The Fish River was "down." It generally was down, in the sense of being
low, but colonial rivers run by contraries--when they are down they are
up. There had been a heavy fall of rain "up country," and the water
rushing off the sun-baked surface poured like a flood between the high
banks, sweeping, as we afterwards heard, a stone bridge away, and
catching in its career a wagon and span of eighteen oxen at a drift
which, at the time of crossing, had scarcely water enough to wet the
feet. For many a mile the banks of the river are of red soil, and as
the flood eats into the banks its waters are stained a dull brick
colour, which hue is imparted to the Atlantic itself for miles along the
coast as the red waters pour out into the sea, bearing with them a
wonderful collection of flotsam in the shape of timber, dead stock, and
live reptiles. Of late, railway sleepers formed no small part of the
flotsam, and if work was slack we sometimes, when the river was down,
spent a sloppy day on the banks fishing for these floating items. On
hearing the news I rode off to pick up Uncle Abe, but finding him out,
went to a spot on the bank which he particularly favoured, where a wide
flat rock stood at the base of a krantz. He was not there, however, and
the rock itself was covered by the flood, which reached half-way up the
krantz, but it was evident he had been there, for from a cave in the
rock, just above the lap of the waters, there issued a thin line of
smoke, and on climbing along a ledge I saw signs of his occupation in a
skin kaross, a dark lantern, a gun, and a few well-known traps which he
always carried with him when after _kablejauw_, the great hundred
pounders which come up as far as this point in the spring tides. Now
thoroughly alarmed for his safety, I rode down towards the sea, from
which, six miles away, there came the continuous roar and thunder of the
surf, and, to my great relief, met him in a bush path, with a full-grown
otter on his back, and the water oozing from his top boots and from his
clothes, which clung to his lank body.
"Halloa! Uncle; I thought you were drowned."
"That's me," he said, sweeping the water from his eyes; "I've been
drowned twice over. Got a pipe and baccy? I'm jest perishing for a
smoke."
I saw now that his knuckles were skinned, and that his face was pinched
and blue.
"Get up," I said dismounting.
"Not me. I'd spoil the saddle. Lemme catch hold of the stirrup--so.
Now get along quick, for I want to boil this yer soaking of water outer
my bones and body."
We went along, and presently I had a bright fire going in the cave, and
the kettle singing, while Abe, stripped of his clothes, sat shivering
still in his skin kaross, his eyes fixed on the red torrent, which
stretched across for a mile.
A tin beaker of boiling coffee soon brought back the warmth to his body,
and when he had my pipe between his teeth he began to talk.
"I believe I'm getting old, sonny; and I've lost my fishin' tackle."
"Not the _kablejauw_ tackle?"
"Jest that. It's stood by me, man and boy, for twenty-five years. I've
waxed it and waxed it, and wired it about the shank, till it were strong
enough to haul in a shark, and now it's gone--all along of this yer
flood. I don't like loosing old things, and the loss of it pains me as
tho' you'd pulled the sinews outer me."
"How did it happen?"
"Yesterday I came here to fish, and in the afternoon--when the tide
crept whispering along the rushes--I cast in from the big rock. 'Twas
as quiet as Sunday, with a fringe of bubbles right across the river
marking when the tide moved up. On the mud bank, jest below where the
big fish would soon be routing up the mud like pigs, there was a blue
crane dozing on one leg, with his head bunched between his shoulders; on
a dead tree above sat a big black and white kingfisher, with his red
beak pointing up, and on the top of the krantz a white-headed eagle was
all huddled up. After a smoke, I built up the fire in the cave, then
made another cast with the line, for the fish were coming up, and the
tide had reached up so high that the crane had to quit. I heaved the
lead out about thirty yards, and was drawing her in when there comes a
tug, and I was into a _steinbrasse_. That same moment the eagle started
into the air, sailing roun' and roun', and letting go screech after
screech; and when I looked up at him, surprised at the racket, I yeard a
hollow murmur, like an echo that comes from a cave. I knew what it
meant.
