While the settlers of this section were thus scattering far and wide, in
more or less numerous groups, over the fertile plains of Lower Albany,
the Scotch party was slowly, laboriously, toiling on over hill and dale,
jungle and plain, towards the highlands of the interior.
The country through which the long line of waggons passed was as varied
as can well be imagined, being one of the wildest and least inhabited
tracts of the frontier districts. The features of the landscape changed
continually from dark jungle to rich park-like scenery, embellished with
graceful clumps of evergreens, and from that again to the sterility of
savage mountains or parched and desert plains. Sometimes they plodded
wearily over the karroo for twenty miles or more at a stretch without
seeing a drop of water. At other times they came to a wretched mud
hovel, the farm-house of a boer, near a permanent spring of water.
Again, they were entangled among the rugged, roadless gorges and
precipices of a mountain range, through which no vehicle of European
construction could have passed without absolute demolition, and up parts
of which the Cape-waggons were sometimes compelled to go by means of two
teams,--that is, from twenty to thirty or more oxen,--being attached to
each. At other times they had to descend and re-ascend the precipitous
banks of rivers whose beds were sometimes quite dry and paved with
mighty boulders.
"It's an unco' rough country," observed Sandy Black to Charlie
Considine, as they stood watching the efforts of a double team to haul
one of their waggons up a slope so rugged and steep that the mere
attempt appeared absolute madness in their eyes.
Considine assented, but was too much interested in the process to
indulge in further remark.
"Gin the rope brek," continued Sandy, "I wadna gie muckle for the
waggon. It'll come rowin' an' stottin' doon the hill like a bairn's
ba'."
"No fear of the rope," said Hans Marais, as he passed at the moment to
render assistance to Ruyter, Jemalee, Booby, and some others, who were
shouting at the pitch of their voices, and plying the long waggon-whips,
or the short sjamboks, with unmerciful vigour.
Hans was right. The powerful "trektow" stood the enormous strain, and
the equally powerful waggon groaned and jolted up the stony steep until
it had nearly gained the top, when an unfortunate drop of the right
front wheel into a deep hollow, combined with an unlucky and
simultaneous elevation of the left back wheel by a stone, turned the
vehicle completely over on its side. The hoops of the tilt were broken,
and much of the lading was deposited in a hollow beside the waggon, but
a few of the lighter and smaller articles went hopping, or, according to
Sandy Black, "stottin'" down the slope, and were smashed to atoms at the
bottom.
Ruyter, Booby, and Jemalee turned towards Hans Marais with a shrinking
action, as if they expected to feel the sjambok on their shoulders, for
their own cruel master was wont on occasions of mischance such as this
to visit his men with summary punishment; but Hans was a good specimen
of another, and, we believe, much more numerous class of Cape-Dutchmen.
After the first short frown of annoyance had passed, he went actively to
work, to set the example of unloading the waggon and repairing the
damage, administering at the same time, however, a pretty sharp rebuke
to the drivers for their carelessness in not taking better note of the
form of the ground.
That night in talking over the incident with Ruyter, Considine ventured
again to comment on the wrongs which the former endured, and the
possibility of redress being obtained from the proper authorities.
"For I am told," he said, "that the laws of the colony do not now permit
masters to lash and maltreat their slaves as they once did."
Ruyter, though by nature a good-humoured, easy-going fellow, was
possessed of an unusually high spirit for one of his race, and could
never listen to any reference to the wrongs of the Hottentots without a
dark frown of indignation. In general he avoided the subject, but on
the night in question either his wonted reticence had fled, or he felt
disposed to confide in the kindly youth, from whom on the previous
journey from Capetown he had experienced many marks of sympathy and
good-will.
"There be no way to make tings better," he replied fiercely. "I knows
noting 'bout your laws. Only knows dey don't work somehow. Allers de
same wid _me_ anyhow, kick and cuff and lash w'en I's wrong--sometimes
w'en I's right--and nebber git tanks for noting."
"But that is because your master is an unusually bad fellow," replied
Considine. "Few Cape farmers are so bad as he. You have yourself had
experience of Hans Marais, now, who is kind to every one."
"Ja, he is good master--an' so's him's fadder, an' all him's peepil--but
what good dat doos to me!" returned the Hottentot gloomily. "It is true
your laws do not allow us to be bought and sold like de slaves, but dat
very ting makes de masters hate us and hurt us more dan de slaves."
