Chapter Seventeen.
Abe Pike and the Ghon-ya.
Old Abe had strolled over to my place to see a new Harvester tried on a good crop of wheat. In the previous reaping season I had been left suddenly in the lurch by my Kaffirs, who had silently vanished in the night for other scenes without a word of explanation, or a single regret for the loss they would put me to, and I determined to be prepared in future for such another vagary. Hence the Harvester, which reaped the corn and bound up the sheaves, aided only by one man and a boy. We were just sweeping clear the last square in the small field when Abe came up and hung himself on the fence, with his back bent like a bow, and his toes hitched under the lower wire. There, all bunched up, he eyed the machine in silence.
“Well, Uncle, what do you think of it?” I said, with some pride, as the last sheaf was tossed on one side by the human-like grippers.
He looked at me vacantly, then climbed slowly down, examined the sheaf and the tie, and then took a look all round the country.
“Things is changing,” he said.
“Yes; this is the age of progress and electricity.”
“And snorting steam engines and that there man machine—that thing without a heart, or a stomach, or eyes to see. Where’s the good?”
“It is a labour-saving machine, and enables me to produce more.”
“’Tis all vanity, an’ foolishness, an laziness—that’s what. Laziness and pride,” and the old sinner, who never did a fair day’s work in a month, wore an air of virtuous indignation as he resumed his seat on the fence.
“Things is changing—that’s so; and mankind’s on the down track. Time was when a reaper would take his sickle and harken to the rustlin’ of the yaller corn as he cut his way along, with the smell o’ the yearth in his nostrils, and the sight of all manner o’ living insects below him. And bymby he would straighten his back and look away over the land, or at the shining layers behind, and then he would stoop to it again with the thoughts busy in his mind as bees about a comb concerning the going out of the wheat in waggons an’ trains, an’ ships across the sea to the feeding of the nations. An’ look at this yer cast-iron reaper; what’s it good for but to work for a cast-iron man? That’s what’s the world’s comin’ to, with all the people cast in a mould. I’m gwine home!”
“Nonsense; come back with me and try the new lot of rolled tabak from the Transvaal.”
For all his disgust with the Harvester, Uncle Abe did not mind “riding,” to the house on the driver’s seat; neither was he cast down after supper when he sat out on the stoep. The day’s work was done for man and beast and the great quiet of the evening brooded over the place. There we sat and smoked in silence, until the glow died out of the sky, when the night creatures began to stir, sending forth inquiring notes as if to assure themselves that the time was really at hand for the starting of the wonderful orchestra of the insect band. And, as we listened, there rang out above the shrill drummings and chirpings and whistling, the weird, mournful cry of the “ghon-ya,” calling “ghon-ya!” “ghon-ya!” at regular intervals, until the melancholy of its far-reaching cry stilled the other noisy voices.
Abe stirred uneasily. “There’s the lost sperrit,” he muttered.
“Why, that’s the night locust!”
“Soh; jes’ a locust.”
“Yes, with a transparent drum in place of a body which he blows out when he wishes to make that noise, and rubs his legs upon the drum.”
“How big is this yer drum?”
“About as large as a hen’s egg.”
“So; and with such a small thunder-bag he can send out a noise that booms further than the greatest drum in the British army. Don’t tell me. That’s no insect; it’s a cry that comes from beyond.”
“Beyond where?”
“Beyond the dark. I tell you, sonny, when the ghon-ya cries he ain’t bothering himself about any glass-eyed beetle-hunter who’s just hankering to label all the critturs in this yearth; he’s not thinkin’ about you nor me, but he’s jes’ wailing in that shudderous voice to the shadders that pass by in the night; whether it’s to comfort ’em, or to put ’em on the right track, or to warn ’em of danger, I can’t say. One night I had taken the short cut past the big krantz, being late from the shop where I’d been for a tin of o’ black sugar, and thinkin’ of nothin’ at all when I yeard the ghon-ya’s cry passin’ overhead. There was nothin’ more’n ordinary solemn in the wail of it, but when I came to the thick of the wood it seemed to me there was a queer whisperin’ going on among the trees. Have you ever marked a bee against the shadder? Of course you have, and you’ll know how he moves like a drop o’ light as the sun strikes on his wings against the dark of the hill behind. Well, I happened to look back over my shoulder to the other side of the valley where ’twas as black as black, and in the glance of my eyes, with the blue and red light snapping from ’em as it does sometimes when you blink, in that very moment of turning, I seed a passing of a many shadders.”
“Tree shadows?”
“Shadders of dreams, sonny, I tell you. Jes’ in a flash I seed ’em moving up, and then all was black groups of trees; but I knowed where that whisperin’ come from. Yes, a many shadders hurryin’ on up that valley with the cry of the ‘ghon-ya’ pealin’ out ahead. Well, I got outer that valley pretty quick, and were hurryin’ by the top of the krantz overlooking the big kloof when the ‘ghon-ya’ cried jes’ ahead o’ me. A locust! Lor’, sonny, right afore me there was a something shaddery—a darker patch on the blackness, standing on the brink of the krantz overlooking the deep kloof that lay below stretching towards the sea, and the ‘ghon-ya,’ loud, long, mournful as the solitary toll of the death-bell, went out on the air, an’ I jes’ went to the ground as if the bones had all been drawed out. Looking along the top, with my eyes to the light that was in the sky over the sea, I seed them shadders from the valley file down into the kloof. A many shadders, sonny, come out of the valley—passed by that dark patch, and jes’ floated down into the kloof—whispering as they went. What sort o’ shadders they were I couldn’t tell you, my lad; but they belong, sure enough, to the other world beyond the dark. Many a time I yeard them same things in the kloof, when the dead quiet has been broken by a movement in the air, and a sort o’ creepin’ sound ’sif somethin’ were peepin’ at you from behind a tree. You’ve felt it, too, of course. The dogs they know, ’cos they’re not so cock-sure as we are about knowin’ everything jes’ bekose we can make a cast-iron reaper.”
The ghon-ya from the darkness called again, as if the sorrows of the world were in the cry.
“A locust!” cried Abe scornfully; “that’s no locust. It’s calling the sperits of the woods together, and the ghostses of animiles—that’s what; and that’s why all the other noises is hushed.”
Chapter Eighteen.
Abe Pike and the Kaffir War.
“Were you ever in the wars, Abe?” I asked the old chap on one of my off-days, when I had called on him to go out after rhea-buck.
