The wagon came slowly up as Dyke stood watching the roaring river, full
from side to side with the waters, which resulted from a cloud-burst in
the distant mountains, where storms had been raging on the previous day,
that which they had encountered a short time before being the remains of
one of the drifts which had passed over the great plain.
As he drove up, Jack sat grinning pleasantly upon the box, and of his
own will turned the bullocks into a meadow-like opening, whose fresh
herbage, sparkling still with clinging raindrops, set the animals lowing
with satisfaction before stooping from time to time to snatch a mouthful
of the grass.
Jack evidently thought it would be a splendid place for a camp, and
without waiting for orders, shouted to the bullocks to stop, and
descending from his seat, after laying aside his whip, began to outspan.
Dyke took in every action, knowing that it was only an endorsement of
his own thoughts that the full river meant in all probability a halt for
days. There was the possibility of his being able to swim his horse
across somewhere higher up or lower down; but after a few minutes'
inspection he felt that this was quite hopeless, though, even if it had
been practicable, he knew that he could not leave his charge.
So vexatious when so near home!
"Might have known," he said to himself bitterly. "Everything was going
on too easily. But the rain might have stopped for another day or two."
He tried hard to be philosophic and to take matters calmly, but it was
too hard work, especially, too, when the Kaffir seemed in such high
glee, and bustled about the outspanning, as if looking forward to some
days of rest, with nothing to do but eat and sleep.
The boy thought hard as he dismounted, hobbled his cob, and let him
begin to graze in company with the draught oxen; but he soon gave that
up, and went and stood watching the rushing river, knowing full well
that he was completely shut away from Kopfontein, and that he could do
nothing but wait patiently till the river sank to its old level.
"And that," he said dismally, "will be quite a week."
Things might have been worse. In fact, some people would have been
delighted with the position. For the spot was beautiful; the wagon
formed a comfortable sleeping tent, provisions and water were plentiful,
and there was ample opportunity for adding to the larder by tying in
wait at early morning and late evening for the birds and animals which
came from far out in the desert to drink.
In fact, during his dreary wait, Dyke tried to amuse himself by watching
the various animals that came down one deeply trampled track, on either
side of which the place was thickly bushed and dotted with fine forest
trees, well grown, from their nearness to water.
Antelopes of many kinds came down, from tiny gazelles up to the great
eland. One morning he was delighted by the coming of a little herd of
about a dozen giraffes, and he crouched among the bushes, watching them
drink; the towering bull of about eighteen feet in height began by
straddling out its forelegs in the most ungraceful way, till it could
lower itself enough to reach the water with its lips.
Another time he was startled by the coming of a huge white rhinoceros,
which careered through the bushes in a fierce, determined way,
displaying its great power and indifference to every other beast of the
forest.
Lions, too, came once and pulled down an antelope, making the wagon
cattle extremely uneasy, but going away after their banquet, and
troubling the camp no more.
But the river remained as full as ever, the waters rushing furiously
down, and Dyke grew angry at last against his brother.
"Joe knows I'm overdue," he said, "and he ought to have come to see why
I am detained. Why, after that rain he ought to have known that the
river would be full. It's too bad. I thought better of him; but
perhaps he'll come to-day."
And with this hope the boy climbed one of the biggest rocks to where he
could gaze across the river and over the plain on the other side,
looking out in expectancy of seeing the big weedy horse his brother rode
coming toward the ford, but he watched in vain day after day, while Jack
kept the fire going, and cooked and ate and slept without a care, not
even seeming to give a thought to the wife waiting at Kopfontein, or,
judging from appearances, to anything else but his own desires.
"I should like to kick him--a lazy brute!" Dyke said to himself; "but
there's nothing to kick him for now. He does all there is to do. I
suppose I'm out of temper at having to wait so. Here's a whole week
gone, and the river higher than ever."
Dyke had one other novelty to study--a novelty to him, for previously he
had seen but little of them. This novelty was a party of baboons of all
sizes, from the big, heavy males down to the young ones, which
approached from some distance on the other side, clinging to their
mothers' backs and necks. These strange, dog-like creatures came down
from a high clump of rocks or kopje regularly every evening in the same
way; and though they had been heard and seen frequently during the
daytime, chattering, barking, and gambolling about, chasing one another
in and out, and over the stones, as if thoroughly enjoying the sport,
toward the time for their visit to the river all would be very silent,
and in a cautious, watchful way a big old male, who seemed to be the
captain or chief of the clan, would suddenly trot out on to a big block,
and stand there carefully scanning the patch of forest and the plain
beyond for danger. Then he would change to a nearer natural
watch-tower, and have another long scrutiny, examining every spot likely
to harbour an enemy, till, apparently satisfied, he would descend, go
down to the river and drink, and then trot back to his lookout.
