"And second place," continued Key placidly, "considerin' the kind o'
cargo you've got aboard, and where it's going to, I didn't reckon you
_wanted_ any passengers!"
"I don't want passengers," said Gowan gloomily; "but any damned fool
knows that that fellow'll never see food or blankets or `boy' again on
the face of God's earth. Kaffir carriers don't forget things at
outspans. No, not any that I've seen, and I've seen a good few."
Old Gowan took up the grass stem again, and chewed and tugged at it, and
made occasional kicks at passing bushes, by way of showing a general and
emphatic disapproval. No one said anything; it was Gowan's way to growl
at everything, and nobody ever took much notice. He was the most
good-natured, kindly old growler that ever lived. He growled as some
sturdy old dogs do when you pat them--they like it.
In this particular case, of course, he had reason. It is not that we
were inhospitable or unfeeling, but years of roughing it had, I suppose,
dulled our impressions of the first night alone in the veld, and we had
not seen it as Gowan did. Life of the sort we led, no doubt, develops
the sterling good qualities of one's nature, but quick sympathy and its
kindred delicate traits are rather growths of refinement and quiet, and
it betrayed no real want of feeling that we had not taken Gowan's view.
There could be no doubt, of course, that the Kaffir boy had bolted with
the blankets and food, for we had noticed that the young German had
nothing left when we saw him but that yellow portmanteau, and our
knowledge of the Delagoa Bay "boy" forbade acceptance of the theory that
he had gone empty-handed.
We rumbled heavily along for a bit, and after a while Gowan resumed, in
a tone of deeper grumbling and more surly dissatisfaction than before:
"Like as not the silly young fool 'll lose himself looking for water,
and die in the Bush, like that one Joe Roberts brought up last season.
Why, I remember when--"
"Grave o' the Prophet!" exclaimed Robbie, starting up in mock alarm;
"he's going to tell us that dismal yarn about the parson chap who hunted
beetles, and was found after a week's search with two of his most
valuable specimens feeding on his eyes. Skip, sonnie, skip! and fetch
up your German friend 'fore the old man gets under way."
Key dropped off the buck-rails, as the drivers shouted their "Aanhouws"
to the cattle to give them a breather, kicked his legs loose a bit,
dusted down his trousers quietly, and, smiling good-humouredly at Gowan,
"guessed it was better business to hump that gripsack a mile or two than
listen to old Yokeskey's prayers." That was his irreverent way of
alluding to Gowan's calling of transport-rider--a yokeskey being part of
the trek gear. Key and I set out together at a brisk pace, well knowing
how poor was our chance of catching up to the waggons again before the
midnight outspan.
Key, who was always tickled by Gowan's growling tones, remarked after we
had walked for some minutes:
"Sling hell like a nigger parson, you know, can the old 'un, but soft
and harmless as a woman."
After half an hour's brisk walking, we caught the unsteady flicker of a
fire through the straggling thorns, and we found our friend sitting
tailorwise before it, making vigorous but futile attempts to wisp aside
the smoke that would go his way. His look of mild curiosity at the
sound of our voices wakened up into welcome when he recognised us, and
he at once became interested in the reason of our return.
"You haf lose something--not? I, too, will look for you," he said,
jumping up eagerly; but we reassured him on that point, and inquired in
turn whether his "boy" had returned, and cross-questioned him as to the
when and wherefore of his leaving.
The Kaffir-bearer, he said, had left him that morning during the
after-breakfast trek.
"Ten hours gone, by Jimmie!" muttered the Judge.
"And you have waited here since then?" I asked.
"Oh yes, yes! I read to learn de English. It is--"
"Had any scoff?"
"Please?"
"Had any grub--anything to eat or drink?" explained Key, illustrating
his meaning by graphic touches on mouth and belt.
"No, no; I am not hunger. Also it is good that I eat not. It make me
use for the prospect."
Key smiled gently, and said, with a quaint judicial air:
"Waal, I don't know as that's quite necessary; but ef you kin stick it
out till that nigger o' yours comes back, I guess you'll do for most any
camp you'll strike in this country. Say! Has he got the blankets?
Yes! And the grub? So! An'--er--mebbe you didn't give him money as
well?"
"I haf give him one pound to pay the passport, which he forgot. He say
policeman will take him if he shows not the ticket. But he will come
bring to me the change. He is ein goot boy, and he speaken English feul
goot; but perhaps something can happen, and that policeman haf take him,
I think."
Even in a new-comer such credulity was a revelation. I could not help
smiling, but the Judge's clear-cut, impassive features never changed;
only, at the mention of the "boy's" lingual accomplishments, he winked
solemnly at me.
The Judge brought matters to a practical issue by telling our friend
that he "had much better wait at our waggons for the good boy that
speaks English so well."
"It ain't," said Key, "es if he couldn't find you. A Kaffir kin find
you most anywhere if he wants to--'specially them English-speakin'
ones," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes.
Key did not wait for any reply, but turned the "yaller gripsack" over
and looked at the name, "Adolf Soltke," painted in big white letters.