“Were I ever in the wars? Did I ever grow pumpkins? There’s some fellows go through life asking questions about things that’s as plain as plain—why, blow me, I’ve known ’em ask ef ’twdn’t be a fine day when there’s bin no rain for a month and not a stir o’ wind.”
“So you have been in the wars?”
Grunt.
“I suppose,” said I, unmoved by Abe’s indignation, “you never got into a fix—always kept with the rear column?”
“What, me! Jes’ you look here,” and cocking up his chin, he showed a long scar under his beard. “Assegai!” he said.
“Must have been a close shave!”
“’Twarnt no barber held that wepin I tell you, sonny. No, sir! I jes’ seed the whites of his eyes and the gleam of his teeth, and whizz!—whough!—the assegai darted like a serpent’s tongue. He was painted red, he were!”
“Who?”
“The Kaffir, you blind eyed calabash. It was in Blaauw krantz in ’45. You don’t remember those days, ’cos you weren’t born, but Blaauw krantz were jes’ where it is now, and the red Kaffirs had suddenly got back their old idea they could drive us into the sea. Wonderful how sot they are on getting us into the salt water; and that time they was partikler keen on making us take to the sea without so much as a plank. Of course we knew there was something in the wind. When Kaffirs mean to fight they don’t fire off blank cartridges in the papers; they jes’ keep dark, uncommon dark an’ sulky, but for all that they can’t keep down the human nature that’s in ’em, and they have a way of giving you the shoulder when you order them about that means mischief. When a Kaffir clicks at you with his tongue you don’t want him to tell you in plain words that he’s quaai and would like to belt you over the head. Well, I tell you, you dursen’t order a boy to step a yard but he’d click, an’ some of the chaps with families took the hint and shifted into Grahamstown; but, lor’ bless yer, the Government didn’t take any notice. Oh no; the Government knew the Kaffirs and it knew the whites, and it believed in the Kaffirs. Look here, sonny, Government’s a ass—alus was a ass, and alus will be a ass. Alus so darned cock-sure, and so blamed ignorant that any Kaffir chief could best it every time. You know, sonny, the chief he would jes’ come along—simple an’ humble—and pitch in a yarn about how he loved the ‘great white ox,’ how he wished to herd his cattle in peace, and how thankful he’d be if the great white chief would send him a little white chief to keep the wicked white men from his kraals. All he wanted was peace—since he had listened to the words of wisdom from the Government. Then the chief would say: ‘That is my speech,’ and the Government would up and pat him on the back; an’ when the farmers said the Kaffirs meant to fight, Government would tell ’em they was a passel of fools. Oh, I tell you, Government is vain as a boy in a new weskit, an’ as easily humbugged. Well, about 1845 Government was laced up and smoothed down by the chiefs, with their tongues in their cheeks, and on a sudden the war smoke rose on the frontier.”
“The war smoke!”
“Ay, bossie; the heaven-high columns of smoke going up blue and round in the still air, as a sign to the Kaffirs waiting silently in the bush and the kloofs. At the sign out they came, slipping from the bush paths stealthy as leopards on the trail, and one morning the hill-sides yonder were red, as though the aloes had blossomed.”
“What—with fire?”
“Neh! karel with red clay smeared thick over the black faces, and with the red blankets carried by the bearers. Then there was in-spanning of horses, hurrying of women after their children, and the trail of dust about each flying cart. The red Kaffirs! Ay, lad! many a mother an’ wife has gone white at times of peace at the sight of a Kaffir in his paint—squatting, maybe, like a tame dog at the back door, waiting for his women-folk in the kitchen to hand him out a bone—for in the smouldering eyes of him she can see the leaping flames of a burning homestead and assegais runnin’ red, and if it’s so in peace what must she feel when her roving eye, searching the veld for the little ones to bid them to breakfast, lights on the far-off streak on the border hills, and when her ear catches a murmur that is not from the sea—the murmur of fighting-men singing of death? The sun was level when it shone upon the red Kaffirs, and when the shadder was close up to my heels in the mid-day the country was empty of whites, except maybe a solitary cuss like me, hating to leave his home, and lurking in the bush close to his belongings.”
“And the cattle?”
“It’s the horned beasts that you think of—well, why not? they’re meat and drink and a roof over your head. A few there were who saved their herds, but the bulk were swept in the net of the robbers. There was not a many human fish caught in that net that time, ’cept old Dave Harkins, an’ his five sons who fell all in one spot by Palmiet Fontein fighting to the last grain o’ powder, and ole Sam Parkes. Poor ole Sam. He found religion, did ole Sam, and many the day I’ve a-harkened to him holdin’ forth on his stoep, where he would sit for the rheumatism kep’ him from moving. Well, ole Sam, when they told him that he must fly, he said, ‘Lift my chair to the stoep. The Kaffirs will not harm me.’ They placed him there with his face to the east, and there the Kaffirs found him. I passed the house the next day, and he was leanin’ back lookin’ so peaceful that I hailed him. But he were dead, sonny, with a gash in his heart. Ay, they struck him as he sat, but they left the house standing and when I peeped in at the window there was the table set with all the chiney in the house. The Kaffirs did that One on ’em had been about a white man’s house, and he showed his friends how the white man prepared his table. A little one’s vanity and the blood dropping from the assegai.”
“What were you doing all this time, Uncle Abe?”
“Shiverin’ and hidin’, sonny; for a party on ’em swooped down on my place led by a thunderin’ ole thief I had once lammed with a sjambok for stealin’ my sugar. There was a fine bedstead in the house and a whole shelf o’ crockery, for I had some idees then of marryin’, and, blow me, if they didn’t smash the lot, besides breaking all the winders and burning the thatched roof. Then they killed an ox, a fine rooi bonte, roasted him whole, and ate him—by gosh. After that they slept with their bellies full! Yes, they did that; slep’ with me a watching ’em from an ant bear hole. I nearly spiflicated ’em, but somehow I didn’t. Then they moved off all but three, including that ole thief, which gathered my cows an heifers an’ calves an’ oxen together, and druv ’em off. ’Twas like partin’ with my heart strings, and I followed ’em up. That evenin’ I druv the lot inter the big kloof.”
“You recaptured them?”
“I s’pose so, sonny!”
“And the three Kaffirs?”
