Jack and his ostrich

HER MAJESTY'S MAIL.

The postman took the letter from him and read the familiar address. Every time he had crossed that sandy waste for years, he had been stopped to take a letter for Mr. Treby, Nottingham, England. He looked Jack all over, as he said kindly, "You have had a long and dusty walk to overtake me here. It has been too much for you, my little man. Your letter shall go all right. Where is your father?"

"He is gone on a long journey, sir," answered Jack dolefully.

"Then keep your sixpence; I will give you the stamp. But do not try to walk back in the heat, or you will drop by the way. Lie down under one of the bushes and rest. Have you anything with you to eat?"

Jack shook his head. "I'm not hungry, sir."

"Hungry! No," repeated the postman; "you are past that. Why did not you send that letter by your father's man—the old fellow was waiting by the kopjee for the parcel I promised to bring your father—eh?"

"Please, sir, I came from Jaarsveldt," put in Jack.

"Jaarsveldt!" exclaimed Wilton in astonishment. "That is miles and miles away. You must not think of trying to go back there alone; you are a great deal nearer your old home. Keep to my tracks until you come to the kopjee, and then I think you will be able to find your way, for I have often seen you there by your father's side watching for my coming. Now mind what I say, and eat this," the postman continued, taking out his pocket-flask and pouring some of its contents over a piece of captain's biscuit.

Jack found it wonderfully reviving. One of the passengers who had been listening to the conversation threw him a bit of bultong—that is, meat cut in strips and dried in the wind; and a hand was stretched out from the inside of the cart with a nice slice of watermelon. Jack lifted his big hat and bowed all round.

Wilton reiterated his charges.

"Please, sir," said Jack earnestly, "I am not alone; I have got my ostrich," pointing to the hole where Vic still lay, with her head well buried in the sand, in a paroxysm of fear on account of the horses.

Jack wondered why the men all laughed. He promised faithfully to do as he was told; and away drove the post-cart, leaving him in that vast solitude once more. He watched "Her Majesty's mail" crossing the wild desert plain until it vanished to a dusky speck.

The rolling sand on every side surrounded him like an earthy sea, for it was driven in wave-like heaps by a sudden gust. An ice-cold wind was driving before it a cloud so dense and black Jack trembled, for he knew that thunder was lurking in its inky folds. He ran to Vickel, who was rallying her spirits, after the apparition of those prancing horses, by browsing among the rosemary bushes. She too had felt the change. A little black and white bird flew fast from ant-hill to ant-hill, seeking shelter from the coming storm.

Vickel began scratching a hole in the billowy sand with unusual vehemence, as a troop of eland deer rushed past within a dozen yards of the rosemary bush she had been munching. Jack crept in terror to her side, as the "velderbeeste" dashed madly on, and the first fierce lightning flash parted the blackening gloom.

Jack gave one cry—he could hardly help it—as the thunder crashed and rolled above his head. But his faithful Vic's broad wing was spread above two heads instead of one, as the bird and the boy huddled together in the hole she had been scooping.

It was an awful moment. Down came the heavy drops of thunder-rain. The tall grass waved and shivered. Aroused by Jack's wild cry, a quaint black figure crept cautiously out of a deserted ant-bear's hole, with which the ground was honey-combed, and looked around. Another and another jagged flash compelled her to fling herself on the ground to escape its fury.

Swiftly as the storm had arisen, so swiftly did it pass. Beyond the angry clouds a bright-hued rainbow spanned the wide reach of sky and kissed the crimsoned sand, that seemed to glow with a deeper red when the brightness of the golden sunshine was withdrawn.

To Jack's surprise Vickel began to hiss. He parted her feathers with his fingers and looked cautiously around.

The storm was dying, but every leaf was glittering with its sparkling diamond drop. The thirsty earth was already rejoicing; the very flowers seemed whispering, "Rain, more rain," as they lifted their drooping heads in grateful gladness.

The black had raised herself on one elbow, and was gazing earnestly at Vickel's damaged plumage. Those singed wings could not easily be mistaken. Like the hum of the wandering bee her song arose:—

"Lamb without a mother, where, oh, where?
 Bird without a heart,
 To leave the fair 'umfana' and depart;
 Or was the hard, hard casa hard to thee?
 And did he force a faithful bird to flee?"

Jack sprang to his feet and rushed towards the singer. The voice was the voice of the poor Black Antelope. He could have recognized that song had they met at the ends of the earth.

"Umfana," repeated Jack, catching the sound of the one Kafir word with which she had made him familiar. "Why, that was what she always called me, and Zyl was her 'umdanda,' now I recollect."

To make assurance doubly sure, Jack shouted, "Here's your old umfana."

"Ou ka! (Oh no)," cried the Black Antelope, springing to her feet, for she began to think the bird was talking; she could see no umfana (child) or umdanda (boy) anywhere.

Her frantic gesticulations, her wild cries, set Jack off laughing. She began to tear her hair, declaring it was a spook (a bogle) that was mocking her.

Up rose Vickel with a screaming hiss, leaving Jack tumbling in the sand. The next minute he found himself half hugged to death in the fervid embraces of the Kafir nurse.

"You did not expect to meet a six-foot hen with a two-handed chick, now did you?" asked Jack, kissing her fondly, as he felt her bony arm.

How sorry Jack was he had eaten all the food Mr. Wilton and his passengers had given him, for he was certain the poor girl was really starving. Like Vickel, she had been eating rosemary leaves. But her delight at finding Jack made her forget her own sufferings.

Yet, yet, she asked, why was her pet-lamb straying on the veldt? It was well they had met, for the homeless dog, as she called herself, could guard the lost lamb and save him from destruction. She drew him to a safer spot, and sitting down beside him, watched the parting clouds, for the lightning had not altogether ceased, and the thunder still rumbled behind the low sand-hills. Overhead the sky was clearing, and the arching rainbow shone with brightened hues.