"Your name?" he asked in chaff, rather than that he doubted it.
"My name, yea Soltke--Adolf Soltke--coom from Germany, but in der
colonie I was leetle times."
"Took you for Amurrikan," said the Judge, without a vestige of a smile.
I looked hastily at Soltke, feeling that his broken, halting English
should have protected him from such outrageous fooling, but my
solicitude was misplaced. Soltke calmly, but firmly, disclaimed all
knowledge of America, and repeated that he was a German.
Key shouldered the portmanteau with the curt suggestion, "Waal, let's
git!" and as our friend--except by his protestations of gratitude and
wild endeavours to carry the whole of the kit himself--offered no
hindrance to the proposed scheme, we marched along briskly to overtake
the waggons.
A bullock-waggon is a slow one to travel with, but a bad one to catch,
as anyone knows who has tried it; and it was close on midnight when,
tired and dusty, we came suddenly on the waggons outspanned in a small
opening in the Bush.
The silence was absolutely ghostly, except when now and then a bullock
would give a big long sigh, or a sappy stick in the fire would crack and
hiss.
Gowan was sitting over the fire on a three-legged rough-wood stool, head
in hands and elbows on knees, with the odd jets of flame lighting up his
solemn old face and shaggy brown beard. The others had turned in. He
stood up slowly as we came up and extended a hand to Soltke, saying
baldly:
"How are ye?"
Our friend took the inquiry in a literal sense, and was engaged in
answering it, when Gowan cut in with a remark that it was "time to be in
bed," and, accepting his own hint, he hooked his finger in the "reimpje"
of his camp-stool and strolled off to where his blankets were already
spread under one of the waggons.
As he turned, he pointed with his foot to the fire, growling out that
there was a billy of tea and some stew warmed up "for him" (looking back
at Soltke), and adding, "Bread's in the grub-box. 'Night!" he turned
in.
It was just like him to remember these things, for in our routine there
was as a rule no eating during the night outspan. It was breakfast
after the morning trek, and supper before the evening one. Gowan had
also thrown out a couple of blankets, and between us we made up pretty
well for the lost bedding; so Soltke was installed as one of the party.
It says something for him that, in spite of our eight-mile walk and that
yellow portmanteau, the verdict under our waggons that night was: "Seems
a decent sort, after all, and it _would_ ha' been a bit rough to leave
him to shift for himself."
Soltke's stupendous greenness should have disarmed chaff; and, indeed,
at first we all felt that fooling him was like misleading a child: there
was no fun to be got out of it. He believed anything that was told him.
He accepted literally those palpable exaggerations which are not
expected or wanted to be believed. He took for gospel the account of
the Munchausen of the Bush veld who told how his team of donkeys had
been disturbed by a lion during the early morning trek, and how, to his
infinite surprise and alarm, he found that the savage brute had actually
eaten his way into one donkey's place, and when day broke was found
still pulling in the team, to the great dismay of the other members. He
was anxious to make a personal experiment of the efficacy of dew taken
off a bullock's horn, which we had recommended as an infallible snake
charm. At considerable risk he had secured the dew, and the scene of
Soltke's struggling with the bewildered bullock at early dawn one
morning was one to be remembered. However, he pledged himself not to
carry the experiment further without the assistance of one of us, and a
day or two later we removed immediate risk by losing his phial of dew.
I am convinced that he would have tried the experiment on any snake he
might have met, and with absolute confidence as to the result.
His mind was such as one would expect in a child who had known neither
mental nor physical fear. He seemed absolutely void, not only of
personal knowledge of evil, but even of that cognisance of its existence
which shows itself in a disposition to seek corroborative evidence, to
consult probabilities, and to inquire into motives. I am convinced that
Soltke never questioned a motive in his life, nor ever hesitated to
accept as a fact anything told in apparent seriousness. Irony and
sarcasm were to him as to a child or a savage. He was intensely
literal, single-minded and direct, and perfectly fearless in thought,
word or act. Such a disposition in a child would have been charming.
In a well-set-up, active young man of three-and-twenty or so it was
embarrassing. Donald Mackay, who was of a choleric disposition,
complained a day or two after Soltke joined us that "he was blanked if
he could blank well stand it. Why, that morning, when he was about to
give one o' the boys a lambastin', the kiddie turns white as a girl wi'
the first swear and a sight of the sjambok, an' Aa tell ye, mon, Aa was
nigh to bustin' wi' a' the drawing-room blether Aa was gettin' off." It
was quite true. Soltke was not shocked nor affecting to be shocked at
the vigorous language he heard; he was simply unlearned in it, and
shrank as a girl might from the outburst of violence.
Gradually the feeling of strangeness wore off, and the restraint which
the new presence had imposed was no longer felt except on odd occasions.
On our side, we chaffed and shook him up, partly on the impulse of the
time, and partly with good-natured intent to make him better fitted to
take care of himself among the crowd with whom he would mix later on.
