"I see that the magistrate at Port Nolloth has seen the sea-serpent. It
was a mile out at sea--raised its head ten feet from the water, and
remained in sight for an hour."
"Is he partickler about the ten feet?" said Abe Pike.
"Yes, he is explicit on that point."
"Seems to me it's difficult to judge that height at a distance of a
mile," said Abe; "but, come to think of it, there was a magistrate at
Mossel Bay who had the same luck about two years ago. He seed the
serpent sporting around for a hour off the coast, and the crittur raised
its head somewhere about ten feet. So I guess it's the same that's
cruising off Port Nolloth."
"Ever been to Port Nolloth?" asked Long Jim. "Well, I have; and the
country's that lonesome and sand-blown, and gen'rally lost to all sense
of what's fittin' for human beings to admire, that I'm not surprised the
magistrate thought he saw something."
"Don't you believe in sea-serpents, Jim?"
"What, me! Well onct I spent a whole hour trying to smash a sea-serpent
with rocks, and at the end of that time I found the thing were
sea-bamboo--round and smooth, and tapering away to a point like a moving
tail. No, sir; give me something I can see and feel."
"'Cording to all accounts," said Abe, drily, "if you did feel the
crittur, it would be when passing down his throat."
"Of course you've seen one, Abe?" said Si Amos with a slight sneer.
"I have," said Abe, quietly, as he reached over for the demijohn of
Cango.
"Did he lift his head ten feet from the sea?" asked Long Jim.
"I see what it is," said Abe; "you fellows been listening to my
exper'ences so long that you think I'm lying; and I'm not gwine to
sacrifice my self-respeck by telling you things you don't believe.
That's so!"
There was a long pause, as no one felt disposed to make the needed
sacrifice to Abe's exacting honour.
"Was it a big snake?" asked Long Jim presently.
"Pretty big," said Abe, shortly.
"Twenty feet?" asked Jim, anxiously.
Mr Pike smiled.
"Not so much?" said Jim.
"About a quarter of a mile long," said Abe, rising. "Well, I guess I'll
go. So long."
"Stay a moment," said Jim, firmly; "I can't let you go without saying
that Abe Pike's word's as true as steel. A quarter of a mile, you
said?"
"Might a been a yard shorter," said Abe, carelessly, as he paused at the
door.
"Come back, old man," said Jim. "Take this chair--and there's more in
the jug. So; that's good. A quarter of a mile," he muttered. "Well,
that's good enough for a stretcher."
"If you come along with me, Jim," said Abe, "I'll tell you about it.
But I'm not laying myself open to words from them as is full of
suspicion as a family of jackals."
"That's not fair to me," I said. "I've swallowed--I mean I've
accepted--all your stories without question."
"And me, too," said Si, with a gulp. "Try some of this Transvaal
tabak--it's first rate."
Abe permitted himself to be appeased. He filled his pipe, and as he
leant back in the chair with his heels up on the chimney, and a glass in
one hand, a reminiscent look overspread his rugged face.
"This yer exper'ence happened to me away back 'fore you younkers wore
shoes--but I never told it, as I were afraid of skeering the wits outer
you. That's so. The Little Kleinemonde over yonder were a blind river,
same as now, with a stretch of beach about 200 yards wide 'tween its lip
and the sea-foam hissing along the hard sands where the little
tumble-crabs swarm in their shells, and the air comes bubbling up outer
the sea-worm's holes. It were more lonely than now--for there's town
families as picnic there for weeks in their tents--and you can hear the
little children laugh--and sometimes see a string of girls holding hands
and jumping up in the foam. There was never a soul then on the wide,
white beach, that stretched away miles east and west--with black rocks
running out into the breakers--and back of the beach the high white
sandhills, rimmed on the top with thick berry bushes. It were that
lonely that sometimes I could have a run away, and the birds that
flitted along, hunting for what the tide cast up--the oyster catcher and
the curlew made it lonelier with their wild cries. And the river lay
back, still and quiet, without a current--between the dark woods--quiet
and still--crouching down behind the stretch of beach sand--as if it
feared the roaring surf--always tossing and thundering jest across that
narrow riband. And the waves came always rushing in, as though they
would like to wash away the sand strip and pour their waters over the
silent river--and in the spring tides I seed the outermost fringe of
foam sweep a'most up to the lip of the river--and go back and come up
again--swinging to and fro--till sometimes a little trickle of the salt
water would fall into the dead stream, where a many fishes gathered,
hoping to get out at last into the great wild waters. I caught fish
there at them times--going into ten pounds--springers and steinbrasse.
Well, one day there came a great storm of rain--like a cloudburst--and
every cattle track and footpath were a running stream--and every river
bed were filled to the brim. And in the night I yeard the thunder of
the waves at the fall of the spring tide. My! How they roared through
the night--and crashed as the big waves curled over and smote the water
with the blow of a falling rock. The night were that wild that I could
get no sleep--and went to the door to look out. The ground was wet and
steaming, and the sound of running water came from every dip and hollow.