“I speck they ate too much beef, sonny, I speck they did. Any way they died. They did so—and after I had druv the cattle into the kloof I sot off for Grahamstown, passing ole Sam Parkes on the way. I came pretty nigh close to parties o’ Kaffirs, but ’twas when I came to Blaauw krantz that I got the shivers. I were goin’ along mighty keerful, I tell you jes’ ’sif I were ‘still huntin’’ but ne’r a sound o’ a Kaffir I could hear. Well you know one side the road there’s a yellow bank with a bush on the top. I had turned a corner on the listen, with my eyes every way, when I caught the move of a insect, or something like that, on the left. Blow me, sonny, there was a big Kaffir standing agin’ the bank, all naked, but red with clay. What caught my eye was the roll of his eyes, for he were jes’ like a part of the wall. He’d been walking down the road when he must a’ yeard me comin’ for all I went so soft. My! I jes’ give a jerk o’ my head as he launched out with his assegai. Then I gave him a charge o’ buck-shot in the stummick and jumped back inter the bush on the lower side. I yeard a shout from other Kaffirs, and, you b’lieve me, I dodged through the bush like a blue-bok until I got right under the big krantz, where I crep’ inter a cave. I seed then the blood running down, and like a streak I were out o’ that cave inter a pool o’ water until I got under a thick ‘dry-my-throat’ bush where I hid. The Kaffirs they followed on the blood-spoor right up to the cave, but they missed me where I lay in the dark o’ the pool, an’ next evenin’ I were in Grahamstown, where the doctor stitched up the wound.”
“A very close call, Uncle.”
“Oh, I’ve been in many tight places, sonny—a many, an’ maybe I’ll tell you about ’em.”
Chapter Nineteen.
A Black Christmas.
“How is it you never married?” I asked of Abe on an evening after the mealie cobs had been shelled, and we were too dead tired to brush the husks from our hair.
“Me! Well, you see this yer cob. It’s worth nothin’, ’cos all the mealies been shelled off. That’s me—I’m a shelled cob, and wimmen folk isn’t got any use for that sort of bargain.”
“But you told me the other day that you were thinking of marriage once. That time, you know, when the Kaffirs smashed your furniture.”
“Jes’ so—the critturs. They broke a fine four-posted bed and a hull lot o’ chiney.”
“And the lady.”
“You see, bossie, she was gone on that four-poster and the chiney. ’Twasn’t me she was thinkin’ of nohow.”
“Nonsense, Abe; you’re too modest.”
“Well, she forgot me, an’ took up with a armchair an’ a copper kettle which belonged to young Buck Wittal, son to ole Bob. A armchair an’ a shiney kettle, that’s what cut me out, sonny; but Buck went up the gum ’cos she would have a swing lookin’-glass. That’s so! Wimmen is mighty keen on the look o’ things, an’ that kettle fetched her. Them was times!”
“Courting times?”
“Fighting times, sonny; all up an’ down the country, in an’ out the kloofs, an’ over the mountains, by gum. I tole you about that chief—how I spoored him a full forty mile from the Chumie after Black ’Xmas?”
“Black ’Xmas!”
“You mean by that raising o’ the voice you never yeard o’ Black Xmas! Well, well, the ignorance an’ the vanity o’ learnin’ which takes no account of the great happenings in your own country, and you come swaggerin’ about with your Greek turnips.”
“I assure you I never heard of Black ’Xmas.”
“Never yeard of the soldier settlers away up by the Chumie—them as were planted there by Sir Harry Smith—of their wives and children, making merry on Christmas Day, 1850—making merry with the old custom, and the sounds of the laughing going out into the dark kloof, where the Kaffirs crouched, eyeing them as they fingered their assegais. Lor’ love you, lad: when the poor little children were running at their games, and the women were talking over their washing up, and the men at their pipes in the quiet of the afternoon, the war shout broke suddenly from the wood. There was stabbing, and a blaze, a great gasp, and the life went out of them all that Christmas Day. That was Black Xmas—men, and women, and children, and dogs, and every crawlin’ crittur given to the assegai. I were on my way there after stray cattle, and I yeard the cry of a little child, sonny, and the sand went out o’ young Abe Pike that day. I seed it all—yes—lad, and I see it now in the nights, the stabbing of the women and little ones.”
“And what did you do, old man?”
“What did I do? I dunno, sonny—I dunno! I must a walked an’ walked all through the night, for the nex’ morning I were away beyond the Chumie in a deep kloof, without knowing how I came there. Then the cry of the little one went out o’ my ears and out of my eyes with the sight of them leapin’ devils about the burnin’ houses, an’ I saw the rifle in my hand—for ther’ came boomin’ through the trees the sound of a Kaffir singing from his chest. I found him in a clearin’, stampin’ with his feet and swingin’ his kerrie before the chief and his headmen seated all aroun’ against the trees, with their long pipes all agoin’. The blood was still caked on his arms, an’ I plunked him in the breast.”
“You shot him? Good old Abe!”
“It were a ole muzzle-loader—one smooth, one rifle—and I shifted, but it weren’t long afor’ they picked up my spoor, and in the fust rush I could hear the rattle of assegais as they follered. Then it was quiet in the kloof, an’ I knew what a animile must feel when the hunter’s after him, or the tiger’s tracking him down. Bymby I yeard the call of the bush-dove every side, and I gave the call too at a venture, keepin’ my eye on a dark spot where the last cry came from. Sure enough I seed the leaves tremble, and there was a show of red paint where the Kaffir stood. That were the bush-dove, and he called again; then he came steppin’ along to the fern chump where I were hid, movin’ like a shadder with the whites of his eyes showin’ as he glanced around. By gum, lad, I thought it was all over, but another dove called an’ he moved off. I yeard the calls growin’ softer an’ softer, and I made a move to slip away; but there’s no gettin’ to the bottom of a red Kaffir’s cuteness.”
“How is that?”
“Why, sonny; that chap never went off when he made as if he would. He jes’ slipped behind a tree, and when I ris my head out of them ferns he druv his assegai at me, and it clean pinned my left arm to my side. See, here’s the scar;” and the old man rolled back the sleeve of his worn shirt until a white scar was revealed on the fleshy part of the upper arm.
“I fetched a groan, and he sprang out to belt me over the head, but I kep’ my senses, an’ knocked the wind clear outer him with a straight thrust of the muzzle. As he stood gasping, I give him back his own assegai.”
“You killed him?”
