, `there's been
foul play here. That shot was fired at pretty close quarters.'
"I nodded, and at that instant my Masarwa, who had been searching about
near us, picked up and brought me a bunch of long red hair.
"`So help me God!' I could not help exclaiming, `that's from Dirk
Starreberg's beard, for any money! He has been murdered here--that's
certain. If it was an accident, they would have buried him. The
question is, who is the murderer?'
"We hunted about, but found no more traces, except the other velschoen
and the remains of a Dutchman's broad-brimmed hat. We outspanned for
the night, and sat down to think it over and have a pipe while supper
was being got ready.
"`Angus,' I said, `I don't half like things. There's some dark riddle
here. The figure I saw yesterday afternoon was Dirk Starreberg's. I
knew him well, and never could mistake him. And, strangely enough, he
was heading, when I last saw him, for this very spot. If I believed in
ghosts, which I don't, I should say I had seen Dirk's spook. What do
you make of it all? I'm beginning to think I'm dreaming, or going
dotty. It beats me altogether.'
"`Well,' returned Angus, in his quaint way, `it's the most extraordinary
rum go I ever heard of. We'd better trek on in the morning, first
thing, and see what else we can discover. Those are Dirk's bones
undoubtedly; we must try and do something for the poor chap, though he
is dead.'
"I don't know what was wrong that night, but several times the oxen were
startled, and sprang to their feet; and the nags--fastened up to the
wagon-wheels--were desperately scared once or twice, and pulled at their
_riems_ as though they must break them; the dogs, too, barked and
howled, and behaved very strangely. And yet no lions were near us.
Once or twice we looked out, but saw nothing. All of us, masters and
boys, were uncomfortable--we could hardly explain why, and the men
undoubtedly knew nothing of what I had seen the day before.
"At dawn next morning we were not sorry to inspan and trek; and,
following the old wagon-spoor, we pushed on, determined if possible to
get to the bottom of the affair. All that day and all the next we
toiled on, only outspanning once or twice during the daytime, and at
night, by water, to rest and refresh the oxen for a few hours. At last,
an hour before sunset of the second day, Angus and I, who were riding
ahead of the wagon, spied suddenly among some camel-thorn trees the tent
of a wagon, to which we cantered. Suddenly, as we reined up, the
fore-clap was cast aside, and a wild figure of a woman appeared, and
scrambled down from the wagon-box. It was Vrouw Starreberg, but
terribly, sadly altered from the stout, if somewhat grim, good-wife I
had last seen a couple of years before. Her dark stuff dress was torn
and cut about by the thorn-bushes; her erst fat, smooth face, broad
though it still was, was lined and haggard, and terribly fallen away;
but, above all, there was a rolling vacancy, a wildness, in her eye,
that made me fear at once for her reason. Under one arm she clasped
tightly a big Bible, and never in the subsequent days that we were
together did she once relinquish it. It seemed that some terrible
calamity had overturned her reason.
"`Whence come ye, George Kenstone?' (she had known me well for years),
she cried in a harsh, high-pitched scream, very painful to listen to.
`Take me out of this desert, and back to my home. I have been cast away
these six weeks able to move neither hand nor foot for freedom. The man
I called husband is dead, and my servants have fled, and the oxen are
gone--the Lord knows where.'
"I scarce knew how to begin with her.
"`I'm sorry, Tant' Starreberg,' I said, `to find you in this plight.
I'm afraid there has been sad mischief, and your husband has been shot.
Is it not so? We will help you gladly, of course, and early in the
morning, when the oxen will be rested, we will take you out of this
place. I fear you have suffered much. But how came poor Dirk by his
end? Was it the boys?'
"At the mention of Dirk her whole expression changed; her eyes filled
with a terrible light. In her best days Vrouw Starreberg was a
hard-featured, ugly woman. Now she looked almost fiendish.
"`_Poor_ Dirk?' she shrieked with a horrible scorn. `_Poor_ Dirk? No,
I am not afraid to own it! The man you call Dirk Starreberg--he was no
more husband of mine--died by my hand. I shot him; yes, dead I shot
him, as he sat by his fire. And why? Because he lied and was
unfaithful. Because he forsook me for that mop-headed, blue-eyed,
pink-faced doll--Alletta Veeland. And when at last I had discovered
all--he talked over-much in his sleep, the traitor!--and taxed him with
it, here in this very veldt, he laughed me to scorn, and told me he was
tired of my black face and my sour ways, and gloried in his evil love.
Ja! he taunted me that I was old and barren--I that had made a man of
him, and brought him gold, and flocks, and herds, and set him up. And
so I shot him, as I say. I could endure it no longer; and the servants,
having trekked to this place with me, fled, and the oxen wandered, and I
am alone, the Lord help me!' At the next instant the poor, overwrought
creature fell in a swoon upon the sand.
"Well, it was all very horrible; although even now we hardly knew what
to believe. But we brought her to, gave her some brandy, and put her
into her wagon to rest. And later on I took her some soup and bread,
and made her eat it. She was exhausted now, and told me in a low voice
that she had lived on meal and water for weeks past. Presently we
turned in, and all was quiet.
