Through Veld and Forest: An African Story

Harry Collingwood

"Through Veld and Forest"

Chapter One.

Vague Hints of possible Trouble.

The blazing midsummer sun of South Africa had sunk to within a hand’s breadth of the ridge of the southern spur of the Tandjes Berg, softly outlined in blue some forty miles distant on the western horizon, when I, Edward Laurence, having taken a long afternoon ride round the farm to assure myself that the sheep were being properly looked after, arrived within a mile of my home—the long, white, one-storey thatched house picturesquely perched yonder on a mound which formed one of the southern spurs of the Great Winter Berg.

The house—which, together with the farm of two thousand five hundred and sixty acres, was known as Bella Vista—was the property of my father, Henry Laurence, ex-colonel of the —th King’s Own Regiment of Dragoon Guards; and he had purchased it some fifteen years prior to the date upon which this story opens, having been so severely wounded during the battle of Waterloo as to necessitate his retirement from the army. His retirement, of course, left him without an occupation; and as he was then still quite a young man, being only thirty-three years of age, as soon as he had recovered from his wounds—so far as recovery then seemed possible—he began to cast about for something to do. It was at this juncture that he made the acquaintance of a Miss Violet McKinnon, the lovely daughter of an impecunious Scottish laird, and fell desperately in love with her; and as my father happened to be a strikingly handsome and attractive man his affection was speedily returned, and marriage quickly followed. To marry under such circumstances was perhaps something of an imprudence, for my father had nothing but his pension, while his bride—sixteen years his junior—had nothing but her trousseau; but the pair turned a deaf ear to all advice and remonstrance, with the result just mentioned, when of course it became more imperatively necessary than ever for the ex-colonel to discover some means of earning a living, especially as I was born within a year of the date of the marriage. The state of his health demanded that the occupation chosen should enable him to live an outdoor life: and farming at once naturally suggested itself.

Then, in the nick of time, he made the acquaintance of a Mr William Arbuckle, a friend of his father-in-law, and a South African sheep farmer, home for a holiday; and this man strongly urged him to emigrate to South Africa and take up sheep farming. The idea powerfully appealed to my father from the very first, and the upshot was that, after due enquiry into details, my parents took the decisive step and—my father having commuted his pension—sailed for South Africa, of course taking me with them. This event occurred early in the year 1818. Arbuckle returned to South Africa in the ship which took us out; and at his urgent invitation we became his guests for a short time upon our arrival at the Cape. But the warm-hearted Scotchman’s kindness did not end there; he instituted enquiries, and eventually learned that a certain small farm, known as Rooikop, in the Albany district, was for sale, the Dutchman who owned it being averse to the British rule and intending to move up-country beyond the borders of the colony. This farm Arbuckle and my father visited together, with the result that, upon the urgent advice of his friend, the ex-colonel purchased it, just as it stood, house, stock, and implements, all complete. But he did not buy the furniture, having brought out from England all that he required; also the Dutchman needed it to take up-country with him to the spot where he might ultimately establish his new home: thus both parties were equally satisfied.

The first thing that my father did after entering into possession was to change the name of the farm from Rooikop to Bella Vista, on account of the magnificent prospect obtainable from the stoep of the house, which faced due south, and consequently was in grateful shadow all day. The building stood on a kopje or hill rising out of one of the lower spurs of the Great Winter Berg range of mountains, the bald summits of which towered into the rich blue of the South African sky some seven miles in the rear of the house, their rugged slopes bush-clad for two-thirds of their height. On the left, or toward the east, other spurs of the range gradually lost themselves in a wide expanse of gently rolling, bush-clad plateau extending beyond the blue distance to the sea, one hundred and eighty miles away, where the Great Kei River discharges itself into the Indian Ocean. A similar prospect stretched in front of the house, the ground growing more rugged toward the right as the spectator’s gaze swept westward, until, looking due west from the house, one perceived, in the immediate foreground, a moderately steep declivity running down to a spruit or small stream, having its rise high up toward the summit of the mountains and discharging into the Great Fish River, some seven miles distant. On the far side of the spruit the country was flat enough to enable one to catch a glimpse, here and there, of the Great Fish River itself winding southward through the plain, and, in the extreme distance, the soft blue masses of the Tandjes Berg spurs, on the hither side of which the white houses of Somerset East, some twenty-eight miles away, might sometimes be seen on a clear morning when the sun shone strongly upon them.

Such, very feebly and sketchily described, was the splendid prospect visible from the stoep of our house as I first knew it; and the passage of the years effected little or no change save the gradual disappearance of the nearer clumps of bush, as my father caused them to be cleared away in order to furnish additional grazing ground for our steadily increasing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and the occasional appearance of a new house somewhere in the distance, as neighbours gradually began to gather in our vicinity. The greatest change of all, however, was that occasioned by the erection of our own new house; for, as time went on, my father’s health improved so greatly that he became as strong and robust as ever, with the promise of a ripe old age before him. Moreover, he began to make money rapidly as his flocks and herds increased; and, as the money came in, so his views with regard to the comforts of home life expanded. The house standing on the property when my father purchased it consisted of a sitkammer, or general sitting-room used for all day purposes, and three bedrooms; and this amount of accommodation served our purpose well enough for the first five years of our residence upon the farm. But by that time my father had made a very considerable sum of money by his annual sales of wool and hides; and one of his theories was that money was useful merely as a means by which life might be made more comfortable and enjoyable. He therefore planned a new and much more commodious house, built it of stone quarried from the mountain side within a quarter of a mile of the chosen site, filled it with new and handsome furniture, pictures, and a piano for my mother, all imported from England at great expense, and laid out a beautiful garden of about five acres in extent all round the house, converting the place into a perfect miniature Paradise. Also, the time had arrived when my education must be thought of; and, as at that period there were no schools of any importance nearer than Cape Town, and my mother objected to my being sent so far away—I being an only child—my father decided to secure the services of a private tutor, and in due time Mr John Nesbitt, a Cambridge man, and a very fine fellow in every respect, became a member of our household. To him I hold myself indebted for a most excellent education, and for many other things beside. He continued my education until I attained the age of fifteen years, after which he remained on as a sort of general factotum to my father, while I devoted myself to the management of the farm, relieving my father of all the hard work and so leaving him free to enjoy himself in his own way. Such, briefly stated, was the general condition of affairs at Bella Vista on the afternoon referred to at the beginning of this chapter—on which day, by the way, I attained to the age of seventeen years; except that, after building and furnishing his new house, my father regularly employed all his surplus cash in extending the area of his property, and improving his flocks and herds by the frequent purchase of valuable animals for breeding purposes.

As I have said, on the afternoon that marks the opening of my remarkable story I had arrived within a mile of the gate in the stout picket fence which surrounded our garden as a protection against the invasion of predatory animals, when my horse, Prince, suddenly pricked up his ears, and, looking away to the eastward, whinnied, while at the same moment the rhythmical beat of cantering hoofs came softly to my ear from a considerable distance, floating on the gentle, almost imperceptible, easterly zephyr that happened to be breathing at the moment. Aroused thus from some day-dream into which I had fallen, I glanced up, and, looking in the direction of the sound, became aware of a small cloud of dust gleaming yellow in the afternoon sun, about a mile away to the eastward; and in the midst of it appeared two mounted figures which, even at that distance, I identified without difficulty as Mr Lestrange, our next-door neighbour at Triannon, some fourteen miles away, and his eleven-year-old daughter Nell. They must have seen and recognised me at the same moment, for a few seconds later a shout from Mr Lestrange reached me; and, turning Prince’s head in their direction and pressing my unarmed heels gently to his sides, I cantered off to meet them. Some three or four minutes later we came together, and, all reining up as I wheeled my horse alongside them, we proceeded toward Bella Vista at a walking pace, as their horses were sweating and it was desirable that they should be allowed to cool off a little before being stabled.

“Many happy returns of the day, Ned!” exclaimed Nell, with a bright smile, as I shook hands with her. “You see I have not forgotten that to-day is your birthday; and—here is my birthday present to you,” handing me a small parcel neatly tied up in paper.

“I also wish you many happy returns, Ned,” remarked Mr Lestrange, reaching across in front of his daughter to shake hands with me. “I haven’t brought you any present, however, so you must take the will for the deed and accept Nell’s present as coming from us jointly. The young minx has been working at them like a Trojan for the last fortnight; so, as a reward for her extraordinary industry, I have allowed her to ride over and present them herself. They are a pair of Berlin-wool slippers, made after the pattern of an old one that Nell surreptitiously begged from your mother when we were last at Bella Vista. And that reminds me to enquire how they all are at the house. Quite well, I hope?”

“Yes, thank you, all quite well,” I replied. “I don’t need to ask how you and Nell are; I can see for myself that there is nothing the matter with either of you. They will be tremendously glad at home to see you both; we have not had a single visitor since you last came—how long ago was it? It must be quite six weeks.”

“More than that,” answered Mr Lestrange; “it is two months ago to-day by the almanac. And I believe you’ve grown since then,” he continued, eyeing me over. “How tall are you? Did you think of measuring yourself this morning to see how tall you are at seventeen years of age?”

“No,” I laughed, “but the pater did; and according to him I stand just six feet and a quarter of an inch in my stockings.”

“Ay, I dare say you do,” he said, “although you scarcely look it, you are so broad across the shoulders. What will you be when you are twenty-one?”

“I am almost afraid to think of it,” I replied, rather ruefully. “I ride within four pounds of thirteen stone now. If I go on at this rate until I am twenty-one I shall not be able to find a horse fit to carry me!”

“You will have to get the colonel to breed one specially for you,” remarked Lestrange, with a loud laugh. “By the way,” he continued, “talking of horses, I wonder if you happen to have anything that would do for Nell. Punch there is getting old and a little groggy in the fore legs. He came down with her the other day, and the child had rather a nasty spill. I shall not let her ride him any longer than I can help. But I have nothing on my place suitable for her; I don’t go in much for breeding horses, you know.”

“No,” I concurred, “I know you don’t. But we have the very thing for her, a two-year-old filly, unbroken, all but thoroughbred, with the makings of a splendid horse in her. If you care to ride down to the vley I will show her to you; it won’t take us much more than a mile out of our way, and I should like Nell to have her.”

Mr Lestrange agreeing, we forthwith made off toward the flat where the horses were turned out to graze, and presently I had caught the filly, which was a very gentle creature and quite a pet of mine, and led her up by her long forelock for inspection. She was a bright bay, with very long dark mane and tail, and of course very ragged-looking as to her coat, never having been groomed in her life; but that did not matter, her points were quite unmistakable, and Mr Lestrange, to say nothing of Nell, fell in love with her on the spot. Then, when the visitors had done admiring the animal, we turned our horses’ heads and rode toward the house, on the broad veranda-covered stoep of which we could see my father and mother, the latter waving her handkerchief by way of welcome to Mr Lestrange and Nell. A quarter of an hour later we had dismounted at the foot of the broad flight of steps leading up to the stoep, which my father and mother had descended in order to extend greeting to the visitors, and the “boys” were leading the horses away to the stable at the back.

The usual interchange of greetings having passed, we learned that Mr Lestrange and his daughter had come prepared to pass the night with us; and when our guests had been taken to their rooms and had refreshed themselves after their journey we all gathered on the spacious front stoep and chatted until dinner was served. Our subjects of conversation were naturally rather limited, isolated as we were in what was then practically a wilderness, where it sometimes happened that several weeks elapsed between the departure of one visitor and the arrival of another. Like my father, Mr Lestrange had devoted himself to sheep farming, and the conversation therefore turned chiefly upon the most approved methods of dealing with the several diseases to which the sheep were subject, the best dip to use, how to determine the precise moment for shearing, to secure the best quality of wool, and so on.

Yet it seemed to me that through it all Mr Lestrange’s mind was dwelling upon something else, something that he was anxious to speak about as soon as a favourable opportunity should arrive. That opportunity, however, did not occur until after my mother and Nell had retired for the night, for we Laurences happened to be enthusiasts in the matter of music. My mother was not only a brilliant pianiste, but she also sang exceedingly well. My father possessed a chamber organ, Nesbitt owned a very sweet-toned violin from which he could extract the most wonderful music, and, lastly, I had learned to tootle fairly well upon the flute; therefore whenever we had visitors we were generally required to organise an impromptu concert for their benefit, as was the case on the evening in question. But at length the instruments fell silent, my mother and Nell bade us good night and retired to their rooms, and, a table under the veranda having been set out with decanters, glasses, cigars, and tobacco, we males adjourned to the front stoep for a final gossip before separating. And then it was that Mr Lestrange found opportunity to broach the matter which, as I conjectured, had been occupying his thoughts all the evening.

Having mixed himself a glass of grog and lighted his pipe, he drew his chair close up to the one occupied by my father, and, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, said:

“Look here, Laurence! The real reason why I rode over here this afternoon was not personally to congratulate Ned upon the occurrence of his birthday, but to ask you how you happen to be off for ammunition. I have been wondering whether you could spare me a little.”

“Well,” said my father, “I think we can let you have a little, though not very much, for our own stock is growing rather low. How much do you want?”

“Could you let me have, say, twenty pounds of powder and—?” began Lestrange.

“Twenty pounds!” ejaculated my father in surprise. “No, that I certainly cannot; for I do not think we have more than half that quantity altogether. But I dare say we can let you have four or five pounds to tide you over until you can replenish your stock, if that will be of any use to you.”

“Thanks very much,” answered Lestrange; “but it would not be enough, and moreover it would be depriving you. No; I must see if I cannot somehow arrange to send in to Port Elizabeth for a supply. The nuisance of it is that I have nobody about my place whom I can trust upon such an errand—”

“Oh, as to that,” interrupted my father, “if you are so hard up as that, Ned shall go in and get it for you! We are not very busy here just now, and a trip to Port Elizabeth will do him no harm. But why do you require such a large quantity? Are you contemplating an up-country jaunt; or what is in the wind?”

“No,” answered Lestrange; “I am certainly not contemplating an up-country expedition of any sort. And as to what is in the wind, I don’t know; I very much wish I did. But during the last month I have heard a thing or two with regard to the natives that make me feel just a trifle uneasy, and I thought I ought to mention the matter to you—if it has not already reached your ears.”

“No,” said my father, “we have heard nothing here. What is it?”

“Well,” said Lestrange, “I have heard nothing very definite, thus far—only enough, in fact, to render me somewhat uneasy. Just vague hints, more than anything else, you know. But I have been putting two and two together, and therefrom I deduce the fact that the natives are growing a bit restive at the steadily increasing number of whites who are coming into the country—”

My father interrupted with a loud laugh. “Is that all, my dear chap?” he exclaimed. “Why, it has been like that ever since I came here, sixteen years ago. There were rumours then that the natives intended to rise and drive us all into the sea; but nothing has ever come of it, excepting an occasional small raid upon some outlying farm, and the driving off of a few sheep or cattle. Surely you have been here long enough to know that these mysterious hints and rumours should not be taken seriously!”

“Yes, I have,” returned Lestrange. “But, to my mind, things look a bit different just now. From what I have heard I gather that there is somebody—whether a white man or a native I cannot make out, but it looks rather like a white man—who is going round among the natives, urging the various tribes to combine together for the purpose of attacking and exterminating the whites forthwith; pointing out that, unless this is very speedily done, the whites will get such a footing in the country that it will be impossible to drive them out, with the result that the natives will be robbed of their land and driven into the interior, to perish on the points of the spears of the powerful and ferocious Zulus. Now, that is an exceedingly dangerous doctrine to preach to such ignorant, credulous folk as are the Tembu, the Pondos, and the Griquas; the more so since there is a soupçon of truth in it, as is evidenced by the increasing numbers of the Dutch who are pressing over the border in order to escape from British rule: and this time I am really inclined to believe that the agitation may lead to more or less unpleasant consequences. Not, mind you, that I think the disturbance is at all likely to reach as far as here; still, one never knows, and it is wise to be prepared for the worst—which is the reason why I am anxious to replenish my stock of ammunition as quickly as possible.”

“Yes; quite so,” agreed my father. “But,” he continued, “who or what is your authority for the statement that somebody—possibly a white man—is endeavouring to stir up the natives against us? For my own part I can scarcely credit such a thing as possible. Why, assuming for a moment such a thing to be true, the fellow himself would be in the direst peril, for the natives could hardly be expected to discriminate in his favour; he would be just as likely to be wiped out in the convulsion as any of us.”

“I think not,” said Lestrange, “for I take it that, if such a man exists, he is some schelm devoid of all kith or kin, and fully prepared to throw in his lot with the Kafirs, in the hope of living a safe and easy life with them; or, possibly, he may have some notion that he can persuade them to make him a chief if he should succeed in bringing off a successful rising against the whites. As to my authority—well, one of my Totties, a man named Klaas, who is a rather intelligent fellow, has overheard a good deal of mysterious talk among my ‘boys’ of late, which he has repeated to me; and although nothing has been said of an absolutely definite character, the remarks which he has repeated certainly seem to point pretty conclusively to the fact that something is really brewing. Moreover—and this, in my opinion, is the most sinister indication of all—my native ‘boys’ are all going back home, upon one pretext or another.”

“A–h!” ejaculated my father, “now you are coming to something definite. How long has this been going on?”

“Oh, not very long! Only within these last few days,” answered Lestrange. “But within that time more than half of them have gone. And they are mostly Pondos or Griquas.”

“By Jove, Pater, there may be something in it, after all!” I exclaimed. “Our ‘boys’ are mostly Totties, as you know, but we have had a few Griquas—about half a dozen—until within the last few days; now they are all gone, two or three of them without waiting to get their pay. I did not think very much of that, however, for they have done the same thing before; but in the light of what Mr Lestrange has just told us it certainly looks a bit suspicious.”

“Yes, it certainly does,” agreed my father, “although, after all, there may really be nothing in it. At the same time it will be well to be prepared; therefore to-morrow you shall take the wagon and make an errand to Port Elizabeth. I believe some of our stores are running rather low, so there ought to be no difficulty in arranging for the trip without unnecessarily alarming your mother. And you can complete your back load by bringing as much powder and lead as the wagon will conveniently carry. I have no doubt that our friend Lestrange here will willingly take half of what you bring.”

“Ay, that I will, and be glad to get it,” answered Lestrange. “And if you will take my advice, Ned, you will not loiter unduly on the way. If a rising is really meditated it may occur at any moment, although I do not believe it is exactly what you may call imminent; were it so, I think we should have heard a little more about it. Still, there is nothing like being prepared in good time; in a case like this it is better to be a couple of months too early than a day too late.”

So it was arranged, and for the next half-hour we were all busy discussing the question of what precisely I should bring out with me, and preparing a detailed list of our various requirements; for a wagon journey to Port Elizabeth was no trifling matter, the distance across the veld and by road being about one hundred and seventy miles, and occupying the best part of nine days each way. By the time that we had finished it was past midnight, and I went to bed and slept soundly, for, to be quite truthful, I had no very profound belief in the threatened rising, despite the ominous departure of the Griquas; such things had happened before—were constantly happening, in fact—and nothing ever came of it, although more or less alarming rumours were continually arising, nobody quite knew how. As a matter of fact I felt quite easy in my mind about it, for I was confident that, even should a rising take place, it would be suppressed very promptly; and in any case I did not believe for a moment that the savages would dare to penetrate so far into the colony as Bella Vista, or even as far as Triannon: while the “scare”, trifling and unfounded as I believed it to be, afforded me an excellent excuse for a trip to Port Elizabeth, which town I had not visited for more than six months, my father having accompanied the wagon on the previous journey; also it justified me in my determination to purchase a new rifle—one of the very newest and most up-to-date weapons that I could possibly procure, the rifle which I had been using for the previous six years being a flintlock affair, and worn out at that. On the following morning we were astir at an even earlier hour than usual, for, the trek oxen not having been worked for some time, I was anxious to make a good start and get well on my way before the heat of the day set in. My mother expressed some surprise at the apparently hurried character of the expedition; but when it was explained that Mr Lestrange had run out of ammunition, while our own stock was running low, she was at once satisfied, for at that time hunting was practically the only amusement open to the farmer, and it was also imperatively necessary that he should be amply provided with means to check the increase of the more predatory animals in the neighbourhood of his farm. Also my mother, being a good housewife, was far more inclined to avail herself of the opportunity afforded by the trip to provide herself with an ample stock of such things as could only be procured at Port Elizabeth than she was to search curiously for another and deeper motive for the trip than the one which my father had given her.

The wagon, with a light load of skins and horns, got away early, in charge of Jan, the Hottentot driver, and then we all sat down to breakfast, as merry and jovial a party, probably, as any in South Africa that day, much of our amusement arising from the fact that my mother and Nell were continually thinking of some fresh commission which I was to be sure to execute for them before leaving Port Elizabeth, the pair of them keeping me so busy jotting down their instructions in my notebook that I could scarcely find time to eat or drink. But at length the merry meal came to an end: we all rose from the table and adjourned to the stoep, before which Piet, my after-rider, was walking the horses to and fro, with Thunder and Juno, the two big hounds that always accompanied me everywhere, trailing at their heels and whining with impatience to be off. Arrived there, another commission or two were remembered and had to be jotted down, upon which my father laughingly exclaimed, as I finally closed my notebook and slipped it into my pocket:

“There, that will do, Ned; now you had better mount and ride, or you will not get away at all to-day. Goodbye, boy; remember me very kindly to Mr Henderson and such other friends as you may see at the Bay, and—don’t forget the new rifle!”