“Maybe he died; but Kaffirs is tough, and at the thrust he gave his cry, standin’ there with his legs wide apart, afore he sank among the ferns. I turned an’ ran, keeping down the little stream till I come to a krantz, with the water slidin’ down, an’ I swung over, holdin’ fast to a monkey tow. I slid down fifty feet, and then let go, holdin’ the rifle high over head, and fell feet first inter a little round pool at the bottom. It was a chance, sonny, but I kep’ my bones sound and the powder dry. I did that. I tell you young Abe Pike was some pumpkins. Then I pushed on an’ on till I went over a ridge into another kloof, an’ through that to another kop, standing up above the wood in a mass of stone. I sat down in a cleft, and the weakness came on me from the loss of blood and the want of food. Well, I tell you, sonny, I fit ag’inst the weakness, an’ with a spread of shirt, holdin’ one end in my teeth, I bound up the wound after plugging it with dirt. Right away I looked over the country, an’ I see’d to the right the smoke rising and across a stretch of veld I seed a black patch movin’. ’Twere Kaffirs on the march, an’ following the directshun they were taking, I seed a white speck to the left; a farmhouse, sonny, with a thin trail of smoke going up from the one chimney.”
“The Kaffirs were on their way to sack the place.”
“They were that, and I set off to beat ’em. But look here, I said when I started talking, I was going to tell you how I trekked the Kosa chief, and here I been a’ spinnin’ on about another thing.”
“Did you get to the house first?”
“What—me! I did that, sonny. I got there fust, an’ there was nobody in—not a one though the pot was on the fire. I went off with the pot into a patch of mealies, and when the Kaffirs came up an’ smashed things I were eatin’ pap outer the pot, yes, that’s so.”
“And did they find you?” I ventured after a long pause.
“That pap were good, but it wanted salt—it did that. So long, sonny, so long,” and the old man moved off to bed.
Chapter Twenty.
Tracking the Kosa Chief.
“I tole you all about it, and, what’s more, I ain’t got no time to jaw along when that shed o’ mine wants mendin’,” and Abe resolutely re-filled his pipe, unheeding my request for the completion of his last yarn.
“Leave the shed alone. It will keep—besides, this is resting weather.”
“Sonny, listen to me. Restin’ weather’s been the ruin of this yer country. That so. When a man should span in and plough, when he should take the hoe and skoffel the lands, what does he do? Why up and say at the first touch of the warm wind, that it’s restin’ weather. I can’t stand such laziness, and I ast you, sonny, where’d I been to-day, if I’d taken notice of the weather?”
I glanced round at the neglected lands, at the solitary gum tree, at the old water barrel on its tree sledge, at the tumble-down shed, and shook my head, for there really was nothing to say.
Old Abe followed my look, and then shoved himself back with his heels into a breadth of shade.
“That’s it, my lad,” he said with a queer smile, “cast your eyes round and see what can be done by one man if his heart’s in his work. Forty years agone this yer land were wilderness, and now look at it, with that there shed, them pumpkin lands, and this yer tree standin’ up like the steeple of a church as a token of honest labour.”
“Wonderful!” I said.
“That it are. I watched that old gum grow since it were no higher than my knee. I watered it an’ tended it, an’ measured it by the buttons on my shirt till it topped my head, and now, blow me, you could send a hull regiment with the band in the shadder of it.”
“I suppose you have seen regiments on the march?”
“What, me? Well, now, I was tellin’ you of that time I give the slip to the Kaffirs beyond Chumie and took hiding in the mealie field. Well, that time I came on a regiment in Pluto’s Vale, when a Kaffir poked his assegai in the big drum, and the Colonel he give me a big knife for what I did.”
I said nothing about the shed or the resting weather, and Uncle Abe, sprawling in the shade, went on with his story.
“Yes, sonny, there I were in the mealies, and there were the Kaffirs about the house banging at the windows because there was nobody at home for ’em to kill. They were mostly young bucks, and they all jawed together, ’cept two or three who started singin’ about what big potatoes they was. Well, after knocking around an’ smashin’ things, they set off in a cluster anyhow, on the back trail. And as I watched ’em go, blow me ef one of them in the rear didn’t drop his assegai on puppose. On they went out o’ sight behind the bush, but Abe Pike he jest kep’ where he were. I tell you, Kaffirs is mighty stuck on their assegais, and bymby, sure enough, back came that chap lopin’ along. When he reached the house he shouted out to his friends that it was all right and he’d foller. Well, they gave him the answer back, saying they would go on. He were a young chief this, with an ivory ring round his wrist, and a feather sticking out behind his ear, and as springy on his feet as a young ram. I spotted him well, for I were wondering what his game were, and marked the look in his eyes, and the smooth sweep of his jaws. He picked up his wepin and then he giv’ a sharp look all roun’, and nex’ he went steppin’ roun’ the house with his head bent. I saw it then, sonny. He were lookin’ for spoor, and, by gum, he found it sooner you could snap your fingers. I yeard him give a grunt, and nex’ thing I see him sailin’ along over the veld with his head down on a trail quite away from that taken by his friends.”
“He was spooring the people who had escaped from the house?”
“Don’t jump over a gate when you can open it, bossie. I crep’ out of the mealies and cast round the house; but for all I’d seen where that young Kaffir went it were many minutes afore I saw the spoor—then it were as slight as a brush of a hare’s tail. But there it were—the spoor of a man in veldschoens. You know, there’s no heel to a veldschoen, and it leaves little sign; but this yer chap had a habit of stickin’ his toes into the ground, and here and there he had kicked up a tuft o’ grass. Well, I laid down to that spoor, marking the direction the Kaffir had taken, and went at a trot, thinking all the time it were mighty queer for one Kaffir to leave his friends. When I reached the wood it was easier going, for in the bush path the naked spoor of the chief was plain enough in the dust. The spoor led deeper into the wood, crossed a stream where the white man had drunk, for there was the print of his corduroys where he had knelt, and then climbed a hill, when I went slow. The darkness was coming on, and I reckoned that the chief couldn’t be but a mile ahead. Neither he nor me could spoor in the dark, so I guessed he would pull up, an’ I didn’t want to run in on his assegai. Turnin’ away from the trail I pegged out under a rock until the spreuws whistled before sun-up, when I crept once more on the trail. ’Twere very faint now, but bymby I come on fresh spoor—so fresh I jest squatted behind a tree. Then, after a time, I marked where this new sign entered the path, and follering it back came on the spot where the chief had slept. The beggar had turned back on his trail a matter o’ fifty paces, and if so be I’d follered him in the evening he’d a’ had me sure.”
“He was up to his work!”
“Him—I guess so, lad. He were a caution for cunnin’ and bush learnin’, were the chief.”
“What chief was he?”