On his side, he had never felt restraint, and of course rapidly became
familiar with us and our ways, and seemed thoroughly to enjoy the chaff
and his initiation into the system of good-humoured imposture. With all
his greenness, he was no fool; in fact, he was in odd, unexpected ways
remarkably shrewd and quick, as he often showed in conversation. He
was, moreover, a poor subject for practical jokes, and several of the
stock kind recoiled on the perpetrators, because, as I have said, he did
not know what fear was.
When a notorious practical joker named Evans, with whom we travelled in
company for a couple of days, "put up" the lion scare on Soltke, it
didn't come off. He asked our young friend to dine at his waggons on
the other side of a dry donga, and, after telling the most thrilling
lion yarns all the evening, left Soltke to walk back alone, while he
slipped off to waylay him at the darkest and deepest part of the donga.
There was the rustle of bushes and sudden roar which had so often played
havoc before; but Soltke only stepped back, and lugged out in unfamiliar
fashion a long revolver which no one knew he carried. Ignoring the fact
that a lion could have half eaten him in the time expended, Soltke
calmly cocked the weapon, and, to the terror of his late host, poured
all six barrels into the bush from which the noise had come. He then
retreated quietly out of the donga to where we, hearing the shots and
Evans's shouts of terror, had run down to see what was up. Soltke was
excited, but quiet, and the noise of the reports had evidently prevented
him from detecting the man's voice. He said:
"It was something what make `Har-r-r-!' by me, and I shoot; but I haf no
more cartridge."
We did not see Evans again for some months. The story of Soltke's lion
made the road too hot for him that winter.
When we told Soltke the real facts, his face was a study. For some days
he was very quiet and thoughtful; he was completely puzzled, and for the
life of him could not imagine the motive that had actuated Evans; nor
could he, on the other hand, realise the possibility of anyone acting
differently from the way in which he had done.
Before this there had been some horseplay when we were crossing the
Komatie River. The stream was running strong, and was then from four to
five feet deep at the drift; and, although it was known to be full of
crocodiles, there was little or no danger at the regular crossing.
However, Key had primed Soltke with some gorgeous stories of hairbreadth
escapes, intending to play a trick on him in the river.
"It is quite a common thing for men to be carried off here," said the
Judge; "but white men are very seldom killed--not more than four or five
a year--because of the boots."
"Boots!" exclaimed Soltke inquisitively.
"Yes," said Key, in half-absent tones. "Ef you kick properly, no croc'
can stand it."
Soltke complained excitedly, and as though he had suffered gross
injustice, that no one had told him this interesting phase of life on
the road; but Key snubbed him, telling him that men didn't speak much of
such matters, as it gave the impression of bragging.
Soltke, who was above all things desirous of conforming with the
etiquette of the road, asked no more questions; but Key, later on in the
day, affecting to relent a little, got Soltke to sit straddle-legs on
the pole of one of the waggons, and there, under his directions,
practise kicking crocodiles.
The crossing was too difficult for one span of oxen, so we
double-spanned, and put all hands on with whips and sjamboks along the
thirty oxen, to whack and shout until we got through.
Key placed himself behind Soltke and, just when the excitement was
greatest, with his long whip-stick and lash he made a loop, in which he
managed to enclose Soltke's legs. One jerk took him clean off his feet,
and down-stream he went, floundering and kicking for dear life, for he
believed a crocodile had him. His kicking when he was head downwards
and his legs were free of the water was remarkable. There were roars of
laughter from everyone, as Key had passed the word along; but presently
there was a lull, and the niggers stopped laughing and felt the joke
fall flat, when Soltke, utterly unconscious of the real cause of his
upset, waded deliberately back as soon as he recovered his feet, and,
pale but undaunted, took his place, sjambok in hand, the same as before.
Among transport-riders the condition of the Berg--as the spurs of the
long Drakensberg range of mountains are called colloquially--is always a
fruitful topic of conversation. The Berg at Spitz Kop is worse than at
any other point, I believe, and Soltke exhibited a growing interest in
this much-discussed feature of the road. His enthusiastic nature led
him here into all sorts of speculations about it, which were highly
amusing to us; and the Judge egged poor Soltke on and crammed him so
that he undertook in our interest to devise some method for ascending
this awful Berg whereby the then terrible risks to life and property
would be minimised, if not entirely removed. The position, as Key
explained it, was this: There was a long, steep hill to be surmounted,
the grade of which varied between 30 degrees and vertical, but the
crowning difficulty lay in the "shoot." Here it was an open question
whether the hill did not actually overhang; so steep was it, in fact,
that it was not an uncommon occurrence for the front oxen to slip as
they gained the summit, and fall back into the waggon, possibly killing
both leader and driver, and doing infinite damage to the loads. Soltke
faced this problem brimful of confidence in the subject and himself.
After hours of keen discussion and diligent experiments, Soltke produced
his plan. It was a system of endless rope on guides and pulleys, so
arranged that by a top anchorage on the summit of this hill both oxen
and driver would be secure. Soltke was triumphant, but Key extricated
himself temporarily by pointing out that, as we had not enough rope to
try the scheme, we would have to take the old roundabout road and leave
the "shoot" for the next trip.
