"Oh, ghoisters!" said Abe, "there's the blamed bung come outer the
_vaitje_ and not a drop of Dop left, and all the _buchu_ collected for
the soaking."
"Do you soak the _buchu_ in brandy?"
"The brandy brings out the goodness from the yerb, and I tell you a dose
of it gets home every time. But what's the good--the brandy's gone,
there's not a tickey in the stocking, and not a man in the country would
offer ole Abe Pike so much as half-a-pint--not a one. The old people's
gone and the new ones, blow me--the new ones drink cold tea."
"What about the Kaffir chief you were following Abe?"
"I ain't follering no Kaffir chief, not me--and look here sonny, you get
along home, see, 'fore it gets dark."
"I think I could spare a gallon of brown Cango, Abe, if you come over in
the morning."
"Cango, eh! Stay right here, sonny--I've marked down a fine porkipine--
and we'll hunt him to-night. In the morning I'll go over with you,
arter showing you something as'll surprise you, I bet."
"What's that?"
"A horn-bill sitting on her nest in a hollow tree, and the entrance
built up with mud, so she can't get out, and the cats can't git in, by
gum, an' the ole chap a feeding her. Lor' love yer, there's no matchin'
animiles an' birds for cunnin'."
"Yet I remember you saying that young chief was very cunning."
"So he were; lad, he were born smart; an' them gleamin' eyes of his'n
could read the writin' on the ground, the signs of weather, and the ways
of fightin' men better'n you could read a big print book. That's so. I
tole you how I follered him, and how he follered a chap in _veldschoens_
all the way from the Chumie. Well, in the dark of the second evenin' I
seed a red light, and were blunderin' on towards it, being pretty well
dazed from the hunger and weakness and pain o' my bad arm, when
somethin' in the steady glow of it brought me up with a jerk. Says I,
that fire's been long lit, there's nothin' but coals blazing, and
whoever lit it must feel safe. Says I, who can feel safe in this yer
place? Why, a Kaffir. So I slowed down to a crawl, and blow me, when I
got within hearin' distance, I seed a man by the fire. Sonny, he were
the man in _veldschoens_."
"The white man the chief was after."
"'Twas a blanged half-caste, lad, that's what he were. I saw that in
the fust look by the red _dook_ he wore roun' his greasy head, and by
the spread of his flat nose, and the sight of him kept me still, I tell
you. Half-castes is mean. And to think I'd been goin' hungry to save a
thing like that, and him a sitting there with his mouth all smeared with
black coal from the bried meat he were eatin'. The smell of it came to
me where I lay in the shadder, an' I tell you it made me sick with
longing for a bite, but I jes' kept there sniffin' till the faintness
left me. Well, all ov a sudden I seed his jaws stop, and his eyes had
that sort o' fixed look which they has when a man's listenin'. Then,
without movin' his body, he reached out for his gun. Yes, sonny, he
reached out for his gun with his eyes starin' straight for me, and I
kivered him. While I was gettin' ready to shoot, outer the darkness
behin' him there come a voice callin' in greetin', `Gumela vietu!' I
giv' a start, but that ere half-caste he never stirred. The hand that
was reachin' out for his gun stopped, his jaws began to move, but his
voice were a bit shaky when he said `Gumela inkose!' and there was a
sort o' hunchin' of his shoulders as tho' he felt the assegai going in.
For a spell there was silence, then from the wall o' blackness there
stepped to the fire the young chief hisself. I see the gleam o' his
ivory bracelet. With his toe he moved the gun away. Then he reached
down, took up a length of roasting flesh, caught hold of a mouthful and
saw off the chunk with the blade of his assegai 'twixt his hand and his
lips. He jes' ate and ate, an' the smell o' the meat made my stummick
heave an' grumble most horrible."
"They were friends, then, after all?"