This last sally produced quite an explosion of laughter at my expense, for I had announced my determination to treat myself to the best weapon I could find, and the enthusiasm with which I had dwelt upon the achievements that would be in my power when it came into my possession rendered it the most unlikely thing in the world that I should forget to purchase it. Joining in the laugh, I shook hands with Mr Lestrange, Nesbitt, and my father, kissed Nell and my mother, and ran light-heartedly down the steps, swung myself into the saddle, and, with a final farewell wave of the hand, cantered off down the broad path leading to the gate, with the dogs bounding along ahead and Piet, mounted upon a sturdy grey gelding, bringing up the rear.

It was a glorious morning, such as I think one never finds anywhere but in South Africa; the sky overhead a deep, rich, cloudless blue, shading away on all sides to a soft, warm, delicate, almost colourless grey at the horizon, the air, already warming beneath the ardent rays of the sun, clear and pellucid as crystal and as invigorating as champagne with the fresh, clean smell of the dew-saturated vegetation. Around on every hand stretched a brilliant, sun-kissed picture of rugged mountain slopes, scored deeply by the storms of ages; deep kloofs, precipitous of side, shaggy with their vesture of dense bush, and mysterious with their broad masses of dark shadow; rolling uplands, dotted here and there with clumps of timber and bush or with our grazing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and horses, sweeping gently down toward the wide-stretching, bush-clad plains, through which wound tiny spruits, like threads of silver, hurrying to lose themselves in the broader waters of the Great Fish River.

Riding at an easy canter, the track across the veld being a very gentle downward slope all the way, I overtook the wagon at a distance of about six miles from the house; when, dismounting, I took my rifle from its slings under the wagon tent, loaded it, slung my powder horn over my shoulder, slipped a few wads and bullets into my pocket, and then, accompanied by the two dogs, walked on ahead of the wagon toward our first outspanning place, my horse Prince following me, as he had been trained to do, with the bridle hanging loose upon his neck. I had of course an ample supply of provisions in the wagon, including the shoulder of a sheep that had been slaughtered that morning; but mutton naturally formed the staple of our fare at Bella Vista when there was no buck meat in the house, and I was very heartily tired of both. I was therefore on the lookout for a pauw or a koraan—the great and small bustards of South Africa—and hoped to get one in time to have it cooked for my luncheon instead of the shoulder of mutton. And presently, when I had got about half a mile ahead of the wagon, I suddenly caught sight of a fine koraan on the ground about three hundred yards to my right front, as it emerged from behind a big clump of melkboem, feeding busily. The bird instantly sighted me and, pausing but the fraction of a second to look straight at me, took to flight, making the air throb with its harsh, discordant cry of alarm as it did so.

It was a long shot for my old rifle, which was only sighted up to one hundred yards; but I had used the piece for six years and knew to a nicety what it would do. Moreover—I am now an old man and may therefore perhaps venture to speak the simple truth without being suspected of boasting—I seem to have been endowed, from my earliest years, with the gift of straight shooting; it was just a knack, I suppose, but I seemed to be able to judge distances accurately by intuition, and to allow the correct elevation and windage under the most diversified conditions, so that I very rarely made use of the sights on my rifle. Nor did I ever need to aim consciously; I just flung the weapon to my shoulder, keeping my eye meanwhile upon my mark, pressed the trigger at precisely the right instant, and—down dropped the quarry: I had in fact by long practice become a dead shot, and could scarcely remember when I had last failed to bring down what I aimed at. Nor did I fail now; as the bird rose it flew straight away from me, and it was still uttering its alarm cry when I pressed the trigger and down it fell, stone-dead, shot clean through the body. At the whip-like crack of the rifle the two dogs dashed forward into the thick clumps of low milk-bush into which the bird had fallen, and presently reappeared, Thunder dragging the bird along the ground by one of its legs, while Juno romped round him uttering low, sharp yells of delight, varied by sudden dashes of pretended threat to snatch the koraan away from him.

Chapter Two.

A tragic Homecoming.

In due time our first outspan was reached—a wide vley with a small spruit meandering lazily through it, and plenty of rich grass for the oxen—and here a halt was called for a couple of hours during the hottest part of the day; then on again to the next outspan, which was reached about an hour before sunset. Here my aversion to mutton again asserted itself; and while the “boys” watered the oxen, built the camp fire, and generally made preparations for the coming night, I took my rifle, and, accompanied as usual by the two dogs, and by Piet, carrying my double-barrelled 12-bore shot gun, I sauntered off in search of something acceptable for supper.

The spot where we had outspanned for the night was the one which I usually chose as the termination of the second stage of my journey when going to Port Elizabeth. It was an extensive flat, dotted here and there with big clumps of bush, and with a wide, shallow depression in the ground, about a mile distant from the wagon. Into this the same spruit alongside which we had outspanned at midday found its way and widened out into a broad, shallow, reed-bordered sheet of water, much frequented by wild duck, widgeon, and geese, and also the favourite drinking place of all the game haunting its immediate neighbourhood. I felt pretty certain, therefore, of getting a shot at something by ambushing myself among the reeds, and to this spot I accordingly made my way. As it happened, we arrived in the very nick of time, for we had scarcely taken up a position among the reeds, in a situation that enabled me to command a view of a good wide stretch of water, when I saw a faint smudge against the clear sky southward, which rapidly resolved itself into a big flight of wild duck heading directly for the end of the pond near where I was ambushed; and I had only time to pass my rifle to Piet and receive from him the shot gun in exchange when, with much quacking, the flight wheeled and proceeded to settle down upon the surface of the water. As they did so I raised my weapon, and, aiming into the “brown”, pressed both triggers, one immediately after the other, with the result that five of the duck dropped dead, while another half-dozen fell wounded, the whole being promptly retrieved by Piet and the dogs, who all dashed into the shallow water and brought them ashore.

Eleven birds constituted an ample supply for our immediate requirements, both for supper that night and for breakfast next morning; and as I made a point of never destroying the wild things except as a matter of necessity, we forthwith returned to the wagon and proceeded to pluck and prepare as many of the duck as we needed for supper, afterward roasting them over the camp fire. By the time the meal was ready for consumption the soft, velvet darkness of the South African starlit night had fallen, and we ate our meal to the accompaniment of the usual night sounds of the veld where water happens to be near—the soft, subdued quacking of drowsy waterfowl, the occasional “honk” of a belated goose, the stealthy splashing of bucks wading warily into the deeper and cleaner water clear of the rushes before venturing to drink, mysterious rustlings among the reeds, the distant call of buck to each other in the bush, the sharp bark of the jackal, the blood-curdling laugh of the prowling hyena, and the occasional roar of the leopard; the whole dominated by the incessant noise of millions of frogs, and the continuous chirr of many more millions of insects.

I slept that night on the cartel, which is a light hardwood frame, closely strung lengthwise and across with rimpi, or thin strips of hide, and which, slung to the framework of the interior of the wagon, under the tent, serves as a bedstead. Upon this, if furnished with a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets—as in my own case—it is possible to enjoy a perfect night’s rest. The next morning we were all astir with the dawn, and while the “boys” prepared breakfast I made my way down to the spruit, bathed, with the dogs for company, and got back to the wagon just in good time for the first meal of the day, with an appetite to which a keen edge had been put by the fresh, clean air of the open veld. Then, immediately after breakfast, the oxen were inspanned, and, pushing forward a little more rapidly than on the first day, we forded the Great Fish River shortly after noon before outspanning for the midday halt.

In this fashion, then, we journeyed, day after day, quietly and uneventfully, toward Port Elizabeth, where we arrived without mishap during the afternoon of the ninth day after leaving Bella Vista. Leaving the wagon outspanned on the outskirts of the town, I rode in and called in the first instance upon a certain Mr Henderson, who was a friend of ours, and from him received, as I fully expected, a very cordial invitation to make his house my home during the period of my sojourn in the town. The following day was a busy day with me, for I had a great many commissions to execute; but by arranging them systematically I contrived to wipe the whole of them off my list before the stores closed, including even the purchase of the new rifle which I had promised myself. This was a very expensive but beautiful weapon, very light compared with my old rifle, for it weighed, all complete and including the shoulder strap, less than six pounds. It had a plain blue cylindrical barrel, gauged to take a half-inch spherical bullet with three drachms of powder, was fitted with a nipple for percussion caps, and provided with a fixed sight for a range of one hundred yards and two flap sights for two hundred and five hundred yards respectively, the latter being regarded in those days as an exceptionally long range. Also, with a normal pull upon the trigger of six ounces, it was fitted with an ingenious arrangement which, by pressing a small lever, converted this into a hair trigger. Lastly, it bore the name of a certain famous London maker, which alone was a guarantee of its excellence. The storekeeper from whom I bought it had other guns by the same maker, and he finally tempted me to buy a very beautiful double-barrel sporting gun as a present for my father, the right hand barrel being a Number 12 smooth-bore, while the left barrel was rifled, this piece also being fitted for use with percussion caps.

The next day, which was the eleventh day from that of my departure from Bella Vista, immediately after breakfast I rode out to the wagon, gave orders to inspan, and accompanied it into the town, where, having unloaded my hides and horns, which I had disposed of at a very good price, I proceeded to load up the powder, lead, and other things that I had been charged to procure, and left Port Elizabeth again on my return journey about mid-afternoon, trekking a distance of ten miles on my homeward way before outspanning for the night.

Of course I was all on fire for an opportunity to try my new rifle, and the chance came that same afternoon. For when about six miles out from Port Elizabeth, I met a Boer who was trekking in from Uitenhage, and who informed me that, about a mile back, he had been obliged to abandon one of his oxen in a dying condition; and, sure enough, a quarter of an hour later we saw the poor beast lying by the side of the road, with the aasvogels, or vultures, already gathered about it. A round dozen or more were squatted on the ground in a circle round the dying ox, while others, mere specks in the deep—blue sky, were winging their way to it from all quarters. The method of these new arrivals was to maintain their lofty flight until they arrived immediately above their destined prey; then they would begin to circle slowly downward in a wide spiral, finally hovering for some three or four seconds at a height of about twenty yards before awkwardly settling upon the ground. This was my chance; an aasvogel more or less in South Africa mattered nothing, there were plenty of them and to spare, and they were such disgusting creatures that I had no compunction at all about abandoning my usual rule, and shooting one or two of them merely in order to test my new weapon. And a very good test they afforded too, for although their downward sailing upon outstretched, motionless wings was a perfectly steady movement, it was rather deceptive as to speed, and, the movement being a circling one, it was necessary to fire at exactly the right instant, or the range would be wrong and a miss would result.

I decided to begin the test by firing at a descending vulture at what was supposed to be the extreme range of accuracy of the weapon, namely, five hundred yards; and as this was a good long distance—quite far enough to enable the bird to swerve at the flash and so cause me to miss—I came to the conclusion that the right thing to do would be to allow the vulture to sweep past until it was flying away from me, and then pull the trigger. Accordingly I loaded the piece, threw up the five-hundred-yard sight, and then walked forward, choosing a particular bird as I did so, and following it with my eye until I judged it to be at the right distance and position; then I flung up the rifle, pressed it firmly to my shoulder, covered the vulture with the sights, and fired. The next second I saw the feathers fly, the great wings flapped once, convulsively, and as the “smack” of the bullet reached my ears the bird turned a complete somersault in the air and fell to the ground stone-dead, to the accompaniment of loud shouts of wonder and admiration from my Totties.

Needless to say, I was vastly proud of my achievement, for it was far and away the longest shot that I had ever attempted. But instead of being satisfied with my success, I must needs attempt something still more difficult. Flapping down the back sight, and entirely dispensing with its use, I reloaded the weapon and determined to rely upon my eye and my judgment alone, or, in other words, upon that faculty which, by constant use, had become a sort of instinct with me. Accordingly I selected as a mark another vulture which had been in the act of descending, but which, apparently alarmed at the unusual manner in which its predecessor had accomplished the last part of its descent, was now wheeling slowly round at a height of, as I estimated, fully eight hundred yards above the earth. Training my rifle upon it, I followed the movements of the bird until it had wheeled away from me, when, carefully judging the amount of elevation required, I pressed the trigger, and was delighted the next moment again to see the feathers fly, to note the convulsive stroke of the great pinions which indicated a hit, and to see the ponderous bulk of the bird come hurtling earthward. It was a magnificent shot—I felt that I was justified in admitting that much to myself—and it satisfied me that, even now, at the beginning of my acquaintance with my new rifle, I was as much master of it as I was of my old one, and could rely upon it as implicitly. I felt that I had no need to test its capabilities further; but I once more loaded it and, walking to where the dying ox was lying, with the circle of vultures closing in around it, put the foul birds to flight, with many a croak of protest from them at my interference, placed the muzzle of the weapon at the ear of the ox, pulled the trigger, and put the poor beast out of its misery, besides saving it from the possibility of attack by the ravenous birds before the breath had entirely left its body. Three miles farther on we outspanned for the night.

The return journey—until its last stage—was as uneventful as the outward one had been. For the first three days we met, on an average, half a dozen wagons a day, trekking to Port Elizabeth from various farms in the outlying districts; but after that they became less numerous, and after the fifth day we met no more, nor did I call at any farms—which, at that length from the Bay, were few and far between—although we occasionally sighted one in the distance to the right or left of the track we were following.

On the twentieth day after my departure from Bella Vista, about an hour after we had inspanned for the day’s trek, which was to end with our arrival home shortly before sunset, as we topped a slight rise the kopje or hill upon which the house stood swung into view for the first time since I had lost sight of it some three weeks earlier; but it was still at such a distance that, with the house turning its shadowed face to me, I could not distinguish it with the naked eye, and it happened that upon that particular occasion I had forgotten to put into the voorkissie, or wagon chest, upon which the driver generally sits, the telescope that I usually carried with me upon such excursions. Nevertheless I knew that my people would be expecting my return on that day; therefore, when we outspanned about midday, instead of lighting only one fire, for the purpose of cooking our midday meal, I caused three to be lighted, at a distance of about one hundred feet apart, which was my usual method of advertising my impending arrival, feeling sure that somebody about the house would be on the lookout, and would see the three sparks of flame and columns of smoke, we being by that time within some ten miles of the place. At this distance I was generally able, in clear weather, to distinguish the long, white front wall of the house standing out against the purple shadows of the Great Winter Berg range, but on this occasion I could not, although the day was as fine and the air as clear as usual at that time of the year. Yet, strangely enough, the circumstance did not strike me as being in the least peculiar or significant, although Piet, my after-rider, made some passing reference to it. Later on in the afternoon, however, when we had again inspanned, and had been trekking for about an hour, it began to dawn upon me that things were not quite as usual at Bella Vista. In the first place, of all our flocks and herds which should have been grazing somewhere on the plain or the foothills ahead, not a horn or a hoof was to be seen. Also, the house looked different: it had the appearance of being not as high as usual; I could not see the grey thatch of its roof; and the walls, instead of being pure white, as they had been when I last saw them, were white only in comparatively small patches, the remainder being brown, and in some places black!

By the time we had approached close enough to distinguish as much as that, we all came to the conclusion that we knew what had happened; and I saddled and mounted my horse and, followed as usual by the two dogs, rode forward at a hand gallop to investigate. There had undoubtedly been a conflagration, which had destroyed the house; and my father and mother, with the house “boys”, had in all probability gone over to Triannon, whither, no doubt, the stock had also been driven. Still, I thought it rather strange that they had not dispatched a “boy” to meet me and explain what had happened, and whither they had gone, or at least left one about the place to afford me full information on my arrival. I finally concluded that they had done the latter, and that the lazy rascal was in his hut fast asleep, instead of keeping a watch for me, as he ought to have been doing. This last thought caused me to look particularly for the huts, and then I understood another thing that had been puzzling me: the huts no longer existed!

Seriously alarmed now—for the destruction of the house by fire by no means necessarily involved the destruction of the huts, which had stood about a quarter of a mile from the former—I pressed my heels into Prince’s flanks and urged him up the rise at his best speed, fears—born of Lestrange’s news on that night when he had ridden over to borrow ammunition—at last gripping my heart lest what he had then apprehended as just a very remote possibility might have actually come to pass. And as I at length drew near enough to observe that the massive gate in the high fence which surrounded our extensive garden was off its hinges and lying flat on the ground just inside the opening, those fears increased, and were still further strengthened when, as I rode through the opening, a whiff of tainted air like the odour of carrion reached my nostrils. Then, as I glanced about me, with eyes prepared to behold I knew not what of horror, I perceived that many of the ornamental flowering shrubs on either side of the path leading to the house were beaten down and withered, as though stampeding cattle—or a host of men—had swept over them; while far up the pathway, and even upon the stoep of the house itself, a multitude of aasvogels were squatted motionless, apparently gorged, while others were waddling slowly and heavily to and fro. Half a dozen paces farther on Prince suddenly shied so violently that he almost unseated me, as a loud flapping of wings and a great croaking arose on my right, and some fifteen of the obscene birds rose heavily into the air and winged their way a hundred yards or so farther up the garden before again settling.

The pathway was bordered, from the house to the gateway, with a hedge of flowering shrubs, backed on either side by rows of peach trees; and it was impossible for me to see from the path what lay beyond those peach trees. I therefore dismounted, and, throwing the reins to the ground, so that Prince might not walk away to the stable, forced my way through the hedge and the rows of peach trees into the more open part of the garden; and there I beheld what I was by this time fully prepared to see, but what was nevertheless a sight revolting beyond all possibility of description. I will not enter into unnecessary details, but will simply say that scattered about here and there all over that part of the garden lay the disfigured remains of some sixty or seventy Tembu warriors—they were easily identifiable by the shape of their shields and spears and the general character of their war equipment—who had evidently been shot down during a most determined and pertinacious attack upon the house. The other half of the front portion of the garden presented a similar sight, the whole bearing mute but indubitable testimony not only to the implacable determination of the savages but also to the resolution of the defenders. Yes, the worst had happened: the house had been attacked and finally destroyed, notwithstanding the desperate nature of the defence put up by its inmates; and now—my mother and father, and good old Jack Nesbitt, where were they?

To discover the answer to this momentous question was my next task, and how shall I find words to describe the passion of grief and apprehension with which I set about it? It must go undescribed, for there are certain emotions of the human heart and mind which mere words are powerless to portray. Perhaps it is well that this should be the case, for no one who has not passed through such an experience as mine could possibly understand what I endured as I made my slow way toward the ruined house, subconsciously noting, as I went, the evidences which met me on every hand of the protracted, stubborn implacability of the attack, and the resolute, unyielding character of the defence. The savages had indeed succeeded, but at what a cost! As I made my way up through that shambles of a wrecked garden I acquired a new impression of the invincible courage of the South African native which I have never since had occasion to modify.

In the face of such evidence of deadly resolution on the part of the combatants on both sides as I beheld all round me, I felt that it was hopeless to dream of the possibility that the inmates of the house had made good their escape at the last moment, for clearly the building had been completely surrounded, and the attack simultaneously delivered on all sides. The question was, had they finally met death on the points of the enemy’s spears, or had they fallen alive into that enemy’s hands? I shuddered with greater horror than ever as the latter possibility occurred to me, for I had not lived nearly sixteen years in South Africa without hearing something of the unspeakable barbarities inflicted by the savages upon those unhappy beings who chanced to be taken alive in battle by them. Better a thousand times—ay, ten thousand times—that my dear ones should perish quickly in the heat and excitement of the fight than that they should survive to be carried off to suffer—! I put the thought from me, for I felt that I should go mad if I permitted my mind to dwell upon it.

Yet it thrust itself persistently upon me again and again as I approached the smoke-blackened walls of the ruined building and gazed with horrified eyes at the constantly accumulating evidences of the desperate character of the attack and defence. I believed I could pretty accurately picture what had happened. My father had evidently not been taken entirely by surprise, or there would not have been so many dead savages lying around the house: he had probably obtained an inkling of what was toward in time to put the building into some sort of state of defence; possibly he had found time to barricade the doors and windows, and from the general aspect of things outside I surmised that he had somehow contrived to get half a dozen or more of the Totties into the house to assist in its defence.

The attack had probably occurred about two or three o’clock in the morning, when the whites might be expected to be sound asleep, and from the appearance of the slain I believed that it had taken place about thirty-six hours before my arrival on the scene. In any case the attack was unwisely planned, from the native point of view, for it was about the time of full moon, and the South African night, with a full moon riding high in the sky, is almost literally as light as day, and the defenders, being doubtless on the qui vive, would perceive the first stealthy approach of the savages and at once open fire upon them. And I knew enough about my father’s and Nesbitt’s marksmanship to feel assured that every time they pressed a trigger an enemy would fall. But even their deadly skill with the rifle would not account for the many bodies lying round the house, and thus I was brought to the conclusion that some of the Totties, armed with shot guns loaded with loopers, or slugs, must have assisted in the defence. Time after time the enemy must have charged toward the house, and time after time must they have been driven back from those stout stone walls and barricaded doors and windows by the withering volleys of lead poured into them at close range. But the weak point of Bella Vista was its thatched roof, which was the universal form of covering to every farmhouse at that day, on account of its coolness. It was, however, easily capable of being set fire to, and in all probability the Kafirs, after being several times repulsed, had made a concerted rush, in the course of which they had succeeded in hurling several spears, with bunches of burning grass attached to them, into the thatch, where they had remained, setting the roof on fire. Then, as the house was only a one-storey building, it would quickly fill with smoke, and the inmates would be faced with the alternatives of suffocating, being burnt to death beneath the blazing roof when it should fall in, or yielding themselves to the tender mercies of the ferocious Tembu. I thought I knew which of the alternatives my father would choose, provided, of course, that he survived long enough to avail himself of the choice; but did he? That was the question, and—merciful heaven! if he did not, what had become of my mother?

