We were talking about snakes at the little roadside _winkle_--a
composite shop, where you could buy moist black sugar, tinned butter,
imported; tinned milk, also imported; cotton, prints, boots, "square
face," tobacco, dates, nails, gunpowder, cans, ribbons, tallow candles,
and the "Family Herald." We always did talk about snakes when other
topics failed, and no one had been fishing for some time, and the big
pumpkin season had passed.
"Man," said Lanky John, the ostrich farmer, "I killed a snake, a
_ringhals_, yesterday morning back of the kraal, and in the evening when
I went by there was a live _ringhals_ coiled round the dead one."
"There's a lot of love among snakes," said Abe Pike, who had swapped a
bush-buck hide for a pound of coffee and a roll of tobacco. "They don't
talk much, but they think a lot, and you can't plumb the feelings of
silent folk; they're that deep."
"Ever been in love, Uncle?" asked Lanky John, popping a big lump of
black sugar into his mouth.
"I guess it won't take more'n a foot measure to get to the bottom of
your feelings, tho' you are long enough to be a telegraft pole," snorted
Uncle Abe.
"Snakes haven't got any brain," said Lanky John, after an awkward pause.
"No more has a whip-stick," said the old man, with a contemptuous glance
at Lanky's long, thin limbs.
"That's true," replied John, with a wink at us; "though I've heard of a
snake that glued on to a whip-stick all for love of you, Uncle."
"Snakes," said Abe, "knows when to speak and when to keep shut, which is
more than some folk can do. If you come unexpected on a snake in a
path, and he sees your foot coming down on him, he lets you know he's
about, and that foot of yours is jest fixed in the air. Well, suppose
that snake is not in the path, but jest stretched out 'longside, he
don't call out. For why? 'Cos he knows it's safer for him and for you
that he should keep quiet. I tell you there's not a man here who hasn't
time and again passed in the dark within a few inches of a snake."
A listener, who was seated in a dark corner, moved out into the
sunshine.
"Did I ever tell you that yarn about the black mamba?"
"You never did, old man, so shove along."
"You may thank your stars there's no mambas down in this country, for of
all critturs that crawl, or fly, or walk, there's not one for nateral
cussedness and steady hate to come up to a black mamba. Why! thunder!
if there was a mamba in these parts, and he'd a grudge against me, I'd
move off a hundred miles to where my sister 'Liza lives."
"A hundred miles! That's a good step."
"Maybe it wouldn't be fur enough neither. You wait! Ten years ago I
was riding goods to the Diamond Fields, and after one trip I was
starting back with the empty wagon, there being no produce to load up
with, when a chap came up and offered three guineas for his passage.
Well, a man's wagon is his home, and you don't want to give a fellow the
run of your tent for a month without knowing something about him. So I
jes' looked him all over--saw that his boots were worn out, and that he
kep' looking over his shoulder, when he climbed into the wagon and drew
the blanket over him--though the sun was fierce enough to light your
pipe. He gave me sich a look when he went in that I had not the heart
to drag him out, and off I trekked. He didn't join me at the fire that
night, and when I climbed in, thinking he was asleep, he was shiverin'
as though he had the ague. Well, I gave him a glass of Cango and went
to sleep. At sunrise I trekked again, and bymby I see him draw the
canvas aside and look back over the veld, which was as flat as the palm
of my hand. Thinks I, he's expecting the police, but I let him be, and
at dinner he came out, looking as skeered as a monkey with a candle.
First he took a walk round the wagon, then he shaded his eyes as he
glanced over the veld, then he took a bite and a look, then a sip and a
look.
"`What are you looking for?' says I.
"He let the beaker fall out of his hands and turned white.
"`Have you seen it?' he whispered, with a sort of choke.
"`Seen what?' I said.
"`I don't feel well,' he answered, with a twitch for a smile, and
climbed back into the wagon.
"I tell you his looks made me feel queer, and I slept that night under
the wagon. Well, I made a long skoff the next day, crossed the Modder
River, and no sooner'd we get across than the river came down with a
rush, brimming full with a boiling yeller flood right up to the lip of
the steep banks. That coon spent the whole day on the bank watching the
other side, and fixing his eyes on every tree and branch that went
sailing down.
"`It's a grand flood,' he said, rubbing his hands together; `'twould
sweep a whale away like a piece of straw.'
"`Yes, and a policeman too, eh?' said I, looking at him hard.
"He noticed the meaning in my words, and a human smile broke over his
face, chasing away the worried look that seemed carved into it.
`Policeman,' he said. `I've no cause to fear a policeman, or any man.
Good God!' he cried, catching me by the arm, `what's that?'
"`Where?' said I, fit to jump out of my skin for the terror in his face.
"He stood there with his eyes glaring at the water, and a shaking finger
pointing into the very heart of the yeller flood. There stood out the
root of a tree, and clinging to the root the coils of a snake, with his
gleaming head moving like a branch. Jest a moment it showed, then the
water swirled over it again.
"`Let go of my arm,' I said, for his fingers were biting into me, and
the look of him made me afeard, so that I talked gruffly.
"`Did you see it?' he said, and then he jest collapsed like a bundle of
clothes. I had a good mind to leave him there, but, instead, I histed
him on to my shoulders, and poured enough Cango into him to make him
forget his name. He wasn't fit to stand until a couple of days after,
and then wha' jer think he did? Cut up his clothes into shreds and
laughed fit to kill himself when I found him at it. Of course, I
thought he was clean daft, but he weren't, and for the first time, with
my old corduroys on him, he sat by the camp fire, sipping his coffee,
and talking--talking mainly about snakes and bloodhounds, and things
that made my backbone whang like a broken fiddle-string. He frightened
himself, too, so that when he saw the long _achter-oss_ sjambok
quivering on the ground where the driver had thrown it, his jaw got
rigid, and moved up and down without any words coming from his mouth.