Jack leaned against his Kafir friend, while Vickel strutted about, drying her feathers in the transient gleams of the returning sun. The air grew fresh and reviving. The sleep the postman had so earnestly recommended to Jack fell upon him unawares.

The Black Antelope had noticed at the first glance that her lamb had been shorn of his wavy curls, and now she perceived the traces of recent illness in his pale lips and hollow eyes. So she waited patiently beside him, flapping away the stinging flies with a long tuft of grass, that his sleep might be unbroken; and so the weary hours passed by.

When Jack at length awakened, the darkness of night had gathered around them. Vickel was roosting in the sand at their feet; but the glorious stars of the southern hemisphere were shining forth in all their splendour.

"There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard," thought Jack as he looked into the Kafir's eyes and then pointed upwards to their glittering light, and began to sing,—

"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
       Lead Thou me on!
 The night is dark, and I am far from home,
       Lead Thou me on!"

Oh, how she listened. The solemn stillness of the night oppressed them both. Jack was almost afraid to think, and altogether too proud to cry; yet in spite of himself a something rising in his throat choked his voice.

"Have I done wrong to venture here alone?" he asked. "I almost wish—but no—" He checked himself. "I won't mind, for I've done it. The letter is safe on its way to grandfather. Oh, if I could only have asked father what I had better do."

Then the sweet words of his hymn came back to him; and kneeling down amid the eerie, lonesome waste, he took the Black Antelope's hand in his, and coaxed her to kneel beside him as he repeated aloud,—

   "Our Father."

Yes, her Father as well as his, if she but knew it. Yet his prayer was for them both, as she dimly felt.

Jack had poured forth all his troubles, and his heart was lightened. They could do nothing but keep just where they were until daylight. "And then," thought Jack, "I shall see the tracks of the post-cart, and I'll take the poor Black Antelope home to Tottie; for all her trouble came through her kindness to me. It is hard when trouble comes through trying to do right."

Then sleep came slowly back again, and Jack was dreaming of the home he could not find.

At the peep of dawn he rose and began searching diligently for the track of the post-cart. Alas, alas! He could not find it. How was it? Had they wandered unconsciously from the spot? Or had the storm obliterated the deep wheel-ruts? He could not tell.

Jack tried to explain to his companion what it was that he was searching for, by drawing lines with his finger in the sand.

Both were faint for want of breakfast, and soon grew tired. The eagerness with which Jack had started on his fruitless search had dwindled to a lagging walk; but not one vestige of a cart-track could be discovered.

Then he sprang upon Vickel, who had made her breakfast on the scrubby grass as she loitered after them. Jack arranged her hood and bridle, and then invited the Black Antelope to mount beside him. Vickel was now so strong she could have carried a man on each shoulder with ease. She thought nothing of her added burden, and ran off as gaily as on the preceding day. She, at least, was in her native element, and every now and then turned a loving look to her master's face as she took a wider sweep, scouring the mighty plain in every direction.

At last the Kafir girl's quick eye detected the welcome lines ridging the wavy sand. She pointed them out to Jack with a cry of joy. The track of the post-cart at last, thought Jack, as he dropped the hood over Vickel's eyes and jumped off. But the Kafir was before him, running swiftly between the two deep ruts, which nothing smaller than the broad wheels of a heavily-laden waggon could have made.

Jack was thinking only of the way home; but the Black Antelope, with her larger experience of all the ups and downs a life on the veldt embraces, knew that the tracks could only be a few hours old, for the hoof-marks of the oxen were not yet effaced. She noticed them carefully to find out which way the waggon had gone; not that she wished to follow it, but she shrewdly conjectured that a few miles the other way they should find the spot where the waggon-driver had out-spanned for the night. Perhaps a waste crust or a half-picked bone might be dropped beside the ashes of his fire. She beckoned Jack to follow her; for he had paused, waiting for Vickel, who seemed wonderfully busy scratching about in the sand. At last she sat down in it.

So unlike her, Jack thought, as he went back to call her. The fear of losing his ostrich over-mastered every other feeling.

But for once in her life she refused to answer to his call. Would his Vickel grow wild and forsake him if they kept on wandering about the veldt? At last she got up with an air of importance, and began scratching up the sand vehemently.

He went close up to her before he could rouse her. Then he saw she was covering something up. Oh, joy, joy! His Vickel had laid her first egg!

He ran and picked it up. What a jolly egg it was! Almost as big as Jack's head, now he had lost his hair. He was certain it must weigh nearly two pounds and a half. He thought she might have chosen a better colour, for it was a dirty white marbled over with yellow. Jack took it up very carefully and held it up on high to show it to his companion. Jack never forgot the cry with which she bounded towards him and pounced upon the egg.

Snatching up a sharp stone, she made a small hole in the shell, and began to suck the rich nutritious yolk. Then remembering herself, she held it to Jack's lips, with a look so deprecating that it stopped his reproachful "Don't, don't!" For he saw that she was famishing. He took a sip. The welcome nourishment revived his spirits.

It was life to them both. They shared it between them, each trying to make the other take the lion's share. Hungry as they were, there was more than enough to satisfy them.

"My best and sweetest! My ownie and good!" cried Jack, as he kissed the breast of his snow-feathered queen, who walked beside him with added dignity.

The Black Antelope was right. An hour's walk brought them to the smoking ashes of a dying fire. She raked these carefully together with a bit of charred stick; and after signing to Jack to lie down and rest under the nearest bush, she began to search about for fuel—a difficult matter on an African plain; an almost hopeless quest now, for the waggoner who lit the fire had been before her. A few dead leaves under a bush that had been struck by the lightning, and a twig or two, were all that she could find.

She returned to Jack, who was dozing in the sunshine, and made up the fire, little dreaming that it was his own father who had lighted it on his return journey. She wandered forth a second time in search of water, confident that she should find it somewhere in the neighbourhood of the traveller's fire. Vickel's egg-shell served her for a cup when she found a tiny runlet, glistening like a silver braid amidst the scorching sand. A dead bird lay on the ground, another victim of last night's tempest. Her cry of joy brought Jack to her side to taste the delights of a cup of sun-warmed water in the burning heat of an African noon.