Frenzied at the thought of what her fate might be if she had fallen alive into the hands of the savages, I dashed up the front steps to the stoep, clubbing my rifle and striking out right and left at the gorged aasvogels congregated there, which seemed disposed to resent my intrusion. And as I mounted to the top step I at once perceived that I had now arrived at the spot where the fight had raged most fiercely and stubbornly, for the ornamental guard rail and one of the veranda posts were broken-down, the climbing roses which had been trained to screen the railing were crushed and trodden into the earth, and the whole stoep was choked with the bodies of Tembu warriors who had evidently met death in a desperate attempt to force their way into the house through the barricaded doors and windows.

But the barricades no longer existed, having evidently been consumed in the conflagration that followed the collapse of the flaming roof, and now only the charred and blackened remnants of the door and window frames remained; beyond them appeared a small heap of white ashes, among which could be detected here and there a few fragments of what had once been picture frames, the metal-work of furniture, or the unconsumed end of a roof timber. With a strong effort of will I compelled myself to pass through one of the window openings, and entered what had been the drawing-room. A strong odour of fire still clung to the place, but there was not much débris, for the room had been by no means crowded with furniture. I was obliged to pick my way with care, for the floor was burned completely through in some places, while in others it was so deeply charred that my feet broke through upon encountering them. I persevered, however, for near the middle of the room I perceived a mound of ashes of exceedingly suggestive shape and dimensions, and I was anxious to ascertain what lay beneath. And, combating the almost invincible repugnance to close investigation which seized me, I presently discovered that the heap concealed, as I had suspected, a half-consumed human body, so dreadfully disfigured that it was only with the utmost difficulty I presently succeeded in identifying it as the remains of a Tottie. The metal blade and shank of a Tembu spear—the wooden shaft of which had been consumed by fire—transfixed the throat, and my father’s roer, with its stock deeply charred, was still grasped in what remained of the left hand. It was the only body in the room.

From this room I passed into the hall. This was in a similar condition to that of the drawing-room, except that it contained the remains of two bodies, one close to the doorway and the other at the point where the passage leading from the rear entrance of the building opened upon the hall. The body near the front doorway I identified as that of Nesbitt—by the watch which was lying close beside it, and which, I noticed, had stopped at twenty-three minutes after six—while the other body was quite unrecognisable. There was nothing to show how either of these men had died.

Leaving the hall, I entered the dining-room; and the moment I did so it became apparent that I had arrived upon the scene of the last stand of the little garrison, where the final phase of the stubborn and protracted attack and defence had been fought out. For the room was in a terrible state of confusion, the scattered remains of the heavy furniture showing that the savages had actually succeeded in forcing the barricade and gaining an entrance—this evidence being confirmed by the presence of nine Tembu corpses piled up in the window opening. And within arm’s length of them lay another corpse—that of my father, still grasping in his right hand the trusty cavalry sabre that had served him so well in his campaigning days, while his left held a pistol. Three Tembu spearheads in his body, one of which had evidently passed through his heart, told how he had died. A few feet away, right up against the front wall, I noticed a pile of scorched, brittle stuff that, as I cautiously probed it with the barrel of my rifle, proved to be burnt rugs. The three upper layers were burnt to a cinder, but the fourth was only scorched, while the last was scarcely singed; and beneath this lay the body of my mother, the flesh slightly darkened by the smoke of the burnt woollen rugs, but otherwise not disfigured at all. A bullet hole in the very centre of her forehead told me all that I wanted to know; and while I cast myself on my knees in the ashes beside that beloved form, a tempest of dry sobs rending my bosom as I realised for the first time all that I had lost, I felt thankful that my father had found the courage and resolution at the last moment to save her, even though by such dreadful means, from falling alive into the hands of the fiendishly ferocious Tembu.

In the remaining rooms I found seven more corpses, all of them being those of Totties, who had either perished in defending the house or had died of suffocation. And nowhere but in the dining-room had the savages ever succeeded in gaining even a temporary footing, while the general appearance of the ruins showed that they had not entered after the flames had died out; indeed, I doubted whether they had even deferred their departure until then, for they must have known at last that nothing could possibly have survived in that furnace of flame, and with the whites all slain and the house ablaze, there was no reason why they should desire to enter it, for the fire would effectually destroy everything in the shape of plunder. But they had driven off the whole of the live stock, and that alone should have satisfied them.

I do not know how long I remained on my knees beside the corpse of my mother in that fire-seared, bloodstained dining-room, plunged into a very stupor of grief; but I remember that I was at length aroused by the distant sounds of a cracking whip and the screams of Jan, the Hottentot driver, to his oxen, announcing the approach of the wagon; and, looking about me, I discovered that the sun had already set, and that darkness was fast closing down upon the scene. Then I rose to my feet, and, leaving the ruined house, made my way down the path to where Prince still stood patiently awaiting my return, with the dogs Thunder and Juno crouching upon the ground before him; and, flinging the bridle over his head, I climbed into the saddle and rode slowly forth to meet the wagon. I came to it at a distance of about half a mile from the broken-down gate at the garden entrance, and ordered the others to outspan where they were, water the oxen, and turn them loose to graze. Then I briefly acquainted Jan, the driver, and Piet, my after-rider, with what had happened, strictly forbade the former to go up to the house—though there was little need for that, for I doubt whether anything would have induced the fellow to go near the place after nightfall—and ordered Piet to accompany me, as it was my intention to ride on to Mr Lestrange’s place, to see whether he and his had escaped a similar visitation, and, if so, to beg shelter for the night and his presence and help on the following day while I performed the last sad offices for my beloved dead.

I am now an old man, for my age already exceeds the limit allotted by the Psalmist as the length of man’s life, but the memory of that night ride, and my heart-breaking burden of grief as I stared out unseeingly upon the fast-darkening landscape, allowing Prince to find his own way and travel his own pace while I dwelt upon the harrowing scenes which I had so recently beheld, and began to realise the full extent of my irreparable loss, will never leave me; it is as fresh to-day as it was at that moment, and so I know it will continue to be until I die. Yet, keenly as I suffered, I frequently found myself wondering why I did not suffer still more keenly; for after I had progressed a mile or two on my way the sky to the eastward brightened, and presently the moon, two days past the full, sailed up over the far-distant horizon, flooding the scene with mystic radiance, and, all unknowingly, I reined up to gaze upon the entrancing scene. Yes, even at that moment, with the dry sobs bursting from my aching bosom; with my dead mother’s face floating before my eyes, her lovely features placid and smiling in death, as I had beheld them only one short hour before; with the figure of my dead father lying outstretched among the ashes of his ruined home, his body pierced with the spears of the enemy, his weapons still tightly grasped in his clenched hands, and his sightless eyes still glaring defiance at the foe, I could pause to gaze upon the beauty of a South African moonrise! I could not understand it then; I was surprised and horrified at what I stigmatised as my callous heartlessness: but I know now that a merciful Providence has so ordered matters that when human suffering, whether mental or physical, reaches a certain degree of acuteness, partial insensibility sets in—I have known cases where men have slept while being subjected to the most awful tortures—and such was undoubtedly the case with me on that memorable night. My sensibility had become so benumbed that I had partially lost control of my mental processes, and my thoughts broke away at intervals to dwell for a few moments upon some entirely trivial matter which, one would have supposed, could not possibly have had the slightest interest for me, under the circumstances. Yet so it was; and in that curious, detached, semi-conscious frame of mind I covered the fourteen miles of veld that lay between Bella Vista and Triannon, most of it at a walking pace, coming in sight of the house about nine o’clock at night.

Chapter Three.

Major Henderson becomes confidential and advisory.

The house at Triannon, built in a sort of elbow formed by one of the spurs of the Great Winter Berg, was not visible from the direction in which I approached until one had rounded the kopje concealing it, when one found oneself close upon it. But as I drew near to my destination I became aware of a deep, ominous silence pervading the scene, which caused me to entertain the most gloomy forebodings. True, the hour was rather late, according to our notions of lateness in the country districts, and the sheep and cattle would have long ago been kraaled for the night; yet, even so, it was seldom that the stock settled down to rest so early, seldom that, among so many animals, there were not a few restless ones proclaiming their restlessness by bleat or bellow—and on this particular night there was not a sound of any description to apprise the wayfarer that he was within a quarter of a mile of an opulent farm. As I rounded the extremity of the spur, however, and the house swung into view, a great sigh of relief escaped me, for there, within shouting distance, stood the building to all appearances intact. True, it was in complete darkness; but that of course might very easily arise from the fact that Mr Lestrange, after a busy day in the open, had retired to rest early.

Yet somehow the darkness seemed to me to be as ominous as the silence, and, urging Prince to a canter, I dashed forward, leaped the fence without pausing to take down the slip rails, and reined up at the steps which gave access to the stoep. Then I perceived that the front door and all the windows were wide-open, which struck me as being peculiar in the extreme, taken in conjunction with the total darkness in which the house was wrapped; for though of course we habitually slept with our bedroom windows wide-open, we usually closed the front doors and the windows giving access to unoccupied rooms the last thing before retiring at night: therefore, moved by the sudden return in full flood of my anxiety, I gave vent to a loud whoop as I swung out of the saddle, and without waiting for a reply rushed up the steps, across the stoep, and into the house, shouting as I went: “Mr Lestrange! Mr Lestrange! where are you? It is I, Ned Laurence. Where are you?”

The echo of my voice was, however, the only reply I received; but I had no sooner entered the hall than I perceived that something was very seriously wrong, for the furniture was all disarranged, one of the chairs was overturned, and, so far as I could see in the semi-obscurity, it appeared that Lestrange’s guns were not in their usual places in the rack.

Of course I never went anywhere without carrying in my pocket the means to obtain a light; therefore without waiting for further developments I drew forth my flint and steel, and presently lighted the lamp which hung from the hall ceiling, and which fortunately still contained a fair quantity of oil. Then, removing the lamp from the frame in which it hung, I proceeded forthwith to explore.

Now that I had a light, and could plainly distinguish my surroundings, my worst forebodings were confirmed, for everything in the place was disarranged, the weapons were all gone, as well as the skin rugs which usually covered the floor and several valuable karosses with which the chairs and sofa were wont to be draped, while the various hunting trophies had been torn from the walls, and some were gone. Fearing now, and indeed quite expecting, the worst, after casting a hurried glance about the hall I made my way straight to Mr Lestrange’s bedroom; and there, just inside the wide-open door, lay the poor fellow, clad only in his sleeping garb, with three ghastly assagai wounds in his body, and one through his throat which had severed the jugular vein. This room, too, was in a terrible state of disorder, having evidently been subjected to a thorough search for anything that might appeal to the fancy of a savage. But there had been no fight, that was perfectly clear; the surprise had been complete, and the savages had contrived to gain entrance to the house in time to massacre the inmates before they had a chance to defend themselves.

The inmates! There were none but Mr Lestrange—who was a widower—and Nell; and where was she? I was sufficiently intimate with the arrangements of the house to know which was Nell’s room, and my next dash was thither. The door of the room was wide-open, but I paused in the opening when I reached it, with the feeling strong upon me that I should commit something very like sacrilege by entering. A single glance, however, sufficed to reveal that the shrine of innocent girlhood had already been violated, for it, too, like Mr Lestrange’s, had been turned topsy-turvy by the savages. But Nell—where was she? Instinctively I scanned the floor of the room in search of her dead body, but it was not there; furthermore, I could not find the slightest trace of a bloodstain to indicate that the tragedy had been a double one; only the bed was stripped of its coverings, and when I came to investigate more closely I found her night robe flung carelessly upon the floor, but none of her day garments lying about. And the conclusion to which I was finally driven was that the poor child, instead of having been slain in cold blood, like her father, had been surprised in her sleep, compelled to dress, and been carried off alive and perhaps unhurt by the savages. Poor child! Poor darling little Nell! Oh, if I were right in my reading of the signs, what an unspeakably awful fate was hers! And yet—and yet—perhaps it might not be so very terrible after all. She was but a child—and a sweetly pretty child, too; and I had heard of cases where white girl children had been kidnapped by the blacks and carried off by them to their fastnesses in the wilds, there to become, first the pet, and ultimately the ’nkosikaas or chieftainess of the tribe. True, it was not often that that was done, but there was a kind of legend among the natives that somewhere far up in the interior there was a great and very powerful tribe ruled over by a white ’nkosikaas; while within my own recollection a young girl, the daughter of a Boer farmer, had been carried off by the Bechuanas, and was in like manner said to be still living as the ’nkosikaas of the tribe. If this were true—and there seemed to be no good reason to doubt it—one could only hope that poor little Nell Lestrange might meet with no worse a fate.

But it was a horrible thing to think of that sweet, lovable little creature being suddenly awakened out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night by a horde of ferocious, bloodthirsty savages, and carried off by them, perhaps in ignorance of her father’s fate, and in deadly terror of what was to befall her. I was very fond of Nell—I had grown to regard her almost as a sister; and my first impulse was to set out there and then, seek her until I found her, and never rest until I had effected her rescue from her savage jailers. But a few moments’ reflection sufficed to convince me of the utter futility of such a mad project. These two outrages—the attacks upon Lestrange’s and our own farms—clearly indicated that the long-expected rising of the natives had at last taken place, so suddenly that Lestrange at least had been caught unawares, and no doubt the whole country was at that moment ablaze and being overrun by the blacks in overwhelming numbers. The mystery to me was that I had not heard so much as a hint of the actual rising from any of the folk whom I had met on my return journey from Port Elizabeth; and the fact that I had not done so seemed to indicate that the outbreak, although in a general way expected, had been so skilfully managed that, after all, the settlers had been caught more or less off their guard. And, so far from it being possible for me to undertake singlehanded an expedition for the rescue of Nell, I was liable at any moment to blunder upon a war party of savages and either be slain by them forthwith, or, still worse, be carried off a captive, to suffer death by torture; indeed, the wonder was that something of this kind had not already happened to me, as doubtless it had to many another unsuspecting traveller. No, to attempt alone to rescue Nell would be worse than useless, it would simply be the wanton throwing away of a life that, later on, might be of service to her; and I could only hope that, meanwhile, no worse thing than simple captivity might befall her.

I was aroused from my sombre reflections by the appearance of Piet, my Hottentot after-rider, who, more prudent than myself, had approached the house with a certain measure of circumspection, and now came to report that, as in our own case, all the sheep and cattle had been driven off, and that no trace of any of the native domestics or shepherds had been found, the presumption being that they had all taken the alarm and fled, or, more likely still, had been captured and carried off as prisoners. I went the rounds of the place with him, frequently shouting the name of one or another of the servants without avail, and I finally came to the conclusion that his surmise was probably correct.

And now arose the question, what was I to do? My plight was almost as desperate as it could well be; for not only was I utterly bereft of every one of those who were nearest and dearest to me, but I was likewise homeless, and literally penniless. The house which I called home was destroyed; every horn and hoof of my father’s stock had been stolen, and would probably never be recovered; and as to money, there was none, for my father, instead of banking the profits of the farm and allowing them to accumulate, had, as I have already explained, habitually spent them in improving the live stock, or adding to the adornments of the house, and the contents of the wagon which I had brought up from Port Elizabeth represented every penny of spare cash remaining in the house when I left it on my journey. True, I had the wagon and its contents, as well as the team of oxen, upon which I could doubtless realise; also there was the farm—that is to say, the land—itself, which was worth quite a handsome sum of money: but I was most unwilling to part with this for several reasons; and, had I been ever so anxious to sell, it would most probably have proved impossible to find a purchaser at that moment, with the natives in armed revolt against the whites.

But there were other matters of an even more pressing character than those just enumerated demanding my attention, and the first of these was the interment of the body of my unfortunate friend, Nell’s father. Therefore, summoning Piet, I bade him seek a shovel; and when he had found one I set him to work to dig a grave at a certain spot about a quarter of a mile from the house, which I knew to be greatly favoured by Nell on account of the beautiful view obtainable from it: and there Piet and I reverently laid the dead man to rest, afterward piling a number of large stones round the grave, and placing a rough wooden cross at its head to mark the spot. Then, recovering our horses, we returned to Bella Vista, and, thoroughly worn out by the fatigue and horror of the past day, I sought rest in the outspanned wagon.

Next morning, with a grief so bitter that even now I cannot look back upon it unmoved, I chose another site for a grave and laid my beloved dead to rest side by side, marking the spot as I had marked the grave of Nell’s father; leaving the remains of the savages to be dealt with by the vultures, hyenas, and jackals. And when I had done all that was possible the wagon was inspanned, and with a heavy heart I wended my way, accompanied by my little following, to Somerset East, where I arrived late in the afternoon of the following day without having encountered anything of an untoward character on my way. There was but one farm between Bella Vista and Somerset East, situate about halfway between the latter and the Great Fish River, and when in the course of my journey the house came in sight, I jumped on Prince’s back and galloped forward, with the view of ascertaining what, if anything, had happened there. But upon my arrival I found the farm silent and deserted, with not so much as a dog about the place. The house, however, was undamaged, all the doors and windows were fastened, and upon looking through the latter I perceived that the rooms were empty of furniture; I therefore concluded—which afterwards proved to be the case—that the owner had obtained timely warning of the rising, had hurriedly packed all his belongings into wagons, and, driving his stock before him, had hastily retired to Somerset East.

The town of Somerset East was in a terrible commotion when I reached it, some fifty fugitive families from the outlying districts, with their stock and belongings, having already taken shelter there, while others were hourly arriving; and every man had a story to tell of some farm that had been attacked, its inhabitants murdered, and its stock driven off. Something very nearly approaching to a state of panic prevailed, for the town at that time contained only some three hundred inhabitants, of whom three-quarters were women and children; moreover, it lay quite open and unprotected on every side, and might easily be rushed by a sufficiently strong body of the enemy. But there were a few cool heads among those congregated in the town, one notable being a certain Major Henderson, who, like my father, had held a post in the British army, and who at once naturally came to the front and took the lead in preparing the place to meet successfully a possible attack.

A laager, consisting of wagons interlocked, was constructed at each end of the single street that then ran through the town; the inner ends of the narrow lanes giving off the main street were securely barricaded, thus forming a number of culs-de-sac in which, if the attacking savages dared to venture there, they would be swept out of existence by the defenders behind the barricades; and every back door and window of every house accessible from the veld was strongly protected by heavy timber and loopholed for rifle fire: thus when Henderson’s scheme of defence was complete the town presented a very tough nut to crack for an enemy without artillery or firearms. The greatest difficulty, it appeared, was the shortness of ammunition, consequently my arrival with a wagon-load of the commodity was regarded as scarcely less than a special interposition of Providence. Then the male inhabitants voluntarily placed themselves under martial law, under Henderson’s command, taking it in turns to perform sentry-go day and night; while the best mounted among us undertook to act as scouts, riding forth from the town daily in various directions in quest of news of the enemy, and returning in the evening with such intelligence as we had been able to gain. This daily scouting service proved to be of the utmost value, for in the first place it prevented the possibility of a surprise attack, and so enabled the stock congregated in the town to be daily driven forth to graze and water; and it also was the means whereby in the course of a few days we were able to gather something like a clear general idea of what had happened and was still happening in the colony.

Thus it soon transpired that, in the eastern provinces, an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the Great Kei River through Triannon and Bella Vista, and thence northward along the meridian of 26 degrees east longitude to the Zour Bergen, represented the southern limit of the savages’ depredations; while beyond the Zour Bergen, to the north and west, we were unable to learn anything definite. On the fifth day after my arrival in Somerset East a detachment consisting of two companies of infantry, accompanied by baggage and ammunition wagons, under the command of a Captain Fletcher, arrived from Port Elizabeth, and encamped within half a mile of the town in an excellent strategic position, which they at once proceeded to entrench strongly; and there they remained nearly a week, awaiting instructions from their general, who was preparing a plan of campaign while moving toward the centre of disturbance the few troops at his disposal, and collecting information.

During the week that followed the arrival of the troops we received intelligence of several attacks upon isolated farms, and even small villages, in the outlying and more sparsely populated districts; from which it speedily became apparent that the regular troops, consisting, as they did, entirely of infantry, and hampered, as they were, by their baggage wagons, were altogether too slow-moving to be effective in overtaking and bringing to action the nimble bodies of savages, who were encumbered with no impedimenta of any description whatsoever excepting their weapons—a shield, knobkerrie, and sheaf of assagais; who slept under the stars, quenched their thirst at every stream or runlet that crossed their path, and eat whatever came to hand, whether it chanced to be buck, bullock, or green mealies.

Therefore it seemed, upon careful consideration of the situation, that if the ravages of the blacks were to be stopped there was only one course to be pursued, and that was to dispatch against them a force of irregular cavalry composed of farmers, hunters, transport riders, and others, men who had lived long enough in the country to become inured to the climate and accustomed to the methods of travel in it, who could move as independently of impedimenta as the savages themselves, and, being mounted, as swiftly, and who, being provided with firearms, might hope to cope successfully with a foe considerably stronger in point of numbers than themselves. And there were plenty of such men to be had—farmers who had fled from their farms to the towns and villages upon the first news of the outbreak, transport riders whose occupation had ceased upon the outbreak of hostilities, hunters who were in like case with the transport riders, and a few who, like myself, had lost everything but life itself at the hands of the savages; and we speedily banded ourselves into troops, in some cases numbering not more than twenty or thirty, in others amounting to a hundred or more, each band under its own elected leader and subordinate officers. The corps to which I attached myself—and which dubbed itself the Somerset East Mounted Rifles—consisted of one hundred and seven men under the command of Major Henderson, divided into two troops of fifty men each—the right troop under the command of “Captain” Henry Jackson, and the left troop under the command of “Captain” Pieter Van Rhyn, with a sergeant in command of each of the two squadrons which composed a troop.