Then, with a sort of sob, he snatched up the axe, and I'm blowed if he
didn't cut that sjambok into a thousand bits. It was a good sjambok,
too, made of rhinoceros hide, as thick as your wrist at the butt and
going off to a point, and when I told the idiot what he'd done, he jes'
went off into another unnateral fit of wild laughter, after which he
paid me a guinea and went to bed. Putting this, that, and the other
together, with the Cango brandy, I guessed my man had got snakes in his
head, and I kept the demijohn under lock. That calmed him down, and he
was all right until we came to the Orange River, where we had to camp
while the water went down. About fifty wagons were there waiting to
cross, and there was quite a stir with all the fellows moving about
visiting. When we had outspanned, I joined a group to hear about the
state of the roads, the condition of the veld for grazing, and all them
things that transport riders talk about, when one chap asked if I had
heard the news. `What news?' says I. `About that snake,' says he; `he
was seen at the Riet River drift last week.' `Yes,' says another, `and
two days before he was at Aliwal North.' `I heard from the mail coach
driver,' says a third, `that the snake overtook his coach, stopped the
horses, and took a steady look at all the passengers, after which he
went across the veld, leaving 'em all frozen with terror. It was twenty
feet long, and its eyes were like black diamonds.'
"Of course, I wasn't swallering that, but when I told my traveller the
sweat gathered in big drops on his forehead, and the old hunted look
came into his face. `You don't believe this silly yarn?' says I,
placing my hand on his shoulder. `Believe it, man!' he said. `Good
heavens! that snake is after me.' `After you,' says I. `Yes,' says he,
making an effort to swallow something. `It has chased me up and down
over a thousand miles for two months.' `Nonsense!' I said; `you're
nervous and fanciful.' `Listen,' he said. `Two months ago I was
hunting in the Zulu country, and one day, ten miles away from my camp, I
shot a mamba. I took the body back with me to skin it; but when the two
blacks I had with me saw it, they cried out to me to take it away, or
the mamba's mate would come in the night. I left them sleeping by the
fire, and the next morning they were still sleeping--ay, they were
sleeping the last sleep, for the mamba had been in the night.'
"As I looked at them, with the blood in me like water, I heard a heavy
breathing, and saw my horse on the ground, his eyes glazed and his
nostrils fighting for breath, while, resting on his body, was the awful
head of a mamba, his eyes fixed on mine, and his forked tongue darting
in and out. I fired at him with the rifle barrel, but clean missed in
my flurry; then I ran until my courage came back. I found that I had
left the powder behind, and slowly turned back. I had not gone a
hundred paces when I met him on my track, slipping like a black streak
through the grass, and I thought of nothing then but escape. After a
time I met a party of Zulus, but when I asked for their assistance, they
fled with loud cries of alarm, and at a Zulu kraal, where I stopped to
ask for thick milk, they drove me out when they learnt why it was I
fled. That night as I slept that snake coiled by my side.
"`What!'
"`Yes; he could have struck me then, but he preferred to have full
vengeance. I woke at the flicker of his tongue on my cheek, thinking it
was a fly--a fly! good Lord! and my hand fell upon his cold, sinewy
folds, and his head was resting on my shoulder. Ever since he has been
after me, with a deadly hate that is slowly driving me mad. Sometimes
he disappears, but I never escape from the glint of his unwinking eyes,
and one day he will strike, unless--unless--'
"`Well?' said I, looking at his drawn face.
"`Unless,' he said, `I forestall him.'
"`No my lad,' said I, `for that would be a sin, and when you are
stronger this dream of yours will go.'
"He looked so fallen in, so weak, all of a sudden, that I took him for a
walk to the river, and the rush of the waters seemed to comfort him. He
sat on a big boulder looking across, and the whiteness presently went
from his cheeks.
"`I've got an idea,' he said, `if I could reach the other side I'd be
all right again.'
"We sat there in a sort of a dream for an hour or two, when I happened
to look round, and right there on the flat of the ground was stretched
out the biggest and the ugliest snake I ever saw, black as night, with a
great vicious diamond-shaped head, and a pair of eyes that glowed all
colours. He looked as if he'd travelled; his scales, instead of being
glossy, were dull with scratches here and there, and his skin had a sort
of bagginess as if he hadn't eaten for weeks. As soon as he saw me turn
he raised his head about five feet from the ground, and from his eyes
there shot a look that jest kept me fixed like a stone. Then that poor
young feller on the stone began to speak again, in a soft way, of the
river and its journey to the sea.
"`I wish,' he said, `I could look on the sea again.' Then I heard him
move, and I knew he was looking into the eyes of his enemy, for that
snake began to sway his head to and fro, to and fro, while his tail went
twisting in and out, sending his body nearer and nearer. Suddenly there
was a shriek, and a splash, and the snake went by me--streamed over the
rock into the water, and when I leapt to my feet with a yell that
startled the whole camp, I saw an arm thrust above the yeller flood, and
above the arm the bend of that black snake, his head turned down looking
into the water, and a coil of his body round the elbow. Ole Abe Pike
has swound away once, and that was the time. Yes; there was his black
body gleaming with the water on it, and his head turned towards the face
of the enemy--that poor young chap he had follered over three countries
for one thousand miles--one thousand English miles."
"That a true story, Uncle Abe?"
"Ain't I told it? That's why I gave up transport riding. I darsn't go
near that Orange River again."