Then she roasted the bird in the ashes for their dinner, content to let the morrow take care for itself; whilst poor Jack grew every hour more uneasy. He knew now they had lost their way. The track they had found was not the track of the post-cart; for he too had noticed the foot-prints of the oxen, so different from the mark of the horse-shoes. His only hope was in Vickel's sagacity. She might yet find her way back to Tottie's hut.

XIV.

LOST ON THE VELDT.

THE glories of an African sunset were adding a more than usual radiance to sand and sky. Mr. Treby urged on his weary oxen as he came within sight of Jaarsveldt, with its long range of low farm-buildings and smiling orchard.

The Kafir guide he had engaged to accompany him on his homeward route was calling to the oxen.

Jack's father had had a most successful journey. He was returning with money in his pocket and a loaded waggon. Wilton, the postman, who had been the first to speak a word of sympathy on the morning after the fire, had not let his sympathy end in words. He had crossed Mr. Treby on the road as the mail went back to Natal, and had lent him money enough to rebuild the house; for the postman, receiving his regular pay from Government, had more actual money in reserve than Mr. Treby's other neighbours.

Mr. Treby had accepted the loan at once, for he knew his aged father in England would help him to repay it. So all his plans were changed. The diamond-digging was given up; his waggon was bringing back beams and roofing, doors and windows—in fact, a skeleton house. The helping hand so unexpectedly stretched out had cheered his heart. As he drove up to Jaarsveldt, the "oom" was standing by the open gate. He turned away his head at the sight of his English neighbour.

"Where is Jack?" was the father's first inquiry as his eyes looked eagerly round, hoping to catch sight of his boy.

The Kafir groom was hurrying to assist in the out-spanning of the oxen. All were running to welcome him; and yet, and yet, every face was averted. Van Immerseel wrung his hand with a heartiness which threatened dislocation of every joint, and groaned.

"Where is my boy?" repeated Mr. Treby, growing cold with fear.

The sturdy Dutchman paused blankly, then slowly pointed across the shadowy veldt. Somewhat re-assured, Mr. Treby entered the house. Tante Milligen's ruddy face grew white at the sight of their English neighbour. Genderen crept behind the door. The evening meal was preparing. With an added warmth of hospitality, the "tante" forced him into the "oom's" big chair, and began to drive about her maids as if nothing their plentiful household afforded could be good enough to set before their guest.

During his brief absence, Mr. Treby had made a point of adding to his Dutch vocabulary at every chance. He thought he had learned a good deal, but, strange to say, no one at Jaarsveldt seemed to understand a single word. In his despair, he asked for Otto.

"Jah, jah," repeated Van Immerseel, and a messenger was despatched for the shepherd.

Mr. Treby concluded his Jack was away with the young Immerseels, for neither Walt nor Zyl was visible. A little comforted by this idea, he began his supper with the appetite of a hunter; but it suddenly failed him when Otto entered. The German's face was livid with conflicting feelings, as he assured the anxious father that Van Immerseel and all his family had been kindness itself to the boy, but the ungrateful young dog had run away and never been heard of since.

"My Jack!" exclaimed Mr. Treby, in tones of bitter anguish, as he pictured his boy dying of hunger in that vast sandy wilderness. "O God what men are these, to have kept my sordid pelf and lost my child!"

The silent Dutchman met the agonized reproach in his tear-blinded eyes with a look of stolid compassion, as he directed the shepherd to tell him they had just returned from a fruitless search, and that Walt was still scouring the veldt in another direction with his dogs and the Kafir groom. They had done everything they could to find the child, but in vain.

Mr. Treby turned away his head, but he could not hide the quiver of anguish he was struggling to control. Tante Milligen rocked herself backwards and forwards; her husband rose from his seat and stood beside the unhappy father.

They knew they had acted generously and hospitably to the Englishman and his child, and they saw his heart was bursting with reproach and blame. Poor fellow! He was wild with grief! The "oom" would rather have faced an angry elephant in his lair than own to that doting father that they had lost his child.

"No more dread of you supplanting me," thought Otto as he looked from one to the other, and tried, by his covert insinuations on either hand, to turn grief into anger. He thought he should find it easy work to set the Dutch and English by the ears; and he might have succeeded, had it not been for little Sannie.

She had been laid to sleep in her usual corner, but the entrance of Mr. Treby had roused her. For a while she sat up and listened unnoticed by any one. Then she got up slowly, and walking deliberately to Mr. Treby she struck him on the knee, exclaiming in tones of severe reproach that at any other time would have made them all laugh,—

"'Ou big baby! 'Ou cry! 'Ou go look for poor Jock Trairbee. Sannie 'll be your voorlooper."

Away she trotted to the open door. Otto thought to fetch her back, but she fought him off, asserting,—

"Me won't have 'ou. 'Ou hate Jock Trairbee. 'Ou do that at him," she persisted, imitating the scowl and the menacing gesture of the shepherd. "'Ou don't want to find him; 'ou stay there."

Tante Milligen repeated the imperious command of her youngest born.

And Otto resumed his seat, refusing to notice the idle prattle of a child. But no one echoed his laugh.

"God bless the baby! She speaks more sense than any of us," muttered her father.

As drowning men catch at straws, Mr. Treby exclaimed, "That child knows something; let us follow her."

"Ridiculous!" cried Otto.

"But it is true," retorted Genderen.

The two fathers went out.

Otto would have followed; but Tante Milligen, who was a formidable woman when she was roused, being six feet high, and broad and strong in proportion, took the German by the shoulders and turned him round. But all her cross-questioning failed to elicit more than that the English boy had been impertinent and Otto cross. Yet no one was satisfied.

Sannie met her brothers at the gate. Their jaded horses told of the many miles of sand which had been traversed. Weary as they were, no one thought of rest. "Search" was the word with them all. Walt, who had taken Jack under his protection from the first, refused to give up hope. Van Immerseel took Sannie in his arms, and leading Zyl aside, questioned him about Otto's behaviour to Jack.