Each man provided his own horse, weapons, and ammunition; we were not in uniform, and were volunteers in the strictest sense of the word, for we drew no pay, and acknowledged allegiance to no man save our own officers, although it was of course fully understood by everybody that we were always to be ready to co-operate with and support the regular troops in the event of our encountering any. This, however, was exceedingly unlikely, at least in the earlier stages of the campaign, for so lightly equipped were we that we could perform forty-mile marches day after day with ease, and were confident that we could not only get into touch with, but could also reduce the enemy to subjection, long before the regulars could arrive at the scene of hostilities. And although we did not substantiate our boast or achieve our ambition in its entirety, I think I am justified in claiming that the honours of the campaign fell chiefly to the various bodies of irregulars who so self-sacrificingly took the field on that occasion; for it was we, and not the regulars, who followed up and hunted down so relentlessly the marauding bands of savages who swept the colony like a storm wave, causing such a loss of life and property as it took the colonists the best part of a generation to recover from.

It is not my purpose to write a history of the Kafir War of the year 1835, for that has already been done by far abler hands than mine, and with a fullness of detail which leaves nothing to be desired; moreover, I have another and entirely different, although, as I think, equally stirring story to tell. I will therefore dismiss the events connected with my service in the ranks of the Somerset East Mounted Rifles with the bare statement that during the nine months so covered I participated in many deeply stirring episodes, and on several occasions found myself involved in situations so desperate that nothing save the steadfastness and invincible courage of every man present saved us from absolute annihilation. It is not to be supposed that a mere handful of men composed of burghers and farmers, with practically no knowledge of military science, and quite unaccustomed to anything in the nature of military discipline, could pass through so trying an ordeal as that which we cheerfully faced without suffering heavy loss; and, as a matter of fact, by the time that the campaign was so far over that the regular troops were able to cope with the situation, and the Government had therefore no further need of our services, the Somerset East Mounted Rifles had become reduced to less than half their original strength: yet fortune so far favoured me that when at length the corps was disbanded I was one of the very few who escaped without so much as a scratch to show for my nine months’ service.

The corps was disbanded where it had originated, in the town of Somerset East; and on the following day I found myself face to face with the exceedingly perplexing problem of the future. I was, it must be remembered, not yet quite eighteen years of age. I was therefore still young enough to be able to start life afresh; but I was without a single relative in the world, and my worldly goods consisted solely of two thousand five hundred and sixty acres of pasture land which, although it was undeniably an exceedingly valuable possession, and likely to increase very greatly in value with the passage of the years, was just then incapable of returning me a single penny of income. True, there was a sum of a little over three hundred pounds sterling standing to my credit in the bank, such being the proceeds of the sale of my wagon, oxen, and the ammunition with which I had trekked into Somerset East upon the outbreak of hostilities, though this was far too insignificant a sum to be of any use in restocking the farm, rebuilding the house, and beginning life afresh as a sheep farmer, on ever so modest a scale: and I also possessed my horse Prince, who had carried me through many a wild and stirring adventure, and, like myself, had emerged unscathed, together with a saddle and bridle, my trusty rifle, and the double-barrelled sporting gun which I had purchased in Port Elizabeth for my father, little dreaming, at the time of the purchase, that he would not live to use it.

I have said that I was without a relative in the world, which was the literal truth; but it was impossible that I should participate in such a campaign as the one I had just passed through without making many stanch friends, both Boers and English: and some of these, middle-aged men who knew perfectly well what they were talking about, strongly advised me to raise money, either by selling a portion of my farm, or by means of a mortgage upon it. But my father had instilled into me a perfect horror of anything that savoured of getting into debt, while the mere idea of selling any portion of the property which he had accumulated, almost acre by acre, was absolutely abhorrent to me; therefore, although I had the greatest respect for the judgment of my friends, and fully believed in the financial soundness of their advice, I determined that only in the last resort would I avail myself of it.

In this resolution I was fully supported by Major Henderson, who was as well qualified to advise in such a matter as anyone, having been in the country for over thirty years, and knowing it a good deal better than most. He had a farm up under the southern slopes of the Tandjes Berg, and upon the dissolution of the corps he was good enough to invite me to take up my quarters at his place while thinking over my affairs and deciding what to do.

It was while we were sitting out on the stoep of his house, one night after dinner, that the conversation occurred that decided my course of action and ultimately launched me upon the great adventure which, while leading me into many strange and terrible perils, was so profoundly to influence the whole of my after life. I remember that I was in a very pessimistic, downcast mood that night, and expressed the opinion that there appeared to be nothing for it but for me to erect a sort of glorified Kafir hut on my land, invest my money in a small flock of sheep, shepherd them myself, and so gradually build up my fortunes afresh from that modest foundation.

“No,” said the ex-major, “I would not advise you to do that; certainly not. The process is too slow; and unless you should happen to meet with such a persistent run of good luck as no man has a right to expect you would be a good way past middle age before you could restore Bella Vista to what it was a year ago. What I would advise you to do, Laurence, is this—and, mind you, if I had not watched your behaviour through our recent short but exceedingly arduous campaign, and with my own eyes witnessed your indomitable pluck and resource, I would not advise it; for to undertake and succeed in what I am going to suggest a man must possess courage that will quail at nothing, infinite resource, the ability to decide and act with lightning promptitude in the face of any emergency, a profound knowledge of the ways of the natives, and, lastly, the thews and sinews of a Hercules, and perfect health.”

“But, my dear Major,” I protested, “I do not possess half of the qualities which you deem essential to success in this enterprise, whatever it may be. It is true that my health at the present moment is all that I could possibly desire; I am fairly strong—well, perhaps unusually strong for my age; and I believe that I understand the natives pretty well: but, apart from that—”

“Yes, apart from that,” interrupted my companion, “you possess all the qualities that I have credited you with. Now, don’t contradict me, youngster, for I have watched you, and I know! To continue from the point at which I interrupted myself, what I would advise you to do is what I would unhesitatingly do myself were I in your predicament, what I would even join you in doing were I younger by thirty years than I happen to be, and had no wife or family to think about and make me falter and lose courage on the brink of every extra hazardous adventure; and it is this. I would recommend you to draw the whole of your money out of the bank, buy a good wagon and a team of salted oxen, invest about twenty pounds in beads, copper wire, and Kafir ‘truck’ generally, lay out the remainder of your money in an elephant gun and ammunition for it, your rifle, and your sporting gun, and—trek right up-country into the interior after ivory and ostrich feathers. By the time that you have completed your preparations the war will be over and the natives will be not only perfectly quiet and peaceful, but more than eager to trade with you upon highly advantageous terms. By so doing, you could, in the course of six months, load your wagon to its utmost capacity with tusks and feathers, get back to the coast, and dispose of your load at a price which would cover all your expenses and leave you a very handsome profit upon your outlay of time and money. But,” continued the major, unconsciously dropping his voice to a confidential tone, “I do not advise you to limit your energies to that programme; very far from it. Were I undertaking the expedition I should cache my ivory in comparatively small parcels, at frequent intervals, so that I might not have the trouble of dragging it about the country, but could collect it on my return journey, if I wanted it, and should push on right into the interior, up into Mashonaland, and, possibly, farther still. The Mashonas are queer chaps, I’ll allow; but they’re all right if you take them the right way, make their headmen a few presents, take care to obtain permission before entering their country, and make it perfectly clear to them that your only object in desiring to enter their territory is sport, and trade with them. I’ve been up among them, and I know. And, my dear chap, there is gold—plenty of it—up there; and thus far they don’t know the value of it! They’ll swap you a nugget as big as your fist for a yard of copper wire. Therefore, my advice to you is: Go up there, trade your truck for gold, and bring back as much of the stuff as your wagon will carry.

“And now of course I know exactly what you are going to say. You are going to ask: If I am telling you the truth, why the dickens did I not do as I am advising you to do, and bring back a wagon-load of gold with me? My dear chap, I did! That is to say, I got the gold all right. But, unfortunately for me, I had a partner in the expedition, a Boer named Van Raalte, who was cursed with an outrageously quarrelsome disposition and a vile temper, especially where natives were concerned; and it was he who spoiled everything. Our expedition—which had originally been a hunting trip, pure and simple, you must understand—had been brilliantly successful; we had enjoyed magnificent sport—lion, elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, no end—and had filled our wagon chock-full of ivory, skins, and horns, and had then found out about the gold. Of course we at once threw everything overboard and loaded our wagon afresh with gold, as much of it as the blessed thing would carry or the oxen drag. And then what must that born idiot Van Raalte do but quarrel with one of the indunas about some trumpery thing, and slash the man across the face with his sjambok! Of course the fat was in the fire at once; we were set upon, seized, bound hand and foot with reins, and flung just anyhow into a hut.

“That occurred during the afternoon. About an hour before sunset they came and dragged out Van Raalte, and carried him away, leaving me where I was; and shortly afterward I heard a man start screaming as I wish never again to hear a man scream, so long as I live. The screaming lasted for hours, until past midnight I should think; and all the while I was lying there in that hut, as helpless as a baby, and sweating with horror at the awful, hair-raising sounds that pierced my ears. At length, however, the shrieks grew weaker and more intermittent, and finally they died away altogether. The night seemed endless, for what with the horror that seized me as I lay there listening and trying to imagine what was happening, and the excruciating pain of my tightly bound limbs, sleep was an impossibility; but the morning dawned at last, the village awoke, and an hour or two later I was unbound and led forth. They took me to a place about a quarter of a mile away, and showed me—something which they told me was all that remained of Van Raalte. I will not attempt to describe to you what I saw, but—well, let it pass! It was a full quarter of an hour before I recovered sufficiently from the sickness that followed to permit of intelligible speech on my part, and then they took me back to the village, where the induna was awaiting my return.

“‘White man,’ he said, ‘have you seen?’

“‘I have seen,’ I replied, and with much difficulty conquered the tendency toward sickness that again came upon me.

“‘Good!’ said he. ‘Now I give you your choice. Either leave this village, now, just as you are, without wagon, oxen, weapons, or goods of any kind, promising never to return; or—’

“‘I will leave,’ said I. And I did, there and then, more than thankful, I can tell you, that the alternative had been given me.

“I couldn’t tell you—there are no words strong enough to describe it—what I endured while making my journey home from Mashonaland. I had no weapons wherewith to procure food, and I was obliged to live upon just what I could pick up, chiefly roots. But twice I was fortunate enough to come upon the partially devoured ‘kill’ of a lion—once it was a zebra, and the other time it was a giraffe—still comparatively fresh; and if it had not been for them I believe I should not have survived, for I was literally at the end of my tether when I came upon them. And I had no means of making a fire, you will understand. I struggled along, however, as best I could, losing all count of dates, and crazy as a loon more than half the time; and ultimately, a few miles on the other side of the Orange River, I fell in with an elephant hunter named King, who took care of me and finally handed me over to some friends of mine who at that time lived in Cape Town. But although I told King—and a good many other people, for that matter—what happened to me in Mashonaland, and how I came to be in such a terrible plight, I always omitted that part about the gold; and you, Ned, are the first and the only one to whom I have ever mentioned it. And I would not have mentioned it to you if I had not felt convinced that you possess all the qualities necessary to enable you to go up there, get a load, and safely bring it back with you.”

Chapter Four.

I start upon my great Adventure.

In the privacy of my own room that night, after I had parted from the major, I gave my most careful consideration to the suggestion which he had thrown out; and despite the gruesome fate of the Dutchman, Van Raalte, at the hands of the Mashonas, which my host had hinted at rather than described, the project decidedly appealed to me. It is true that I possessed no personal knowledge of the Mashonas, but I had an idea that, in essentials, they would probably resemble pretty closely the Zulus, of whom I knew something; and, if so, I could understand not only their treatment of Van Raalte—and of my friend Henderson too, as Van Raalte’s companion and partner—but also that it might be quite possible for a white man possessed of a certain amount of tact and a tolerably comprehensive knowledge of the nature of the South African savage to enter their country and leave it again in safety.

That there was gold in Mashonaland was news to me; for although I had once or twice heard the general opinion casually expressed that South Africa would perhaps some day be found to be rich in minerals, I had never until now heard of the precious metal having actually been found, and I felt sure that, had such a rumour ever gained currency, not even the formidable reputation of the Mashonas would have sufficed to prevent a rush of prospectors into the country. No such rush had ever occurred, for, if it had, the news of it would have spread like wildfire, and every individual in the colony, to its most remote outskirts, would have heard of it. The fact, therefore, that no rush had occurred was conclusive proof that my friend Henderson was the sole repository of the momentous secret, which he had contrived to keep strictly to himself all those years. And now at last he had imparted it to me, and I was free to go up there, if I pleased, and acquire a fortune. True, there was a certain element of risk and danger in the project, for there were a thousand miles or more to be traversed through a roadless, savage country, of which little or nothing was then known except that it was infested by several of the most ferocious species of animals and reptiles, as well as millions of even more ferocious natives. And during a journey of a thousand miles through such a country almost anything was possible. But the spice of danger attaching to the journey appealed to me as an attraction rather than a deterrent; I should enjoy some of the finest sport that the world had to offer, and, with luck, might return a wealthy man. These alone were sufficient inducements; but there was another and still stronger one, which was—Nell Lestrange. She was so young at the time of her abduction, was so young still, that I hoped nothing very terrible had thus far happened to her; but it was unthinkable that a white girl should be permitted to grow up to womanhood among savages, and I was not altogether without the hope that during the progress of my journey I might be able to ascertain her whereabouts and effect her rescue. With so many strong inducements in favour of Henderson’s suggestion, and only one—that comprised in the element of danger and uncertainty—against it, it is not to be wondered at that before I slept that night I had definitely decided to act upon the major’s advice and undertake the journey.

This decision I duly communicated to my host on the following morning over the breakfast table, and thereupon we proceeded forthwith to discuss details. The major was of opinion that I ought to begin my preparations forthwith, for the season was rapidly advancing; it was then precisely the right time to start upon an up-country trek, for the rainy season was over, the rivers were low and everywhere fordable, and the young spring grass was at its best and richest. On the other hand, the dry season had set in, water would every day be growing more scarce, the grass more parched, and the ground harder; in a word, there was not a moment to lose if I desired to avail myself to the fullest possible extent of all the advantages of the season.

Having agreed upon this, we passed on to the consideration of ways and means, and Henderson proceeded to jot down rapidly a list of the various items which he deemed absolutely indispensable, supplementing it with another and much shorter list of further items which, although not positively necessary, would be highly desirable if the available funds would permit. Then the estimated cost of the several items, both indispensable and desirable, was jotted down, and the conclusion was finally arrived at that, if the various purchases were carefully made, the available money ought just about to suffice for the indispensables, with the possibility that, if luck attended me, one or two desirables might also be included. It is due to my friend the major to say that when the total of his original estimate was ascertained, and found to exceed the amount of my capital, he at once offered to advance me such further funds as might be needed to complete my equipment; but I gratefully yet steadfastly refused to avail myself of his generous offer, feeling that I had no right to risk the property of another. Then we sallied forth and proceeded to make our purchases, beginning with the wagon and team of oxen, and then proceeding with the remainder of the items until the resources of Somerset East were exhausted. The ammunition was the most important item of all, and I had early foreseen that it would be necessary to send down to Port Elizabeth for that. I did so, therefore, instructing the dealer to wrap the one-pound flasks of powder separately in waterproof paper, pack them in half-dozens in soldered-up tins, and enclose the whole in a stout wooden case, by which means I hoped to preserve effectually my entire stock of powder from the ordinary accidents of travel in a country subject at certain seasons to torrential downpours of rain, and intersected at pretty frequent intervals by rivers deep enough to flood a wagon during its passage across. The case of powder, which also contained the necessary complement of wads and percussion caps, arrived at Somerset East exactly a fortnight after the dispatch of the order for it, by which time the remainder of my preparations were completed. Nothing therefore remained but to bid my numerous friends goodbye and make a start forthwith.

I suppose it is hardly necessary to state that, when discussing the forthcoming expedition with my various friends, I carefully abstained from all mention of the word “gold”. The major and I let it be understood that I was going to try my hand at elephant hunting as a business, and many were the valuable hints which I received from one and another as to the spots where I should be most likely to find the biggest herds. The last embers of the war were still smouldering in the north-eastern districts of the colony when I was ready to start, but everybody was of opinion that all was quite quiet in the north; therefore, instead of striking eastward and working north along the low land between the Drakensberg range and the sea, as I had at first intended, I decided to strike right away north at once between the Tandjes Berg and Great Winter Berg mountains, across the Zour Bergen, and so over the Orange River and right through the very heart of what is now known as the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, but was then a practically unknown wilderness.

Behold me, then, trekking out from Somerset East about ten o’clock on a certain glorious mid-October morning, accompanied by a brand-new, well-loaded wagon drawn by a team of sixteen “salted” oxen—that is to say, oxen immune to the terrible lung sickness which is the bane of South Africa—driven by Jan, my former Hottentot driver, who, with Piet, my former after-rider, had contrived to pick up a living in Somerset East during the war, and now—also with Piet—was more than willing to re-enter my service and accompany me to the uttermost parts of the earth, if so it might please me. The dogs, Thunder and Juno, also formed part of my train, having found a home with Piet during my absence at the war. Also, in addition to Prince, there were two other horses, one being a fine, sturdy iron-grey Basuto cob named Tempest, and the other a very useful chestnut named Punch, which I had purchased chiefly for Piet’s use when we should arrive in the elephant country. The remaining member of my retinue was a Bantu boy named ’Ngulubi, about sixteen years of age, who acted as voorlouper, or leader of the front span of oxen of the team.

We trekked at a moderately easy pace to start with, doing, on an average, about twenty miles a day, and contriving, during the first four days of our march, to outspan each night in the vicinity of a farmhouse, where, in accordance with the custom of the country, I obtained hospitality for the night. After that, however, the farms became more widely scattered, and I was obliged to content myself with the cartel in my wagon, which, to be perfectly truthful, I found far more comfortable, because more cleanly, than some of the beds I had slept in. On the evening of the eighth day, about half an hour before sunset, we successfully forded the Orange River and outspanned on its northern bank, by which time the oxen were actually going better than at the start, and were in harder condition.

It was a glorious evening, the sky cloudless, the heat of the day over; and there was just the softest breathing of a cool, refreshing air from upstream. The country, low-lying along the margin of the river and rising very gently as it swept away northward, presented just the combination of rich grass land and bush that seemed to promise an abundance of game, and about a mile upstream from our outspan the river broadened out and was rush-fringed in such a fashion as to suggest almost a certainty of wild duck; therefore, while the “boys” outspanned and attended to the cattle, I took from the wagon the double-barrelled combination of rifle and smooth-bore that I had purchased for my father a year before in Port Elizabeth, and, accompanied by the two dogs, set out for a little walk upstream, partly for the enjoyment of the walk and partly in the hope of securing something a little more appetising than buck meat for supper.

Keeping closely along the river margin, and walking slowly, with the dogs close at heel, I soon became lost

to everything but the entrancing beauty of the evening, its perfect peacefulness and quietude, emphasised rather than broken by the gentle gurgle and ripple of the river along its banks and the soft sigh and rustle of the wind among the reeds; while the swift changes of light and colour flooding the landscape as the sun sank rapidly in the western sky afforded a picture the surpassing loveliness of which there are no words to describe. Unconsciously I halted that I might the better be able to watch the wonderful play of prismatic colour upon the bosom of the river, upon the gently swaying reeds along its margin, upon the broken ground ahead in its emerald mantle of lush grass, dotted here and there with broad clumps of bush, and upon the gently swelling contours of the distant hills, blushing rosy red in the evening sunshine; and for a space of perhaps ten minutes I stood spellbound, conscious of nothing but the surpassing loveliness of God’s handiwork as manifested in the scene before me.

Then, suddenly, I was jerked back to a realisation of the more prosaic side of things by an outburst of loud bellowing which seemed to proceed from the farther side of a low ridge about a hundred yards ahead, and, getting into motion again, I hurried forward to ascertain what was the matter. For there was a note of mingled anger and terror in that bellowing which told me plainly enough that some creature was in trouble not far away. It was not one of my own oxen; they were all right in plain view from where I stood, grazing contentedly close to the wagon in charge of the umfaan ’Ngulubi: nor was it a domesticated ox of any kind, for there was no farm anywhere within sight, and no wagon excepting my own; moreover, the sound was too deep and powerful to issue from the lungs of a domestic animal, the obvious inference therefore being that the bellowing proceeded from a wild buffalo. And so indeed it proved, for upon topping the intervening ridge I beheld a splendid buffalo bull some fifty yards away standing breast-deep in the river, struggling violently and uttering bellow after bellow, except when for a moment or two the poor beast’s head was dragged under water.