“This ain’t the place to bring in his name, for I didn’t know him then. I tell you it was smart work tracking him through the woods, over the hills, inter the kloofs, but Abe Pike did it sure enough, and he tracked the white man, though he were half starved and lamed in the arm, by gosh. Many a time that day, when my back ached from the bending of it, and my stummick was jammed together for want of something to eat, many a time I thought of the three of us strung out in the dark woods like tigers on the scent. Hungry, by gum! I jest chewed leaves as I went along; and sore—thunder—I kin feel now the throbbing of the wound in my arm. But I kep’ on. I tell you, young Abe Pike was tough as foreslag, and he wern’t going to cave in while that red Kaffir boy was keepin’ up. The chap in the lead, the man in veldschoens who was escaping, must a been made o’ iron too, I reckon, for he only stopped once the second day, when he ate some bread. There was some crumbs on the yearth among the grass, with the ants over ’em where he’d sat and ate, and the dry skin from a piece o’ biltong. I took a chew o’ elephant leaves, and bymby in the afternoon I seed little balls of pith, which showed the Kaffir had cut off a insengi root to chew. The white man kep’ on for twenty miles, keeping to the woods all the time where he could, and the Kaffir kep’ on arter him, and Abe Pike he kep’ on arter the Kaffir. If it hadn’t a been for that insengi root I’d a lost the spoor clean, for there were a big stretch of rock veld where they passed over, and all I could follow was white balls of chewed root. I dunno how the Kaffir picked up the trail on that stretch. He must ha’ smelt it. There were a bit o’ hill to climb, and when I reached the top my head swam, an’ I pitched down like a log. When I opened my eyes it were dark, and my bad arm was doubled up.”
“You gave up?”
“Sonny; you didn’t know young Abe—no, you didn’t. But I did. And I tell you, for all his emptiness, he jes’ kep’ on. Yes, sir—he did that I said the darkness were down, but when I looked aroun’ I seed the glimmer o’ a spark down below, an’ I kep’ my eyes on it whiles I crawled down the steep of the hill to the kloof below. Things happen sometimes, sonny, in a way that makes you very quiet an’ thoughtful. A bird flew up—a grey-wing partridge, I guess, from the whirr—and, searchin’ around, I found its eggs. They put life into me, and I steadied up—but what’s all this I’m telling you about? There’s work to be done, and if you don’t stir ’twill be sun-down and too dark. As for me, I’m going to boil the kettle.”
“But you’ve not finished telling about the spooring.”
“Ah, well, it can wait, sonny; but it’s time the kettle were put on and the mealies roasted.”
Chapter Twenty One.
The Boom of the Drum.
“Oh, ghoisters!” said Abe, “there’s the blamed bung come outer the vaitje and not a drop of Dop left, and all the buchu collected for the soaking.”
“Do you soak the buchu in brandy?”
“The brandy brings out the goodness from the yerb, and I tell you a dose of it gets home every time. But what’s the good—the brandy’s gone, there’s not a tickey in the stocking, and not a man in the country would offer ole Abe Pike so much as half-a-pint—not a one. The old people’s gone and the new ones, blow me—the new ones drink cold tea.”
“What about the Kaffir chief you were following Abe?”
“I ain’t follering no Kaffir chief, not me—and look here sonny, you get along home, see, ’fore it gets dark.”
“I think I could spare a gallon of brown Cango, Abe, if you come over in the morning.”
“Cango, eh! Stay right here, sonny—I’ve marked down a fine porkipine—and we’ll hunt him to-night. In the morning I’ll go over with you, arter showing you something as’ll surprise you, I bet.”
“What’s that?”
“A horn-bill sitting on her nest in a hollow tree, and the entrance built up with mud, so she can’t get out, and the cats can’t git in, by gum, an’ the ole chap a feeding her. Lor’ love yer, there’s no matchin’ animiles an’ birds for cunnin’.”
“Yet I remember you saying that young chief was very cunning.”
“So he were; lad, he were born smart; an’ them gleamin’ eyes of his’n could read the writin’ on the ground, the signs of weather, and the ways of fightin’ men better’n you could read a big print book. That’s so. I tole you how I follered him, and how he follered a chap in veldschoens all the way from the Chumie. Well, in the dark of the second evenin’ I seed a red light, and were blunderin’ on towards it, being pretty well dazed from the hunger and weakness and pain o’ my bad arm, when somethin’ in the steady glow of it brought me up with a jerk. Says I, that fire’s been long lit, there’s nothin’ but coals blazing, and whoever lit it must feel safe. Says I, who can feel safe in this yer place? Why, a Kaffir. So I slowed down to a crawl, and blow me, when I got within hearin’ distance, I seed a man by the fire. Sonny, he were the man in veldschoens.”
“The white man the chief was after.”
“’Twas a blanged half-caste, lad, that’s what he were. I saw that in the fust look by the red dook he wore roun’ his greasy head, and by the spread of his flat nose, and the sight of him kept me still, I tell you. Half-castes is mean. And to think I’d been goin’ hungry to save a thing like that, and him a sitting there with his mouth all smeared with black coal from the bried meat he were eatin’. The smell of it came to me where I lay in the shadder, an’ I tell you it made me sick with longing for a bite, but I jes’ kept there sniffin’ till the faintness left me. Well, all ov a sudden I seed his jaws stop, and his eyes had that sort o’ fixed look which they has when a man’s listenin’. Then, without movin’ his body, he reached out for his gun. Yes, sonny, he reached out for his gun with his eyes starin’ straight for me, and I kivered him. While I was gettin’ ready to shoot, outer the darkness behin’ him there come a voice callin’ in greetin’, ‘Gumela vietu!’ I giv’ a start, but that ere half-caste he never stirred. The hand that was reachin’ out for his gun stopped, his jaws began to move, but his voice were a bit shaky when he said ‘Gumela inkose!’ and there was a sort o’ hunchin’ of his shoulders as tho’ he felt the assegai going in. For a spell there was silence, then from the wall o’ blackness there stepped to the fire the young chief hisself. I see the gleam o’ his ivory bracelet. With his toe he moved the gun away. Then he reached down, took up a length of roasting flesh, caught hold of a mouthful and saw off the chunk with the blade of his assegai ’twixt his hand and his lips. He jes’ ate and ate, an’ the smell o’ the meat made my stummick heave an’ grumble most horrible.”
“They were friends, then, after all?”