The joking with Soltke; as I have said, at times degenerated into common
horseplay, and this led to the only unpleasantness we had. The younger
Mackay--Robbie--was a quiet, humorous, and most gentle-natured fellow,
an immense favourite with everybody.
One night we were all standing round the fire, when something occurred
which nobody ever seemed able to explain. Soltke had mislaid his pipe,
and, thinking he had seen Robbie take it, asked him for it back. Robbie
denied all knowledge, and Soltke, deeming it but another practical joke,
said, "I saw you taking it, you--" using a term which he, poor chap, had
picked up without knowing the meaning, a term which among white men
never passes unnoticed. Robbie's Scotch blood was aflame, and before
one of us could stir, before he himself could think of the allowances to
be made, before the word was well said, a heavy right-hander across the
mouth dropped Soltke back against the waggon. Blank amazement and
something like consternation marked every face, but none was so utterly
taken aback as poor Soltke, who would have suffered anything rather than
inflict pain upon a fellow-being. He only said, "Robbie, what haf I
say? I do not understand," and, looking white and miserable, walked
quietly off to his blankets and turned in. To us it was as though a
girl, a child, had been struck, and no one felt this more than Robbie
himself, as soon as he saw that the insult was not intentional. The
look on Soltke's face was that of a stricken woman, a look of dull,
unmerited pain. He was not cowed--just dazed and hurt, but
inexpressibly hurt. You will see men blink and shuffle under that look
in a woman's face. You will see a master quail before it in a servant.
You will see White go down before it in Black; for it is God's own
weapon in the hands of helpless right. As long as I live I shall
remember that look. I felt as though _I_ had done it!
We trekked as usual next morning at about three o'clock, and it must
have been some time in the dark hours of the early trek that Bobbie
spoke to Soltke. Whatever it was he said, it relieved the awkwardness,
and restored Soltke to something of his old self; but he was never quite
the same again, and for some days we did not get over the look in his
eyes and the feeling of guiltiness it left in us.
Robbie did not speak of that early morning scene, but later in the day
remarked incontinently:
"By God! he is white, is Soltke--white all through."
Soltke kept a diary, and kept it with the most marvellous fidelity and
unflagging industry, and he also learned to shoot, and shot cockyolly
birds occasionally, and was pleased to know their sporting and
scientific names. There is a sort of bastard cockatoo in those parts
which is commonly known as the "Go way" bird, on account of its cry,
which closely resembles these words, and of a habit it is supposed to
have of warning game of the approach of man. In Soltke's diary there
should be an elaborate essay on the ancestry and personal habits of this
bird, and the wonderful traditions of its family. He took these things
down faithfully and laboriously from the Judge's own lips. The Judge
had a copious mythology. Poor Soltke tried to stuff some of his
dicky-birds, labelling them with such names as Key could always supply
at a moment's notice. The result was unpleasant, as Soltke took to
bestowing these ill-preserved relics in the side-pockets of the tents,
in the waggon-boxes, and in a dozen other unlikely spots. It was only
now and then that we could actually find them; but there was a constant
suggestion of their proximity, nevertheless.
We took to calling Soltke the Professor, as it was a title which, we
told him, seemed better to suggest an all-round efficiency than any
other we could think of, and therefore suited him more than such purely
departmental distinctions as Leather-stocking, the Engineer, or the
Ornithologist.
I had forgotten to say that there was one thing on which we did not
chaff poor Soltke. He played the zither. I do not know if he played it
well or not, for he was the only one whom I have heard play that
instrument. To us, lying round a bright thornwood fire, in which the
big logs burnt into solid glowing coals--to us, who lay back smoking or
gazing up into the infinite depths of silent, cloudless sky, watching
millions and millions of stars twinkling busily and noiselessly down at
us, the music was a kind of dream.
As Soltke sat in the glow of the fire, and the unsteady flicker of
shooting and dying flames threw lights and shadows on his face, it
sometimes looked as though he was not quite what we took him for. His
was a bright, intelligent face, lit up by quick, eager blue eyes; in
fact, though it was a thing that we took no stock in, Soltke was really
a very good-looking boy, and one naturally thought of him as some
"mother's hope and pride;" and the look of worry and grief that I
sometimes fancied I saw was put down to home-sickness brought out by
music. However good or bad his music was, he seemed to feel it, and
we--well, we never talked much after he began to play; and when he
stopped, we generally knocked our pipes out with a sort of half-sigh,
and turned in for the night. It used to make me think of home as I
remembered it when I was still externally respectable--before I took to
flannel shirts and moleskins, and ways that were not home ways; and I
expect the others felt that too.
We had passed the Crocodile River and the belt of `Tsetse Fly' country.