I saw at once what was the matter; the brute had wandered down to the river to drink, as most animals do, at eventide, and, plunging rather too deeply into the water, had been seized by the muzzle by a crocodile, and was now, despite his frantic struggles, being slowly dragged into deep water, where of course he would presently be drowned and become the prey of the fierce saurian. Now the wild Cape buffalo is a distinctly vicious creature, easily angered, and ready to fight upon the slightest provocation; it is, indeed, with perhaps the exception of the rhinoceros—and many who know both intimately would not even except the latter—the most dangerous animal in Africa, and therefore to be let carefully alone by people who are not looking for trouble: but in the present case my sympathies were all with the buffalo, for the fight did not seem to be a fair one; the advantage was all on the side of the crocodile. Therefore, in order to even matters a little, I decided to take a hand in the game, and forthwith started at a run for the scene of action. And I arrived not a second too soon, for when I reached the spot the buffalo, notwithstanding his immense strength and the desperate resistance which he had offered, had been dragged slowly forward through the yielding mud until he was submerged mid-shoulder-deep, while, his head being held under water, he was already half-drowned and his resistance decreased every moment. Nevertheless he was still making a gallant struggle, occasionally contriving to raise his head above water and secure a gulp of air, notwithstanding the fact that, in order to do so, he had practically to lift the entire weight of the crocodile a foot or more; and of course upon these occasions the crocodile’s head was lifted at least partially out of the water, far enough to disclose the brute’s merciless eyes. This happened a second or two after my arrival upon the scene, when, quick as light, I tossed my weapon to my shoulder, sighted the reptile’s left eye, and pulled the trigger.

It was enough: the bullet penetrated to the creature’s brain, the great jaws slowly relaxed their grip, and with a smothered bellow which may or may not have indicated relief, the great bull swerved round, staggered out of the water and up the bank, and fell in a heap just as he reached the crest, where he lay, panting heavily and moaning with pain as the blood gushed from his lacerated muzzle. For a moment, as I stood to reload my rifle, I was more than half-inclined to put a bullet into the poor beast’s brain and so end his misery, but upon reflection I decided that it would be rather unsportsmanlike to take advantage of his helplessness. I therefore determined to give him a chance, and went upon my way, leaving him to recover if he could. And when I retraced my steps about an hour later the brute had vanished, though he had probably not gone very far.

Resuming my walk, I reached the spot for which I had been making, just in time to secure a shot at a flight of teal as the birds arrived in what were evidently their night quarters, and was fortunate enough to bag two and a half brace, with which I returned to the wagon, lighted on my way by the rays of the newly risen almost full moon.

On the following evening, after a long and fatiguing day’s trek over broken and continuously rising ground, we outspanned close to a Basuto village, the inhabitants of which welcomed our arrival with such extreme cordiality that I felt sure they wanted something from us. And later on, after I had dined, and was thinking of retiring for the night, my suspicion was verified.

As is the custom when the natives are inclined to be friendly, the headman of the village and some half-dozen others came out to fraternise with my “boys”, and, incidentally, to share their evening meal, which, as usual, consisted to a large extent of buck meat. Now, at the time of which I write, the Basutos possessed no firearms, therefore they had to depend chiefly upon pitfalls and similar primitive contrivances for their supply of meat, except upon the very rare occasions when they succeeded in working themselves up to such a pitch of extravagance as to slaughter an ox; consequently meals of which flesh formed a part were few and far between. But they knew that the white man and his followers could always get meat in abundance; therefore when a white man passed through their country—which might occur, upon an average, twice a year—they always made a point of inviting themselves to supper, as in the present case, knowing that the white man, understanding their custom, would be sure to provide the wherewithal for an abundant feast. And as they eat they talked, for the Kafir is an inveterate gossip, and in this way the white man might sometimes acquire an item or two of information of real value to him.

Now, I had given my “boys” instructions to avail themselves to the fullest extent of every opportunity that should offer to make cautious enquiry among the natives with whom we might chance to come into contact, with the object of gaining some clue to the whereabouts of Nell Lestrange; for I knew that a white child could not be spirited off into the wilds without a good many natives acquiring an inkling of the direction in which she had gone: therefore upon occasions like the present it was the custom of Piet, my after-rider, ably seconded by Jan, cunningly to lead the conversation round to the subject of the recent war, and then listen intently to all that was said, helping the conversation along, where needful, by an artfully framed question or two. And these tactics they followed on the evening in question.

Having taken a walk out on the veld to enjoy the beauty and silence of the prospect under the silver flooding of the moon, I returned to the wagon with a pleasant sense of coolness and fatigue, and was about to begin my preparations for a night’s repose when Piet, my Tottie after-rider, rose from his place among the others round the fire and approached me.

“Baas,” he said, “’Ngaga, a Basuto, the headman of the village, would speak with you. Shall I say that your ears are open?”

“Yes,” answered I. “Let him come hither and speak freely.”

Accordingly, Piet having signified that I was graciously willing to accord an audience, ’Ngaga approached, halted at the distance of six feet from me, flung up his right hand, and sonorously uttered the salute “’Nkos’!” Then he stood motionless, awaiting my pleasure.

“S’a bon’ (literally, I see you), ’Ngaga!” I replied. “You would have speech with me? Then say on. My ears are open.”

“Baba (Father),” began the savage (he was at least forty years of age, while I was only eighteen), “thy children are in trouble; therefore there was great rejoicing in the village when Mafuta, the nyanga (witch doctor), this morning announced that a white man was on the way and, with his fire weapons, would be with us before nightfall. He said—”

“Stop!” interrupted I. “Before you speak further, tell me how Mafuta came to know that I was on the way? I believed that my entry into Basutoland was unknown, and was wondering whether it would be better for me to see Moshesh in his kraal, or whether it would suffice for me to send a messenger with gifts. Perhaps you can tell me?”

“Doubtless the king will be glad to see thee at his kraal,” cautiously answered the man, “especially if the news goes forward that thou hast done us, his children, a service. And if thou wilt do us that service I will see that the news of it does go forward to the king’s ear, ensuring thee a welcome.”

“Very well,” said I. “I will gladly do what may lie in my power. Therefore, say what is thy desire, and I will consider the matter. But thou hast not yet told me how Mafuta came to know of my presence in Basutoland. I saw no man yesterday. But perchance one of you belonging to the village saw my wagon from afar, and hastened to spread the news?”

“Nay,” answered ’Ngaga; “no man saw thy wagon, from afar, or brought news of thine approach to the village. Mafuta is a great nyanga, and perchance he saw a vision of thine approach in his magic smoke. How should I know? It is not good for mere ordinary mortals to enquire too curiously into the doings of the nyangas.”

This reply at once powerfully aroused my curiosity, for I perceived that ’Ngaga was referring to those strange occult powers with which the witch doctors are credited by the white men who have been thrown into most intimate contact with the natives. I had heard many extraordinary and apparently well-authenticated stories told respecting the alleged power of the nyangas to visualise distant happenings, to foretell coming events, to discover the whereabouts of lost articles, to read the thoughts of men and lay bare their most cherished secrets, and also to inflict upon their enemies loss, suffering, and even death. I had no doubt that many of the strange stories to which I had listened had originated in some very trivial and ordinary circumstance which had been magnified and distorted into a weird and supernatural happening by the superstitious credulity of the original narrator; but there were others of an equally weird and unaccountable character, which had been told by hard-headed, intelligent, unimaginative men as having come within the scope of their own personal experience, that seemed to indicate that the nyangas really possessed powers denied to the great majority of their fellow-men. Moreover, it must be remembered by the sceptical that all who have ever been intimately associated with the African savage are fully agreed that he is gifted with certain strange, uncanny powers quite incomprehensible to the white man, as was indubitably demonstrated during the last Zulu war, when the natives exhibited an intimate knowledge of certain events—notably the disaster to the British troops at Isandhlwana—within an hour or two of their occurrence, and several days before the news became known through the ordinary channels of communication.

Now, taking into consideration such facts as these, which are common knowledge and yet are quite inexplicable by the most profound students of ordinary science, one is inclined to ask, if such things are possible to the ordinary savages, why should not other and still more extraordinary powers be possessed by those among them who have inherited the secrets handed down to them by others who, through many generations, have made it the sole business of their lives to study what we, for want of a better term, are pleased to designate the occult? I confess that I am not of those who will believe only what they are able to understand; upon what principle, therefore, shall I say that I will believe a certain thing although I do not understand it, but will not believe something else for the same reason? Now, I was keenly interested in the subject of the nyanga’s alleged powers for a variety of reasons, two of which will, I think, justify me in determining to put them to the test, now that I had the opportunity: one reason being simple curiosity, and the other the desire to obtain information as to the whereabouts of Nell Lestrange. Therefore I said to ’Ngaga:

“Very well; let that matter pass. You were about to tell me that there is trouble in the village, of a kind that I can cure. Was it not so?”

“Even so, ’Nkos’,” answered ’Ngaga. “The trouble is this. A leopard has lately taken up his abode yonder,” pointing to a spot about half a mile distant, where a great granite kopje towered some sixty feet above the general surface of the ground, forming a hill of about three or four acres in extent. “He haunts a cave in the rock,” continued ’Ngaga, “and comes every night to the village, stealing our chickens, killing our dogs and cattle; and last night he even entered a hut and carried off a two-year-old child from its sleeping mother’s side. We have tried to kill the beast; but he is too wise for us, for while we are watching for him in one place he goes round by another way, and all our efforts thus far have been in vain. So to-day we consulted Mafuta upon the matter; and after he had heard us, and had shut himself up in the hut for as long as it takes the sun to travel that far through the sky,”—indicating an arc which would represent about half an hour—“he came forth and said that a white man—yourself, ’Nkos’—would arrive at the village to-night, and would undertake to free us of the beast. Will you do this for us, O my father? He is very wary, and will not allow us to approach him within the length of a spear cast; but he cannot escape your fire weapon: and it shall be that if you slay him, I, ’Ngaga, will send forward a messenger to the Great One, Moshesh, announcing thy coming to his kraal, and taking with him a tale that shall cause the Great One’s face to smile upon thee.”

“Very well,” I said; “I am willing to do what I can for thee and thine, O ’Ngaga, and thus will I do it. Thou shalt to-night station two men in a place from which they can watch the path leading from the leopard’s den to the village; and it shall be that if the beast shows himself, one man shall hasten hither to the wagon with the news, while the other remains to watch, and if need be follow him. Thus shall we know where to find the leopard, and I will come and slay him with my fire weapon. But if the beast remains in his den all night, then will I go up in the morning and slay him there. Is the plan good?”

“It is good,” answered ’Ngaga, “and I will go even now to the village and send out two trustworthy men to watch, and do thy bidding,” and the man flung up his hand in farewell salute before turning to leave me. But I stopped him. “Stay, ’Ngaga,” said I; “I have not yet finished speaking with thee. I will slay this beast that despoils the village and carries off its young children; but, in return, the village must do something for me. I am engaged upon a certain quest; and if Mafuta is as great a nyanga as thou believest him to be, it may be that he can help me. Therefore, if I kill the leopard, Mafuta must to-morrow exercise his magic to find out for me what I want to know.”

’Ngaga seemed suddenly disconcerted. He stood silent for a full minute or more, apparently plunged in disquieting thought. Then he spoke, deprecatingly.

“’Nkos’,” he said, “how shall I answer thee? Mafuta is a strange and wilful man, impatient of authority, and distrustful of strangers; moreover, he loves not white men: therefore it may well be that he will refuse what thou dost ask of him. Yet he seemed not displeased to-day when the knowledge of thy coming was revealed to him, and it may be that he will consent. I know not how he will act. It may be that if I ask him now he will refuse, whereas if I ask him to-morrow, when thou hast slain the leopard, he will consent. What wilt thou have me do, my father?”

“Leave it until the morrow,” answered I. “Then, if he refuses thee, I will see him. Perhaps he will not refuse me.”

“Good!” agreed ’Ngaga. “Thy decision is a wise one, for Mafuta is of those who like not to bind themselves by promises. I go now to find and send out the watchers. Sala guhli (farewell), ’Nkos’!” and, saluting, the savage swung round upon his heel and strode away. Thereupon I climbed into the wagon, and, having carefully examined my weapons and satisfied myself that they were all loaded and the powder well up in the nipples, retired to rest.

It was about an hour after midnight when Jan awoke me.

“Baas,” he murmured, shaking me gently by the shoulder, “there is an ’mfaan (boy) who bids me tell thee that the leopard is abroad and making down toward the village, and that if you will come quickly you will have a good chance to kill the beast.”

“All right,” I replied drowsily, as I sat up on the cartel and began to feel about for my boots. “Find the tinder box, Jan, and light the lamp.”

A minute later the lamp was lighted, and I proceeded hurriedly to get into my clothes. Then, taking my rifle, and instructing Jan to follow me with the double-barrel, I emerged from the wagon, to find a well-grown Basuto lad of about eighteen years of age impatiently waiting to guide me to the scene of action.

“Well, ’mfaan,” said I, “so the leopard is abroad. Whereabout is he?”

“He is somewhere on the other side of that ridge, ’Nkos’,” answered the lad. “He came out from behind the krantz and, entering the long grass, disappeared. But my brother yonder is watching his movements, and if we hasten we may cut him off before he reaches the village. See, ’Nkos’, there is my brother—you can see his head and shoulders above the ridge; he is waving us to hasten.”

I looked in the direction toward which the lad pointed. The moon was high in the heavens, almost overhead in fact, and the entire scene was flooded with her white rays. Before us the ground rose slightly to a ridge about one hundred yards distant; past this lay a depression through which a small stream ran, while beyond the stream the ground rose again in a long, bush-clad slope, which swept away into the extreme distance, grey and mysterious, forming the background of the scene. The foreground and nearer distances were brilliantly illuminated by the cold rays of the moon, rendering objects within a quarter of a mile almost as distinct as though it were midday; and, clearly defined against the ghostly grey of the grass-clad ridge, I could see the head and shoulders of a savage, the white moonlight gleaming upon his ebony skin as he waved his arm, signalling to us.

“This way, ’Nkos’, this way!” whispered my guide excitedly, leading the way toward the lower edge of the depression; and, walking fast, I followed him, with Jan bringing up the rear. Five minutes of quick wading through the long, dew-saturated grass carried us over the ridge, but much lower down than where the watcher was stationed; and the depression—which was scarcely deep enough to be termed a ravine—lay before us. Here we paused a moment to reconnoitre, but, seeing nothing, moved rapidly forward again, aiming for a small clump of bush that stood solitary at a distance of about fifty yards from a wide-open space which the leopard must needs cross on his way to the village. Behind this we all three posted ourselves, to await the arrival of the brute, for the position was an excellent one in every respect, the bush being between us and the spot where we supposed the leopard to be, while what little wind there was blew from that direction toward us, and in front stretched a wide, open, grassy space, with the stream trickling through its midst.

We had scarcely settled ourselves behind the bush when our Basuto guide gently touched me on the arm and silently pointed between the branches toward a spot where the grass seemed to be swaying a little more strongly than the soft breathing of the wind alone would account for; and, looking intently, I presently perceived that this peculiar swaying motion of the grass was stealthily progressing across the open space, as though something hidden by the tall growth were cautiously moving there. Apart from the peculiar motion of the grass, however, nothing was to be seen, which was not surprising, since the growth down there was breast-high; but a little farther on, where the village herd had been turned out to graze, it was not so long. The oxen were there now, at the far side of the patch of short grass, lying down asleep in charge of a couple of boy herds, and it seemed to me that the mysterious movement in the grass was progressing toward them. Presently one of the oxen suddenly flung up his head, seemed to sniff the air for a few moments, and then, with a low moan, rose to his feet, switching his tail from side to side. The movement aroused the rest of the herd, who in turn scrambled to their feet and stood, switching their tails, and all facing the same way, namely, toward the spot where I had observed the suspicious motion of the grass. But the motion had ceased now, and for nearly a quarter of an hour we all stood there tense, waiting and watching.

Then suddenly I detected anew the curious quivering and swaying of the tufts, though so slight was it that for at least a couple of minutes I could not be sure that my senses were not deceiving me. At length, however, the movement grew sufficiently pronounced to convince me that the leopard was once more creeping forward, and a few minutes later it reached the spot where the grass had been kept comparatively short by the grazing of the herd. The next instant I caught the merest glimpse through the shortened herbage of a moving something that I knew could only be the back of a crouching animal of some sort sneaking toward the now fully awakened herd; and throwing up my rifle, I tried to imagine the entire animal from the little of it that I saw, aimed for the spot among the grass which I pictured as being just behind the shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack of the rifle broke in upon the stillness of the night with startling effect. I heard the thud of the bullet, instantly followed by a savage snarl that ended in a moan, and as the smoke drifted away I caught a momentary glimpse of a great, tawny, black-spotted form writhing convulsively in the air from its death spring and then collapsing inertly where it fell. Jan and the Basuto, uttering yells of delight, instantly started to run in upon the fallen leopard; but I stopped them with the reminder that the beast might not yet be dead, and, exchanging weapons with the Hottentot, proceeded to approach, with all due caution, the spot where it lay. But we need not have been under any apprehension, for when we came to it we saw that the animal—which, by the way, was the biggest leopard that I had ever seen—had been shot clean through the heart, and was stone-dead.

Chapter Five.

Mafuta, the Basuto Witch Doctor.

On the following morning, when I turned out and walked down to the river to bathe, I debouched a little from the direct road in order to take a peep at the dead leopard by daylight, the carcass having been left where it had fallen. As I approached the place I saw that Piet and Jan, my two Hottentots, were already busily engaged upon the task of removing the skin; and I observed that both were looking, as I thought, very much annoyed, and a little apprehensive. I was not long in discovering what was the matter, for as I halted beside them Piet held up first the two front paws and then the two hind paws of the beast, when I instantly saw, to my intense annoyance, that every one of the claws had been removed, and that therefore, as a trophy, the skin was quite useless. Of course I knew that this was a common practice among the Kafirs, the claws of the lion and the leopard being either worn by them as potent amulets, or converted into muti, that is to say, medicine, which is implicitly believed by them to impart the quality of courage to the one who takes it; but I had been foolish enough to think that, having solicited me to destroy their enemy for them, they would have regarded the carcass as sacred from mutilation. They had not done so, however, and that ended the matter, for I knew that it would be quite useless to make a fuss about it: not a soul in the village would ever admit the least knowledge of the theft.

While I was taking breakfast, about an hour later, ’Ngaga came up from the village to express the hearty thanks of himself and the rest of the inhabitants for the service which I had rendered them by destroying the leopard; and when we had chatted for half an hour or so, and ’Ngaga had accepted a present of a yard of brass wire, a handful of parti-coloured beads, and a cotton handkerchief gorgeously emblazoned in red, blue, green, and yellow, he said:

“’Nkos’, after I left you last night I went to the hut of Mafuta and was permitted to enter. I told the nyanga that you had undertaken to slay the leopard that had been troubling us, and after I had spoken many words concerning the greatness of the boon you would thus confer upon us, I ventured to mention that you were desirous of consulting him in relation to a certain quest which you have undertaken. I think, ’Nkos’, that if you would go now with me to Mafuta’s hut, perhaps taking with you as a gift another handkerchief such as this, the nyanga would be willing to grant your request.”

“You think so?” I said. “Then in that case let us go.” And, extracting from the voorkissie a handkerchief distinguished by a particularly startling combination of colours, which I tucked into my belt in such a manner that it could not fail to attract attention, I set out for the village, accompanied by ’Ngaga, who, I understood, proposed to act as a sort of sponsor for me, and to introduce me personally to the great man.

The nyanga’s hut was, as is generally the case, built at some little distance—in the present instance about a quarter of a mile—from the village proper, standing quite by itself, close to the stream, and close under the shadow of a great clump of bush. Apart from this circumstance there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the huts, it being of the usual beehive shape, constructed of closely interwoven wattles, thickly thatched with reeds and grass, and having an entrance so small that it was necessary to bend double and stoop low in order to pass through it. Also it was windowless, the only illumination of the interior being derived from such light as came through the low door; consequently when one first entered such a hut the contrast between the obscurity of the interior and the glare of the blazing sunlight outside produced an impression of profound darkness, this only passing away as the eye gradually accustomed itself to the gloom, after which one found, somewhat to one’s surprise, that there was light enough to see everything with a very tolerable degree of distinctness.

As ’Ngaga preceded me into the hut I heard a low murmur of greeting pass between him and someone else, which told me that the owner was at home; then I followed and stood upright in what was, to my eye, inky blackness.

“S’a bon’, ’mlungu (I see you, white man)!” said a deep, resonant voice from the depth of the darkness.

“Yebo (yes), Mafuta,” answered I, that being the usual interchange of salutations between the native and the white when the former esteems himself the equal of the latter; and I stood, blinking and striving to penetrate the obscurity. Gradually the darkness melted into a sort of sombre twilight, which by imperceptible degrees grew stronger, and presently I saw that I was in a hut the sole furniture of which consisted of a pallet, raised about a foot from the floor, and covered with rich karosses or skin rugs—one, I observed, being made entirely of leopard-skins. On one end of this pallet was seated a man of perhaps forty years of age, wearing a keshla, or head ring, and a mucha, or apron, made apparently of monkey skins. The man’s shield and sheaf of assagais stood close at hand against the wall of the hut, and a ponderous knobkerrie hung just overhead, slung by a loop of rimpi; but the hut contained nothing to distinguish it from that of any other native, and I confess that my first feeling was one of disappointment, for I had never before been in the hut of a nyanga, and I had been led to believe by those who had that I should see all sorts of strange and weird-looking objects if I ever happened to penetrate to the interior of a Kafir witch doctor’s hut. The owner seemed to read my disappointment in my eyes, for he laughed softly as he waved his hand, indicating the emptiness of the hut.