“You wait, sonny—jes’ keep still an’ wait. Arter a time they began to talk. Then it came out that the half-caste was on some mission from the head chief, and the young chap was mighty curious to know all about it; but the half-caste he were too slim. They jes’ paced roun’ each other like a couple o’ strange dogs. At the end the chief he up and say, ‘I know where you’re going.’ ‘Soh?’ said the half-caste. ‘Yes,’ said the chief, ‘you’re going to the white man’s camp to give the white chief news of our coming.’ Well, the half-caste he spat in the fire. ‘You are a boy,’ he said; ‘your place is at home with the women.’ ‘My place is with you,’ said the young chief, speaking soft, so that the other laughed in his throat, and called the chief quedin—‘boy’—again, which you know is the easiest word to rile a Kaffir. ‘I know, in your heart,’ said the boy, ‘you will sell us for the white man’s money.’ The half-caste spat again. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘the white men are in terror of you—a warrior like you would be worth a whole goat to them.’ ‘I am Sandili,’ said the lad, ‘son of the head chief, and one day the Amakosa will do my bidding.’ The half-caste giv’ a start; then he grew soft all of a sudden. ‘I was but trying you,’ he said. ‘Oh, chief, forget my words, and take the path with me in the morning. We will find out where the red-coats are, how many of them, and what road they take, so that we can report to your father, and plans can be made to trap them.’ I could hear the hiss of a snake in the man’s speech, sonny; and it struck me then he had, in his heart, determined to take the young chief Sandili to the English colonel.”
“It was really Sandili?”
“It were, an’ no mistake. I could a’ shot him then, an’ put a stop to two wars; but a good many things could be done, sonny, if only we could see ahead. Well, for all they’d made friends, those two didn’t trust one another—not a bit, not they—they jes’ sat there glancing acrost the coals, nodding, an’ wakin’ up with a start, and when one on ’em moved t’other would have his eyes wide open. Long before sun-up they moved off, an’ I crep’ outer my hidin’ place to the fire, where I found jes’ a coal-blackened strip o’ meat that jes’ made me hungrier than afore. Lor’ love you, a human is a helpless crittur. There was animiles about an’ birds, but as I darn’t use my gun I couldn’t get one. I cotched a salamander and ate him, an’ a land crab by the stream, an’ ate him—an’ I ate some berries, an’ a clutch o’ young birds from the nest, and I had a bathe—and took up the spoor of the two of ’em. ’Twas easier spoorin’ now, for they was going slow, and at mid-day I had ’em in sight, and so kep’ ’em till the last. In the afternoon we were climbing a ridge among the bushes, when boomin’ along there came the sound of music that brought the three of us to a dead stop. Never had young Abe yeard any sound like that afore or since ’cept once—it went through my worn-out body until I trembled like a leaf—yes, sonny—and the wet ran down my cheeks. ’Twas the soun’ of a big drum.”
“There’s not much music in that, Abe.”
“Isn’t there, sonny? Not when you’ve been three days in the woods, skeered of every shadder; not when you’ve yeard the war-cry of the red Kaffir; not when the cries of the little ones waitin’ for the assegai are ringin’ in yer head. Only the soun’ of a drum. One, big boomin’ note, rolling clear an’ far with a message of help. The tiredness an’ the sickness fell from me, sonny, an’ I could a’ run up that hill. The other two they crept up presently, and bymby I follered and hid behind ’em. They was crouchin’ by a rock, lookin’ down, and I forgot ’em in lookin’ at the picture. Far below in the valley was the white tents, an’ the cattle, an’ a line of red where the soldiers were drawn up, bayonets flashing. Then a troop of men on horseback rode down the line, and again the drums beat and the bugles rang out. It was a picture, sonny, that I could a’ looked at all day, but I were jes’ jerked out o’ my spell o’ dreamin’ by the chief talkin’.”
“‘Yoh,’ he said, ‘they are few, but what noise is that?’
“‘Tis their witch-music,’ said the half-caste; ‘’tis kep’ in a big box, and when the man hits the top of it with a stick the witch cries out what they should do.’ ‘Yoh!’ said the chief, ‘I will kill the box! They are great warriors, these, but they are foolish to wear a red so bright, that no man of them can hide.’ ‘They do not hide,’ said the half-caste, and he shifted his gun as he looked at the chief from the corner of his eyes. ‘Let us go.’ ‘Nay,’ said the chief, ‘it is a good sight this—stay a little while. Why do they move about so?’ ‘It’s their war-dance, and he on the white horse is the chief. At his words they turn and stop, break up, and come together.’ The young chief watched like a dog straining at the leash—and, by gum, he yeard the colonel’s commands, though never a sound reached me. A smart Kaffir can smell, and see, and hear like a animile. ‘Yoh!’ he said; ‘listen to his words!’—and in his excitement he raised his head, and the half-caste he stood back and lifted his gun. But he measured his distance to the camp, and he said, ‘Let us get nearer’—for why, the cuss wanted to be near help when he went for the chief. The chief looked round, and, ghoisters! he seed my face stickin’ outer a bush. He jumped to his feet and drew back his arm to fly the assegai, but the half-caste, after one glance at me, dropped his gun, seized the haft of the assegai with one hand and hooked his other arm round the chief’s neck. ‘It was a good word you spoke, quedin,’ he said, hissing as he struggled with the boy. ‘I will sell you to the white man.’ Seein’ how it was, I stepped out, and as I went up I seed the chief’s eyes rollin’, while his nostrils were blowed out like a horse. ‘I am a boy,’ he said; ‘I give in.’ The half-caste he laughed, turnin’ to me whiles he called out in Dutch that it was he who took the quedin prisoner, but he’d give me somethin’ if I helped him—the skunk, the blanged, mangy, yeller dog. Well, sonny, that Kaffir were shamming. Soon’s he give in, the half-caste he loosed his hold, when, with a grunt, the Kaffir yanked his assegai away, and with a wriggle o’ his naked body he got a length and struck the half-caste under the armpit. ‘Dog,’ he said, and druv’ his assegai in over the blade. The half-caste he jes’ went green. ‘Ek ’es dood,’ he said, lookin’ at me; then he sat down all of a heap. The young chief he stood there eyein’ me like a tiger, with his lips curled back and his chest heavin’. It was the first man he’d killed, I guess. Well, I lifted the gun, but the left hand gave out and the barrel wobbled—then, I dunno why, but I begin to laugh in a foolish way, an’ I kep’ on laughin’ whiles the Kaffir came crouchin’ up with his assegai held back. Nex’ thing I seed the half-caste roll over, and then sit up and point his gun at the boy’s back. ‘Pass op,’ I said ’mid the laughin’, while the sweat was drippin’ off my nose; and the chief he jumped aside as tho’ there was a snake in his way, and the bullet whizzed by him. The half-caste gave a groan and rolled over dead, out of hate and disappointment, ’cause he’d missed. That’s so. The chief he looked at me, an’ he looked at the soldiers who were hurrying up from down below, then he jes’ turned and walked away; yes, he jes’ walked away with his head up, and I could a’ shot him—for the laughin’ fit had passed away. But before he could ha’ killed me easy as sticking a pig, so I watched him go; an’ when he reached the bush he said, lookin’ over his shoulder, ‘Grow fat, man who laughs, an’ you will be food for my assegai.’ The cheek of these young bucks; but I reckon, sonny, if he’d a’ known I’d killed two of his men in the Chumie he wouldn’t a’ waited, for all I was like a shadder.”
