Part 18 (1/2)
I ran to the entrance of the cave, calling the Kaffirs, and together we carried hiht He was an awful spectacle, mere bone with yellow skin stretched over it, and covered with filth and clotted blood from some hurt I had brandy with me, of which I poured a little down his throat, whereon his heart began to beat feebly Then we made some soup, and poured that down his throat with ain
For three days did I doctor thatthose days I had relaxed my attentions even for a couple of hours, he would have slipped through ers, for at this business Klaus and the Kaffirs were no good at all But I pulled hi he ca while he stared at ht was good, although the overhanging rocks protected him from the sun Then he said:
”Alle lish boy who beat , and made me quarrel with Oom [uncle] Retief, the jackanapes that Marie was so fond of Well, whoever you are, you can't be he, thank God”
”You are mistaken, Heer Pereira,” I answered ”I alish jackanapes, Allan Quater But if you takeelse, namely, that your life has been saved”
”Who saved it?” he asked
”If you want to know, I did; I have been nursing you these three days”
”You, Allan Quatere, for certainly I would not have saved yours,” and he laughed a little, then turned over and went to sleep
From that tian our journey back to Marais's ca carried in a litter by the four natives It was a task at which they gruround, and whenever they stumbled or shook him he cursed at theth one of the Zulus, a h te h hirew much more polite When the bearers became exhausted we set him on the pack-ox, which two of us led, while the other two supported him on either side It was in this fashi+on that at last we arrived at the ca
Here the Vrouw Prinsloo was the first to greet us We found her standing in the ga, quite a quarter of a ons, with her hands set upon her broad hips and her feet apart Her attitude was so defiant, and had about it such an air of preot wind of our return, perhaps fro for us Also, her greeting arm
”Ah! here you co on an ox, while better men walk Well, noant a chat with you How ca the only horse and all the powder?”
”I went to get help for you,” he replied sulkily
”Did you, did you, indeed! Well, it seems that it was you anted the help, after all What do youyour life, for I ah you were always boasting about your riches; they are now at the bottom of a river, so it will have to be in love and service”
Heno payment for a Christian act
”No, he wants no payment, Hernan Pereira, he is one of the true sort, but you'll pay hiet the chance
Oh! I have come out to tell you what I think of you You are a stinkcat; do you hear that? A thing that no dog would bite if he could help it!
You are a traitor also You brought us to this cursed country, where you said your relatives would give us wealth and land, and then, after famine and fever attacked us, you rode away, and left us to die to save your own dirty skin And now you come back here for help, saved by him whom you cheated in the Goose Kloof, by him whose true love you have tried to steal Oh, hty leave such fellows alive, while so ood and honest and innocent lie beneath the soil because of stinkcats like you?”
So she went on, striding at the side of the pack-ox, and reviling Pereira in a ceaseless streath he thrust his thulared at her in speechless wrath
Thus it was that at last we arrived in the caathered They are not a particularly humorous people, but this spectacle of the advance of Pereira seated on the pack-ox, a steed that is beco to few riders, with the furious and portly Vrouw Prinsloo striding at his side and shrieking abuse at hiave out, and he became even more abusive than Vrouw Prinsloo
”Is this the way you receive s, you common Boers, who are not fit to an
”Then in God's name why do you mix with us, Hernan Pereira?” asked the saturnine Meyer, thrusting his face forward till the Newgate fringe he wore by way of a beard literally seery you did not wish it, for you slunk away and left us, taking all the powder But now that we are full again, thanks to the little Englishry, you coun and six days' rations, and turn you out to shi+ft for yourself”
”Don't be afraid, Jan Meyer,” shouted Pereira froh I will leave you in charge of your English captain here”--and he pointed to o to tell our people what sort of folk you are”
”That is good news,” interrupted Prinsloo, a stolid old Boer, who stood by puffing at his pipe ”Get well, get well as soon as you can, Hernan Pereira”
It was at this juncture that Marais arrived, accompanied by Marie Where he ca in the background on purpose to see what kind of a reception Pereira would meet with
”Silence, brothers,” he said ”Is this the way you greet ate of death, when you should be on your knees thanking God for his deliverance?”
”Then go on your knees and thank Him yourself, Henri Marais,” screaive thanks for the safe return of Allan here, though it is true they would be warmer if he had left this stinkcat behind him Alleuese fellow? Has he bewitched you? Or is it because he is your sister's son, or because you want to force Marie there tobad in your past life, and you have to bribe him to keep his estion was a mere random arron from Vrouw Prinsloo's well-stored quiver, or whether the vrouw had got hold of the tail-end of so-buried truth, I do not know Of course, however, the latter explanation is possible Many s in their youth which they do not wish to see dug up in their age; and Pereira may have learned a family secret of the kind from his mother