We had passed Josikulus, where Hart was murdered by the niggers, and we
told Soltke the story of the dead man's sentry-go. We passed Ship
Mountain, and pointed out the bush that hid the haunted cave, and told
him the weird tradition of the old witch-doctor imprisoned by the rock
slide, handling still as a skeleton the implements of magic he used in
life.
All these things were noted in Soltke's voluminous diary; and a curious
medley it must have contained, with the embroidered facings of Key and
the solid square facts of Gowan intermingled with the author's own
original remarks and reflections. Soltke, to do him justice, was
clearly a person of some purpose. He had placed before himself an
ideal, and he never lost sight of it. He was eternally qualifying for
that pursuit which he called "de prospect." He would eat from choice
the charred and blackened crust of an overbaked loaf or a steak that had
slipped the gridiron and got well sanded; he also seemed to prefer the
dregs of the coffee billy, which he swallowed black and unsweetened; he
scorned to use a fork; and he always slept on the lumpiest ground; and
all this was to fit him for the hardships and emergencies he promised
himself as a full-blown prospector. His eagerness for knowledge of the
flora and fauna was equally remarkable: he had compiled a sort of
dictionary of plants and animals, describing their virtues, medicinal or
culinary, and I am sure that towards the end of our trip Soltke would
have set out into the Bush with a light heart, armed only with his book,
and fortified by a confidence which was absolutely phenomenal.
Looking back on it all, it seems a mean shame ever to have played on his
credulity; and, indeed, most of us were, even at this time, keenly alive
to this; but there were times when his eager questioning and intense
earnestness about commonplace trifles made temptation irresistible, and
seemed even to inspire one with ridiculous notions suited to Soltke's
undiscriminating appetite.
It was on a Sunday morning that we came in sight of Pretorius Kop--a
solitary sugar-loaf hill--and we lay by as usual during the hours of
daylight. We knew it was Sunday, because Soltke had said so, and
because we saw him in the early morning kneeling in the shadow of a big
tree a few yards from the waggons, Prayer-book in hand, absorbedly
following the prayers of the Mass. He was a Roman Catholic, and was as
uncompromisingly particular in observing the smallest detail of his
Church's ritual and teaching as he was by nature tolerant of the
shortcomings of others. In the course of the morning's short excursion
Soltke had come across one of those crawling creatures known to children
as "thousand-legs," the common, harmless millipede. It was the first he
had ever seen, and words failed him in his quest for information. Key
was the first he met on his return, and the Judge told him solemnly that
the insect in question was "that well-known and most ferocious of
reptiles, the viper." During breakfast Soltke absorbed whole volumes of
information about this "wiper"--its habits and uses, and as soon as the
meal was over he betook himself to the side-pocket of the tent waggon,
where the beloved diary was kept, and commenced to write up the new
discovery. We were all spread about enjoying the morning smoke, or
taking it easy in other ways. We had forgotten Soltke, but presently
his face popped out, wearing a most worried, earnest, and intense
expression.
"Joodge!" he called, "Joodge, how vos dot wiper shpell?"
Key dictated calmly:
"W-h-y-p-e-r, whyper," and Soltke with infinite pains put it down. But
we heard him a moment later from his place in the tent of the waggon
murmuring:
"Lieber Himmel! dot vos un oogly name." He kept his diary in English,
and many a perspiring hour did he spend in his struggles with our
language; but he never quailed once, never even slackened, for he said
it was "goot to make him friends mit der English, and he can talk him
when he shall coom on der prospect."
Soltke could hardly have taken down the name of this new wonder, when
the sight of a blue jay flying past--one marvellous blaze of gorgeous
colour as its shiny feathers caught the sunlight--sent him into a
perfect paroxysm of excitement. He had seen the honeysuckers, and knew
them in the diary as "birds of Paradise;" he knew the ordinary or
cockyolly bird as the small "pheasant of Capricorn"; he had shot
dicky-birds by the dozen and stuffed them, and their noxious odours
seemed to add zest to his ornithological pursuits; but he had never
seen, never dreamed of, anything like this. For one spellbound moment
Soltke watched the bird sail by, and then gasped out:
"Gott in Himmel! what woss dat? Christnacht, be shtill, und I shot
him."
Diary, pen, ink and blotter were thrust aside, and Soltke scrambled for
the gun. We turned our backs on him to watch the bird. Soltke jumped
from the waggon. The report of the two barrels was so loud and close
that it made us duck; but the blue jay sat unmoved.
There was a curious silence that made several of us look round together.
The gun had fallen, and Soltke was standing above it, rigid and ghastly
white, with one hand gripping a burnt and blood-spattered tear in his
right leg. As we sprang to him open-armed he seemed just to sway gently
towards us with closed eyes and a soft murmur of words in his own
tongue. It sounded like a prayer.
I think he fainted then; but we were never sure, as he was always so
still with it all that one couldn't tell at times whether he was dead or
alive. The medicines we had, and the remedies we knew, did not run to
gunshot wounds and broken legs, but we made shift to fix him up somehow
with a rough ligament.