“Is that all?” I said, when the old man paused.
“Well, it were enuff, wern’t it?”
“What did the Colonel say?”
“Oh, the Colonel! He said, ‘Who the devil are you, an’ where the blazes you come from?’ That’s what he said, that time; but ’twern’t long afore he changed the tune of his remarks. ‘Who the devil are you, and where the blazes you come from?’ he sed, sittin’ in his tent with his officers by him; an’ I jes’ reached over to a black square bottle that was ahind him and put the neck to my mouth.”
Chapter Twenty Two.
The Red Diamond.
Our big Christmas hunt was in full swing. In a smooth, well-carpeted glade, surrounded by forest trees and bush, the three tent wagons of the party were outspanned, drawn up in a hollow square which formed a capacious outside room, roofed in by a wide stretch of canvas. From the spreading branches of a yellow-wood hung the last day’s ‘bag,’ consisting of seven bushbucks, two duikers, three blaauwboks, one jackal, and a wild dog. Beyond the wagons was the servants’ fire, and the ‘boys’ themselves were ‘brying’ meat and talking, as only Kaffirs can talk when the day’s work is over and food is plentiful. In our ‘scherm’ one lantern swung from the centre pole, its light just sufficient to mark out the position of the brown demijohn on the box that served as a table; while across the breadth of darkness, where the ‘scherm’ opened to the wood, fireflies crossed and circled. The quiet of the night was over the bush, intensified by the deep undertone from the sea, and the brooding spirit in time reduced us to silence, even stilling Long Jim’s concertina, whose lugubrious notes had in the early hours of the evening wailed complainingly over “The Old Camp Ground,” “Poor Old Joe,” and other old favourites.
“I envy you fellows,” said Mr Strong, a crack shot from the town; “we don’t get such nights as this.”
“The boot’s on the other foot,” said Long Jim, making his instrument moan. “We’ve got poverty and pumpkins. You’ve got comfort and a pianny.” And he pumped out “Hard times come again no more” till a dog pointed its nose to the sky and howled in sympathy.
“There’s no chance of making a pile in the country,” said Amos Topper, who raised ten acres of “forage” regularly every season, and “rode” firewood for a living in the balance of the year. “’Tis all hard work and disappointment—ticks in the cattle and rust in the corn.”
“Soh!” said Abe Pike.
“Well; so it is!”
“Yet,” said Abe, “there’s chances.”
“Meanin’ pine-apples and bananas, which Dick Purdy made a fortune out of through growing them on the slope of a valley.”
“No; meanin’ diamonds.”
“There’s no diamonds down here.”
“Is that so? Well, I seed one right here, as big as a plum an’ as red as the eye of a coal gleamin’ outer the dark. Yes, sir.”
“Of course. It belonged to some digger from the field. For the matter of that, I’ve seen a whole bucketful of them, but then they was white, and the sight of ’em never made me any the richer.”
“Your head was allus too big for your hat, Amos. I expect that’s why there’s a hole in the crown of it for your hair to grow through—but it so happens this yer diamon’ I’m speakin’ of could ha’ been gathered by anyone who had the pluck to grab it.”
“Fire ahead, old man,” I said, seeing that Abe was preparing the way for a yarn.
“You’ve hit it, sonny,” said Abe solemnly; “it was fire-ahead, and no mistake. Lemme see; you know ole Harkins, the mad trader?”
“I remember him,” said Mr Strong, “a fine hunter in his youth, who returned from his last trip into the interior broken by the Zambesi fever. He had a suspicion that everyone was watching him, and I believe he died in the bush after leading the life of a hermit.”
“That’s him,” said Abe, pulling at his pipe until the glow lit up his lined face. “Yes, he went into the bush—and for three years he hunted for that same red diamond. Some people thought he was crazy—so he were crazy after a fortune, but lor’ bless yer, he’d got all his wits about him, and the fortune was big enough to buy up the whole side of this district—houses, land and stock—which is a big enough haul to turn the minds of most of us. One night, many years ago, I was still-huntin’ buffel by the Kowie bush, when from the thick of the wood I yeard a noise that sent me up a tree in a jif—a shrill sort o’ scream that I couldn’t fix—an’ whiles I was up the tree I seed ole Harkins slippin’ along through the moon light. He stood under the tree listenin’, and then he began talkin’ to hisself in jerks. ‘That’s him, I swear!’ he said, ‘and by God I’ll have him or die!’
“I jes’ kep’ quiet, for I tell you I didn’t like the look o’ him, with his long hair, and his lean fingers, and burnin’ eyes, but when he slipped along inter the wood like a shadder—for there the no boots on his feet—I skimmed down and let out after him with my heart in my mouth. I guess I hadn’t got much sense, and when I’d gone no more’n fifty paces inter the dark of the trees he grabbed me by the throat—afore I knew where he were. Oh, lor’! He jes’ grabbed me by the throat and shook me. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he hissed.