"You wait, sonny--jes' keep still an' wait. Arter a time they began to
talk. Then it came out that the half-caste was on some mission from the
head chief, and the young chap was mighty curious to know all about it;
but the half-caste he were too slim. They jes' paced roun' each other
like a couple o' strange dogs. At the end the chief he up and say, `I
know where you're going.' `Soh?' said the half-caste. `Yes,' said the
chief, `you're going to the white man's camp to give the white chief
news of our coming.' Well, the half-caste he spat in the fire. `You
are a boy,' he said; `your place is at home with the women.' `My place
is with you,' said the young chief, speaking soft, so that the other
laughed in his throat, and called the chief _quedin_--`boy'--again,
which you know is the easiest word to rile a Kaffir. `I know, in your
heart,' said the boy, `you will sell us for the white man's money.' The
half-caste spat again. `Oh, yes,' he said, `the white men are in terror
of you--a warrior like you would be worth a whole goat to them.' `I am
Sandili,' said the lad, `son of the head chief, and one day the Amakosa
will do my bidding.' The half-caste giv' a start; then he grew soft all
of a sudden. `I was but trying you,' he said. `Oh, chief, forget my
words, and take the path with me in the morning. We will find out where
the red-coats are, how many of them, and what road they take, so that we
can report to your father, and plans can be made to trap them.' I could
hear the hiss of a snake in the man's speech, sonny; and it struck me
then he had, in his heart, determined to take the young chief Sandili to
the English colonel."
"It was really Sandili?"
"It were, an' no mistake. I could a' shot him then, an' put a stop to
two wars; but a good many things could be done, sonny, if only we could
see ahead. Well, for all they'd made friends, those two didn't trust
one another--not a bit, not they--they jes' sat there glancing acrost
the coals, nodding, an' wakin' up with a start, and when one on 'em
moved t'other would have his eyes wide open. Long before sun-up they
moved off, an' I crep' outer my hidin' place to the fire, where I found
jes' a coal-blackened strip o' meat that jes' made me hungrier than
afore. Lor' love you, a human is a helpless crittur. There was
animiles about an' birds, but as I darn't use my gun I couldn't get one.
I cotched a salamander and ate him, an' a land crab by the stream, an'
ate him--an' I ate some berries, an' a clutch o' young birds from the
nest, and I had a bathe--and took up the spoor of the two of 'em. 'Twas
easier spoorin' now, for they was going slow, and at mid-day I had 'em
in sight, and so kep' 'em till the last. In the afternoon we were
climbing a ridge among the bushes, when boomin' along there came the
sound of music that brought the three of us to a dead stop. Never had
young Abe yeard any sound like that afore or since 'cept once--it went
through my worn-out body until I trembled like a leaf--yes, sonny--and
the wet ran down my cheeks. 'Twas the soun' of a big drum."
"There's not much music in that, Abe."
"Isn't there, sonny? Not when you've been three days in the woods,
skeered of every shadder; not when you've yeard the war-cry of the red
Kaffir; not when the cries of the little ones waitin' for the assegai
are ringin' in yer head. Only the soun' of a drum. One, big boomin'
note, rolling clear an' far with a message of help. The tiredness an'
the sickness fell from me, sonny, an' I could a' run up that hill. The
other two they crept up presently, and bymby I follered and hid behind
'em. They was crouchin' by a rock, lookin' down, and I forgot 'em in
lookin' at the picture. Far below in the valley was the white tents,
an' the cattle, an' a line of red where the soldiers were drawn up,
bayonets flashing. Then a troop of men on horseback rode down the line,
and again the drums beat and the bugles rang out. It was a picture,
sonny, that I could a' looked at all day, but I were jes' jerked out o'
my spell o' dreamin' by the chief talkin'."
"`Yoh,' he said, `they are few, but what noise is that?'
"`Tis their witch-music,' said the half-caste; `'tis kep' in a big box,
and when the man hits the top of it with a stick the witch cries out
what they should do.' `Yoh!' said the chief, `I will kill the box!