"'Twas the river comin' down, and in a hurry I began hauling in that
line, when, with a rush that parted the water, a big _kablejauw_ took
the _steinbrasse_, and, with a swirl of his tail, made for mid-stream to
bolt his food. I dunno how it happened, but a coil of the line whipped
roun' my leg, and I was yanked on to the broad of my back into the
river, with that eagle 'twixt me and the blue sky. That fish pulled me
right into the middle, then he paused to take bearings, and when the
strain slackened I took a breath, and reached along to get hold of the
line. But it was beyond me to slacken the knot without a knife, and I
turned over to swim to the rock. 'Twas easy enough till I tautened the
line, when the fish made another struggle. 'Twas pull devil, pull
saint, and the line wouldn't break. First he'd gain, then I'd gain; but
most of the time we just stuck there--he facing to the sea, me to the
rock, and that eagle ripping out up above. And then!"
"Well, Uncle?"
"Lord love you, lad. There were a roar in the air; I seed the tree tops
above the bend swaying; then there shot into the air a great tongue of
water, and round the corner, from side to side, there came a wall--the
face of it curved in, the top hissing in foam, and the sides of it
running right up the banks, so high it shut out the valley beyond. I
gave a yell, then turned over on my back, with my hands clasped behind
my head to protect it from the shock, and the next minute I were
scooting down the river for the sea, with that wall howling behind me
like a thousand thunders."
"I don't understand."
"That _kablejauw_ did. 'Twas a race between him and the flood, and the
way he flashed along showed he'd only been fooling with me before. And
the line didn't break, and overhead there sailed the eagle, with his
black wings outspread and his white head looking down at me. We flew so
fast that in a few minutes I saw the white lines one above the other,
which showed where the waves were breaking, and then with a snap like a
pistol-shot, the line snapped. 'Twasn't my weight that broke it, but a
snagged tree, into which, with the way on me, I went feet foremost. No
sooner'd I clung to a mud greasy branch than, with a roar like a fallen
mountain in my head, the red flood tossed the big tree into the air,
and, when we come down, we were in the thick of it--rushing on, at a
height of twelve feet above the blue waters of the tide. Phew! how we
did go; and in a minute there was the mouth of the river, the big waves
solemnly rolling in, and beyond them the heaving blue of the ocean.
With a fierce rush, like a live crittur, the flood threw itself at the
sea. We just footed it over the small waves, then we cut the top off
the first roller, throwing up columns of spray high as the church
steeple, and then the fight began. Behind us there was a hundred miles
of flood; before us was the tide with the Atlantic at the back, and the
sea after the first shock jes' gave a sort of surly roar, and away back
of the outermost breaker I seed a dark line coming along steady and
unbroken. 'Twas the last of the seven brothers, of the seven big waves
that roll in with the tide at intervals, and it was bigger than all.
Nearer it came, dark at the base, with a glistening curve, and a light
line along the top. We in the front had made a track for the flood
behind. For a little we stopped--then my tree was flung forward, and a
red, angry column shot forth to meet the big wave. My! Sonny! The
music of that meeting! The two waters coming together would neither
give in, and they piled up, and up, and up, until there was built up a
wall of water high as a hill, red on my side, blue on the other, and up
this wall my tree was forced by the flood behind. Up we went, until we
were balanced on the very ridge, with a black gulf on the other side of
smooth water. A breath we poised there while the fresh and the salt
were straining against each other, then a heaving mass out of the sea
swiftly smote the great wall, and we went headlong--the tree and me--
into the biggest toss-up you ever see. I dunno why it was I kept
a-hold, but I think the weight of the waters jammed me into a cleft
branch. Anyhow, the life kept in my body, and when I took a breath, the
next minute it was dark, the stars were blazing, and the tree was
a-rocking up and down away out on the ocean beyond the fighting
whirl-about of river flood and tide. In that one second between the
time I went headlong from the curling top of that hill-high wall of
water into the roarin' jumble some hours had gone--the tide had flowed
and turned, and the old tree, with me on it, hanging like a withered
apple, had floated miles. I must have been drowned over and over, and
reg'lar pickled with salt. I tell you it was lonesome out there on the
sea--and wet."