Zyl remembered the morning when they visited the shepherd's hut.

"But," persisted Sannie, "it was Jock Trairbee's own knife. Me know it was. He cut my beauty letters."

"Run into the house, Zyl, and tell your mother not to let the shepherd stir from the sit-kamé until I come back," said Van Immerseel, as he strode off in his high-handed fashion to search the shepherd's hut.

The knife lay upon the shelf, as the children had said. Mr. Treby knew it in a moment. After that night, Otto's dismissal was sure; but they were no nearer finding Jack.

All this did not take place unnoticed by the Kafirs about the farm. With their acute power of observation on the alert, they were soon aware that the German shepherd was suspected of having a hand in Jack's disappearance. The little gifts which Mr. Treby had scattered among them the night before his departure were not forgotten, and many a dark brow scowled upon Otto. But in spite of Van Immerseel's threats and Mr. Treby's entreaties, Otto refused to give any account of his quarrel with Jack; and still the fruitless search went on.

Jack had not gone home—that alone was certain. Van Immerseel had sent over to the ruined farm directly the boy was missed. Seco and Tottie had been on the lookout ever since. Mr. Treby never doubted Jack had lost himself trying to find his way to his old home, and therefore, like Van Immerseel, began his search in that direction.

One night, when they returned utterly disheartened, the Kafir groom walked up to the heart-broken father with a hat under one arm and a pair of boots under the other.

"Inkoos! Casa! (master and chief)," said his countryman the guide, turning to Mr. Treby, "this man tells you to look for your child here." Then he went on to explain how the big bird bellowed one night like a bull, and the shepherd's hat was found at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft where Jack had slept, and the shepherd's boots hidden in the straw.

Mr. Treby was distracted when Tante Milligen herself added her experiences to the mystery of that night, and how Jack tried to make her understand he dare not sleep alone again.

How was Mr. Treby ever to find out the truth about his lost darling amidst a confusion of tongues he could not understand? Ah, but if he could not comprehend the jargon around him, Seco would; so he determined to start at once and fetch the trusty old Hottentot to his aid. What would he have given for one sympathizing countryman? He thought perhaps the reckless young schoolmaster would be coming again. But no; Tante Milligen had sent a message to delay him. She was not going to pay for nothing; and what could the children learn while their hearts were aching for their lost companion?

Mr. Treby bought a horse of Van Immerseel, and started on his homeward road. He felt as if he had grown to be all ear and eye as he trotted across the lonely veldt. When he drew near the blackened ash-heap that had been his home, he said that the joy of his life was quenched beneath it, and his tears, when there was no eye but God's to watch him, rained freely down. But hark! There was a sound—a deep, hoarse boom. Surely he knew it.

"Vic! Vic! Vic!" he shouted, spurring his horse forward in the direction from whence it came. Out ran Tottie from her tumble-down hut; up sprang Seco from the mat where he was dozing. They had all heard it.

"'Tis as I said," he exclaimed; "the ostrich is drawing home."

He caught up a calabash of mealies, out of which Vickel had so often been fed, and scanning the vast distance, where sand and sky melted into one, he shouted joyfully. There was something moving on the veldt, like a small gray cloud at first, but gradually shaping itself into outstretched wings.

Mr. Treby got off his horse, and tied it to a shrub of prickly pear, for fear it should scare away the returning bird.

Nearer and nearer still it came, louder and louder grew the master's call. The three stood breathless, afraid of driving back the vagrant bird if they continued running towards it. But what was Mr. Treby's dismay to perceive a grinning Kafir face peering over Vickel's shoulder.

When a wild cry of "Father! Father!" echoed through the evening stillness.

"Jack! Jack!" responded Mr. Treby, darting forward like an arrow from a bow; but Seco, exerting all the speed of a wild hunter, outran him, and placing the calabash full in Vickel's sight, brought her to a standstill. Mr. Treby saw nothing but a little sun-burnt skeleton stretching its arms towards him. Could that be his Jack—his handsome Jack?

Another moment, and bird and child and Kafir were caught in a grasp so tight, Jack could only gasp out, "Father, she has saved me."

For Seco had seized upon a large stone to hurl at the poor blackie's head, believing she had stolen their darling to make "mouti" (medicine) from his heart and brain, according to their wild Kafir ways.

But at Mr. Treby's word the stone rolled back upon the ground. Between them the two men guided Vickel home, while Jack poured out his story to their delighted ears.

"I only wanted to post my letter, father; but somehow I could not get back," he pleaded piteously.

"Jack," retorted Mr. Treby, "how could you, how dare you, run so great a risk? Hadn't I charged you to take care of yourself, my boy? Don't you know you are my very life, my precious boy? You've had a hair's-breadth escape." And at the thought of all the perils his child had undergone, a sort of sob choked his words. A huge hug finished all he meant to say, and drowned Jack's promises.

"Father dear, I will take care, only you see—"

And Mr. Treby did see, thinking in his fatherly pride and joy his boy was just the bravest and the best in all the world. "Only, Jack, you must learn to consider the consequences. Think of all we have gone through just think."

Jack did think; and truly his best way was to tell his father all straight and clearly as it happened. Mr. Treby's eyes flashed fire as he heard how Otto had treated his boy; but he never uttered a word to interrupt him, until Vickel tucked her long head under her master's arm, and looked up in his face with her beautiful eyes, as if she said, "I've brought him safely home."

Mr. Treby's head went lower and lower. Jack really thought he kissed his snowy queen. He was sure his father muttered, "Yes, yes, you've been his guardian angel—saved and fed him."

"Yes, father; but I'm so sorry we've eaten all Vic's eggs, but the poor Black Antelope was so hungry."

Then Mr. Treby turned and grasped the skinny black fingers, trying to make the poor runaway understand she should always find in him a protector and a friend.