It was here that Key came in. Quiet and self-possessed, firm and kind,
he cut away the burnt, torn clothing. He washed out the ragged,
blackened wound; he tried the leg, and told us it was fractured--
shattered--and would have to come off. And Soltke lay there, under the
big tree, on a blanket spread on a heap of grass, as white as alabaster
and as still, while we watched silently beside him, fanning him with
small green boughs, and keeping off the flies.
Donald Mackay had started off at once for a doctor; but we knew that,
with the best luck in finding him, and riding day and night, it must be
over two days before we could get him down there. Bobbie went with his
brother to the nearest waggons a few miles on ahead, where Donald raised
a horse and went on alone on his long ride for help. Robbie came back
with a few things that we hoped would help a little, and then we settled
down to watch in silence the awful race between ebbing life and coming
help.
Through the hot, long, quiet day we watched and tended him, and so on
into the cool of the evening. We could do nothing, really; but it
seemed to please him and us to whisk away the flies, and say a word of
cheer to him, or now and then to shift the cotton sheet that covered
him. When the stars came out, and the soft cool feel of night grew up
around, and the ruddy flicker of the fire worked its magic on the
encampment, changing and beautifying everything with sudden lights and
weird shadows; when the cattle were tied up to the yokes, and one by one
lay down to sleep with great restful, deep-drawn sighs; when there were
no sounds but the steady chewing of the cud and the occasional distant
howl of a hyena or the sharp, unreal laugh of the jackal--then did we
really seem to settle down to the business of waiting.
Now and then, perhaps three or four times in the night, Soltke asked for
water; once or twice towards morning he sighed a suppressed tired sigh;
but not a word of complaint, not a sign of impatience, not one evidence
of the torture he was enduring, escaped him. When morning came, cool
and fragrant, and the blue smoke of the camp-fire curled up straight and
clean into the pure air, he was as quiet and uncomplaining still, though
not for one second had his eyes closed nor the deadly numbing pain
ceased its ache.
Soltke seemed to me to look younger than ever, though terribly white and
fagged. His eyes looked blue and brave and trustful--childishly
trustful--as ever, and he alone, of all the party, did not keep looking
towards the west for the return of Donald Mackay and his charge.
All that day we watched and waited, and on through another slow and
silent night; but we could see then that Soltke could not last out much
longer without a doctor's help, and that his chance was becoming a poor
one.
It must have been about three in the morning when, lying flat on my
back, looking up into the wonderful maze of stars that spatters our
southern sky, I heard or felt the tiniest tap, tap, tap under my head.
I shot up with the cry of, "There's Donald at last!"
We were all up and listening, but could hear nothing when standing, of
course. However, there was no mistake, and after five minutes we could
hear on the cool, clear, still air the footfall of a horse--_one_ horse,
as we all remarked with an awful heart-sinking.
Two of us--Key and I--went on to meet the horseman, and in a few minutes
came upon Donald leading a horse, upon which, by the aid of a propping
arm, was balanced a man whom we all knew--only too well.
In a breath Donald told us that he had sent on from the first camp for
the district surgeon, but, chancing on Doc Monroe, had packed him on the
horse and come back with him as a makeshift. Munroe was a quack chemist
of morose and brutal character, and a drunkard with it. His moral
status might be gauged by the fact that no patient among those who knew
him personally or by repute ever approached him professionally except
upon the contract system--so much the job, payment on delivery, cured.
He had a certain repute for ability. God knows how it was earned, for
he had killed more men than any other agency in the country; but I
believe that his brutal and sardonic indifference to public opinion, his
fiendish hints that there was no accident about the deaths of _his_
patients, and that "those who want Doc Munroe can pay for him, by God!"
inspired a weird dread which, irrationally, perhaps, yet not
unnaturally, begot a sort of blind awed belief in the man's ability.
Men hardly stricken have been known to sit on the bar-step and wait
while Doc, having drunk himself drunk, would drink himself sober, and
then, with implicit faith, swallow down mixtures to which the bloodshot
eyes and the trembling hands of the Doc added the interest of a blind
gamble.
By the uncertain light of the stars I had not recognised him, until Key,
who was a few paces in front, said softly:
"It's Doc Munroe--dead drunk!" Donald was utterly worn out, and wild
with despair. Doc had been drunk when he found him, but (as Donald
said) he was always that, and he had hoped that a forty-mile ride would
sober him. However, it seems that twice on the road he had got liquor,
and the second time, when Donald had caught him and taken it away, he
had sat down by the roadside stolid and immovable until the liquor was
returned to him.
There were reasons why we bottled up our rage and treated the Doc with a
show of civility, and even conciliatory respect. We knew, firstly, that
he had his instruments, and that only he could use them; and, secondly,
that, however drunk he might be, he never lost his senses until delirium
set in; and, moreover, that he was intensely suspicious of offence when
in this state, and if once huffed, was indifferent to prayers and
threats alike. The look on Gowan's face was positively murderous when
he saw in what manner our waiting was rewarded. I am sure he would
readily have killed Munroe at that moment.