“I do not need the things for which you are looking, ’mlungu,” he said; “my magic is different from that of all other nyangas—and much more potent, as mayhap you shall see for yourself. Be seated,” he continued, waving me toward the other end of the couch; “and as for you, ’Ngaga, having brought the ’mlungu hither, your task is accomplished, and you may depart.”

So, while I deposited myself upon the pallet, ’Ngaga bade us both a somewhat ceremonious farewell, and vanished through the opening into the blazing sunlight without.

Then Mafuta began to talk to me about my journey and the incidents, such as they were, that had thus far marked it; and I confess that I was astounded at the intimate knowledge of these matters which he displayed. Of course I knew that my “boys” might have, and very possibly had, spoken of them to ’Ngaga and the other Basutos during their gossip round the fire on the previous evening; yet this man, Mafuta, seemed to know more about the details of them than was likely to have transpired during such a conversation, which was probably of an exceedingly desultory and general character. Yet even this was not so surprising as the knowledge he displayed of the twofold object of my journey, which I knew he could not have acquired from my “boys”, because even they were ignorant of it, all that they actually knew being that the journey was ostensibly undertaken for the purpose of collecting ivory. But without questioning me at all upon the subject, the nyanga made it clear to me that he was fully aware of the fact that one great object of my journey was to get gold rather than ivory.

“Yet even that,” said he, “is not all that you seek upon this journey; important as it is that you should find the yellow metal which the white man values so greatly, you are even more anxious to find something else: is it not so? And so anxious are you to find it that, although you doubt Mafuta’s power, you have come to him to see if he can help you.”

“It is true,” I admitted; “and the fact that you know so much of my most secret desires and intentions inclines me to hope, and almost to believe, that you can help me. Do you think you can?”

“It may be, ’mlungu; it may be,” he answered. “The white ’ntombozaan (girl) still lives and is well, for I last night took the trouble to seek for and find her; but where she is I cannot say, for the place is strange to me, I having never seen it with my bodily eyes.”

I fairly gasped with amazement, for this was the first time that Nell Lestrange had been mentioned since my arrival in the village, and it was not I who had spoken of her, but a savage to whom even the bare fact of her existence might be supposed to be unknown—unless—unless those who originally carried her off had chanced to pass this way. Yet, even then—

“Tell me,” I shouted, seizing the nyanga by the arm, rather roughly, I am afraid, in my excitement, “what do you know of her? How long is it since you saw her? And who are they who carried her off?”

“Gahle (gently), white man! gahle!” returned Mafuta, snatching his arm out of my grasp. “I know nothing of the ’ntombi save what I saw last night. But you came hither to procure my help to find her, and such help as I can give shall be yours. As I told you, I know not where she is, for I never saw the place with my bodily eyes, but I will show it to you, so that if ever you come to the place you may know it. Will that satisfy you?”

“But,” I objected, “if you are able to show me the place, surely you can tell me the name of it, and in which direction I should travel to reach it?”

“Nay, ’mlungu, I cannot do that,” answered Mafuta. “My power is not so great as that. I can but show you the person whom you desire to see; it must rest with you to note that person’s surroundings so carefully that, should you ever arrive at the place, you will recognise it again. Or perhaps by describing it to others you may be able to find someone who has been there and who, recognising it from your description, will be able to tell you its name and where it is.”

“Very well, then,” said I; “do what you can to help me, Mafuta, and I will be for ever obliged to you.”

“Muchli (good)!” exclaimed Mafuta. “Sit where you are, and do exactly as I bid you.” He rose from his seat, groped among the thatch of the hut for a moment, and presently produced a small, circular object about the size of an ordinary coat button. It was as brightly burnished as the surface of a mirror, and he placed it upright on the floor of the hut in such a position that, while itself in deep shadow, it strongly reflected the light which entered through the doorway right into my eyes, dazzling them to such an extent that, for a few moments, I could scarcely bear to look at it. Presently, however, that feeling passed away, and I was able to gaze upon it without discomfort.

“Now,” said Mafuta, “look steadfastly at that, never removing your eyes from it for a moment, and see what happens.” And, thus saying, the man went and squatted himself upon his heels in the centre of the floor, and began to chant, in a low, monotonous voice, certain words the meaning of which I could not comprehend.

For a few minutes nothing particular seemed to happen: the disk continued to shine strongly in the midst of the deep shadow, and Mafuta’s low, monotonous song went on. Then, so gradually that I knew not when the change began, I lost consciousness of everything except the gleaming disk and the sound of Mafuta’s voice, from which all semblance of words had passed. Then the disk seemed slowly to fade out of sight, Mafuta’s voice died away to silence, and I found myself seemingly standing upon gently rising ground, with a native village, of such dimensions that it deserved rather the name of a town, about a quarter of a mile distant on my left front. The first thing that I particularly observed about this place, apart from its exceptional size, was that it was built in the shape of a circle, and was entirely fenced in with a strong, high palisade. There was a gate in the fence, nearly opposite me, and a number of people, mostly men, were coming and going through the gateway. They were splendid specimens of the South African savage, but, look as I would, I could discover nothing either in their cast of features or in their trappings by which to identify them.

The town was built upon the top of the slope on which I stood, and about a quarter of a mile distant from it I noted a rather remarkable kopje which I thought would surely enable me to recognise the place if ever I should chance to set my bodily eyes upon it. It was perhaps seventy or eighty feet high, and at its summit it measured, as nearly as I could guess, about two hundred yards long. It was hog-backed in shape, and was strewn here and there with great, tumbled masses of dark-coloured rock, among which grew a few straggling bushes. The most remarkable thing about this particular kopje, however, was that, notwithstanding its close proximity to the town, it appeared to be the haunt of innumerable vultures, some forty or fifty of which were perched upon the rocks at that moment. The landscape on which this unknown savage town was set was of the usual South African type, namely, gently undulating, the hills retiring one behind the other into the extreme distance until, toward the west—I got my bearings from the sun, of course—they merged into what might almost be termed mountains, while eastward the land stretched away in a vast plain. The soil was densely covered with long, thick grass, which was already beginning to look bleached and parched here and there for want of rain; and scattered pretty thickly over the country were the usual patches of bush. On my right the land fell away to a spacious flat, a thousand acres or more in extent, upon which vast herds of cattle were grazing, and through which a stream some thirty feet in width gently meandered.

As I stood noting all these details, three young girls emerged from the main gate of the town, two of them being dark-brown, while the third was white—Nell Lestrange! I recognised the dear child instantly, although she had altered greatly—as I thought, for the better—since I had seen her last. She was talking and laughing gaily with her companions, I was glad to see, for that indicated that she was well and happy; yet, even as this thought flashed through my mind, she fell silent for a moment and a look of sadness clouded her face. She was bareheaded and barefooted, the garment which she wore being a sort of frock apparently modelled from those which she had worn while at Triannon, and made of a peculiar kind of cloth the nature of which I could not recognise. Instinctively I stretched out my hands toward her and strove to call her name, but no sound passed my lips, and, to my intense disappointment, I found that I could not move. The trio passed me about a hundred yards distant, and I distinctly heard their voices, but could not catch the words they spoke, otherwise I might possibly have recognised the language and thus gained a clue to the locality; and although, just as they were passing before me, Nell looked straight in my direction, and even paused for an instant, she immediately went on again, casting a single glance back over her shoulder and then continuing on her way until she disappeared beyond a clump of bush near the river. And with her disappearance the whole scene vanished and I found myself back in Mafuta’s hut, with the disk still gleaming brightly out of the deep shadow, and Mafuta still squatting on his heels in the centre of the floor.

“Well, white man,” he said, as I came to myself, “have you seen aught?”

“I have,” said I, “and I feel bound to admit that you are the possessor of most extraordinary powers, Mafuta. Yes, I saw the ’ntombozaan; and, as you said, she seems to be both happy and in the enjoyment of excellent health. But what I now want to know is where she is. Surely there are not so many big kraals scattered about in Kafirland that the one which you have just shown me should be difficult to find?”

“What did it look like, ’mlungu?” demanded Mafuta.

“What did it look like?” I repeated. “Is not that a quite unnecessary question to ask, Mafuta? You must have seen everything that I saw, otherwise—”

“Nay,” interrupted Mafuta, “I saw nothing; nor do I know what you saw, excepting that I willed you to see the ’ntombi. Tell me everything that you beheld, and maybe I can help you to find the place.”

Thereupon I proceeded to describe minutely the entire scene as I had beheld it, the big town with its huts, to the number of two thousand or more, symmetrically arranged within its circle of stout, high palings; the kopje close by, with its scattered piles of rock interspersed with straggling clumps of bush, and its vultures; the great plain with its herds of grazing cattle beside the stream—in short, every feature of my vision, as I vividly recalled it. And when I had finished, Mafuta sat for several minutes ruminating deeply. At length, however, he looked up, and, shaking his head, said:

“White man, I have never seen the place you describe, otherwise I am sure that I should recognise it. The kopje with its rocks and its aasvogels would alone suffice for its identification. That kopje is doubtless the place where criminals are executed; the presence of the aasvogels seems to indicate that. And the size and general importance of the place lead me to believe that it is where a king sits; but what king I know not. Of one thing, however, I can assure you; it is not Moshesh’s Place.”

“Well,” said I, “that at least is something to know, for it is one place the less to trouble about. And that is all the help you can give me?”

“That is all the help I can give you,” repeated Mafuta.

“But surely it is much, is it not, ’mlungu? You have seen the place with the eyes of your mind, seen it as plainly as if you had beheld it with your bodily eyes; and you will remember what it looks like. You will be able to describe it minutely to others; and as you go upon your way you will have opportunity to speak of it to others, and—yes, it comes to me that eventually you will meet with one who will enable you to find it.”

“Thanks, very much,” said I. “That is a most comforting thing to know, and, since you say that such a thing will happen, I quite believe it will, after the exhibition of your powers which you have already given me. Will you accept this as a gift from me?” I added, producing the brilliantly marked handkerchief from my belt and offering it to the nyanga.

“My thanks, ’mlungu,” answered the man, taking the handkerchief and depositing it upon the pallet. “And now,” he continued, “I think you will do well to proceed without undue delay to Moshesh’s kraal. ’Ngaga has already dispatched a messenger apprising the king of your presence in his country, and, if you ask permission to pass through and hunt in it, the Great One will doubtless give it, especially as you have rendered his people the service of slaying the leopard that has been preying upon them. But the king is jealous of his own authority, and is apt to resent intrusion into his country without permission first asked; also he is a little distrustful of the white man, whom he suspects of a desire to steal the black man’s land. Therefore present yourself before him as early as may be.”

“Thanks, Mafuta, I will do as you say. Farewell, and may all prosperity attend you,” said I, as I took my leave.

“Sala guhli (farewell), ’mlungu!” replied the Kafir, following me out and standing by the door of the hut. “I see much trouble and many dangers before thee; but be of good heart, for thou shalt overcome them all.”

Two days later I arrived at the king’s kraal.

It was near mid-afternoon when I halted the wagon and ordered Jan to outspan at a point about half a mile from the kraal: and I immediately dispatched Piet with a message to the effect that I, Edward Laurence, an Englishman, had arrived at the kraal for the purpose of personally soliciting permission from King Moshesh to hunt in and pass through his country; and that for this purpose, and that I might crave His Majesty’s acceptance of certain presents, I might be granted the favour of an early audience. Then I opened the voorkissie and proceeded to select the presents which I would offer for the savage king’s acceptance.

Gaudily coloured handkerchiefs, and, more particularly, brilliantly hued articles of costume have from time immemorial strongly appealed to the taste of the untutored savage, and I had kept this fact prominently in mind when purchasing the goods which I intended to use as presents and for the purposes of barter; therefore, among other things, I had bought several cast-off British uniforms of various descriptions, these being designed especially for presentation to the several savage monarchs with whom I expected to be brought into contact. So now, after due consideration, I drew forth a drum-major’s scarlet tunic, stiff with tarnished gold braid, minus its regimental buttons, shockingly soiled, and otherwise very much the worse for wear; a pair of ditto blue trousers, with gold braid running down the outer seam; a naval lieutenant’s cocked hat, in which I inserted a bunch of cock’s tail feathers; an infantryman’s white leather belt, with bayonet and sheath; and a small round shaving mirror in a metal frame, which had cost me sixpence, if I remember rightly: and made up the whole into a neat bundle, in readiness for the moment when I should be summoned to the royal presence. Then I proceeded to take particular note of the capital of Basutoland.

It was a place of considerable importance, consisting of about a thousand huts enclosed, like the place of my vision, in a very strong and high palisade, rendered unclimbable by having the upper extremities of the palings trimmed into long sharp points. It was built upon the summit of a low knoll, was rectangular in plan, and covered an area of about twenty acres of ground; and that was about all that I could discover concerning it in the meantime, since the palisading was much too high to permit of my seeing anything inside it.

After an absence of nearly an hour Piet returned with the information that he had been detained at the outer gate of the kraal while my message was conveyed to the king, and that during his detention he had been subjected to a pretty severe cross-examination by an induna or chief, respecting the purpose of my journey, my destination, and so on; that, finally, a message had been returned by the king that when he was ready to see me he would send for me, and meanwhile I was to remain where I was and not attempt to enter the kraal. I confess that I was a trifle disappointed at this reception, which I regarded as distinctly chilly; but Mafuta had afforded me a little insight into the king’s character, and I trusted that a personal interview, coupled with a sight of the resplendent drum-major’s tunic and the rest of the outfit, would, arouse a feeling of greater geniality in the breast of the savage autocrat. So I hung about the wagon for the remainder of that day, waiting for a summons which did not come. Nevertheless, although the king did not condescend to manifest any undue eagerness to see me, I was not exactly left to pine in solitude, for several of the inhabitants of the town came out to gossip with my “boys”, while no less than three indunas suffered their curiosity to overcome their dignity so far as to pay me an informal visit and ask me countless questions—for it must be remembered that, at the time of which I am now writing, it was very unusual for a white man to cross the border of his own territory into the wilds, and one of the men who on that occasion spoke to me had only once before seen such an individual.

It was amusing to note the rapid change of manner in these men as they conversed with me. Upon their first approach they began to question me with a certain curt abruptness which I easily interpreted as being intended to convey the idea that their visit was more or less of an official character; but all the while their eyes were wandering hither and thither, taking in every detail of my dress and equipment, as well as the wagon and its contents, and it was not very long before they began to enquire what was the use of this, that, and the other. Of course I answered all their questions as fully as I could, and not only so, but I also exhibited a few of my gewgaws, hinting that certain of them might become their own property before long, although I did not then offer any presents for their acceptance, it being contrary to savage etiquette to do so before the king had been interviewed and propitiated. They were, of course, intensely interested in my guns, and were full of amazement when I bowled over a carrion crow at a distance of six hundred yards with a rifle bullet; and they did not hesitate to hint plainly that nothing could possibly be more acceptable to the king than the gift of one of my fire weapons. I explained, however, that the fire weapon was very powerful and very dangerous magic, subservient only to the white man, and that I dared not allow any of them even to touch one, lest it should turn upon and slay them. But they were quite as profoundly impressed by my exhibition of the powers of the burning-glass, several of which I had taken the precaution to include in my stock; and when they saw me kindle a fire with its assistance they could find no words in which to express adequately their wonder and admiration.

It is more than probable that, upon their return to the kraal, they found means to convey to the king’s ear some impression of the wonders which the white man had revealed to them, for I had scarcely finished my breakfast on the following morning when a messenger arrived at the wagon with the intimation that King Moshesh commanded my immediate presence before him.

I at once arose and, unarmed, accompanied the messenger, with Piet in close attendance, bearing the parcel containing the presents which I designed to offer for His Majesty’s acceptance. As I approached the open gate in the palisade a number of people, both men and women, were passing in and out, all of whom regarded me curiously. A few of the men saluted me with upraised right hand and the exclamation “’Nkos’!” but for the most part they seemed undecided whether to regard me as a friend or an enemy, and therefore preferred for the moment to maintain an attitude of neutrality. Immediately inside the gate there stood a guard of twenty men, fully armed with shield, assagai, and knobkerrie, under the command of an induna, and here we were stopped, for the induna seemed indisposed to allow Piet to accompany me; but I explained that he was my body servant, and that the bundle which he bore contained presents designed for the king’s acceptance, whereupon we were, somewhat reluctantly, permitted to pass on. Naturally, we were no sooner inside the gate than I began to look about me, and the first thing that struck me was the admirable arrangements which had been made for the defence of the place in case of attack. For while the top of the palisade was, on the outside, about fifteen feet above the surface of the ground, on the inside it had been backed up with earth forming a platform about twelve feet wide and just high enough for a man of average height to see between the sharpened points; while at a height of about four feet above the level of the platform there was a continuous row of slits, about eight inches high by two inches wide, and about nine inches apart, the obvious purpose of which was to afford the occupants of the platform an opportunity to thrust with their spears at a foe attempting to scale the palisade from the outside, without unduly exposing themselves. Approach to the summit of the platform was obtained by a continuous flight of rough steps cut in the earth all along its face, and next the foot of the steps was a road of about twelve feet wide. Then came the outer row of huts, between which and the next row was another road, about eight feet wide. There were four rows of huts running entirely round the enclosure, inside of which again was another palisade, equally as strong and as high as the first. And, as in the case of the first palisade, this also had a single gate, guarded by twenty fully armed men under the command of an induna. We were permitted to pass through this second gate unchallenged, and having done this I found myself in an open square of about five acres in extent, near the far side of which were seven huts, or houses, rather, for they were considerably larger and in every way more important than the ordinary Kafir hut. Six of these—square structures built of “wattle-and-daub” and roofed with thatch, the largest of them measuring about twenty feet by twelve, and about seven feet high to the overhanging eaves—were built in a row, with spaces of about six feet between them; while the seventh, which I rightly conjectured to be the itunkulu, or King’s House, stood about twelve feet in front of the others, and was about the same size as the largest of them.

We were now upon what may be termed sacred ground, that is to say, ground reserved for the exclusive use of the king himself and the members of his immediate household; nobody being permitted to enter here except persons belonging to the royal family, those especially invited by the king, the chief witch doctor, and the king’s own bodyguard, consisting of one hundred specially picked men, under the command of an induna who also filled the office of chief adviser, or prime minister, to the king. At the moment of our entrance not a person but ourselves was visible in the square, except the guard at the gate; but a few seconds later twenty soldiers under the command of a very splendid-looking officer emerged from one of the buildings and took up a position on either side of a chair hewn out of a solid block of wood and draped with a magnificent lion-skin kaross, which stood some half a dozen paces in front of the itunkulu.

These men were the finest-looking body of savage warriors that I had up till then ever seen, every one of them being quite as tall as, and far more firmly knit than myself; while the chief was a truly magnificent man, standing at least six feet two on his bare feet, with the limbs and frame of a Hercules. They were all dressed in leopard-skin muchas, with bracelets, armlets, garters, and anklets of cows’ tails; all wore keshlas; and each man carried a long shield and three throwing assagais in his left hand, while in his right he held a stabbing assagai with a terrible double-edged blade about six inches wide and eighteen inches long. Their commanding officer was similarly armed; but in addition to the leopard-skin mucha he wore a leopard-skin cloak, a necklace of lions’ teeth and claws, and a headdress made of beads and ostrich feathers. Every man of these twenty-one savage warriors showed upon his person the scars of many wounds, and carried himself with a pride of bearing which forbade him to display the slightest sign of consciousness of our presence.

Chapter Six.

Moshesh, the King of the Basutos.

A minute later the curtain of reed matting that hung in the doorway of the itunkulu was thrust aside, and a man came forth. He was slightly above medium stature, and a trifle lighter in colour than the average Basuto; he was much more simply attired than the officer of the guard, his clothing consisting simply of a leopard-skin mucha and a lion-skin mantle: but the assured dignity of his carriage and the expression of arrogant pride upon his well-formed features would of themselves have sufficed to tell me that the man was none other than Moshesh, the king of the Basuto nation, even had the guard not given him the royal salute by raising their stabbing assagais aloft in their right hands as they thundered out the word “Bayete!” As for me, I had not the remotest notion of the kind of salutation which His Majesty would expect from me; I therefore contented myself by standing at attention in military fashion and giving him a military salute. The action, which is certainly a very expressive one, seemed to meet with the royal approval, for the king acknowledged it by the slightest possible uplifting of the right hand as he seated himself in his chair and the guard formed up behind him. Then, gazing at me steadfastly for a moment, he said:

“S’a bon’, umulungu!” Then, without allowing me time to make the stereotyped reply, he continued: “For what purpose have ye come hither into my country?”

“I have business in the far north,” said I; “and to reach my destination it is necessary for me to pass through thy country. Therefore have I come hither to offer presents, and to ask thy permission to pass through thy country and hunt therein.”

“Au!” commented the king in a tone of displeasure; “I like it not. If I give thee leave to travel and hunt in Basutoland, others of thy countrymen will claim the same privilege, and it will end in so many coming that there will be no room left for me and my people. Was it not this same apprehension that caused the Tembu, the Pondos, and the Griquas to arise and unite in an attempt to drive the white man into the sea?”