After a few minutes' watch, he would then give a signal, a quick, short,
barking sound, at which the rocks beyond, which the moment before had
appeared to be deserted, suddenly became alive with baboons of all
sizes, which came running down to the water in perfect confidence that
all was well, and that their old chief high up on the rock would give
them fair warning of the approach of any of their feline enemies,
leopard or lion, with a taste for the semi-human kind.
Upon one occasion Dyke suddenly started up, shouted, and fired his gun,
for the sake of seeing what effect it would have.
Instant flight he felt sure; but he was not prepared for all that
followed.
At the first sound there was a rush--a regular _sauve qui peut_; but
there was a method in it. Mothers caught up their little ones, which
fled to them for protection, and one big male made a kind of
demonstration to cover the flight, while the old fellow on the rock
sprang about, barking, shouting, and making little charges at the
interrupter, not leaving his post till all had reached their sanctuary,
when he followed to the kopje, and turned with others to stand, barking
hoarsely, and picking up and throwing stones, with every sign of angry
defiance, till their persecutor disappeared.
Nine days had passed, and then the river began to shrink rapidly.
Dyke hailed the change with eagerness, for he had been growing terribly
anxious, and more and more convinced that something must be wrong, or
Emson would have come down to the flooded ford; while at last his
thoughts had taken a definite shape, one so full of horror, that he
trembled for the task he had to perform--that of going home to put
matters to the proof.
He shivered at the idea, for now he could only place this terrible
interpretation upon his brother's silence--he must have come to meet
him, tried to swim his horse across the river, and have been swept away.
That last night was almost sleepless, for whenever the boy dropped off,
with the light of the fire they kept up glancing on the canvas, he
started back into wakefulness again, wondering whether the river was
still going down, or some fancied sound meant a fresh accession to the
flood-waters coming down from the mountains.
The morning broke at last, and leaping out of the wagon, Dyke ran down
toward the river, closely followed by the dog, now nearly recovered,
scaring away a buck which had been lurking in the covert, the graceful
little creature bounding away before him giving pretty good proof of the
satisfactory state of the river by dashing over the thick bed of
intervening sand and stones, splashing through the water, and bounding
up the other side.
The waters were down, leaving a deep bed of sand, and with a place to
ford that was evidently not knee-deep.
Dyke ran excitedly back, gave his orders, and to Jack's great disgust he
had to inspan, mount on the wagon-box, and shout to the oxen to _trek_,
the well-rested beasts willingly dragging the wagon through the heavy
loose drift and down into the water, which did not rise to the naves of
the wheels. It took rather a hard pull to get up the other side, but
the difficulty was soon mastered, the bullocks following Breezy, as his
master led the way, and in half an hour after starting they were at last
well on the road to Kopfontein, whose rocky mound stood up clearly in
the morning light.
Dyke restrained his impatience a little longer--that is, till the wagon
was well on its way over the plain; then touching Breezy's sides he went
on ahead at a gallop, the roofing of the house and sheds gradually
growing plainer; then there were the ostrich-pens, with a few dimly seen
birds stalking about, and object after object coming rapidly into sight.
But there was no one visible: there appeared to be no blue thread of
smoke rising in the morning air, where Tanta Sal was boiling the kettle;
all looked wonderfully still, and had it not been for the ostriches here
and there, Dyke would have been disposed to think the place was
deserted.
On, still nearer and nearer, but no one appeared, and again still
nearer, and his lips parted to utter a loud shout to announce his
coming.
But somehow the cry froze in his throat, and he dared not utter it; the
place was deserted, he felt sure. Tanta Sal must have gone off to seek
her tribe after the terrible catastrophe, for Dyke felt sure now that
his surmise was right, and that Emson had been drowned in trying to ford
the river and come to meet him.
The boy's spirits sank lower and lower as he checked his horse's pace to
a canter, hushing the beat of its feet upon the soft sand as he rode on,
seeing no one stirring, and at last, in the deepest despair, feeling as
if he dare go no farther. But just at that moment a low crooning sound
fell upon his ear, and the reaction was so sudden and so great that Dyke
nearly shouted aloud as he pressed on to the door, feeling now that he
had been letting his imagination run riot, and that there was nothing
whatever the matter. In fact, that was his brother's tall gaunt horse
grazing where it had been hidden from his sight by one of the low,
shed-like buildings.
"What a lot of stuff one can fancy!" said Dyke to himself. "Why, it's
early yet, and poor old Joe hasn't got up. I'll give him such a
rouser."
The next minute he had pulled up, thrown his rein over the cob's head,
as he dismounted, and ran to the open doorway from whence came the
crooning sound.
"Morning, Tant," he cried to the woman, who sat crouched together on the
floor.
Then as his eyes caught sight of the pallet in the corner of the room,
he shouted:
"Joe, old man, what is it? Are you ill?"
"No makee noisy," cried the woman; "shoo, shoo, shoo. Baas Joe go die."