This was to some extent true. At the time we write of, slavery, being
still permitted in the British colonies, the Dutch, and other Cape
colonists, possessed great numbers of negro slaves, whom it was their
interest to treat well, as being valuable "property," and whom most of
them probably did treat well, as a man will treat a useful horse or ox,
though of course there were--as there always must be in the
circumstances--many instances of cruelty, by passionate and brutal
owners. But the Hottentots, or original natives of the South African
soil, having been declared unsaleable, and therefore not "property,"
were in many cases treated with greater degradation by their masters
than the slaves, were made to work like them, but not cared for or fed
like them, because not so valuable. At the same time, although not
absolute slaves, the Hottentots were practically in a state of
servitude, in which the freedom accorded to them by Government had, by
one subterfuge or another, been rendered inoperative. Not long before
this period the colonists possessed absolute power over the Hottentots,
and although recent efforts had been made to legislate in their favour,
their wrongs had only been mitigated,--by no means redressed. Masters
were, it is true, held accountable by the law for the treatment of their
Hottentots, but were rarely called to account; and the Hottentots knew
too well, from sad experience, that to make a complaint would be in many
cases worse than useless, as it would only rouse the ire of their
masters and make them doubly severe.
"You say de Hottentots are not slaves, but you treat us all de same as
slaves--anyhow, Jan Smit does."
"That is the sin of Jan Smit, not of the British law," replied
Considine.
Ruyter's face grew darker as he rejoined fiercely, "What de use of your
laws if dey won't work? Besides, what right hab de white scoundril to
make slave at all--whether you call him slave or no call him slave.
Look at Jemalee!"
The Hottentot pointed with violent action to the Malay, who, with a calm
and sad but dignified mien, stood listening to the small-talk of Booby,
while the light of the camp-fire played fitfully on their swarthy
features.
"Well, what of Jemalee!" asked Considine.
"You know dat him's a slave--a _real_ slave?"
"Yes, I know that, poor fellow."
"You never hear how him was brought up here?"
"No, never--tell me about it."
Hereupon the Hottentot related the following brief story.
Abdul Jemalee, a year or two before, had lived in Capetown, where his
owner was a man of some substance. Jemalee had a wife and several
children, who were also the property of his owner. Being an expert
waggon-driver, the Malay was a valuable piece of human goods. On one
occasion Jan Smit happened to be in Capetown, and, hearing of the
Malay's qualities, offered his master a high price for him. The offer
was accepted, but in order to avoid a scene, the bargain was kept secret
from the piece of property, and he was given to understand that he was
going up country on his old master's business. When poor Jemalee bade
his pretty wife and little ones goodbye, he comforted them with the
assurance that he should be back in a few months. On arriving at Smit's
place, however, the truth was told, and he found that he had been
separated for ever from those he most loved on earth. For some time
Abdul Jemalee gave way to sullen despair, and took every sort of abuse
and cruel treatment with apparent indifference, but, as time went on, a
change came over him. He became more like his former self, and did his
work so well, that even the savage Jan Smit seldom had any excuse for
finding fault. On his last journey to the Cape, Smit took the Malay
with him only part of the way. He left him in charge of a friend, who
agreed to look well after him until his return.
Even this crushing of Jemalee's hope that he might meet his wife and
children once more did not appear to oppress him much, and when his
master returned from Capetown he resumed charge of one of the waggons,
and went quietly back to his home in the karroo.
"And can you tell what brought about this change?" asked Considine.
"Oh ja, I knows," replied Ruyter, with a decided nod and a deep chuckle;
"Jemalee him's got a powerful glitter in him's eye now and den--bery
powerful an' strange!"
"And what may that have to do with it?" asked Considine.
Ruyter's visage changed from a look of deep cunning to one of childlike
simplicity as he replied--"Can't go for to say what de glitter of him's
eye got to do wid it. Snakes' eyes glitter sometimes--s'pose 'cause he
can't help it, or he's wicked p'raps."
Considine smiled, but, seeing that the Hottentot did not choose to be
communicative on the point, he forbore further question.
"What a funny man Jerry Goldboy is!" said Jessie McTavish, as she sat
that same evening sipping a pannikin of tea in her father's tent.
From the opening of the tent the fire was visible.