“It was,” I said. “But the apprehension was quite unjustified: the English had no thought, no desire, no intention to steal the land of the black man; their own land is amply large enough for all their needs. But the Kafirs would not believe it, therefore they treacherously arose and swept down upon the white man’s land, attacking isolated farms and murdering their inhabitants—my own parents died upon the spears of the Griquas. And what have the black men gained by their treachery? Nothing! And what have they lost? Everything! Thousands of them have perished in the war of retribution which they have provoked; and the end of it all is that, by way of further punishment—and as a warning to others—the white man has seized their land and driven them out of it.”

“Au!” ejaculated the king again. “So have I heard. And I tell thee again, white man, that I like it not. If it be as thou sayest, that thine own land is large enough for thy need, why hast thou not remained there? Why comest thou to my country?”

“Because,” answered I, “as I have already said, I have business in the far north, and to get there I must needs pass through Basutoland.”

“And what is thy business in the far north?” demanded Moshesh. “I have a right to know, since thou sayest that it necessitates a passage through my country.”

“I think not,” said I. “Nevertheless I will tell thee, since the matter is no secret. When the southern Kafirs took up their spears to drive the white men into the sea, my father’s farm was one of the last which they attacked. They slew my parents, burnt down the house, and drove off all the cattle, leaving me with only sufficient means to buy a wagon and oxen, and weapons to undertake a hunting expedition. The land itself remains, and is mine, but I have not the wherewithal to put fresh stock upon it; therefore nothing remains for me but to hunt ivory and so procure the means to purchase fresh stock. Also I am hoping to find gold; but most of all am I anxious to find a white ’ntombozaan who was captured and carried off by the Kafirs.”

“Ou!” ejaculated the king. “Now I begin to understand. At first I feared that thy business was to spy out the nature of the land in this my country, so that, if it were found suitable, thou and other white men might come in and try to take it from me; but since thou dost indeed merely desire to pass through it, I give thee free leave to do so, the more readily that I learn thou didst help my people by slaying a leopard that was troubling them.”

“It is well, O king, and I thank thee,” said I. “And now, in acknowledgment of thy friendliness, I ask thine acceptance of certain presents,” and I beckoned Piet to approach with his parcel, which I forthwith proceeded to open.

The trousers were on the top of the parcel, and as I unfolded them and turned them about, showing off their gold braid, I saw the king’s eyes begin to glisten, for finery appeals quite as strongly to the savage as it does to the child. He took the garment in his hands, inspected the gold braid narrowly, and seemed more than half-inclined to insinuate himself into the article there and then; but his dignity rose superior to the strain upon it, heavy as it was, and with a sigh he handed the trousers over to the captain of the guard to hold for him. Then, with a suitable flourish, I displayed the drum-major’s tunic in all its bravery of soiled scarlet and tarnished gold lace; and as I turned it about to exhibit its varied splendours even the iron discipline to which the guards were subjected so far broke down as to elicit from them a low “Wao!” of admiration. As for the king, he did not attempt to conceal his delight, even forgetting himself so far as to direct the induna’s attention to its beauties; and for several minutes he continued to fondle the coat, seeming quite unable to allow so precious a thing to pass out of his own hands. At length, however, I created a diversion by producing the belt and bayonet, withdrawing the latter from its sheath and explaining that it was used as a sort of rapier. This also received its due meed of appreciation, but the royal glances still clung fondly to the tunic; therefore I produced the cocked hat with its plume of feathers, putting it upon my own head for a moment to show how it ought to be worn, and then handing it to the king, who immediately clapped it upon his own pate, and kept it there. And, finally, I produced the shaving mirror, of which the king at first seemed somewhat afraid, pronouncing it “’mkulu ’mtagati” (great or powerful magic); but when I had succeeded in making him thoroughly understand what it was, he was as delighted as a child, sitting in his chair intently studying his own countenance for several minutes, and then bursting into rapturous laughter.

When the first acute spasm of delight at seeing his own physiognomy reflected in a mirror had passed, I suggested to the king that if he would like to try on his new garments I should be very pleased to instruct him as to the proper method of getting into them, an offer which he instantly accepted; and he would have donned the clothes there and then, in the presence of his guards, if I had not whisperingly hinted that it would be much more effective to get into them in the privacy of his own house and then reappear en grande tenue. His Majesty immediately recognised the force of this, and thereupon retreated to the interior of the itunkulu, taking me and the clothes with him; and there, in feverish haste, he proceeded to array himself under my direction. By a miracle the garments fitted him almost as though they had been made for him—for he was at this time still a young man, and had not yet begun to put on flesh. The poor man must have felt horribly hot and uncomfortable in his unaccustomed rig, for the perspiration literally streamed from him; but no matter, he was about to appear before the eyes of his faithful subjects—or at least a portion of his bodyguard, who would not fail to talk about the matter to the rest of the people—apparelled in unimaginable splendour, and such a trifle as a little discomfort from excessive heat was as nothing compared with the sensation which he expected to produce.

And really, when at length he was completely rigged in tunic and trousers, with the cocked hat on his head, the belt about his waist, and the drawn bayonet in his hand, his appearance, although just a trifle incongruous to my critical eye, was well calculated to produce a profound impression upon his unsophisticated subjects, as was evidenced by the note of admiration which rang unmistakably in the ecstatic shout of “Bayete!” with which his guards greeted him upon his reappearance. He strutted up and down the compound for a few minutes, showing off his fine feathers; called his chief induna to him, and instructed the man in my presence that I was to be permitted to go wherever I pleased in Basutoland, stay in the country as long as I pleased, and kill as much game as I chose; and then, dismissing me rather abruptly, retreated to the interior of the itunkulu, and, as I afterwards learned, sent for his wives, that they might behold him in his unaccustomed bravery.

That I had been lucky enough to make an exceedingly favourable impression upon the king was perfectly evident; but by what magic the intelligence should instantaneously become disseminated among the people I know not. Yet so it was; for while upon my approach to the town it had been quite exceptional for a native to salute me, upon my departure from it every man I met punctiliously gave me “’Nkos’!” as I passed him. And in less than an hour after my return to the wagon an induna arrived from the town accompanied by a couple of natives leading a pair of superb Basuto ponies—a stallion and a mare, both unbroken—as a present from the king. And as the Basuto horses are far and away the finest horses in South Africa, and the pair presented to me were exceptionally fine animals of their kind, the gift was an exceedingly valuable one, although, being unbroken, I anticipated plenty of trouble with them before they would be of any use to me. But I may say here that in this anticipation I was very agreeably disappointed, for although they were as wild as deer when first brought to me, I took them in hand forthwith, and by dint of patience and making pets of them I soon had them both so docile that they would come at my call; and within a month I had backed them both. But, after all, valuable as they were for breeding purposes, they were not of very much use to me personally, being scarcely up to my weight. Nevertheless, I frequently rode them for an hour or two, just to keep them in training, and to ease my other horses a little. They were both coal black, and I called them respectively Jack and Jill—not very high—flown names, perhaps, but exceedingly handy.

There was a good deal of singing and dancing going on in the town that night, the rumpus being so great that it was well on into the small hours before it subsided sufficiently to allow me to get to sleep; and on the following morning I learned, through my boy Piet, that so great had been the king’s gratification at the result of his interview with me that he had given ten oxen from his own private herd as a feast in celebration of my arrival.

Anxious to press forward upon my journey, and anxious also to get away from Moshesh’s kraal while the relations were so exceedingly cordial, I sent a message to the king, early upon the following morning, requesting his permission to depart. But instead of receiving a gracious assent to my request, I was somewhat perturbed to see Moshesh himself, splendidly mounted, and attired in his new rig-out, accompanied by some ten or a dozen indunas and about a thousand of his troops, all mounted, filing out of the gate and heading straight for the wagon—for, to be quite candid, the South African savage is a little uncertain in his moods, and the man who is to-day in high favour may, as likely as not, find himself staked out on an ant-heap to-morrow, to die the awful “death of the ants” in revenge for some unknown and unintended offence. But upon the arrival of the cavalcade I was quickly reassured by the cordial tone of the king’s greeting and the respect with which the indunas saluted me; and presently Moshesh, informing me that he was about to hold a review of his own especial regiment of lifeguards, invited me to accompany him and witness the evolutions. This, of course, was a very exceptional display of royal favour, and although I was anxious to press forward upon my journey there was obviously nothing for it but to accept the king’s invitation with a good grace and every outward sign of gratification. At the same time I could not avoid a suspicion that there must be something behind such a signal mark of favour, and presently I got an inkling of what it was when, as Piet led up my horse, saddled and ready for me to mount, the king said:

“I am told, white man, that you possess a wonderful fire weapon with which you can slay at a distance far beyond that to which the strongest of my warriors can hurl an assagai. Is that the truth?”

“It is the truth, O King,” said I. “Would you like to see it?”

The king intimated that he would, whereupon I directed Piet to bring me my rifle, together with the powder horn—the belt, with pouch containing bullets, wads, and percussion caps, was already buckled round my waist; and upon receiving the weapon I held it up for His Majesty to look at, keeping it, however, in my own hands. But this did not suit Moshesh at all; he must needs handle it himself. Therefore, rather unwillingly, I must confess, I offered the gun to him, first taking care to remove the cap and lower the hammer down on to the nipple, for the piece was loaded, and I was particularly anxious that no accident should happen.

Unobtrusively, however, as the deed was done, my action did not escape the sharp eyes of the king, and he turned upon me quickly with the demand:

“Why did you do that, white man?”

“Because this,” said I, holding up the percussion cap, “is very powerful magic, obedient only to the white man. Without it the fire weapon is as harmless as a stick; with it the fire weapon is deadly, and not to be handled with impunity by anyone but its rightful owner. Therefore, since you wish to see my rifle, and take it into your own hands, I must needs remove the magic, else would it turn upon you and do you a serious hurt, possibly slay you.”

“Au!” ejaculated the king, regarding the rifle doubtfully, and not offering to take it into his own hands: “I like it not; take it away, I will not touch it; the thing is more dangerous than a she leopard robbed of her cubs! Yet I would fain see what it can do, therefore bring it with thee, white man; it may be that, as we go, we may meet a leopard, or a lion, or a buck for thee to slay.”

“Nay,” said I, “it is not likely that either of the beasts which thou hast named will show in the open in the presence of so many men and horses. Nevertheless I will take the rifle, for even though no beast should show itself I may be able to shoot a bird or two.” So saying, I swung myself into the saddle, and, accepting the king’s invitation to ride beside him, proceeded at a gallop, with the thousand bodyguards thundering along in the rear. And, watching my opportunity, it was not long before I contrived to set my rifle to half-cock and replace the cap on the nipple without attracting the king’s attention.

Our way lay along what at the beginning was simply a very shallow depression between two low ridges; but as we proceeded the depression rapidly became deeper and the ridges higher, until, by the time that we had ridden a mile, we were sweeping through a ravine with high, steep, bush-clad slopes rising to right and left of us, these slopes terminating about half a mile farther on in a couple of lofty, perpendicular rocky cliffs, some six hundred feet high, and about three hundred feet apart, forming a sort of natural gateway to a circular basin about three miles in diameter, the floor of which was perfectly level, clothed with long lush grass, still looking quite fresh and green, and with only a few small, widely scattered clumps of bush here and there.

“This,” explained the king, as we dashed through the natural gateway at the head of the galloping regiment, “is the exercise ground where I bring my regiments from time to time to exercise them in the tactics of war.”

“And a very excellent place it is for such a purpose,” I agreed, as my eye took in the wide area of level, unbroken ground. “There is room enough here in which to fight a battle of quite respectable dimensions. But what are those moving objects yonder?” I interrupted myself eagerly, as my gaze was arrested by a group of some ten or a dozen dark dots moving slowly among the long grass at the opposite extremity of the valley. “Surely they must be buffalo, or I am greatly mistaken.”

“You are not mistaken, they are buffalo; and you have a marvellously sharp eye, white man,” returned the king. Then he flung up his hand, and the galloping regiment came to a sudden halt, reining-in their sweating horses so sharply as to throw the animals back upon their haunches. At the same moment we also reined up. Then the king called his indunas round him, instructing one of them to take fifty men, and with them ride round the outside of the basin until they reached the only other exit from the valley, and block it, so that the buffalo might not escape through it; while a second induna was also to take fifty men and block the exit through which we had just passed, thus rendering escape from the valley an impossibility, for, as the king now informed me, the surrounding cliffs were everywhere vertical, so that no animal, save, perhaps, a baboon, could possibly enter or leave the basin except by one or the other of the two natural gateways in the cliff.

“Now, white man,” said the king, turning to me with sparkling eyes and pointing toward the buffalo, “there is your opportunity. Kill me two or three of those with your fire weapon, and then you shall see how the Basuto hunt buffalo.”

“Very well,” I said; “I will see what I can do. But we shall have to get very much nearer to them than we are at present; for even my fire weapon will not kill at such a distance as that.”

“No?” demanded the king. “Then how close must you get before it will kill?”

“Oh,” I said, “perhaps one-sixth of the present distance of the buffalo.”

The king was evidently disappointed to learn that there was a limit to the range of the rifle, and for the moment seemed inclined to regard it somewhat contemptuously. Without wasting further words upon so very ineffective a weapon, he proceeded to issue his orders to the other indunas, in obedience to which the regiment divided itself into two, one half riding to the left and the other to the right, and stringing themselves out, single file, close in under the shadows of the overhanging cliffs, where they quickly became so inconspicuous as to be practically invisible. Then, accompanied by a body of twenty picked men, who spread themselves out in open order in our rear, the king and I advanced toward the buffalo at a slow walking pace.

It fortunately happened that the wind was blowing across the basin directly from the buffalo toward us, consequently it was a long while before the brutes became aware of our presence; indeed, we had arrived within about three-quarters of a mile of them before they betrayed any sign of uneasiness, and even then it was toward the upper end of the valley, and not toward us, that their attention seemed to be directed.

“It is Bulangu and his party that they scent,” said the king, referring to the squadron of men whom he had sent round outside the basin to bar the upper exit; and, sure enough, a minute or two later the whole herd swung round and began to move toward us. But the moment that this occurred they of course caught sight of us and at once came to a halt, tossing their heads impatiently, lashing their flanks with their tails, and emitting low, moaning bellows of annoyance. After a short pause, however, accompanied by the display of many indications of rapidly increasing anger, the herd again began to move toward us, first at a walking pace that rapidly merged into a trot, till finally the whole herd broke into a gallop as the induna Bulangu and his party appeared at the far end of the plain.

“Now,” said I to the king as the herd rapidly approached within range, “I will show you what the fire weapon is capable of doing. Watch the old bull who is leading the herd and see what happens. And perhaps you had better dismount, for your horse is unused to fire weapons, and when I shoot he may possibly swerve suddenly and throw you.”

“Nay,” answered the king, “I will not dismount; for now that you have warned me I shall know what to expect, and shall not be taken unawares.” And he gathered in the slack of his single bridle, tightly gripped the animal between his knees, and sat prepared for whatsoever might happen.

The herd, meanwhile, had approached to within about eight hundred yards of us, and were thundering straight in our direction at a somewhat ungainly but nevertheless rapid gallop, with heads down and tails up, giving vent to low, angry bellows as they came. I was riding Prince, upon whom I knew I could absolutely depend; therefore, instead of dismounting, I turned him to the right with a touch of my heel and a slight pressure of the rein, very nearly broadside-on to the approaching herd, and flung the rifle up to my shoulder. It was a rather long shot, and at eight hundred yards even a buffalo, coming head on, presents but a comparatively small target, especially when the grass happens to be breast-high; nevertheless I got the sights to bear dead upon the centre of the bull’s forehead, about halfway between the horns and the eyes, and, watching for the proper moment, pressed the trigger. The flash and report of the piece were immediately followed by sounds of fierce stamping and plunging close at hand, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that the king’s high-mettled stallion was fighting hard to break away and make a bolt for it; then, just as the bull stumbled, recovered himself, and finally turned a complete somersault, I heard the loud thud of the bullet on the thick skull, and knew that my shot had got home.

“W-a-a-u!” ejaculated the king, giving vent to a long-drawn expression of amazement; “yena chiele (he is hit)! The fire weapon is indeed ’mkulu ’mtagati (great magic)! The beast fell dead as though smitten by lightning. Can you do that again, white man, or was it merely chance?”

“You shall see,” said I, as I rammed a wad down upon a fresh powder charge and slipped a bullet in after it. As I set the trigger to half-cock I saw that the powder was well up in the nipple; therefore, slipping on a cap and setting the trigger to full-cock, I again levelled the piece and bowled over the leading buffalo.

“It is enough!” exclaimed the king soberly. “No wonder that you conquered the tribes who rose against you if you were all armed like that! Now, children,” he continued, throwing up his hand as he addressed his little body of immediate followers, “show the white man how the Basuto kills buffalo!”

The herd had originally numbered eleven, nine of which were still upon their feet, and, with the vindictive fearlessness which is the chief characteristic of the Cape buffalo, charging straight down upon our party; at a word, therefore, from the induna who was in command of the contingent, nine of the warriors flung away their shields and casting assagais, and, gripping the single bangwan, or stabbing assagai, with which each of them was also armed, drove their heels into their horses’ flanks and dashed forward to meet the bellowing foe. To see those nine men fearlessly charge the rushing herd was a distinctly thrilling sight; for none knew better than they the implacably savage nature of the brutes they were about to contend with, or the deadliness of the peril to which they were so light-heartedly exposing themselves. Yet not one of them manifested the slightest disposition to shirk the encounter: possibly they all knew that to perish upon the horns of a buffalo would be preferable to the punishment that surely awaited them should they disgrace themselves and their king by showing fear in the presence of a white man. But if the riders scorned to exhibit fear, the horses were animated by no such scruples, for when they had approached to within about two hundred feet of the charging buffalo, the low, fierce, grunting bellows, the blazing eyes, and the sharp, threatening horns of the latter seemed to strike such panic into them that suddenly, as though by concerted arrangement, they wheeled sharply round, and, despite their riders’ utmost efforts, bolted ignominiously in all directions.

I had by this time succeeded in recharging my rifle, and, slipping on a fresh cap, I raised the piece to my shoulder and held myself ready to shoot upon the instant that I dared do so without the risk of hitting a Basuto, for a tragedy seemed imminent. But Moshesh, who was now with difficulty restraining his own mount from bolting, stopped me.

“Wait, white man, and watch!” he enjoined me; and as the words passed his lips I saw the nine warriors throw themselves very cleverly from the backs of their bolting horses, wheel round as upon a pivot, and dash back until they were immediately in the path of the furious buffalo, which seemed now to have marked down as their destined victims the little body of men of whom the king and I formed a part. In the twinkling of an eye each warrior had selected one buffalo in particular as his own especial foe, and had planted himself with uplifted bangwan square in the brute’s path, while the buffalo, promptly accepting the challenge, responded to it with fierce bellows and savage flourishings of the terrible horns. Three breathless seconds later the leading buffalo, with head lowered and slightly turned to allow of a more effective thrust of the sharp, upturned point of its murderous horn, was upon his antagonist, and I caught my breath sharply, fully expecting to see the man impaled, or at least tossed high in the air. But instead I beheld as splendid an exhibition of courage and alertness as I think I have ever witnessed, for the man, firmly standing his ground to the very last fraction of a second, sprang nimbly to one side at the precise moment when, as it seemed, the point of the horn was about to be dashed into his naked body, and then, as the great beast thundered past within reach of his hand, down flashed the formidable, broad-bladed bangwan, with so sure and strong a stroke that the buffalo crashed headlong to the ground dead, with its fierce heart cleft in twain.

And in like manner perished seven of its companions, the ninth buffalo wreaking its revenge for the death of the other eight in a peculiarly ghastly manner. Precisely how the tragedy happened none of us knew, for it chanced that our attention was concentrated elsewhere at the moment; but a sharp, shrill scream of mortal agony sounding out on the hot air apprised us that something untoward was happening. Glancing quickly in the direction from which the sound proceeded, I was horrified to see that one unfortunate warrior had somehow failed to avoid a buffalo’s charge, and was now writhing transfixed on one of the horns of the great brute, which the next instant flung the poor fellow high in the air, and then, with a savage bellow, swerved and came thundering straight toward the king and myself, where we sat on our horses close together watching the exciting scene that was being enacted before us. A startled cry from the induna commanding the squad which was at that moment in special charge of the king’s person caused the eleven men who had until now sat quiescent upon their horses to fling themselves hastily to the ground and dash forward to protect their monarch. But there was no time for this; the buffalo was within a dozen yards of us, and I could see that he had singled out Moshesh as the particular object of his attack, attracted, no doubt, by His Majesty’s scarlet tunic. The king might of course have escaped by promptly wheeling his horse and galloping away; but his pride and self-esteem would have suffered a mortal wound had he been driven to flight in the presence of a white man, although there was a certain quality in his hurried glances to right and left that seemed to tell me that he meditated something of the sort, rather than stand his ground and take his chance. Fortunately I had reloaded my rifle a minute or two earlier, and now I saw my opportunity to render the king an important service by sparing him the ignominy of flight: I therefore flung up my piece and pressed the trigger, and the buffalo—an enormous and most formidable brute—stumbled and fell dead literally at our horses’ feet.

“That was well done, ’mlungu,” exclaimed the king, with just the faintest suggestion of a feeling of relief in the tones of his voice; “that was marvellously well done! But for thy quickness and sureness of eye and hand I should have been overthrown, and the Basutos might have been obliged to choose another king. ’Mtala,” to the induna, “let them see to yonder clumsy fool who allowed the buffalo to catch him; and if he be not dead let four of thy men make a litter and carry him back to the kraal.”

