Part 7 (1/2)
”Thefor the first ti anyone leave to exercise her”
”No, your father did, or was it that ugly little beast of a Hottentot?
I forget which As for her not being for sale--why, in this world everything is for sale, at a price I'll give you--let me see--oh, what does the lish pounds for that et it back, and reat races down in the south
Nohat do you say?”
”I say that the ht struck me, or an inspiration, and, as has always been my fashi+on, I acted on it at once ”But,” I added slowly, ”if you like, when I a your hundred pounds and I staking the
”Here, friends,” he called to so up to the house for their lish that fine ainstthat ever I entered for No, no, friend Allan, I am not a thief, I will not rob you of yourthose Boers chanced to be the celebrated Heer Pieter Retief, a very fine uenot descent like Heer Marais He had been appointed by the Govern to some quarrel with the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Andries Stockenstroaged in organizing the trek from the Colony I no Retief for the first time, and ah! then little did I think how and where I should see him for the last But all that is a matter of history, of which I shall have to tell later
Nohile Pereira wasof his prowess, Pieter Retief looked at me, and our eyesman ith half a dozen miserable Hottentots and slaves, held this stead for five hours against all the Quabie tribe and kept the that I had been about to shoot Marie Marais and myself when help caivepal, ”Your father must be proud of you to-day, as I should be if I had such a son God in Heaven! where will you stop if you can go so far while you are yet a boy? Friends, since I caot the whole story for myself fro lady), and he nodded towards Marie ”Also I have gone over the ground and the house, and have seen where each man fell--it is easy by the blood lishman, except one of the last three, whom he killed with a spear Well, I tell you that never in all ed or a e odds Perhaps the best part of it, too, was the way in which this young lion acted on the information he received and the splendid ride he ain I say that his father should be proud of him”
”Well, if it comes to that, I am, mynheer,” saidwalk, ”although I beg you to say no row vain”
”Bah!” replied Retief, ”fellows of his sta talkers who are vain,” and he glanced out of the corner of his shrewd eye at Pereira, ”your turkey cocks with all their tails spread
I think this little chap reat sailor of yours--what do you call his and died to live for ever He was small, too, they say, and weak in the stomach”
I must confess I do not think that praise ever sounded sweeter in my ears than did these words of the Commandant Retief, uttered as they were just when I felt crushed to the dirt Moreover, as I saw by Marie's and, I may add, by my father's face, there were other ears to which they were not ungrateful The Boers also, brave and honest h, evidently appreciated theht)
Only Pereira turned his broad back and busied hione out
Then Retief began again
”What is it you were calling us to listen to, Mynheer Pereira? That this Heer Allan Quatermain had offered to shoot you aat him with spears, as he has done, he s also You say that you won't rob him of his money--no, it was his beautiful horse--because you have taken so ets But did _you_ ever hit a Kaffir running at _you_ with an assegai,is safe? If so, I never heard of it”
Pereira answered that he did not understandwith assegais, but at so else--he knew not what
”Quite so,” said Retief ”Well, Mynheer Allan, what is it that you do propose?”
”That we should stand in the great kloof between the two _vleis_ yonder--the Heer Marais knows the place--when the wild geese flight over an hour before sunset, and that he who brings down six of theuns are loaded with loopers that will not be difficult,” said Pereira
”With loopers you would seldom kill a bird, mynheer,” I replied, ”for they come over from seventy to a hundred yards up No, I mean with rifles”
”Allemachte!” broke in a Boer; ”you ant plenty of aht with a bullet”
”That is my offer,” I said, ”to which I add this, that when twenty shots have been fired by each man, he who has killed the ht down the full six Does the Heer Pereira accept?
If so, I will venture to h he has won so many prizes”
The Heer Pereira seemed extrean to laugh at hiry, and said that he illing to shootelse I liked