Part 8 (1/2)

CHAPTER V THE SHOOTING MATCH

My journey back to the Mission Station was a strange contrast to that which I had made thence a few days before Then, the darkness, the swift h it like a bird, the awful terror in my heart lest I should be too late, as ild eyes I watched the paling stars and the first gathering grey of dawn Now, the creaking of the ox-cart, the faht, and in reat thankfulness, and yet a new terror lest the pure and holy love which I had won should be stolen away from me by force or fraud

Well, as the one matter had been in the hand of God, so was the other, and with that knowledge I must be content The first trial had ended in death and victory Hoould the second end? I wondered, and those words seemed to jumble themselves up in my mind and shape a sentence that it did not conceive It was: ”In the victory that is death,” which, when I ca How victory could be death I did not understand--at any rate, at that time, I as but a lad of sh, for the road was good and the cart, being on springs, gave ht that the Heer Marais had meant when he told us that the Boers had business at Maraisfontein, during which our presence as Englishreeable to them

”Meant, Allan? He ainst their sovereign, and are afraid lest we should report their treason Either they intend to rebel because of thatof the slaves, and because ill not kill out all the Kaffirs hom they chance to quarrel, or to trek from the Colony

For my part I think it will be the latter, for, as you have heard, soone; and, unless I am mistaken, many more mean to follow, Marais and Retief and that plotter, Pereira, ao; I say, the sooner the better, for I have no doubt that the English flag will follow them in due course”

”I hope that they won't,” I answered with a nervous laugh; ”at any rate, until I have won back my mare” (I had left her in Retief's care as stakeholder, until the match should be shot off)

For the rest of that two and a half hours' trek nified and patriotic, declaimed to me loudly about the bad behaviour of the Boers, who hated and traduced missionaries, loathed and abominated British rule and permanent officials, loved slavery and killed Kaffirs whenever they got the chance I listened to him politely, for it was not wise to cross reat deal with the Dutch, I knew that there was another side to the question, namely, that the missionaries sometimes traduced them (as, in fact, they did), and that British rule, or rather, party governe tricks with the interests of distant dependencies That perovernors full of a little brief authority--often ed by the variegated policy of these party governments and their servants, frequently stole their stock; and if they found a chance, murdered them with their women and children, as they had tried to do at Maraisfontein; though there, it is true, they had some provocation That British virtue had liberated the slaves without paying their owners a fair price for them, and so forth

But, to tell the truth, it was not of these h away fro What appealed to me and made my heart sick was the reflection that if Henri Marais and his friends trekked, Marie Marais lishman, could not be of that adventurous company, Hernando Pereira both could and would

On the day following our arrival hoood food, for which I found I had an appetite, and liberal doses of Pontac--a generous Cape wine that is a kind of cross between port and Burgundy--I found myself so much better that I was able to hop about the place upon a pair of crutches which Hans i,at a rapid rate, I turnedmatch, for which I had but five days to prepare

Now it chanced that soood family--he was named the Honourable Vavasseur Smyth--who had accompanied an official relative to the Cape Colony, came our way in search of sport, of which I was able to show hiht with hist other weapons, what in those days was considered a very beautiful hair-triggered small-bore rifle fitted with a nipple for percussion caps, then quite a new invention It was by a maker of the nae sum because of the perfection of its workmanshi+p When the Honourable V Smyth--of whom I have never heard since--took his leave of us on his departure for England, being a generous-hearted young fellow, as a souvenir of himself, he kindly presented le-barrelled percussion-cap rifle described by Allan Quaterures so prominently in the history of this epoch of his life, has been sent to me by Mr Curtis, and is before me as I write It was made in the year 1835 by J Purdey, of 314 1/2, Oxford Street, London, and is a beautiful piece of workmanshi+p of its kind Without the rahs only 5 lbs 3 3/4 oz The barrel is octagonal, and the rifled bore, designed to take a spherical bullet, is 1/2 in in diameter

The hammer can be set to safety on the half-cock by means of a catch behind it

Another peculiarity of the weapon, one that I have never seen before, is that by pressing on the back of the trigger the ordinary light pull of the piece is so reduced that the gered in the fullest sense of the word

It has two flap-sights ht designed for firing at 100 yards

On the lock are engraved a stag and a doe, the first lying down and the second standing

Of its sort and period, it is an extraordinarily well-un, finished with horn at the end of what is now called the tongue, and with the stock cut away so as to leave a raised cushi+on against which the cheek of the shooter rests

What charge it took I do not know, but I should iine from 2 1/2 to 3 drachms of powder It is easy to understand that in the hands of Allan Quaterreat things within the lie, and that the faith he put in it at the trial of skill at the Groote Kloof, and afterwards in the fearful ordeal of the shooting of the vultures on the wing, upon the Mount of Slaughter, when the lives ofupon his marksmanshi+p, ell justified This, indeed, is shown by the results in both cases

In writing of this rifle, Messrs Purdey informed me that copper percussion caps were experimented with by Colonel Forsyth in 1820, and that their firh their use did not becoeneral until some years later--THE EDITOR]

That was about sixthose ame, such as blesbuck and also of bustards I found it to be a weapon of the e of about two hundred yards, though when I rode off in that desperate hurry for Maraisfontein I did not take it with le barrel and too small in the bore to load with loopers at a pinch Still, in challenging Pereira, it was this gun and no other that I determined to use; indeed, had I not owned it I do not think that I should have ventured on the match

As it happened, Mr Se supply of specially cast bullets and of the new percussion caps, to say nothing of so a myself upon a chair in a deep kloof near the station, across which rock pigeons and turtle doves ont to fly in nuan to fire at thee, Iset down a boaster, that I have one gift, that of marksmanshi+p, which, I suppose, I owe to soment, quickness of eye, and steadiness of hand I can declare honestly that inat a living object; I say nothing of target work, of which I have little experience Oddly enough, also, I believe that at this art, although then I lacked the practice which since has coood as a youth as I have ever been in later days, and, of course, far better than I am now This I soon proved upon the present occasion, for seated there in that kloof, after a few trials, I found that I could bring down quite a nueons as they sped over le bullet, a feat that many would hold to be incredible

So the days passed, and I practised, every evening finding me a little better at this terribly difficult sport For always I learned more as to the exact capacities ofto the speed of the bird, its distance, and the co those days, also, I recovered so rapidly that at the end of them I was almost in my norle stick

At length the eventful Thursday ca and did not shoot--I drove, or, rather, was driven, in a Cape cart with two horses to the place known as Groote Kloof or Great Gully Over this gorge the wild geese flighted froh lands above, to other pans that lay soht out to the sea coast, whence they returned at dawn