Poor Soltke showed his first signs of anxiety then, and we had to make
what excuses we could--the want of light, first of all, and then the
long ride--to account for the doctor's not seeing him now that he had
come. But the hours went by, the last chance was ebbing away, and we
could do nothing--absolutely nothing--with the man.
We tried him with everything. We gave him black coffee--he wouldn't
touch it; we tried soup--he kicked it over; food, sleep, a bath--
everything was rejected with a sullen and stolid shake of the head, and
the one word "W'isky." That we would _not_ give. For four mortal hours
the man lay sullenly by the waggon on a pile of blankets, and only the
one word passed his lips. We dared not give him more--it would have
destroyed our only chance; and without liquor he would not budge.
Day was well advanced when Munroe stood up quietly, and walked over to
where Gowan stood beside his waggon. I suspected that the Doc had
noticed Gowan's look when he came into camp with us, and now it was
clear that he had.
"You think I'm drunk," said Munroe, with a malignant sneer. "I saw you
look at me when I got off that damned horse! You think I'm drunk, do
you?"
Gowan looked him steadily in the eyes, but made no answer, and Doc
resumed:
"Are you going to give me that whisky?"
Again no answer; but I walked nearer, as I could see Gowan's hands close
and go back, and his chest came up with hard breathing.
"Are--you--going--to--give--me--that--whisky?" asked Munroe again,
slowly and deliberately.
"No!" roared Gowan, with a tiger-like spring at the other man; "I'll see
you in hell first!"
I caught Gowan's uplifted arm, but Munroe never flinched, and, pulling
himself together with something of a shake, he said in a perfectly
sober, even tone and with diabolical malevolence:
"Then I'll see your friend dead and rotten before I stir a hand to help
him;" and with that he marched back to the blankets and lay down again.
An hour passed, and he never stirred a finger--never even blinked his
staring eyes. Then the Mackays, Key, and I held a council, and decided
to give him the liquor as a last--a truly forlorn--hope. It was left to
me to see him, and I went over bottle and glass in hand.
He wouldn't touch it.
I argued, begged, and prayed; but it had no effect whatever. He just
lay there, resting on one arm, with the cruel, shallow glitter in his
eyes that one sees in those of wild beasts. I returned to the others,
and we had another talk, and then I offered him money--a price: all that
we could give! That fetched him. He sat up, and looked at me for about
a minute, and then said, shaking with hate:
"Your liquor I won't touch. Your money won't buy me. As soon as it's
cool enough to move, I go back; and if you've ever heard of Doc Munroe,
you'll take that for a last answer."
That was a facer, and when I went back and told the others, opinions
were divided as to what to do. Gowan and Key were for the rifle cure.
If he wouldn't operate, shoot him!
But we urged another--a last--delay, say till noon; and they gave way,
but warned us it would be useless.
The heat that day was awful. No breeze, no relief--only dead,
oppressive heat, reflected to and fro the steel-blue sky and the
hard-baked earth.
The fires were out--we had cooked nothing that day--and the camp looked
dead and deserted. One or more of us would always be with Soltke; the
others would be lying in the shadow of a tree or under a waggon. We had
some faint hope that the district surgeon would turn up, but not before
the morrow, and, knowing Soltke's condition, that seemed useless, so
that our only real chance was with Munroe.
As we lay there, dismally and hopelessly waiting, we were suddenly
startled by a most peculiar and unnatural bark. The two dogs also
jumped up and ran out on to the road. We could see nothing except that
Munroe had gone. The noise was repeated, and the dogs growled, and
every hair stood up on their backs.
"Great God! look there!" came from Donald.
Following his glance, we saw, low down amongst the thick buffalo grass,
the wild, haggard face of Doc Munroe. His shock red hair half covered
his eyes, which glittered and glared like a lioness's. As we stood he
barked again, and made a jump out to the margin of the grass. He was
mad--stark, staring mad--with delirium tremens! In one of his hands,
half hidden by the grass, we could see a Bushman's friend, and the
bright blade seemed to catch an ugly gleam from the man's eyes and
reflect it malevolently back on us.
Munroe was a big man, and, although ruined in health by years of hard
drinking, would have been a very ugly customer while the mad fit lasted;
so we just stood our ground, ready to take him any way he wanted to
come. After a minute or two he seemed to feel the effect of four pairs
of eyes looking steadily at him, and the wild beast died out, and his
body, which had been as rigid as a "standing" pointer's, became visibly
limp and nerveless. He got up heavily, with a silly, hysterical laugh,
and stood meekly before us, looking as foolish and harmless as a human
being might. He sidled over towards Donald Mackay, keeping as far as
possible from Gowan, whom he clearly distrusted, and looking furtively
about, as though others besides us might hear him, he said, with a
sickly smile and in a thin, uncertain voice:
"I was playin', Donald, old man, only playin'. You know me--old Doc
Munroe. _You_ weren't frightened, Donald, eh? He! he! I _like_ to
bark, ye know. I _like_ it, and who'll stop me if I like it, eh? You
could see I was playin', old partner. _You_ knew it, didn't you?"
