I don't know what degree of truth there was in old Abe's account of his
adventure with the black tiger, but I certainly learnt to my cost that
whether the brute had or had not given a domicile to a witch-doctor, it
was too cunning for any efforts on my part to get even with it for the
heavy toll it levied on the young cattle. I was driven once more to
seek out his assistance, but I thought I would get him over to the
homestead on some other pretext, being firmly persuaded that once he was
there his hunting instincts would lead him on the tiger's spoor. One
afternoon, therefore, I drove over in the "spider," and found him busily
engaged waxing a stout fishing line for "kabblejauw," a very large, but
coarse sea fish, which loved to venture up the Fish River with the tide.
"Holloa, sonny!" he cried; "climb out an' make yerself at home. Got any
baccy?"
I stepped out, and handed him a cake of golden leaf, which he just
smelt, then turned over and over.
"Sugar stuff," he growled, with a queer look of disgust, wrinkling up
his nose.
"Good American leaf, Uncle."
"Well, well; what's the race comin' to? Sugar--all sugar. Sugar with
tea, sugar with coffee, so that the spoon stands up; sugar with pumkins,
sugar with grog, sugar with baccy, until the stummick which nature gives
us revolts an' cries out for salt an' the bitterness o' wholesome
plants. Bitterness 'ardens, my boy--bitterness in food, bitterness in
life--an' sugar softens. Jes' you hole on to that as you plough the
furrer thro' the ups an' downs o' your caryeer." He cut a slice from
the cake and stowed it away in his cheek. "Well! ha' yer cotched that
tiger yet?"
"He's prowling around yet, Uncle."
"Soh! An' you want ole Abe Pike to settle 'im, eh!--but 'taint no use."
"I want you to `ride' a load of wood to the house. The `boys' have gone
off to a beer dance, and I'm short-handed. The wood is cut and shaped."
"But I'm goin' a fishin'. Lemme see. It's full moon next week. Well
I'll come along."
He coiled up his line, stowed it away in his skin bag, locked his door,
and climbed in. Next morning the old chap went off with the wagon for
the wood, and returned late at night. He had a peculiar way of humming
to himself whenever he was pleased, and I caught the sound as he came in
through the kitchen to the dining-room, where the evening meal was on
the table. With a nod to me, he sat down to a hearty meal, then,
filling his pipe, he leant back and laughed silently.
"Seen anything, Uncle?"
"I don't know that I have seed anythin' outer the common, but I've
learnt somethin' that's given me a better understandin' o' the spread o'
kindness overlaying things."
"What was that?"
"You know where the wood were stacked?"
I knew the place very well, for that brute of a tiger had killed a foal
there only two days before, and I had directed Abe there in the hope
that he would drop across its tracks.
The old man, still chuckling, went out of the room and returned with a
long bamboo whip-stick, deprived, however, of the twenty-foot thong made
from buffalo hide.
"What's become of the thong?" I cried.
"That's it. It's on account of the missin' thong that I'm telling you
o' this remarkable cirkumst'nce. There's a clump o' trees 'long side
the path 'way over yonder, where the wood were stacked, an' the thong
flew off in the dusk o' the evening thereabouts. You see there were a
stick fas', and when I lammed into the oxen that ere thong flew off--
whizz!--whang!--into the dark o' the trees. I lay the stick down an'
searched fer it up an' down, in an' out--the oxen standin' there
knockin' their horns, an' the stars poppin' out. Well, I guv it up, an'
picked up the stick, an' the thong came through my fingers."
"You said the thong flew off."
"So it did; but there it were fast on the stick--long, smooth, round,
an' taperin' off inter a fine lash, as thick about the middle as my
little finger, an' as tough as steel."
"I know it. You couldn't match that thong in the Colony. But where is
it?"
"That's what I'm tellin' yer about. The thong flew off--whizz!--
whang!--but when I picked the stick up, there it were. I jes' stood
there ponderin' over the strangeness o' this, when a breath o' wind come
up the valley with a sigh on it--one o' those quiverin', mysterious,
solumnelly sounds that makes you look over yer shoulder an' start at a
shadder. `Hambaka--trek,' I cried, an' whirling the whip around,
touched up the fore-leaders, then brought the forslag down on the achter
ox. I told you them oxen had stuck fas'. Well! at the touch o' the
whip they jes' laid their shoulders agin the yokes, an', with a low
groan, they yanked the wagon up that stiff bit--up an' up, without a
pause, to the level veld. I tell you, sonny, I never seed oxen lay
themselves down like that span."
"Where does the kindness come in?"
"Hole on. The tortoise gets to the end o' his journey same as the hare,
only samer. On the level I called to the oxen to whoa!--whoa!--whoa!--
and, arter a time they whoa'd, tho' somehow 'twas ag'inst their will.
They were that active they could have trotted home--they could so. I
lay down that whip an' filled my pipe."
"Yes?"
"Then I took the stick up, an' the thong were gone agin."
"What!"
"Clean gone, sonny! Clean gone!"
"Did it fly off?"
"No, sonny; it crawled off."
"Crawled off?"
"That there thong were a whip-snake. It jes' gripped on ter the bamboo
with its jaws to help me outer that stick fas', an' when we got to the
level it unhitched. It knew as well as I did the oxen didn't want any
more whip when the flat were reached, and it unhitched."
"Uncle Abe Pike! Do you expect me to believe that?"
"I have my hopes, my lad. But when yer gets older you'll get more
faith. Why, man, an' I yeared that snake move off. It give a sort o'
friendly hiss as it slid away thro' the grass, an' it cracked its tail
in sport like a whip. The oxen yeared it, too, and they moved off
'thout waitin' for my call. I tell you there's a heap o' goodness among
animiles an' reptiles, tho' this is the fust time I 'xperienced the
thoughtfulness o' a snake. It jes' snapped its tail--ker--rack--as it
moved off."
When the old man prepared himself for sleep I saw the lash off my whip
projecting from the mouth of his skin bag.