Part 10 (2/2)
”Now then, Xuvani--Piet!” he went on sharply, as the Kafirs, with a chorus of emphatic ”whouws,” were gazing after the retreating form of the cause of all the s.h.i.+ndy. ”What the devil are you fellows staring at? Come on--fall to--we've lost enough time already.”
They resumed operations. Now and then a beast, when it was let up, would run at the Kafirs, but in a bewildered, half-hearted sort of a way, and without doing any damage; and all the younger cattle were disposed of. There yet remained four or five large oxen who had come into their present owner's possession late in life, and who were to be sealed. These were not thrown down, however, but their heads made fast to a post by a _reim_ round their horns, while with another _reim_ the leg to be operated on was drawn out at tension. They were sober, sedate creatures who had undergone plenty of the troubles of life, common to their race, in the shape of heavy loads, scarcity of water and often of gra.s.s in dry seasons, but, as if to make up for it, a plentiful allowance of whip; and took this additional affliction philosophically enough.
The result of the day's doings was to open Jeffreys' eyes. His estimation of the other had undergone a considerable change since the previous evening. The dressed-up, finicking carpet skipper was fully his own equal in pluck, and in cool-headedness immeasurably his superior. This he could not but recognise, though he regarded Claverton with no increase of cordiality.
Yes, life would flow pleasantly enough in this unruffled fas.h.i.+on, thought Claverton, as they were all strolling in the garden towards sundown. After the stirring events of the day, the quiet and rest of a perfect evening seemed more than ordinarily grateful. All was so still, and calm, and soothing, and such sound as reached them seemed so softened and mellowed by distance as to harmonise rather than to disturb. A dove cooed softly from an adjacent thorn-brake, and bees returning to the old basket hive set in a nook in the wall, made a tuneful hum upon the sensuous air. Yonder a dragon-fly zigzagged on gauzy wing above the gla.s.sy surface of the dam, seeking its prey among the gnats whose chrysalids were hatched beneath the overhanging weeds.
Suddenly this idyllic scene was invaded by a brace of Kafirs. They were Xuvani and Tambusa, and they began to accost Claverton.
”What on earth do they want? Something to do with that eternal bull, I suppose. I wish the brute had found its way into some butcher's shop long ago! Here, Hicks I come and interpret, there's a good fellow!”
”He says Tambusa is his sister's child, and that you saved his life,”
interpreted Hicks; ”that is to say you saved his--Xuvani's life, Kafir way of putting it, you know--and not only did you save his life, or rather both their lives,” went on Hicks, manfully unravelling the native's long-winded oration; ”but you nearly lost your own.”
”That all?”
”No--don't interrupt him. He says that they are grateful--both he and the boy. That the future is uncertain, and that we never know what turn events will take--”
”He never spoke a truer word than that, anyhow.”
”And that if ever at any time he or Tambusa can render you any service they will do so, even should it be at the risk of their lives--a life for a life--and that they are glad to have looked upon such a howling big swell,” concluded Hicks, with the result that Ethel was obliged to turn away to stifle her laughter.
”Bosh, Hicks! He didn't say that, you know.”
”He did, upon my word. At least, to be more literal, he said he was glad to have looked upon so great a chief. But my rendering was more euphonious--more poetical, don't you see?”
Then Tambusa knelt down and kissed his rescuer's foot, and the two Kafirs withdrew. Claverton looked after them with a curious expression.
”That's all too thickly laid on,” he said. ”Grat.i.tude, 'lively sense of favours to come,' _i.e._ prospective 'bacco. H'm! much too thick!”
”What a dreadful person you are!” expostulated Ethel. ”Why shouldn't they mean what they say? I declare that speech of Xuvani's was a perfect flower of savage poetry, and you don't know what a good fellow he is. I think it's quite horrid of you to throw cold water on him.”
”So it would be if I had. The n.o.ble savage don't affect that fluid much as a rule in any state of temperature.”
Did the Kafir mean what he said? We shall see.
Note 1. Frontier term for the growling noise which is neither roar nor bellow, made by enraged cattle.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.
SPOEK KRANTZ.
It is Sunday.
Ride we behind the horseman who is picking his way down a stony path through the ever present bush, making for yon thatched building down there in the hollow. A low, rough shanty, built in the roughest and readiest fas.h.i.+on, and of the rawest of red brick. Three windows, cobwebbed and cloudy with many a patched-up pane of blue or brown paper, admit light and air, and a door made to open in halves. A smaller edifice hard by, with tumble-down mud walls and in a state of more or less rooflessness, does duty as a stable, and in front of the two an open s.p.a.ce slopes down a distance of one hundred and fifty yards to the river, whose limpid waters dash and sparkle over their stony bed, between cactus-lined banks--the stubbornly encroaching and well-nigh ineradicable p.r.i.c.kly pear. Opposite rises a great cliff, whose base and sides are set in the greenest and most luxuriant of forest trees, but whose brow, like its stern face, is bare of foliage and stands out in hard relief against the sky. There seems no reason why this cliff should be there at all, seeing that the hill would have been far more symmetrical without it, unless in its wild irregularity it were destined for the purpose alone of giving a magnificent--if a trifle forbidding-- frontage to the ill-looking and commonplace dwelling-house. On all sides the towering heights rise to the sky, shutting in this beautiful and romantic spot which might be a veritable Sleepy Hollow, so far does it seem from the sights and the sounds of men. But it must be confessed that its beauty and romance are utterly thrown away upon its present occupant, who is wont to describe the place as ”a beastly stifling hole out of which I'd be only too glad to clear to-morrow, by Jove; but then one can't chuck up the lease, you know, and it isn't half a bad place for stock, too.” It rejoices in the inviting name of Spoek Krantz (Ghost Cliff), and is held in awe and terror as an unholy and demon-peopled locality by the superst.i.tions natives, as well as by the scarcely less superst.i.tious Boer; and gruesome tales are told of unearthly sights and sounds among the rocky caves at its base; shadowy shapes and strange fearful cries, and now and again mysterious fires are seen burning upon its ledges in the dead of night, while the most careful exploration the next morning has utterly failed to discover the smallest trace of footprint or cinder. Native tradition has stamped the spot as one to be avoided, for the spirit of a mighty wizard claims it as his resting-place. Even by day the place, shut in by its frowning heights, is lonely and forbidding of aspect.
But utterly impervious to supernatural terrors is he who now dwells in the haunted locality. The grim traditions of a savage race are to him as mere old wives' fables, and he laughs to scorn all notion of any awesome a.s.sociations whatever. He would just like to see a ghost, that was all, any and every night you pleased; if he didn't make it lively for the spectral visitant with a bullet, call him a n.i.g.g.e.r. Yes, he would admit seeing strange lights on the cliff at times, and hearing strange sounds; but to ascribe them to supernatural agency struck him as utter bosh. The lights were caused by a moonlight reflection, or will-o'-the-wisps, or something of that sort; and the row, why, it was only some jackal yowling in the krantz, and as for getting in a funk about it, that would do for the n.i.g.g.e.rs or white-livered Dutchmen, but not for him. Tradition said that there was a secret cavern in the cliff, but the entrance was known to very few even among the natives themselves, and only to their most redoubted magicians. Certain it is that no Kafir admitted knowledge of this, and when questioned carefully evaded the subject.
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