Part 2 (1/2)
”But the lady! She won't be fit to travel as soon as that”
”Can't help that either, mister If she can't travel she must stay here I can't wait for nobody”
And so eventually it turns out On reaching the hotel they find that their fellow-traveller is unable to proceed They find, too, that she is known to the people who run the place, and will be well cared for
So Roden and the colonial rog, take their places in the new cart which has been inspanned--now ot rid of here, and with a crack of the driver's whip, away they go careering into the night, under the pitiless pelting rain--toas luck befriends thereat deal to say to the safety, or otherwise, of post-cart travellers in South Africa
CHAPTER THREE
PETER VAN STOLZ, RM
”Before Peter Van Stolz, Esq, RM, Gonjana, a Ta one sheep, the property of his master, Charles Suffield, far_, who indeed is proprietor, editor, reporter, and comp, all rolled into one
The Doppersdorp Court-house is a large and spacious rooreen baize-covered table upon a raised dais, a si acco the bench, a couple of rows of desks accommodate the men of law and their clients, and a few forers behind The witness-box stands on the left of the Bench, and on the right the dock This latter is now occupied by a thick-set, forbidding-looking Kaffir, clad in a pair of ragged rave, who occupies the clerk's table, is reading out the legal rigmarole which constitutes the indictment This is interpreted in feords to the prisoner by a native constable standing beside the dock
Asked to plead Guilty or Not Guilty, heabout the rave,” says the istrate, in an undertone Then aloud, ”Does any one appear for hiot a lawyer, Jan?”
Jan Kat, the native constable aforesaid, puts the question The prisoner answers voluazes towards the door
”He says he has, sir Mr Darrell appears for him”
”Then why isn't Mr Darrell here?” says the Bench shortly ”Call the prosecutor”
The latter steps into the witness-box--a tall, fair-bearded man with a pleasant face He deposes that his naasfontein in that district--all of which every one there present knows as well as he does--that the prisoner is in his service as herd--which they do not know--and then there is an interruption, as a black-coated individual with a bundle of blue papers and a portentous-looking law book or two, bustles into the front row of desks and announces that he is instructed to appear for the accused
Mr Van Stolz, the Resident Magistrate, is the enial and kind-hearted of men, but he is touchy on one point--a sense of the respect due to the dignity of his court And rightly so, bearing in s-slide tendency of the dwellers in Doppersdorp, and like places
”The case has already begun, Mr Darrell,” he says shortly ”Did you instruct the prisoner to plead guilty?”
The attorney starts, then asks rather anxiously--
”Has he pleaded guilty, your worshi+p?”
”No, he hasn't; but he was left, in the lurch as far as his legal adviser was concerned,” retorts the Bench, with rather a cruel eal,” for the practitioners at Doppersdorp are not precisely shi+ning lights in their profession
An appreciative chuckle froreets this sally, and the Bench,attorney's excuses
Then the prosecutor goes on to describe how he had been riding round his farm on such and such a day, and had come upon the prisoner's flock left to itself Instead of shouting for thehe was up to mischief of so them he came to a spot where a sheep had recently been killed, amid a clump of mimosa There were footmarks around, which he traced to sohly quartered, hidden in a cleft It was quite fresh, and must have been deposited there that day As he left the place he saw so him, but pretended not to notice Shortly afterwards, as he returned to where the flock was left, the accused ca up He accounted for his absence by a cock-and-bull story, that he had seen a jackal skulking near the sheep, and bad gone after it to drive it away Witness pretended to believe this tale, but as he was listening he noticed two splashes of blood on the prisoner's leg He evinced no suspicion whatever, but on reaching home sent off at once for the District Police
When the sheep were counted in that night one was ht, and the skin was found, hidden a a lot of blankets It was quite fresh, and must have been flayed off that day He could swear that, and could swear to the skin He produced it in court It bore his mark--an ”S” reversed On the discovery of the skin Gonjana was arrested The value of the sheep was about 1 pound
The prisoner's attorney, who all this ti to, juet out of the witness, whose stateh, nor does anybody expect he will, least of all hi him, the prosecutor cannot absolutely swear it was Gonjana, but he is certain of it short of that The spoor was the spoor of one man He is accustomed to follow spoor--has been all his life; he is certain, too, that no other people were in the neighbourhood He did not analyse the blood spots on the prisoner's leg--they _ests, there being hardly such a thing as a pig in the whole district of Doppersdorp--but they were blood spots anyhow; that he can swear
Why should the skin found in the prisoner's hut have been brought hootiable at soations against any canteen keeper in the district, he merely answered the question Gonjana had been with hi sheep before In other respects his behaviour was far from satisfactory Why did he keep hiood ones scarcer still He employed a bad one, as some people ereat splutter of mirth Mr Darrell appeals veheainst the insults of the witness, but there is a twinkle in his eye and a half-suppressed grin on his face as he does so