By this time they had reached the hut, and he left her to Tottie's care, telling the old Hottentot to find out, if she could, how he should best reward and serve the luckless girl.

"Buy her," said Tottie coolly.

Mr. Treby threw up his hands in despair. "God help us!" he exclaimed. "See what it is to live among savages. Just hear her, 'asking' an Englishman to buy human flesh and blood."

"But you won't send her back to Van Immerseel, father?" entreated Jack.

"There is not anything that I possess that I would not freely give her at this moment, and think it all too small, for I am very sure I owe your life to her and Vickel. But Englishmen make no slaves, my boy. Well, well, I shall have to do it though—buy her, and give her her freedom; that must be it. And then we can't turn her adrift on the veldt; we must hire her for a while, and then we'll see what more we can do."

"That we will, father," cried Jack, with brightening eyes, as they all sat down under the garden hedge.

Seco had gone to his hut for milk and fruit for the famished travellers.

"'For this my son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found,'" said Mr. Treby reverently. "Trouble springs up thick and fast," he went on, with Jack's head resting on his shoulder; "but trace it home, it is all of man's making, and we should be crushed beneath its weight if there were not One above over-ruling all, and more ready to help us in our hour of need than we to ask."

"But I did ask, father," whispered Jack; "and I think the Lord heard me."

"Never doubt it, my boy. Prayer is the ladder which reaches up to heaven, and it is always ours.

   "'It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.'

"It was just that thought kept me up when my heart was breaking for you; and now—and now—Well, I have only to pour it out in thanksgiving."

"Both of us together, father," murmured the happy boy, as his eyes feasted on every dear familiar object the fire had spared.

XV.

MR. TREBY'S DINNER-PARTY.

SIX weeks of hard work had passed away, and Jack's father had a roof over his head once more. He said it was the flood of happiness that overflowed his bounding heart when Jack was found, that enabled him to do twice as much work as he could at any other time in his life. Seco had been sent with the good news to Jaarsveldt, and brought back a pressing invitation for Jack to return there until the house was finished. But Mr. Treby shook his head.

"No, no," he said; "we'll part no more. Come what may, we'll rough it together, Jack."

Yet Jack did often wonder what Zyl and Genderen and Sannie were doing, and wished the farms were just a little nearer, so that they might see one another now and then. Neither did Mr. Treby forget their kindness to his boy.

"I tell you what, Jack," he said at last; "as soon as the house is finished, we'll have a grand day, and ask Van Immerseel to bring all his family to eat the first dinner in it with us."

Jack was full of glee. How he worked and slaved at the preparations—now raking out the rubbish from the garden, now helping his father with the carpentering, and busiest of all when his father trusted him with the paint-brush. An arbour was built in the shadiest nook he could find. The Black Antelope, with an apron of Tottie's tied over her scarlet blanket, was with Jack's assistance making herself a gown. There was not much to be said for its shape and work. Jack insisted upon it that it must have sleeves and a skirt; and the Black Antelope protested that the bags for the arms must be loose, or she should feel as if her arms were tied. She was learning fast a mixture of Hottentot and English, which Jack understood better than any one.

Life was running in the old grooves once again, except the watching for the English post. That had been altogether forgotten by Jack, and his father never spoke about the letter to grandfather which had almost cost Jack his life; for the thought of the poor child wandering in the veldt was more than he could bear. He could not talk about it yet; the very mention of it overcame him. But for all that the answer arrived by the return mail.

There was a thick letter for Mr. Treby, full of sympathy and consolation, assuring him his old father had sent him all he could spare to help him up the hill, and promising more by-and-by. Inside it there was another for Jack himself; and, odder still, a third for Sandford Algarkirke. Mr. Treby was entreated in a postscript to forward this to the young man at once, if he knew anything of his whereabouts.

There was something also in Mr. Treby's letter about Jack, which made him look up with proud, astonished eyes and murmur a fond, "God bless him!"

But Jack neither saw nor heard, for he was absorbed in his own, quite overwhelmed, in fact, by the dignity of receiving a letter of his own. It read as follows:—

   "MY DEAR LITTLE GRANDSON,—That was a wonderful find of yours. That a bank-note should be lost in Nottingham and found in South Africa seems to me little short of a miracle. As soon as I had read your letter, I took my hat and stick and off I went to Hawkswood Hall. It was a good step for me, but I managed it by resting a bit here and there. For my little grandson's sake, I determined to give the note into the lady's own hands.

   "The servants told me she was just going out and could not see me then. So I took out the note you had found, and told them to ask her if it was not her own handwriting; and if it were, they might say something else had been found with it which I wished to restore to her. I knew very well it was, for I had had many a note from her about the coal-club I started in the winter.

   "Back came the footman with, 'Step this way, sir;' and he took me into a large room full of pictures and pretty things. There sat Mrs. Featherstone, with the tattered note spread out on a little table beside her. There was an eager look in her face that spoke of pain rather than pleasure.

   "'I can hardly believe my eyes, Mr. Treby,' she began before I was well in at the door. 'But where, where in the whole world was this discovered?'

   "'Where you would little think, ma'am—in the wilds of South Africa,' I said.

   "'Was there anything in it?' she gasped.

   "'Yes, ma'am—this.' And I spread the bank-note before her. First she turned crimson, then white as death itself. I thought she was fainting, so I looked round the room for the bell and rang it sharply. Whilst the servants were coming, I hobbled to the window and got it open.

   "'Don't!' she gasped. 'Only tell me all quickly.'

   "'As soon as you feel better, I'll read you my grandson's letter, and then you will know as much as I do.' I took out my glasses and began to clear them; but she couldn't wait that minute. She almost snatched the letter out of my hand, so I let her read it for herself. Presently she looked up.

   "'You must leave me this.'

   "I shook my head over that. 'Part with my grandson's first letter! No, no.'

