Part 4 (1/2)

'Brandt,' I said, 'Cornelis Brandt That's et it Who is the captain here? Is it still old Sloggett?'

'Ja,' said Peter, pulling hi about you yesterday'

This was better and better I sent Peter below to get hold of Sloggett, and presently I had a feords with that gentleot to enter my name in the shi+p's books I came aboard at Mossaett was for objecting He said it was a felony I told hiot to do it, for reasons which I couldn't give, but which were highly creditable to all parties In the end he agreed, and I saw it done I had a pull on old Sloggett, for I had known hioa Bay

Then Peter and I went ashore and swaggered into Lisbon as if ned De Beers We put up at the big hotel opposite the railway station, and looked and behaved like a pair of lowbred South Africans hoht day, so I hired a motor-car and said I would drive it myself We asked the name of some beauty-spot to visit, and were told Cintra and shown the road to it I wanted a quiet place to talk, for I had a good deal to say to Peter Pienaar

I christened that car the Lusitanian Terror, and it was aiear Half a dozen tiot there in the end, and had luncheon in an hotel opposite the Moorish palace There we left the car and wandered up the slopes of a hill, where, sitting a scrub very like the veld, I told Peter the situation of affairs

But first a word ht ood deal about huersdorp, I think-but he had cooldfields started He was prospector, transport-rider, and hunter in turns, but principally hunter In those early days he was none too good a citizen He was in Swaziland with Bob Macnab, and you knohat that old propositions on Kinates, and what he didn't know about salting a e After that he was in the Kalahari, where he and Scotty Smith were familiar names An era of comparative respectability dawned for hi and transport work Cecil Rhodes wanted to establish him on a stock farm down Salisbury way, but Peter was an independent devil and would call no , which hat God intended him for, for he could track a tsessebe in thick bush, and was far the finest shot I have seen in we flats, and Barotseland, and up to Tanganyika Then he ion, where I once hunted with hi in Damaraland

When the Boer War started, Peter, like reat hunters, took the British side and did ence work in the North Transvaal Beyers would have hanged hiht him, and there was no love lost between Peter and his own people for s had calo with me when I went on trek At the tiht of hio poaching elephants He had always a great idea of ola that the Union Government would have to step in and annex it After Rhodes Peter had the biggest notions south of the Line

He was a man of about five foot ten, very thin and active, and as strong as a buffalo He had pale blue eyes, a face as gentle as a girl's, and a soft sleepy voice Fro hard lately His clothes were of the cut you et at Lobito Bay, he was as lean as a rake, deeply broith the sun, and there was a lot of grey in his beard He was fifty-six years old, and used to be taken for forty Now he looked about his age

I first asked hian He spat, in the Kaffir way he had, and said he had been having hell's ti up on the Kafue,' he said 'When I heard froht idea that I et into German South West fro keep out of the war Well, I got into Gerht, and then a skellu, and commandeered all my mules, and wanted to coly man with a yellow face' Peter filled a deep pipe from a kudu-skin pouch

'Were you commandeered?' I asked

'No I shot hiht, for he fired first on inning of bad trouble I trekked east pretty fast, and got over the border a the Ovamba I have made many journeys, but that was the worst Four days I ithout water, and six without food Then by bad luck I fell in with 'Nkitla-you remember, the half-caste chief He said I owed hiht when I came there with Carowab It was a lie, but he held to it, and would give h, it was as slow as a vrouw co from nachtmaal It took weeks and weeks, and when I ca was over and that Botha had conquered the Germans That, too, was a lie, but it deceived me, and I went north into Rhodesia, where I learned the truth But by then I judged the war had gone too far for ola to look for Ger Germans worse than hell'

'But what did you propose to do with them?' I asked

'I had a notion they would make trouble with the Governoose, but I'ainst the Germans every day Well, there was trouble, and I had a merry time for a ht I had better clear for Europe, for South Africa was settling down just as the big shoas getting really interesting So here I am, Cornelis, my old friend If I shaveCorps?'

I looked at Peter sitting there s mealies in Natal all his life and had run home for a month's holiday with his people in Peckha into Germany'

Peter showed no surprise 'Keep in mind that I don't like the Germans,' was all he said 'I'm a quiet Christian man, but I've the devil of a temper'

Then I told hiot to be Maritz'sfor the Fatherland to get a bit of our own back frolish Neither of us knows any Ger ere in-Kakaamiland hunter before the war They won't have your dossier, so you can tell any lie you like I'd better be an educated Afrikander, one of Beyers's bright lads, and a pal of old Hertzog We can let our iination loose about that part, but we '

'Ja, Cornelis,' said Peter (He had called me Cornelis ever since I had told hi on to any gaet into Gerinning But once we're a the beer-swillers I don't quite see our line We're to find out about so on in Turkey? When I was a boy the predikant used to preach about Turkey I wish I was better educated and remembered whereabouts in the map it was'

'You leave that to et there We haven't got much of a spoor, but we'll cast about, and with luck will pick it up I've seen you do it often enough e hunted kudu on the Kafue'

Peter nodded 'Do we sit still in a German town?' he asked anxiously 'I shouldn't like that, Cornelis'

'We rinned 'We should cover a lot of new country You can reckon onto see Europe'

He rose to his feet and stretched his long arin at once God, I wonder what's happened to old Solly Maritz, with his bottle face? Yon was a fine battle at the drift when I was sitting up tothat Brits' lads would take h a ot started, as Blenkiron himself All the way back to Lisbon he yarned about Maritz and his adventures in German South West till I half believed they were true He s, and by his constant harping on it I pretty soon got it into oing to play a part, you must think yourself into it, convince yourself that you were it, till you really were it and didn't act but behaved naturally The twofroh, but the two et a shot at England