Part 23 (1/2)
”As it is I've a notion we shall have to round up our belongings extra tight till we are clear of the country.”
”Oh well. Let's make the best of it and sit tight here a week or so longer, Glanton. I'm beginning to enjoy this shooting among rocks.
These klip-springers are such cute little devils. It's more fun shooting them than it used to be markhor, and nothing like the f.a.g.”
Falkner was a capital shot with rifle and bird gun alike, and one of his good points was that he was a keen and thorough sportsman. That being the case he had been able to find game up here where one less keen would have given up in disgust, and it was a good thing, if only that it kept him out of mischief.
Jan Boom, the Xosa, was the only one who would hint at any reason for the falling off of our trade, but, as it happened, I was rather prejudiced against him by reason of his affectation of a certain air of superiority over those of his own colour, on the strength of his knowledge of English. In fact I rather disliked him, and therefore of course distrusted him. Subsequently I had reason to alter my opinion with regard to him: but that will keep. Out of Mfutela I could get nothing on the subject. Either he knew nothing or was too ”close” to say: and when a native is ”close” why it is rather less difficult to make an oyster open by whispering soft nothings to it than to get him to unfold.
One day Falkner and I started off to have a hunt among the krantzes beyond those which walled in the hollow. We took Jan Boom with us, and a couple of young Zulus to show us the short cut. It was a grey and lowering day, gloomy in the extreme, and every now and then a spot of rain showed what we were likely to expect, but Falkner was keen on sport, and I was getting hipped, besides, in those days I cared little enough for weather. We scrambled about all the morning among the rocks, with absolutely no luck whatever, and then I got sick of it, wherefore after we had lunched upon what we had brought with us I proposed to find my way back to the waggons. Falkner of course wanted to keep on, but I pointed out that my defection need cause no drawback to him, for I would leave him the boys and make my way back alone. So we separated and before we had long done so a distant report, some way above, showed that at any rate he was beginning to find sport.
I struck downward, rapidly making use of half obliterated cattle tracks, for the Abaqulusi were largely a mountain tribe, and there were outlying kraals among the heights as well as in the hollows. Following one of these paths I came suddenly upon a steep gorge, falling abruptly to the next slope some distance below.
This gully was in places almost chasm-like in its formation, and was indescribably wild and gloomy in the utter solitude of the grey afternoon. I had just crossed it where the path dipped, when, looking up, there stood a klipspringer gazing at me.
He was an easy hundred yard shot. Slipping from the saddle on the further side from him, I thought to myself that Falkner would not altogether have the crow over me when we got back. But--when I looked again, expecting to take a quick aim, by Jingo! the little beast had disappeared.
This was annoying, for now a disinclination to return empty handed had seized me. Quickly and noiselessly I made my way up to where he had been. It was as I had thought. He had been standing on a sort of pinnacle; and now, as I peered cautiously over, there stood the little buck, less than the first distance below.
He was outlined against the black and shadowed bottom of the gorge, and was gazing away from me. Now I would have him, I decided. In a second my sights were on him full--I didn't take long over aiming in those days--when I lowered the rifle with some precipitation. Right bang in a line with where the klipspringer had been standing--had been, observe, for the slight additional movement on my part had caused him to disappear again--was the form of a man.
It gave me a turn, for with lightning rapidity it flashed through my mind that nothing could have saved him. Then consternation gave way to curiosity. The form though that of a man was not that of a living one.
Down in the shadow of a dark hole, overhung by gloomy rocks, it sprawled in a constrained half upright posture against one of these. It was too far off and the light not good enough to be able to distinguish how it was secured in this position, but it seemed to be facing upward in a dreadful att.i.tude of scared supplication. I would go down and investigate. But before I had taken many steps in pursuance of this resolve I stopped short.
For an idea had occurred to me. The body was that of a native, and it was obvious that life had been extinct for some time. What good purpose could I serve by investigating it further? I was in a savage country in which life was held cheap. The man whoever he might be, had quite likely been executed for some offence; the method of his death being in all probability designed to fit the offence. Clearly therefore it was no concern of mine, and accordingly I decided to forego further investigation. And then, as though to confirm me in the good policy of such decision something happened--something that was sufficiently startling.
A bullet pinged against a stone beside me, sending up a hard splash of splinters and dust, and, confound it, the thing had hit barely a yard from where I was standing.
”Hallo, Falkner!” I hailed, deeming the puff of smoke from among the rocks above and opposite must be his work. ”Look out I'm here. D'you hear, man?”
But no answer came, not immediately that is. In a minute however, one did come, and that in the shape of another bullet, which banged up the dust just about the same distance on the other side of me. My first impulse was that Falkner was playing one of his idiotic practical jokes at my expense, but with the idea I seemed to feel sure that it was not Falkner--and that, in short, I had better withdraw from this very uncanny spot.
As I hastened to carry this judicious resolve into practical effect I won't pretend that I felt otherwise than uncomfortable and very much so.
Whoever it was up there could shoot--confound him! an accomplishment rare indeed among the natives of Zululand in those days. Clearly too the exact nicety with which both distances had been judged seemed to point to the fact that both shots had been fired by way of warning.
That I had at any rate accepted such I trusted I had made clear to the giver of it, as I walked--I hoped without undue haste but rapidly--to where I had left my horse.
Nothing further occurred, although until clear of the heights I kept an uncommonly sharp look out. Once clear of them however, the incident left no great impression on my mind. I had unwittingly stumbled across something unusual and had been about to pry into what didn't concern me, and it had been resented. The Abaqulusi were an independent and warlike clan who would be sure to resent such. I had received a hint, and a pretty forcible one, to mind my own business, and I concluded that in future I would mind it, at any rate while in these parts. That was all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
CONCERNING A LETTER.
Evening was closing in wet and gloomy. The lowering clouds swept along the high ground which shot in the great hollow, causing the cliffs to seem three times their real height in the ghostly murk. Added to this it was raw and cold, which had the effect of causing the inhabitants of the big kraal to hug their firesides. Here and there a form swathed in an ample green blanket might be seen moving from one hut to another, quickly to dive within the same, for your savage is a practical animal, and sees no fun in foregoing any of his comforts when no necessity exists for doing so--and the interior of the huts was warm and dry, and, without, it was neither.
I was alone at the waggons, Falkner not having yet returned. For this I was not sorry, for although Falkner and I had grown accustomed to each other, yet there were times when I could cheerfully accept a holiday from his presence.
Darker and darker it grew. The oxen were driven in and fastened to the trek chain for the night, and the boys, lying snug under the shelter they had rigged up by means of a large sail thrown over the buck waggon, leaving one side between the wheels open, were chatting in their rhythmical deep-voiced hum, and the fire they had built not far from the opening glowing more and more redly as the gloom deepened. Then their talk suddenly ceased, as out of the darkness appeared a tall figure, saluting.