“Of course, I couldn’t speak, but I kicked and spluttered, and he loosened his hold. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he said, stickin’ his face close up. ‘I ain’t,’ I said; ‘I’m after buffel.’ ‘You yeard it,’ he hissed; ‘and you meant to rob me.’ Well, I laughed. The idea of robbing a scarecrow like him was too much, and I couldn’t help laughing, not though he looked as savage as a starved tiger. All the property he carried were a big-bore elephant gun, and I noticed the trigger were cocked. ‘Clear out,’ he said; ‘and if I see you after me I’ll kill you.’ By gum, he meant it, and I cleared out smart with him after me over the ridge, when once ag’in there came that strange cry from the woods, so near this time that I jumped inter a bush. Well, there were a smashin’ o’ trees, and afore I knew what was up a bit of the country rose up and came rolling down through the moonlight. Man alive—it were a thunderation bull elephant, and I slipped outer the bush and bolted for hum with Harkins’s yell a-ringing in my ears. Well, sir, whiles I was sittin’ in the room gettin’ back my wind, up along, in a flurry, came Sam Dale. ‘It’s true,’ said he, with a gasp, as he flung open the door. ‘What’s true?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I seed it. I were crossing the drift in Euphorby Valley when I yeard a splash in the pool, and out of the dark end beneath the krantz I seed a glow of red. First I thought it were a eye, but then I noted how it sparkled, and all in a breath it struck me it were ole Harkins’s diamond. Then there was a splash in the water, and I ran on here to ask you to help me kill the crittur.’ ‘Hol’ on,’ I said; ‘what the blazes are you talking about? I never yeard of any diamond, and I’m not killing any crittur to-night,’ I said. Well, Sam Dale he up and tole me how Harkins had courted his sister years before, and how his sister had told him, unbeknown to Harkins, how she had seen the big red diamond he kep’ in his pocket, which he had bought from a Kaffir chief. And Sam, he told me a most surprisin’ story, how Harkins being one night cornered by a animile in the wood had loaded his big rifle with that same diamond instead of a bullet—and how he had fired it into that animile—and how he went crazy in consequence. That’s what Sam tole me that very night arter I had met Harkins hisself, and it wern’t more’n a minute afore I seed that if there was any truth in that yarn the red diamon’ was in that bull elephant. Sam and me we talked and talked, until in the early morning we fixed up a company.”
“What did you do?”
“We made a company—that’s what—the Dale-Pike Diamon’ Mining Company, but lor’ bless yer, in the morning the whole thing seemed so blamed ridiklus that we guv up the idea. All the same, Sam he went down to Euphorby Drift, and I smoused over to the old spot where I seed the elephant, and blow me—there was ole Harkins flattened out Yes, sir. He were.”
“What ailed him?”
“He were dead—that’s all. That bull elephant must have charged him down soon’s I cleared off. We reckoned, Sam and me, that as Harkins were dead that diamon’ mine b’longed to us, and we started that company over again. It was quite reg’lar. Sam he studied up a prospectus, and fixed up a capital, he subscribin’ two trek oxen, an’ me a cow, a bull calf, and a pair o’ gobblers. The hull lot came to 16 pounds, and with that we laid in a stock o’ powder, lead, blankets, boots, coffee, sugar, tabak, an’ a demijohn o’ Cango. Then we shut up our homes, both on us being bachelors, and started after that ere blasted bull elephant.”
“I thought you were after a diamond?”
“You ain’t got any more thinking machine than a biled rabbit, Sam Topper. That bull elephant were the diamon’ mine, in course.”
“How was that?”
“Ain’t I tole you? Why, when Harkins made that mistake and fired off that diamon’ it went plump into the ole bull. I seed that as soon’s Sam Dale told me the yarn, and we started after that property of ourn. That was forty-five year ago, and I guess from the size of his right tusk, the left been broken off, he were then about one hundred years old. I tell you what, chaps, that diamon’s still knocking aroun’ in the Addo bush.”
“The company didn’t come into possession, then?” said Mr Strong.
“Well, do I look as if I had a fortune of one hundred and fifty thousand golding sovereigns, which we reckoned was the value of that stone? Not much! No, sir.”
“Well, did you ever see the diamond?”
“I’ll tell you. Sam and me we struck the spoor at Euphorby, follered it fifteen miles in an’ out of the Kowie bush, away over to the Kasouga, and ten miles to the Kareiga—in an’ out of the thickest bush—sleepin’ out o’ nights. Back ag’in to the Kowie bush, over into the Fish River, without settin’ eyes once on the blanged thing. One month we were on the spoor, and the food run out, so’s we’d got to raise more capital, which we riz by selling Sam’s plough and my harrow—the two of ’em bringing in twenty-five shillings. Then we ran ag’inst the mine after Sam had taken a horn o’ Cango—and his ribs were broken in. Yes, the fust thing we knowed one night thet bull charged us out of a patch of bush in the open. Well, I took Sam to a farmhouse, and picked up the spoor, and two nights after came on the bull standin’ in a vley on the flats over yonder. My! He were jes’ standing there shooting the water over his mountain-high body, with his big ears flapping, when he turned his head, and I seed that diamon’ shinin’ in his forehead like a blood-red star. I tell you that mine lit out a yell and came arter me like a rock hurled from the hilltop. The land was as flat as the palm of your hand, and the only thing was ter double. Well, I did that, and slipped into the vley, and the ole bull, arter ramping around, stood there on the brink listenin’, while his trunk went twistin’ about to catch my wind. He kep’ me there till the cold got into my bones, and then, when the dawn was breaking, off he made for the Kareiga again. Arter that Sam and me we called in fresh capital, an’ Jerry Wittal joined us with a piebald mare and twenty-five sheep. Part o’ the money was paid to mend Sam’s ribs, and then we went arter the ole bull ag’in. This time he went west, through the Addo and on to the Knysna. Six months we kep’ on arter him, sometimes he came arter us; and at last he smashed up the company one morning by takin’ us as we slep’. Yes, sir. That crittur, he waited till the cold of the mornin’, when we couldn’t see for the sleep, and he pounded Jerry into the groun’. He did that, and ef he hadn’t a screamed in his joy he might a done for us; but Sam and me, we dodged roun’ a tree an’ blazed inter him. Sam right there said the company must go inter liquidation, an’ he worked his way back home as a handy-man from farm to farm. Poor Sam! His nerves went, and in less than a year he was dead, sure enuf. Of course all this huntin’ got about, and a chap from Port Elizabeth said he would help me refloat the company; but when I giv’ him all the facts blow me if he didn’t try to ‘jump’ the claim.”
“How was that?”
“Why, he went off on the hunt with a couple o’ niggers, and afore I knowed about it he’d been out three days in the bush. It makes me laugh now. Wha’ yer think? I came across him without his gun, or his hat, or his kit, making tracks for home. He found the bull sure enough, but the bull chased him up a yellow-wood tree and kep’ him there one day and a night.”
“Did he see the diamond?”
“Oh, yes; he seed too much of it; but he didn’t want any more of that sort o’ minin’—and ’tweren’t long afore I chucked the job, too.”
“How was that?”
“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I tole you. At any rate it’s bedtime; and if you young ones don’t roost now you’ll never hold your guns straight in the mornin’. So long!”