The man was wretchedly weak and shaky, and as he continued to look about
anxiously, he wiped the heavy drops of cold perspiration off his
colourless face with the dirty strip of kapalaan which did service for a
pocket-handkerchief. He sidled up closer and closer to Donald, and
watched with growing intentness and terror the place from which he had
just emerged. Mackay quietly imprisoned the knife-hand, but Munroe
never noticed that, and only clung closer to him, and began to mutter
and cry out again, quivering with excitement and terror, which grew on
him, until he shrieked to Donald to save him, and to "knife him over
there"--pointing to the tree beneath which he had hidden. Key took the
proffered knife, and, walking quietly towards the tree, began to hack it
in an unenthusiastic manner; and the relief that this seemed to give
Munroe would have been ludicrous but for the desperate hopelessness it
brought for poor Soltke.
It was no longer possible to keep up our well-intended fiction about the
doctor requiring rest, for Munroe's maniac laughter and shrieks of
terror became so frequent and awful that they must have startled one
half a mile away. He became so violent that we were obliged to take him
down to the spruit, and to tie him down there in the shadow of a high
bank, with one of the niggers to look after him, and an occasional visit
from one of us to see if all was well.
Soltke bore the news as he had borne all that went before, with silent,
martyr-like patience. He seemed to have guessed it: not a muscle moved,
not a feature changed. He listened to it as calmly as he listened to
our expressed hope that the district surgeon would turn up by sundown,
and with as little personal concern.
Towards evening he spoke a good deal to us all, but in a way that made
our hearts sink. He spoke of his home and his past life--for the first
time--and of something that was troubling him greatly. He also admitted
that his leg was feeling very hot, and that he felt twinges of pain
shooting up into the groin and body.
At sundown he asked for his Prayer-Book, and later on, when we had left
him alone for a while, and sat in silent, helpless despair by the
neglected fire, he asked for Robbie. At last, at about ten o'clock that
night, we heard the welcome sound of a horse's trotting, and to our
unspeakable delight the cheery little doctor turned up. Poor old Soltke
did brighten up then, and the smile which had never failed him
throughout the days of suffering seemed to me more easy and hopeful. In
less than an hour the shattered leg was off. In spite of the bad light
and the rude appliances all went well, and with infinite relief we saw
Soltke doze off under the merciful influence of the morphia which the
doctor had brought. We felt that we had rounded the turn, and could
afford to sleep easy. The little doctor, who had ridden seventy miles
since sun-up, rolled into his blankets near where Soltke slept, and was
in the land of dreams long before we, who were restless from very relief
and joy, could settle down to close our eyes.
I seemed to have dozed for but a few minutes, when in my dreams, as it
seemed to me, I heard in the faintest but clearest whisper the doctor
saying: "Mortification, you know! I couldn't see it by candle-light, or
we might have spared him the operation."
He was just dead. He sighed himself out, as the doctor said, like a
tired child to sleep. We buried him close to the road under a big
thorn-tree, which we stripped of its bark for a couple of feet to serve
for a headstone for his grave. It was the tree where we had seen him on
his knees at prayer. And as it neared sundown, we called for the oxen,
and inspanned for the evening trek.
The doctor had gone. He had to get back those seventy miles to see
another patient, whose life perhaps depended upon the grit of his
gallant little horse.
During the night Munroe had managed to get loose, and with a madman's
cunning had got away with his horse and disappeared, which was perhaps a
good thing for him.
The boys had packed everything on the waggons, and were lashing the
bedding in the tent waggon so as to be out of the way of the dust and
the thorns, when one of them picked up and handed out to us the open
book and writing materials, just as Soltke had left them three days
before, when he had jumped out to shoot the blue jay.
The diary lay open at the last-written page, and we read:
"The most verushius of reptile is the Whuy-per--"
Robbie closed the book gently and put it away. It didn't seem the least
bit funny then.
At midnight, when the long night trek was over, and we were rolled in
our blankets near the camp-fire, Robbie's heart was full, and he spoke--
slowly and in half-broken tones:
"Ye mind the time he sent for me? Ye do? Yes; well, it was to ask my
forgiveness for what he said the day I struck him. Ay, he did that!"
Robbie looked slowly round the circle through dimmed glasses, and then
went on hesitatingly:
"And he said, too, that we had all been too good to him, and that he had
played it low on us; and that he--he hoped the good God would pardon him
the greatest crime of all. And he said that I must give his Prayer-Book
and his zither," (Robbie continued in a lower and reverent tone) "to--to
his child--his little boy."
"_Soltke's child_?" came from all together.
Robbie nodded, and there was a space of time when everyone shifted a
little and felt chilled; but it was Gowan who put our common thought
into words.
"Where is his wife?" he asked slowly. "Dead!" said Robbie. "I--I
didn't know he was married." Robbie's look was a prayer for mercy, as
he answered: "He wasn't!"