I sed to myself the dead river will be alive, and the tide and flood
will cut a passage deep and wide through the beach, and there will be a
litter heaped along the tide mark all down the beach, with good pickings
for the first man. So I put a sack over my head, and taking the old
muzzle-loader, stepped out into the slushy dark, and squelched away over
the sodden veld towards the Kleinemonde. I struck the ridge above the
river jest about sunrise, and the light coming through the mist showed
up the wildest sight of tossing waters and a beach all strewn with trees
and litter of seaweed. As I thought, the dead river was alive and
roaring into the seas through a broad channel cut deep into the sand. I
went down to the beach and watched the flood pour out, while the spray
from the waves druv stinging against my face. I tell you, it was a
sight to stand and watch, not heeding the wind or the wet--and the
savageness of it gripped hold of me. Bymby I crept along the beach, in
and out the piled masses o' rubbish--finding a many dead birds and sich
things--then about noon I was back ag'in at the river--where the
incoming tide, all red with the wash from the land, was rolling back the
river water and damming up the channel ag'in with tons of sand and
seaweed. I made a fire under the shelter of the wood and cooked a fat
duck I picked up, and when I finished him off I dried myself by the fire
while I watched the river. Jes' then I seed something in the river that
made me jump behind a tree--the black fin of the biggest shark you ever
seed, standing out maybe a yard high--and raking back maybe twelve
feet--with spikes all along. `Lord luv me!' thinks I; `what in
thunder's that?' And I let drive with both barrels, and the thing
darted off with a rush that sent a wave up both sides of the banks among
the trees--and far up the river I seed the sun shine on the curve of his
body as he turned to come down--and I cut my stick. When I got home I
set to and bent a fish-hook outen a steel stable rake--lashing on a line
of buffalo rheims. I went back, baited the hook with a sea-bird that I
had picked up, and let it run out, taking a bend round the tree with the
rheim. The crittur I reckoned was still there--for why, he couldn't get
out by reason of the silting up of the channel--though I could see no
sign of him--and he paid no heed to the bait. Well, I were getting
tired, when I noticed some cattle at the bend on the other side, where
there's a bit of the flat with a `salt lick'--that's a favourite place
for them, by reason of the salt in the soil. They were jest capering
around with their tails up, then standing to stare at something in the
river, with a ole black bull nearer than the rest, pawing at the ground.
I could tell there was some crittur there that they didn't like--maybe
a tiger--but I could see nix beyond a rock or tree stump. As I watched,
wondering what could ha' disturbed them, the ole bull shook his head,
then fetched a deep beller and rolled on a few yards--while the cows and
young stock behind came together in a bunch. Then the bull stood
ag'in--pawing the wet ground--and Lord sakes!--jes' then that rock riz
out of the river."
"What's that?"
"Yessir!" and Abe wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My sakes!
I jes' sunk inter the rushes in a tremble, and the ole bull, with a
beller that rolled down the river, turned to run. He never got mor'n
ten yards when he were caught by the neck, and I yeard his bones
crunch."
"What caught him?"
"A mouth! It were a mouth that caught him, set in a head like a water
barrel, with a neck behind thick as a blue-gum tree, blue along the top
and white below. Shaped like a snake it were. It caught the bull by
the neck, and lay outstretched, sucking his blood, while the four legs
of the poor crittur beat the air, and the cows standing off rushed about
lowing. Eighty yards he was distant, and for all I were in a lather
from fear, I plunked a bullet jes' back of the opened jaws. Believe me,
at the sound of the gun them cows, with their tails up, charged down on
that sarpint. Yessirs, they went for him like a troop of hosses. Some
of them took the neck flying, without attempting any mischief, but two
old cows went slap at the body with their horns down, druving them in
till the blood spurted high. Then he let go o' the bull, swept the cows
off their feet, and with a snort slid into the river, and came charging
down like a steam tug for the mouth--his head lifted high up, and the
waves streaming as he went I let drive at him as he went by, clean into
the head--and at the shot he towered up like a column--and, so lifting
himself, flung half his length onto the sand bar. Then he wriggled and
writhed till the bulk of his middle lay high and dry, and the tail of
him, twenty yards up the river, lashed the water with blows that sounded
like cannon--till the swell of the waves he raised floated him off, and
I saw him cut through the waves out into the deep sea beyond."
"Is that all?"
"Yessir, that's all; and if you'd a been there 'sted of me, Si Amos, I
guess you'd a said it was too much--a darn sight too much for your
nerves. As for me, I niver went near the place for a year, and when
there's a spring-tide I keep indoors. One thing I seed, and that was a
growth of barnacles and seaweed on his back, which explains why it is
that some folk say the sea-serpent has got a mane like a hoss."