They are great warriors, these, but they are foolish to wear a red so
bright, that no man of them can hide.' `They do not hide,' said the
half-caste, and he shifted his gun as he looked at the chief from the
corner of his eyes. `Let us go.' `Nay,' said the chief, `it is a good
sight this--stay a little while. Why do they move about so?' `It's
their war-dance, and he on the white horse is the chief. At his words
they turn and stop, break up, and come together.' The young chief
watched like a dog straining at the leash--and, by gum, he yeard the
colonel's commands, though never a sound reached me. A smart Kaffir can
smell, and see, and hear like a animile. `Yoh!' he said; `listen to his
words!'--and in his excitement he raised his head, and the half-caste he
stood back and lifted his gun. But he measured his distance to the
camp, and he said, `Let us get nearer'--for why, the cuss wanted to be
near help when he went for the chief. The chief looked round, and,
ghoisters! he seed my face stickin' outer a bush. He jumped to his feet
and drew back his arm to fly the assegai, but the half-caste, after one
glance at me, dropped his gun, seized the haft of the assegai with one
hand and hooked his other arm round the chief's neck. `It was a good
word you spoke, _quedin_,' he said, hissing as he struggled with the
boy. `I will sell you to the white man.' Seein' how it was, I stepped
out, and as I went up I seed the chief's eyes rollin', while his
nostrils were blowed out like a horse. `I am a boy,' he said; `I give
in.' The half-caste he laughed, turnin' to me whiles he called out in
Dutch that it was he who took the _quedin_ prisoner, but he'd give me
somethin' if I helped him--the skunk, the blanged, mangy, yeller dog.
Well, sonny, that Kaffir were shamming. Soon's he give in, the
half-caste he loosed his hold, when, with a grunt, the Kaffir yanked his
assegai away, and with a wriggle o' his naked body he got a length and
struck the half-caste under the armpit. `Dog,' he said, and druv' his
assegai in over the blade. The half-caste he jes' went green. `_Ek 'es
dood_,' he said, lookin' at me; then he sat down all of a heap. The
young chief he stood there eyein' me like a tiger, with his lips curled
back and his chest heavin'. It was the first man he'd killed, I guess.
Well, I lifted the gun, but the left hand gave out and the barrel
wobbled--then, I dunno why, but I begin to laugh in a foolish way, an' I
kep' on laughin' whiles the Kaffir came crouchin' up with his assegai
held back. Nex' thing I seed the half-caste roll over, and then sit up
and point his gun at the boy's back. `Pass op,' I said 'mid the
laughin', while the sweat was drippin' off my nose; and the chief he
jumped aside as tho' there was a snake in his way, and the bullet
whizzed by him. The half-caste gave a groan and rolled over dead, out
of hate and disappointment, 'cause he'd missed. That's so. The chief
he looked at me, an' he looked at the soldiers who were hurrying up from
down below, then he jes' turned and walked away; yes, he jes' walked
away with his head up, and I could a' shot him--for the laughin' fit had
passed away. But before he could ha' killed me easy as sticking a pig,
so I watched him go; an' when he reached the bush he said, lookin' over
his shoulder, `Grow fat, man who laughs, an' you will be food for my
assegai.' The cheek of these young bucks; but I reckon, sonny, if he'd
a' known I'd killed two of his men in the Chumie he wouldn't a' waited,
for all I was like a shadder."
"Is that all?" I said, when the old man paused.
"Well, it were enuff, wern't it?"
"What did the Colonel say?"
"Oh, the Colonel! He said, `Who the devil are you, an' where the blazes
you come from?' That's what _he_ said, that time; but 'twern't long
afore he changed the tune of his remarks. `Who the devil are you, and
where the blazes you come from?' he sed, sittin' in his tent with his
officers by him; an' I jes' reached over to a black square bottle that
was ahind him and put the neck to my mouth."