"It was a wonderful escape, Uncle."
"But it warn't over. Bymby the tide turned again, and the tree made
again for the shore, where the fighting was going on jes' the same from
the roar, and when the sun broke I saw we would strike the mouth of the
river again. I dunno, sonny, how it is, but it seemed to me the ole sea
was entering into the fight, for there was a sort of rush in the great
heaving masses that began to pile in out of the blue, and when I came
near the beat of the surf where the sea was all red, the breaker that
carried the tree on his round back rose higher and higher, as he swept
on until he reached the flood water, when he let the head of him curl
and plunge with a force that swept everything away, and in the wall of
his foam we were shot right into the river. That's when I was drowned
again; and when I came to I found we were settled in the still centre of
a great circle of waters under the left bank, outer the main current.
Everything that came into that circle went roun' and roun' till it came
gently into the centre, to drift up against the big tree. Already there
were three goats against the tree, legs up, an' a sheep were drifting
up, while in the circle sailin' roun' was a straw hat and a pair of
trousers. On the tree there was fifteen snakes--all alive, but
sluggish, mostly puff-adders, with some long yeller boomslangs, and
three or four ugly looking black snakes that must er come way down 200
miles from the karoo veld. While I was looking at these ugly lodgers
coiled round the branch, there was a swirl in the water, and the sheep
that were drifting along suddenly went under. 'Twas a shark took him.
That made things lively, but when three more sharks come up, and after
eating the goats, the straw hat, and the trousers began butting at the
tree with their shovel noses, I felt there was a lot of excitement in
this world if you only look for it patiently. The rolling of the tree
stirred the snakes, and the whole fifteen of them began crawling up. If
there'd been two I'd kicked 'em off, but being so many I sot and took
'em. When they had settled down again there was one round my neck, a
yeller boomslang, making a very fine collar, there were a pair of black
snakes on each of my arms, a brown boomslang round my waist, and no
less'n six big puff-adders coiled about my legs. I tell you I kept my
mouth shut less one should crawl in by mistake, an' if my hair hadn't
been so scant and wet it would ha' stood up straight."
"That was a tight fix, Uncle."
"Tight! By gum! The pressure of that six foot o' collar on my neck
tilted my chin up in the air, while the chap above my waist nearly broke
my ribs. The worst of it wer' I was freezing."
"Freezing! and the sun at 108."
"That's so; but fright turns a chap cold, and them snakes were drawing
all the remainin' warmth outer me. And ther' were those sharks
promenadin' roun' and roun' the tree, every now and again givin' it a
lazy shove. Jes' then the tide turned, and the tree began to move on
another cruise. This time I knew it would be all up with me. I
couldn't live through another fight with the surf, and if I moved there
was the snakes and the sharks. Soon as the tree moved those snakes woke
up and began hissing an' puffing an' swaying their heads about, while
their eyes got bright and brighter. Suddenly the collar chap crept up
over my face and took a twist round my head with the end of his tail in
my ear; then one by one the other snakes crawled up over my face, each
one of 'em giving me such a look as threatened my life in case I moved.
I wondered what they were about, for I couldn't see, but the pressure on
my neck was terrible, when, after the last one had gone, I heard a hiss,
a whizz, and a thud. What jer think?"
"I suppose they flew away."
"They jest piled on top of each other, tail round the other's neck, till
they made a column that would reach the bank; then the topmost one bent
forward, and there was a line of snakes from the tree to the bank. A
big puff-adder was at the far end, and he hitched his fangs over a tree
stump. Right there I spotted my chance. I softly hauled on the line,
and drew the tree ashore, when I jumped to the ground and cut."
"And where did you find the otter?"
"Picked him up, sonny. And to think that I lost my line."
"That's a wonderful story, Uncle."
"Eh! but it's so. You can see yourself I'm soaked through and through,
and if you look out, there's the river in flood plain enough, and here's
the otter which will make a good weskitt."