   "'Then wait,' she implored, 'while I send for Mr. Bourke. The loss of this note has made us bitter enemies. I sent it to him to head a subscription list, but it never reached him. I charged his landlady with stealing it; he charged my messenger. Two innocent people have been injured—perhaps irreparably injured. And now here it is. Imagine what my feelings are. I can never express my gratitude to your grandson. You must tell me how I can best I reward his honesty, his sterling honesty.'

   "'He will find a rich reward when I tell him what you say,' I put in. 'Two innocent people cleared through him.'

   "'Yes, through his courageous honesty. A man could not have acted more prudently. You ought to be proud of him,' she went on.

   "'No need to tell me that,' I said. 'He is the very joy of his father's life. He'll make an upright, honourable man to take his father's place; for as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.'

   "Whilst we were talking, in came the clergyman and his son. I liked the lad's face. He was a big, broad-shouldered young fellow, fresh from a military college.

   "'Is it found?' asked the young cadet eagerly. 'Broad as my back may be, it has felt the weight of the blame I have had to bear for giving the note to Sandford Algarkirke, when I ought to have taken it myself.'

   "'We have both of us been wrong, Mrs. Featherstone,' said the clergyman gravely. 'You and I refused to believe this money had been lost; we both agreed it must have been stolen. You fixed upon my housekeeper as the thief; and I, in my indignation at such injustice, determined to clear her by hunting out the real offender, and threatened to prosecute him, whoever he might prove to be. You persisted in believing Algarkirke's assertion, that he could not recollect what he did with the note, but as it was not in his pocket, he must have left it at my door.'

   "'I warned him,' interrupted the soldier, 'he was likely to get into an unpleasant business, and begged him to try to remember. Like a coward, he took himself off to avoid the nuisance of the investigation. "The most foolish thing he could do," we all exclaimed. Of course suspicion fastened on him at once, and if he had set foot in England, he would have been taken by the police.'

   "'Now read this letter,' interrupted Mrs. Featherstone.—'I wish you would leave it with us, Mr. Treby.'

   "I was obliged to consent. They all promised to take the greatest care of it, and return it safely, saying such handsome things of you, my Jack, that it brought the tears into your old grandfather's eyes.

   "In the evening young Bourke called, and asked me if I would enclose a note for Sandford Algarkirke to my son; for since it appeared he had bought a coat of him, he might know where to find him, which none of them did. So I promised him you and your father would do your best to find the foolish young fellow. Then he began to tell me how he was longing to reward my noble grandson.

   "'Gently, gently,' I interrupted. 'Gentlemen don't take rewards for doing right.'

   "'Well, anyhow, he shall hear from us all, and that before long,' he cried.

   "So we shook hands most heartily; and I sat down to write this letter, and charge you never to part with that ostrich. What would I give to see you and your bird before I die!—Your delighted grandfather,

"JOHN TREBY.

   "P.S.—I have written to your dear father about all his troubles. Be a good boy to him, and keep his courage up."

It was a happy moment for Jack when he laid down his grandfather's letter; and a happier still for Mr. Treby as he ran his eye over the closely-written page.

"Well, well," he said; "we'll give the letter for that young scatter-brain to Van Immerseel. He is sure to be at Jaarsveldt before long. But we've some weighty matters to consider before our Dutch neighbours arrive. There is a haunch of elk venison to be roasted and a game pie to be manufactured between us; and it strikes me I shall make a better out of it than Tottie, although I am not a Frenchman. Anyhow, we must try."

So to work they went, sunning themselves in grandfather's letter. The great effort, the risk, the peril, had not been all in vain.

"But they little think of all that effort cost," added Mr. Treby, with a deep-drawn sigh.

"Never mind, father," whispered Jack. "Now it's all over, let's be happy. Here they are!"

Jack pointed as he spoke to a lumbering vehicle, half gig, half cart, in which Van Immerseel was seated with his wife beside him, and Sannie, radiant in her Sunday attire, jolting on her mother's knee. Then came Walt upon his favourite hunter, with Genderen riding pillion behind him. Not a dozen yards behind them, Zyl was to be seen jogging along in the Hottentot's cart with the English schoolmaster.

"This is good luck, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Treby, as he ran out to welcome his guests. "Where's my voorlooper?" asked Mr. Treby, as he took Sannie in his arms and kissed her fondly; for his heart had gone out to the Dutch baby, when she struck him on the knee and bade him look again for his Jack when everybody else was giving him up for dead.

But he was obliged to give her up to Jack, who rather shrank from meeting Van Immerseel, who roared out in his stentorian tones that he was coming to pay him for all his tricks.

XVI.

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S GRATITUDE.

"I HAVE a note for you, Algarkirke," said Mr. Treby, when he had seen all his guests comfortably established—biped and quadruped alike enjoying the "good feed" he had provided in his hearty English hospitality.

The schoolmaster was in such constant request as interpreter that it was some minutes before he had a chance to open his letter. As it bore no post-mark, he concluded it must have come from some one in the neighbourhood. Possibly it held the promise of a future scholar; so he put it in his pocket to await some more convenient opportunity.

"It is from England," added Mr. Treby, in a low aside.

Algarkirke grew strangely pale, and crushed it out of sight. "Not a word before these Boers; remember your promise," he whispered, turning away from Mr. Treby to join in Walt Immerseel's boisterous mirth.

Mr. Treby carved his venison in thoughtful silence, whilst the whole family of the Immerseels did ample justice to his English fare.

When knives and forks were at last allowed to rest, and the great basket of fruit which Tante Milligen had brought with her was placed upon the table, Mr. Treby looked round for Jack.

He was expostulating with Zyl, who had taken the very best of the peaches on to his own plate, and then refused to taste them.

Jack was calling upon Mr. Algarkirke to find the reason why.

"Why?" repeated the schoolmaster laughing. "Because he means to plant them himself in your garden after dinner."

"Jack," said Mr. Treby, "come here, my boy, and tell your kind Dutch friends how sorry you are to have given them so much anxiety and trouble; and thank them as you ought for all they did to find you."

"Father, won't you speak for me? You'll make them understand ever so much better than I can," answered Jack coaxingly.