Jerry was busy preparing his supper, while he kept up an incessant run
of small-chat with Booby and Jemalee. The latter replied to him chiefly
with grave smiles, the former with shouts of appreciative laughter.
"He _is_ funny," asserted Mrs McTavish, "and uncommonly noisy. I doubt
if there is much good in him."
"More than you think, Mopsy," said Kenneth (by this irreverent name did
the Highlander call his better-half); "Jerry Goldboy is a small package,
but he's made of good stuff, depend upon it. No doubt he's a little
nervous, but I've observed that his nerves are tried more by the
suddenness with which he may be surprised than by the actual danger he
may chance to encounter. On our first night out, when he roused the
camp and smashed the stock of his blunderbuss, no doubt I as well as
others thought he showed the white feather, but there was no lack of
courage in him when he went last week straight under the tree where the
tiger was growling, and shot it so dead that when it fell it was not far
from his feet."
"I heard some of the men, papa," observed Jessie, "say that it was Dutch
courage that made him do that. What did they mean by Dutch courage?"
Jessie, being little more than eight, was ignorant of much of the
world's slang.
"Cape-smoke, my dear," answered her father, with a laugh.
"Cape-smoke?" exclaimed Jessie, "what is that?"
"Brandy, child, peach-brandy, much loved by some of the boers, I'm told,
and still more so by the Hottentots; but there was no more Cape-smoke in
Jerry that day than in you. It was true English pluck. No doubt he
could hardly fail to make a dead shot at so close a range, with such an
awful weapon, loaded, as it usually is, with handfuls of slugs,
buckshot, and gravel; but it was none the less plucky for all that. The
old flint-lock might have missed fire, or he mightn't have killed the
brute outright, and in either case he knew well enough it would have
been all up with Jerry Goldboy."
"Who's that taking my name in vain?" said Jerry himself, passing the
tent at the moment, in company with Sandy Black.
"We were only praising you, Jerry," cried Jessie, with a laugh, "for the
way in which you shot that tiger the other day."
"It wasn't a teeger, Miss Jessie," interposed Sandy Black, "it was only
a leopard--ane o' thae wee spottit beasts that they're sae prood o' in
this country as to _ca'_ them teegers."
"Come, Sandy," cried Jerry Goldboy, "don't rob me of the honour that is
my due. The hanimal was big enough to 'ave torn you limb from limb if
'e'd got 'old of you."
"It may be sae, but he wasna a teeger for a' that," retorted
Black.--"D'ee know, sir," he continued, turning to McTavish, "that Mr
Pringle's been askin' for 'ee?"
"No, Sandy, but now that you've told me I'll go to his tent."
So saying the Highlander rose and went out, to attend a council of
"heads of families."
Hitherto we have directed the reader's attention chiefly to one or two
individuals of the Scotch party, but there were in that party a number
of families who had appointed Mr Pringle their "head" and
representative. In this capacity of chief-head, or leader, Mr Pringle
was in the habit of convening a meeting of subordinate "heads" when
matters of importance had to be discussed.
While the elders of the party were thus engaged in conclave at the door
of their leader's tent, and while the rest were busy round their several
fires, a man with a body much blacker than the _night_ was secretly
gliding about the camp like a huge snake, now crouching as he passed
quickly, but without noise, in rear of the thick bushes; now creeping on
hands and knees among the waggons and oxen, and anon gliding almost flat
on his breast up to the very verge of the light thrown by the
camp-fires. At one and another of the fires he remained motionless like
the blackened trunk of a dead tree, with his glittering eyes fixed on
the settlers, as if listening intently to their conversation.
Whatever might be the ultimate designs of the Kafir--for such he was--
his intentions at the time being were evidently peaceful, for he carried
neither weapon nor shield. He touched nothing belonging to the white
men, though guns and blankets and other tempting objects were more than
once within reach of his hand. Neither did he attempt to steal that
which to the Kafir is the most coveted prize of all--a fat ox.
Gradually he melted away into the darkness from which he had emerged.
No eye in all the emigrant band saw him come or go in his snake-like
glidings, yet his presence was known to one of the party--to Ruyter the
Hottentot.
Soon after the Kafir had taken his departure, Ruyter left his camp-fire
and sauntered into the bush as if to meditate before lying down for the
night. As soon as he was beyond observation he quickened his pace and
walked in a straight line, like one who has a definite end in view.