The induna saluted, and, beckoning to four of his men, proceeded in person to examine the unlucky wight who had been gored; but such examination was scarcely necessary, for even from where I sat it was apparent that the unfortunate man’s injuries were of such a dreadful character that survival was impossible, and a few minutes later ’Mtala returned to report that the victim was quite dead.

“It is well!” commented the king briefly. “Let the carrion be moved out of the way; and let the regiment form up and be put through its evolutions.” Whereupon, at a word from the induna, a man dismounted, and, uncoiling his hobble rope, slipped the noose round one of the ankles of the corpse, attached the other end to his horse’s girth, and, mounting, galloped off toward the edge of the plateau, dragging the body after him until it was removed to a sufficient distance to be quite out of the way of the manoeuvring troops, when it was abandoned to become a prey to the jackals and vultures!

Meanwhile the troops were recalled and formed up in the centre of the plain, where the king critically inspected them, while I, at his invitation, rode beside him. And I feel bound to say that seldom have I seen a finer body of men, either savage or civilised, which, after all, is not to be greatly wondered at, seeing that, as the king’s own special regiment of bodyguards, they were, naturally, the very pick and flower of the entire nation.

The inspection occupied about a quarter of an hour, and at its conclusion the regiment as a whole was put through a number of movements, which they executed very creditably. Then they were divided into two equal parts, which were marched to the opposite extremities of the plateau, when they faced about, and, charging down upon each other, engaged in a very realistic sham fight, lasting for the best part of an hour, and resulting in quite a number of casualties, several of the men being unhorsed and sustaining more or less serious injuries; after which the regiment re-formed, and we all returned to the kraal at a gallop, a party being detailed to remain behind and bring in the injured at a more sober pace.

I soon found that Moshesh, like all other savages, possessed his full share of vanity, which he was quite unable to conceal; also, it was evident that he was inordinately proud of his regiment, and was not above fishing for compliments upon it: I therefore dutifully did what was manifestly expected of me, and immensely gratified His Majesty by being as complimentary as I possibly could be without unduly straining the truth. But when all was said and done I had a very shrewd suspicion that while Moshesh might perhaps be credited with a genuine desire to show me some honour by inviting me to witness the review of his troops, he was principally animated by a craving for his own glorification, and, incidentally, was glad to seize the occasion as affording him an early opportunity to exhibit himself before his people in all the magnificence of his new “toggery.”

Chapter Seven.

Strange Occurrences in the Wilderness.

About an hour after sunrise on the following morning I again presented myself before the king, with the request that I be permitted to continue my journey. I was very cordially received by His Majesty, who again thanked me for the service which I had rendered him on the preceding day by slaying the buffalo, and so saving him from the ignominy of flight, or the almost equally unpleasant alternative of submitting to be charged by the brute. In the privacy of his itunkulu he was much more expansive than he had been on the previous day in the presence of his indunas, unhesitatingly admitting that, had he been compelled to accept either of the above-mentioned alternatives, he would have suffered serious loss of prestige in the eyes of his own people. He informed me that upon his return to the kraal on the preceding day he had given instructions that a body of men should be dispatched to bring in the carcasses of the slaughtered buffalo, which had been done, and he now made the offer that, if I pleased, he would have the skins carefully dressed, and the skulls and horns preserved, so that I might take the whole back with me to civilisation, as trophies, upon my return. Of course I thanked him for his exceedingly generous offer, which I gladly accepted so far as the three buffalo killed by myself were concerned; and therewith we parted upon the very best of terms, the king according me full permission to go where I pleased in his country, remain in it as long as I chose, and kill all the game that I had a mind to, while I made His Majesty inexpressibly proud and happy by presenting him with a burning-glass and showing him how to kindle a fire by its means. Then, my ceremonial visit being at an end, I returned to the wagon, ordered the oxen to be inspanned, and resumed my journey.

The ensuing fortnight was spent in progressing slowly northward through that part of Basutoland which lies between the Machacha mountain range and what is now known as the Caledon River, hunting all the way. But although the sport, such as it was, was good, enabling me to bag five lions, eight leopards, and three splendid specimens of rhinoceros, and although buck of all kinds, and buffalo, were plentiful enough to have enabled me to fill the wagon with their skins and horns, had I desired to do so, the sport was not the kind that I desired; I was out after elephant, and Basutoland was not elephant country. Therefore, at the end of the fortnight, I crossed the headwaters of the Caledon, and entered what in after years became the Orange Free State, and, still later, the Orange River Colony. Thence, passing between the two mountain ranges which later received the names of Witte and Roode Bergen, we “struck” a wide expanse of level, open country; through this a stream flowed in a northerly direction, along the left bank of which we trekked for a full week, not only for the sake of the water and the richer grass growing in the immediate vicinity of the stream, but also because if there was any game in the neighbourhood it was sure to be found within easy reach of the water. And here I got my first slice of luck, potting a brace of elephants, both of them magnificent tuskers, as well as another rhinoceros, three giraffes, and seven cock ostriches in perfect plumage. Then, crossing the Wilge River, and, two days later, the Klip River, we entered the country now known as the Transvaal, the Klip River being, as a matter of fact, the headwater of the Vaal.

And now I found myself in a very hunter’s paradise, for the country was literally swarming with game of almost every description, consisting of eland, gemsbok, springbok, reitbok, and antelope of all kinds, often in herds numbering several thousands; also that curious-looking beast the gnu, of which I now got my first glimpse; troops of quagga and zebra; giraffes, rhinoceroses, lions, leopards, and ostriches; hippopotami and crocodiles in the rivers; but still very few elephants, and those so shy that it was only with the utmost difficulty I succeeded in securing three within the first fortnight after crossing the Klip River. And during all this time, although I enjoyed some splendid hunting, I did not meet with a single adventure worthy of record, and met very few natives, while those whom I encountered were either very friendly disposed on the one hand, or, on the other, too shy to come near me. But I saw several very curious sights, one or two of which I may perhaps be excused for recording.

For instance, about a week after crossing the Klip River we found ourselves striking northward across a tract of practically level country, dotted here and there with herds of various kinds of game, which took but little notice of us beyond moving leisurely out of our way when we seemed to be approaching them rather too closely for their liking. Piet and I were, as usual, riding forward about a mile ahead of the wagon, on the lookout for ostriches or elephant spoor, when we sighted a troop of the great birds which we were seeking some two miles ahead of us, immediately in line with a range of those curious flat-topped hills which are such a distinctive feature of the South African landscape. Away to our left, about a quarter of a mile distant, was a small kopje, about two hundred feet high, consisting of an outcrop of rock the sides of which, although almost perpendicular, were so rough that I believed they might be easily climbed; and as the summit of the kopje promised to afford an excellent spying place from which to observe the movements of the ostriches, we turned our horses’ heads toward it and approached it at a gallop, reining up at its base. Upon arriving at the foot of the kopje I at once saw that it might be scaled without the slightest difficulty, for not only were the rocky projections so bold and rough as almost to amount to steps, but on the southern or shady side of the hill—which was the face that we approached—a multitude of tough, fern-like plants were sprouting from the interstices, affording excellent hold for the hands; therefore, dismounting and handing my horse’s bridle to Piet, and bidding him remain where he was, in the shadow of the rock, I took my rifle in one hand, and with the small but very powerful telescope which I always carried when out after game slung over my shoulder, proceeded to scale the kopje.

Reaching its summit without difficulty, I found, as I had expected, that my lofty perch afforded a magnificent outlook over the plain in every direction. The ostriches whose movements I particularly desired to watch were now in plain view, and with the aid of my telescope I could not only distinguish the cocks from the hens, but could also perceive that the plumage of the former was in the very pink of perfection. But, in addition to the ostriches, there were several other exceedingly interesting objects and sights clearly distinguishable from the summit of the kopje, of which no hint was obtainable from the level of the plain below.

For instance, upon removing the telescope from my eye, after an exhaustive study of the movements and behaviour of the great birds, I allowed my gaze to travel over the surface of the grassy plain immediately before me, and presently became aware of a solitary antelope, of a species which was quite new to me, grazing at a distance of some two hundred yards from the base of the kopje. The creature was about the size of a bushbok, was a dirty white in colour, and carried a pair of horns about two and a half feet in length, slightly curved, enormously thick at the base, strongly ridged for about half their length, and thence sweeping smoothly away to points as sharp apparently as those of bayonets. The most curious thing about it, however, was that its coat was long and thick, like that of a goat, but apparently very much finer and more silky; and I was speculating upon the possibility of capturing and domesticating a few specimens, with the view of testing the commercial value of the hair, when suddenly the animal ceased feeding, threw up its head, twitched its long ears nervously to and fro, and proceeded to sniff the air anxiously, turning its head hither and thither as it did so.

Finally it faced right round, almost broadside-on to me, and stood motionless, very erect, and with its body seemingly braced in readiness to bound away upon confirmation of its evident suspicion that an enemy was somewhere in its immediate neighbourhood. I knew that the suspected enemy could not possibly be myself, for I was dead to leeward of the animal, and I therefore proceeded to reconnoitre with the view of ascertaining whether danger was threatening it from some other quarter. And presently I became aware of certain suspicious-looking movements of the long grass, about a hundred yards distant, suggestive of the presence of an animal of some kind approaching the antelope cautiously along a sort of wavering, serpentine course. When I first discovered this movement the creature that caused it was at such a distance that it was completely concealed among the long grass, even from the elevation which I occupied; but a minute later I was able to catch occasional glimpses of a darkish grey body, thickly dotted with irregularly shaped spots of lighter grey, slinking toward the antelope, which still remained perfectly motionless and expectantly watchful. The course pursued by the approaching creature was such as gradually to bring it into full view from where I crouched on the summit of the kopje, and at length I made it out to be also an animal hitherto unknown to me, about the size of a half-grown leopard, and of very similar build and shape, except that its tail was only about a foot long, thick, and of uniform dimensions right to its extremity; its ears were tufted like those of a lynx, and indeed in general appearance it greatly resembled a lynx, excepting that it was very much larger.

It was very interesting to watch the progress of this little drama—was it a tragedy?—which was rapidly unfolding itself almost at my very feet, and I was curious to see what steps the threatened antelope would take to provide for its safety—for it was certain that the creature was fully conscious of the fact that danger threatened it. Why did it not seek safety in flight, as most creatures of the antelope species are wont to do? Or did some subtle instinct warn it that flight could but prolong its agony, and that the superior endurance of its approaching enemy would cause it to be run down and brought to bay sooner or later; and that its best chance lay in facing the danger now, before its strength should be worn out by a prolonged and exhausting flight? Apparently some such instinct or conviction must have possessed it, for the antelope remained standing motionless, as though carved out of stone, the only signs of life which it betrayed being a continuous quivering of its nostrils and an occasional slight twitching of its forward-pointing ears, while its enemy slunk sinuously toward it, foot by foot, like a cat stalking a bird. At length the would-be destroyer arrived within about twenty feet of its quarry—at which distance I suspected that each animal was able to obtain at least an occasional partial glimpse of the other—when it halted, and seemed to be gathering itself together for a sudden rush, while the antelope still stood as though rooted to the spot.

Why did not the latter take to its heels and run? I wondered. Was it that the creature was paralysed with terror, and so unable to make any effort to save itself? I thought not, for I could detect no sign of terror; all the indications were in favour of the conviction that while the antelope was undoubtedly fully aware of the close proximity of its enemy, and was alertly watchful for the next movement on the part of the latter, its attitude and aspect were in nowise suggestive of a feeling of dismay—on the contrary, the idea conveyed to me was that of reckless temerity. Yet surely the poor, misguided beast could never be so foolish as to imagine that it stood the slightest chance of victory in the event of a fight? I was not allowed very much time to ponder the question, for, after a pause of about half a dozen seconds, the lynx-like creature made a sudden lightning-like dash at the motionless antelope, which I fully expected to see go down instantly, with the formidable fangs of its enemy buried deep in its throat. Not so, however, for as the lithe, spotted form darted through the grass the antelope rose from the ground, as though shot into the air by a powerful spring, descending fair and square upon its enemy’s back, its four sharp-pointed hoofs digging viciously through the spotted hide and extorting a scream of mingled rage and pain from the astonished assailant; and then, so quickly that the eye could hardly follow the movement, a second vigorous leap landed the antelope fully twenty feet away, while the power expended in the leap sent the screaming, snarling enemy rolling and sprawling helplessly in the grass.

“Well done, antelope!” thought I. “Now is your chance to make a clean bolt for it, before your enemy has time to recover from his amazement.”

But not a bit of it; evidently the very last thing that the antelope contemplated was flight, for no sooner did its hoofs touch the earth than it swung round like lightning, facing toward its adversary, while the latter picked itself up and, with four little streams of blood trickling down its sides, proceeded afresh to the attack. Again it crept up to within a short distance of the waiting antelope, paused, and suddenly dashed in; and again the antelope leaped into the air, alighted upon its enemy’s back, inflicting four fresh wounds with its stabbing hoofs, and sprang away, spurning the snarling foe with such violence that once more it was sent sprawling in the grass.

This performance was repeated some eight or ten times, until at length it became quite evident that the antelope was getting very much the better of the fight, for thus far it had not received a single scratch, while its enemy’s back was punctured all over with wounds that, although none of them were very deep, were bleeding freely, and in the aggregate were probably very painful. It was clear that matters were fast nearing the point at which the grey-spotted beast would be more than willing to regard the fight as a drawn battle, for every bout left it less willing to continue the fight; but the plucky little antelope evidently disapproved of half-measures, and was determined to press the matter to a definite conclusion, for when his antagonist began to betray a disinclination to continue the fight he no longer waited for the onset, but boldly advanced, leaping hither and thither with astounding rapidity, each leap landing him nearer his enemy, until the latter was compelled, in self-defence, to continue. But at length a moment arrived when the feline lay moaning and snarling, covered with blood, and either unable or unwilling to continue the combat; and then the antelope, after approaching the enemy by the usual bewildering series of leaps and bounds, stood for several seconds meditatively regarding him.

Finally, the plucky little beast seemed to come to the conclusion that the decisive moment had arrived, for, suddenly placing his head between his fore legs, so that his long, powerful horns pointed straight at his opponent’s body, he hurled himself violently forward, like a bolt shot from a catapult; the sharp, bayonet-like horns buried themselves deeply in the grey-spotted, blood-smeared body; and as a prolonged yell of agony rent the air the antelope turned a complete somersault over his antagonist and staggered to his feet, bewildered but unhurt, the force with which the final stroke had been delivered having been so tremendous that the horns had disengaged themselves by the simple process of tearing two ghastly slashes in the fearfully lacerated carcass of the now defunct enemy. Then, after satisfying himself, by sight and smell, that nothing further was to be feared from his victim, the conqueror bent his head and resumed his grazing as calmly as though nothing had happened.

The extraordinary combat took some twenty minutes to reach its unexpected conclusion, and then, there being nothing to detain me any longer on the summit of the slope, I descended, rejoined Piet where he was patiently awaiting me within the shadow of the rock, remounted, and rode forward, our appearance at once putting the plucky little victor to precipitate flight. I had a mind to secure the skin of the conquered lynx-like creature, not only as a curiosity and an interesting memento of a rather remarkable occurrence, but also because of its interest to the zoologists upon my return to civilisation; but when we presently found the carcass it proved to be so terribly mauled that I saw it would be impossible to remove the pelt otherwise than in fragments, and so abandoned the idea. But we went after the ostriches, and succeeded in securing the two full-grown cocks of the troop, with the result that I became the richer by about ten pounds’ worth of the most magnificent plumes I had ever seen.

A few days later, our route at the time lying through hilly country, it became a question whether we should enter a long ravine which divided a range of hills ahead, trusting to the possibility of our being able to pass through it and emerge at the other end, or whether it would be necessary to make a rather wide détour round one or the other extremity of the range. The route through the ravine would suit us best from every point of view, provided that it did not prove to be a cul de sac, because it led straight in the desired direction, and appeared to be tolerably level, also it would probably save us nearly forty miles; therefore I ordered Jan to outspan upon his arrival at the mouth of the ravine, while Piet and I rode on ahead to reconnoitre, taking our rifles with us, as usual, as well as the two dogs, Thunder and Juno.

The range of hills lying in front of us was about twenty miles in length, running almost due east and west, and the ravine which it was my purpose to explore pierced it as nearly as might be in its middle, running practically north and south; and even at the first glance I was impressed by the remarkable character of the place. For the ravine irresistibly suggested the idea that at some time in the more or less remote past a giant had taken a shovel measuring about a quarter of a mile in width, and with this gigantic tool had cut a gap right through the range. The most singular feature of the case, however, was that, although the gap was undoubtedly there, and although a vast quantity of material must have been removed in order to create it, there was nothing whatever to show what had become of that material. The floor of the gap was quite smooth and level, unencumbered by boulders or débris of any kind, and its rocky sides were absolutely vertical, rising in the centre to a height of very nearly three thousand feet, which height they maintained for about half a mile before they started to dip toward the far end. Small patches of wait-a-bit and other thorn bushes sparsely dotted the floor of the ravine, or gorge, and about halfway through there was a little grove of mimosa, in the midst of which we caught fleeting, indistinct glimpses of certain moving things which Piet declared were giraffes.

Now, I had not yet shot a giraffe, and was rather anxious to obtain a really good—or it would be nearer the truth to say an exceptionally fine—specimen; therefore, hastily taking cover behind the nearest clump of bush, we proceeded to approach the creatures warily until we had arrived within about half a mile of them. Then, detecting certain signs of growing uneasiness among them, which I attributed to the possibility of their having sighted our moving figures, I dismounted, and, leaving Piet with the dogs and horses well sheltered behind a big clump of bush, took my rifle and set off to complete the stalk through the long grass alone and on foot. I reckoned upon being able to manage this without very much difficulty, for the wind was blowing from the west right across the ravine, while the giraffes were upon the eastern side, and I was to the southward of them; therefore I knew that I ought to be able to get quite close to them before they could wind me, while the grass was tall enough to enable me to approach them unseen. Nevertheless, although I was stalking them with the utmost caution, using the wind to guide me, and only raising my head to reconnoitre at rare intervals and with the exercise of the greatest care, I was annoyed to observe that the uneasiness of my quarries was rapidly increasing; they had ceased to feed, and were standing at attention, with their ears switching quickly to and fro and their heads continually turning this way and that, as though they scented danger of some sort but could not determine its character or, more important still, from which direction it was coming: and I began to fear that before I could get near enough to put in a decisive shot they would stampede and I should lose them altogether. And, sure enough, that was precisely what they did, a great bull giraffe, evidently the leader of the herd, and the animal which I had finally fixed upon as my own particular prey, suddenly tossing up his head and breaking away up the valley in a long, lumbering, ungainly canter, instantly followed by the rest of the herd.

I was not only intensely annoyed but also greatly puzzled at this behaviour on the part of the great, long-legged, long-necked creatures, for I could not believe that the flight had been the result of any carelessness on my part; but while I stood watching them rapidly increasing the distance between themselves and me I became aware of a curious dimming of the atmosphere along the top edge of the cliffs on the western side of the ravine, and while I was still wondering what this might be, a low, murmurous, rumbling sound gradually evolved itself out of the faint sigh of the breeze over the grass and through the foliage of the bush—a sound which, as I listened, rapidly developed into the beat of innumerable hoofs, mingled with the bleatings and barkings of a veritable army of bucks of various descriptions. Then I knew that the dimming of the atmosphere along the summit of the western cliffs was due to a cloud of light, impalpable dust, swept along before a great migrating army of game crossing the mountain range, probably on the march in search of water, and I waited to see what would happen when the vanguard of the army should reach the edge of the cliffs.

I had not very long to wait; the dust cloud rapidly thickened, and the low rumbling beat of hoofs on the hard dry soil of the hill crest quickly increased in volume until it became like the thunderous roar of surf upon a rock-bound shore, mingled with the continuous cries of a countless host of animals all herded together under the influence of some mysterious but powerful influence. And presently the advance guard of the great army appeared against the skyline on the edge of the beetling cliffs, almost immediately opposite where I was standing; first a solitary eland, then three gemsbok, closely followed by seven or eight hartebeeste, then a small troop of quagga, upon the heels of which came a herd of some fifty klipspringers. All these advanced right up to the edge of the cliff, halted abruptly, staring down into the ravine below, and then, wheeling sharply to right and left, threw up their heads and, with characteristic cries of dismay, took to their heels and galloped furiously along the very edge of the cliff, in an evident effort to escape the pressure of the great army in their rear. But as these first arrivals wheeled and sped, terrified, to right and left, others appeared in increasing numbers and, suddenly realising their danger, sought to escape it, some following in the footsteps of the vanguard, while others faced about and strove to retreat along the way by which they had come.

It soon became evident, however, that escape was impossible, for even as I stood watching their efforts the front rank of the main body appeared, a great compact mass of animals extending fully half a mile along the edge of the cliff; and although it was evident that this front rank now realised that danger threatened it in front, and was trying to hang back, the pressure of the vast multitude in its rear was irresistible, and foot by foot it was pushed forward until in a few seconds I was gazing at the awful spectacle of hundreds of helpless animals being thrust over the cliff edge and falling to their death more than two thousand feet below, while the air throbbed and vibrated with their cries of terror. It was a terrible experience to stand there and helplessly watch those unfortunate creatures pouring over the cliff like the waters of a cataract, to listen to their cries as they found themselves being irresistibly thrust forward to their death, and to see the long and rapidly growing pile of the dead stretching along the foot of the cliffs.