"No, no," returned Mr. Treby. "Just tell them how you lost yourself, and why you went away, that they may feel you are not the ungrateful boy you seemed."

"Please, Mr. Algarkirke," asked Jack, "will you tell it in Dutch after me?"

Glad of any diversion from the painful surprise Mr. Treby's words had awakened, and afraid of betraying his real feelings, Algarkirke assented readily.

Zyl, with his elbows on the table, greedily devoured every word with open mouth, as Jack recounted his adventures with Vickel in the sandy waste.

Jack did not like to tell tales of Otto to the Boer. He only said he wanted to post a letter to his grandfather.

Here Mr. Treby interposed with, "You need not mind speaking about Otto, for he has left Jaarsveldt for good."

The "oom" gave a low assenting grunt of satisfaction; and Jack went back in his story to describe the finding of the bank-note.

Up sprang Algarkirke, and seizing Jack by the collar, he thundered out, "That coat was mine, and anything found in it should have been given to me. How dare you send it away, you wretched little rascal! I'll never forgive you, never!"

Jack was startled by the fury of Algarkirke's tones.

Walt sprang to his feet, and Zyl doubled his fists, ready to punch the schoolmaster's head.

But Jack answered toughly,—

"Mr. Algarkirke, you quite forget I did not know where you were, and the bank-note was not yours; so I sent it to grandfather to give it back to the lady it really belonged to, and he has done it. You can read his letter if you like."

"I rather think you had better before you thrash my Jack," observed Mr. Treby dryly.

Jack pulled the letter out of his pocket and offered it to Algarkirke. Zyl and his big brother eyed him whilst he read, like two young bull-dogs preparing for a spring; but their indignation was somewhat appeased when Algarkirke flung down the paper and grasped Jack's hand.

"Am I dreaming?" he demanded. "By what magic have you done all this? Can it be true?"

"Why don't you read your own letter, Mr. Algarkirke?" retorted Jack. "It came in grandfather's, as he says."

The bewildered schoolmaster obeyed.

His note was brief:—

   "DEAR SANDFORD,—Come back. The mystery is explained. Letters from Nottingham and remittances will await you at Pretoria. Return to us, and the past will be made up to you. I dare not write more plainly, not knowing whether this will ever reach you. But I snatch at the chance, for the man who bought my old coat of you may be able to find you out.—Your miserable friend, HORACE BOURKE."

"Farewell to Africa, and hurrah for merry England!" shouted Algarkirke, tossing the letter to the ceiling and catching it again, whilst the stolid Dutch faces around him stared in blank amazement. "Jack, Jack! You've been my good genius in very truth. Come along with me and I'll take you to England and make a man of you, my boy," he ran on.

"I rather think he bids fair to develop into that already, without wanting help of yours," observed Mr. Treby. "But how about this coat I bought of you? It's yours, and it's not yours, and I am earnestly requested in my letter of this morning to send it back to England."

"Horace Bourke and I were school-fellows," began Algarkirke. "We met one day at a village cricket match near Hawkswood Hall. One of the boys got hurt. Horace took his bat. As he pulled off his coat, he threw it to me, saying, 'Take care of it for me, Sandford, for there is a note in the pocket for father.'

"While they were playing, a bull broke loose from a neighbouring farm, and rushed into the field, scattering the cricketers, who ran for their lives, I among the rest. Horace snatched up one of the stumps and tried to drive the beast away. He shouted to me to fetch his gun. 'And give the note for father to one of our people, so that he gets it in time,' he added.

"Off I ran towards the parsonage. Before I reached it a thunder-storm came on. I threw his coat over my shoulders to keep myself dry. I got the gun, but forgot all about the note. Alarmed for his young master's safety, the gardener went back with me.

"When we gained the field we found the bull had been shot by its owner. I could not see anything of Horace, so I gave the man the gun and told him I must borrow the coat to go home in, as it still continued to pour. Before I had a chance to return the coat, Horace wrote to ask which of his father's people had taken the note from me, as it had never reached him.

"I started up in a fright and felt in the pockets of the coat, but as there was nothing in them I thought I must have left the note with the woman who gave me the gun, but the scare with the bull had put it all out of my head. That was how I answered him. Then I went on a tour with an old chum to get rid of the bother. When it came out there was money in the note, and I was charged with stealing it, my mother was frightened out of her senses. She packed up my belongings, and Horace's coat with them; for he privately entreated her not to send it back, not to let any one know I had taken it home, as it would go against me. She charged me to prolong my tour, but not to send her any address. We only communicated under cover to my Dutch friends at Amsterdam, and that but rarely, so that I had begun to think I was expatriated for life. No one but my mother believed in my innocence, and she reproached me with having brought all this trouble on myself by my confounded carelessness."

The "oom" blew a great whiff of smoke from his long clay pipe, and gave a nod to his sons that said plainly, "Are you listening to that, boys? Take the lesson home."

Zyl flung a snort of contempt at his schoolmaster, and kicked his heels remorselessly against the legs of Mr. Treby's new chairs.

Algarkirke went on, impetuously. "But you, Jack, you are the best friend I ever had in all my life, for you have cleared me. When my mother knows what you have done, there will be nothing that is in her power that she would not do for you in return."

"Oh, nonsense, Mr. Algarkirke," interrupted Jack, mindful of his grandfather's words. "It was Vic found it, not I. I am only so glad to have been some good in the world already."

Genderen, who had been whispering with her mother, touched Algarkirke's arm. "Talk with us about that." She smiled significantly.

Mr. Treby glanced approvingly at his boy. "And even now," he thought, "Algarkirke does not realize what this has cost you. But he is a more wretched cad than I take him to be if I can't make him feel before we part the moral difference between a boy who asks himself, What ought I to do? What would be right? And then does the best he can, without a thought of the consequences, and a selfish fellow, who only wants to shirk all responsibility and back out of everything disagreeable. It may open his eyes and make a change in his own character, for after all it is character shapes our destiny, both here and hereafter."