"It was, I suppose, some little time after midnight that Angus and I
were roused by a loud voice beyond the camp-fire, which lay between the
other wagon and our own. We listened; it was the vrouw herself.
Hastily we got down from the kartel and went towards her. She was
beyond the fire, and her figure was well-nigh lost in the gloom of
night. We could just see her white _kopje_, and an arm waving
frantically. It was a terrible and uncanny scene. There stood the
woman, screaming in wild and excited tones at something beyond--what we
could not see, and shivered even to imagine. `Yes,' she cried, `you
come here to frighten me, Dirk Starreberg. I feared you not in life; I
fear you not in death. I slew you, and I would slay you again. But I
know why you walk thus through the veldt, and come seeking to drive me
mad, night after night. To-morrow--now that I can trek--I will come and
bury your bones, and you may rest quiet if you can. Trouble me no more,
I say--begone!'
"Angus and I could stand it no longer, sick with horror though we were.
"`Come back to your wagon, Vrouw Starreberg,' I called out `You are
dreaming. Go to rest again!'
"Still glaring in front of her, the woman stepped back till she had met
our advance. I am bound to say that I looked, and Angus looked, with
terrified eyes, but saw nothing of what she saw or thought she saw. We
took the poor mad creature's arms. She was trembling and wet--literally
bathed in perspiration. What the tension must have been if this sort of
thing had been going on sight after night, I shuddered even to think of.
We took her to her wagon and gave her a strong dose of brandy and
water, and presently she fell into heavy sleep. Then Angus and I got
down our karosses, rekindled a roaring fire, and sat smoking by the
blaze for the rest of that sight. Scared as I was, I believe I dozed
once or twice, and Angus always swears, to this day, that he once saw
the figure of Dirk Starreberg pass within the firelight fifty yards
away. He woke me, but it had gone. The cattle were uneasy and
disturbed again, and our Kaffirs, who had heard the vrouw talking, as
they said, at a spook, lay huddled together under our wagon. It was
uncanny, devilish uncanny, I can tell you, that intangible horror about
the camp.
"Well, the rest of my story is short. Vrouw Starreberg was moving
before dawn, and insisted that we must trek back to the old camp and
bury the skeleton. We--fearing more horrors--said it could not be done,
and that we should at once quit the bush and strike directly for the
road. She then utterly refused to leave her wagon unless we did as she
asked. We seriously thought of taking her by force, but she was a
strong, powerful woman, her mind was already unhinged, and we feared the
consequences of a struggle. And so, very reluctantly, we agreed to
humour her and give her her wish. It was a ghastly business; we only
prayed to get it quickly over.
"At earliest streak of daylight we were in-spanned, and all day
travelled steadily back towards the scene of Dirk's tragical ending.
That night, strange to say, nothing happened to disturb us; everything
passed quietly. We trekked again all next day, and halted for the night
some three miles short of `the skeleton outspan,' as we called it. Our
reason for this was that we hoped the burial might be quietly
accomplished in the bright sunshine of next morning, and the woman got
well away, before nightfall, on the homeward journey. Vrouw Starreberg,
I noticed, was restless and excited, but she made no objection. Again,
I noticed that she still carried her Bible tightly clasped under the
left arm. The vrouw lay in our wagon; Angus and I sleeping by the fire
again. We were dog-tired, and slept soundly until roused, just as
daylight broke, by our wagon-driver, a Griqua named Albrecht. The man
was looking very strangely. `Baas,' he said, `the vrouw is not there,'
(pointing to the wagon); `she went in the night. I heard her
whispering, and I looked from where I was lying, and there she was,
beyond the firelight, following a man--a Dutchman, I think--or a spook,
I don't know which, towards the murderer's outspan (_de mordenaar's
outspan to_). I was frightened, Baas, and I dared not move. There is
her spoor; but the man's spoor I cannot see.'
"We sprang to our feet and went straight to the wagon; the fore-clap was
pulled aside; the kartel was empty. Yes, she had gone; and our hearts
were sick with a nameless fear. Taking Albrecht with us, we saddled up
at once, and spoored the vrouw along the track towards the old outspan.
And there, surely enough, we found her, stone-dead by the side of the
skeleton.
"There was no mark upon her, but in her face was the most awful look of
horror and of fright that I ever saw upon the countenance of the dead.
I believe she had died of sheer terror, and of nothing else. What had
happened in those silent, terrible night hours--by what ghastly agency
she had been dragged to the scene of the tragedy; how the end had
actually come, God only knows.
"We were but too anxious to get away from this dreadful place after such
events. We buried the body and skeleton together, and trekked out as
fast as the oxen could travel, never stopping till we had struck the
road and reached Scio Pans.
"That, gentlemen, is my solitary experience of spooks. I never want to
have another. I was a scoffer before; I am a believer now. And if you
told me that in the bush I speak of there were now standing ready for
me, as a free gift, two buck-wagons loaded up with ivory--why, I should
decline the offer.
"Never would I be induced to enter that veldt again!"