The Hottentot fancied that he had got away unperceived, but in this he
was mistaken. Hans Marais, having heard Considine's account of his talk
with Ruyter about Jemalee, had been troubled with suspicions about the
former, which led to his paying more than usual attention to him. These
suspicions were increased when he observed that the Hottentot went
frequently and uneasily into the bushes, and looked altogether like a
man expecting something which does not happen or appear. When,
therefore, he noticed that after supper, Ruyter's anxious look
disappeared, and that, after looking carefully round at his comrades, he
sauntered into the bush with an overdone air of nonchalance, he quietly
took up his heavy gun and followed him.
The youth had been trained to _observe_ from earliest childhood, and,
having been born and bred on the karroo, he was as well skilled in
tracking the footprints of animals and men as any red savage of the
North American wilderness. He took care to keep the Hottentot in sight,
however, the night being too dark to see footprints. Lithe and agile as
a panther, he found no difficulty in doing so.
In a few minutes he reached an open space, in which he observed that the
Hottentot had met with a Kafir, and was engaged with him in earnest
conversation. Much however of what they said was lost by Hans, as he
found it difficult to get within ear-shot unobserved.
"And why?" he at length heard the savage demand, "why should I spare
them for an hour?"
He spoke in the Kafir tongue, in which the Hottentot replied, and with
which young Marais was partially acquainted.
"Because, Hintza," said Ruyter, naming the paramount chief of Kafirland,
"the time has not yet come. One whose opinion you value bade me tell
you so."
"What if I choose to pay no regard to the opinion of any one?" demanded
the chief haughtily.
Ruyter quietly told the savage that he would then have to take the
consequences, and urged, in addition, that it was folly to suppose the
Kafirs were in a condition to make war on the white men just then. It
was barely a year since they had been totally routed and driven across
the Great Fish River with great slaughter. No warrior of common sense
would think of renewing hostilities at such a time--their young men
slain, their resources exhausted. Hintza had better bide his time. In
the meanwhile he could gratify his revenge without much risk to himself
or his young braves, by stealing in a quiet systematic way from the
white men as their herds and flocks increased. Besides this, Ruyter,
assuming a bold look and tone which was unusual in one of his degraded
race, told Hintza firmly that he had reasons of his own for not wishing
the Scotch emigrants to be attacked at that time, and that if he
persisted in his designs he would warn them of their danger, in which
case they would certainly prove themselves men enough to beat any number
of warriors Hintza could bring against them.
Lying flat on the ground, with head raised and motionless, Hans Marais
listened to these sentiments with much surprise, for he had up to that
time regarded the Hottentot as a meek and long-suffering man, but now,
though his long-suffering in the past could not be questioned, his
meekness appeared to have totally departed.
The Kafir chief would probably have treated the latter part of Ruyter's
speech with scorn, had not his remarks about sly and systematic plunder
chimed in with his own sentiments, for Hintza was pre-eminently
false-hearted, even among a race with whom successful lying is deemed a
virtue, though, when found out, it is considered a sin. He pondered the
Hottentot's advice, and apparently assented to it. After a few moments'
consideration, he turned on his heel, and re-entered the thick jungle.
Well was it for Hans Marais that he had concealed himself among tall
grass, for Hintza chanced to pass within two yards of the spot where he
lay. The kafir chief had resumed the weapons which, for convenience, he
had left behind in the bush while prowling round the white man's camp,
and now stalked along in all the panoply of a savage warrior-chief; with
ox-hide shield, bundle of short sharp assagais, leopard-skin robe, and
feathers. For one instant the Dutchman, supposing it impossible to
escape detection, was on the point of springing on the savage, but on
second thoughts he resolved to take his chance. Even if Hintza did
discover him, he felt sure of being able to leap up in time to ward off
his first stab.
Fortunately the Kafir was too much engrossed with his thoughts. He
passed his white enemy, and disappeared in the jungle.
Meanwhile the Hottentot returned to the camp--assuming an easy-going
saunter as he approached its fires--and, soon after, Hans Marais
re-entered it from an opposite direction. Resolving to keep his own
counsel in the meantime, he mentioned the incident to no one, but after
carefully inspecting the surrounding bushes, and stirring up the
watch-fires, he sat down in front of his leader's tent with the
intention of keeping guard during the first part of the night.