Aloud he said: "Keep on with your story, Jack, while you have so good an interpreter as Mr. Algarkirke. The Van is growing impatient."

As Mr. Treby spoke, the worthy Boer was thundering on the table with his clenched fist to recall Jack's attention.

Jack did not want to say any more about himself. It seemed to him so like being his own trumpeter. He grew hot at the thought, but his father urged him on with—"Remember the poor Black Antelope. We may never have such another chance to reinstate her in her old master's good graces. You must plead for her, my boy. No one but you can do it half so well."

"Yes, father, I must, I ought, and I will," answered Jack, as Walt hoisted him on a chair, exclaiming, "Jah, Jah!" for he had guessed the purport of Mr. Treby's last aside.

Zyl muttered an emphatic "Go it," a new English phrase he had picked up in the last three days, when Sannie appeared in the doorway, tugging with all her might at the scanty skirt of the unlucky Kafir.

It must be admitted that Jack's first essay at "tailoring" had not produced a West End fit. The grotesqueness of her appearance threw Tante Milligen into a fit of laughter. It was a happy moment. The pardon was granted before the pleading was well begun. Mr. Treby's Kafir guide, who, under pretence of driving Vickel away from Sannie, continued to linger round the door, began to gesticulate violently.

"Inkoos, casa," he began, in the picturesque language of his tribe, "lift up the bruised rosebud these men have trampled in the dust, and give her to me. I've room in my kraal for just such a wife, and I've sheep and oxen to buy her with; and no man shall wrong her any more, for the spear that stands in the corner of my hut would be swift as the lightning to strike him, and the heart which beats in my bosom beats only for her."

There was a softer glow in the downcast eyes of the Kafir girl than Jack had ever seen there before as his father answered,—

"She is free to go or stay as she chooses; but if she goes with you, Madzook, it shall not be empty-handed. The brindled heifer, and the pail and the English churn which she so admires, are all her own. She will tell you how she watched over my boy, and she takes a father's blessing with her wherever she goes."

"She deserves all her happiness," said Algarkirke humbly; "but it is not so with me. I see by Jack's face, he is thinking of the night when he wanted me to speak up for her, and I would not, because I despised the low, black cattle, and hated myself to think a similar misfortune could overwhelm us both. I had no feeling for anybody but myself. I thought if I had tried to help her, I should only let loose my own shame. It was better to stand aloof. And now I could wish my whole life undone."

"Cheer up," said Mr. Treby kindly. "Remember what I said to you when first we met. If the old self is dead, you may climb to a higher and a happier life. You've had hard lines, my poor boy, and you never heard the still small voice that was whispering through it all, 'Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.' But we must not speak of a day until we see its close; for Christ is ever with us, sowing light in the darkness, drawing good from evil, changing the curse into a blessing in his own good time."

And so they parted.

Three days afterwards the Hottentot cart from Jaarsveldt appeared once more at Mr. Treby's gate. Mr. Treby recognized the mining yellow face of the Jaarsveldt cow-keeper.

"What's up?" he asked as Zyl and Genderen tumbled out of the lumbering vehicle with more than their usual awkwardness.

They did not perceive Mr. Treby, as they were intently looking after something behind the cart. Zyl held a rope in his hand, and as Mr. Treby drew nearer, he saw that he was leading a splendid male ostrich, with brilliant eyes and plumage of the purest white.

"Where is Jack?" they asked, as Seco hurried up to greet his countryman.

"They shall have it their own way," thought Mr. Treby. "I won't spoil the children's pleasure by interfering before I know what they are after." He stepped into the garden and sent Jack to meet his friends.

Seco stood by his countryman with his hands to his sides, laughing with all his might, whilst Genderen called up Vickel. She came slowly, with her head on one side, eying the new arrival, which Zyl still contrived to keep well in leash.

Mr. Treby paused with his hand on the garden gate, for Genderen's slow Dutch, filtered through Hottentot into Jack's English, was amusing in the extreme. "Enough to make a cat laugh," he said.

"What have you brought your Speriwig here for?" shouted Jack in great glee.

"Never you mind," retorted Zyl. "Algarkirke's gone for good, and we shall all be dunces, I suppose."

"He thought a great deal about Vickel," put in Genderen, with her fingers in her mouth, of course. "You know you told him all his good luck was owing to her. He said he should send her a silver collar from England. Nonsense, we told him, what would a bird care about that? Get her a nice mate, and she will be as happy as the day is long. So he made a deal with father when they squared all up. He said if he had money enough to take him to Pretoria that was all he wanted. He was in such a hurry to be gone, he left father to get in the money that was owing him for schooling at the off farms. And Vickel's to have Speriwig."

"Speriwig, will get his own living browsing on the veldt, as Vickel does," added Zyl; "and if you have a brood of chicks, Jack, you need not mind."

There was a sly twinkle in the Dutch boy's eyes as he rubbed his hands together, and even Mr. Treby had to own it was cleverly done.

Sandford Algarkirke was beyond the reach of either thanks or refusals, as Zyl averred. Jack must pocket his English pride and let his Vickel keep her mate.

"It was all my plan," observed Genderen, her round face radiating with pleasure. "I was sure it would please Jack better than anything else; and now, if he takes care of his chicks, by the time he is a man, he will have as fine a flock of ostriches as any farmer in Africa."

"Do you hear that, Jack?" said Mr. Treby, coming forward. "Like Whittington's cat, your snow-feathered queen will make you a wealthy man."

Jack drew a deep breath of gratitude and delight as he looked up in his father's face, exclaiming, "Oh, isn't it kind of Mr. Algarkirke? I always did like him very much, except when he called Sannie 'a fatted calf,' Why didn't she come with you?"

"Oh, Sannie!" grumbled Zyl. "You are never easy without Sannie."

As usual Zyl was right. Jack never was quite happy without her any more, and when the wealthy manhood his father had predicted drew near, he went one day to Jaarsveldt and brought her home a bride.

THE END.