Tales from the Veld

And the Commando was turning out.

Ten men, sitting loosely in their saddles, were all there were – big, gaunt men with shaggy beards and lined faces of the colour of smoked leather. Of untanned leather, too, were their trousers and veldschoens. Each one carried his food in the small saddle-bag of “rattel” skin, food of the scantiest – a strip of biltong, a pound or two of “ash cookies” – and slung from each bent shoulder was the powder-flask and bullet-bag.

Ten men and a boy – and he alone showed excitement in the brightness of his brown eyes and the firm set of his mouth. A boy so brown that you would have said he was of coloured origin, and with clothes so worn that no street boy would have envied him. A sullen boy and dull of wit you would have thought from his narrow forehead and bent brows, but there was one who did not think so.

“Oh, my kind!” she said, standing by the gate in the quince hedge; “they do not want one so young. And there is the wood to be brought in.”

“Ja!” said one burgher, taking his pipe from his mouth; “he is altogether too young for this work. Let him stay.”

“Hear to Oom Jan,” cried the woman, stepping across a tiny stream that gurgled pleasantly in its narrow bed beside the road; and she laid a restraining hand on the old rheim that did service for the boy’s reins. “Come, my son – my little one.”

The boy looked steadily at his mother. “I am not little any more,” he said.

“It is true,” said the big man who led the little band, turning slowly in his saddle. “He is no longer little. He must come!”

The woman let go her hold and stood back humbly, while her tear-stained face was turned appealingly at the man – her own man; and the burghers, smoking, took advantage of the pause to look back at their own wives and children, who stood out in the solitary street, drawing comfort from each other.

“We must all give,” he said.

“Why should I give all?” she cried with renewed hope. “My husband and my son. Let him stay. Oh! let him stay!”

“Ride!” said the Commandant, sternly; then he sighed, and rode on in silence, never turning.

The boy kept his eyes fixed on his father’s broad back; then a lump came into his throat.

Oom Jan touched him on his shoulder, and the boy started.

“Do not leave her so, neef,” he said.

The boy looked back and waved his ragged cap. “I will come ’gain soon, little mother,” he shouted.

“If the Groot Herr wills,” muttered Oom Jan.

The boy looked at him sharply, then rode on with his head up and his hand firmer upon the stock of his long rifle, as long almost as himself. Already his keen young eyes swept the veld for signs of the Zulus – and he had forgotten the little house and the little patient mother.

The village soon was left behind, and the little band went slowly over the ridge and down the long slope, into a narrow valley, and at dusk reached the broken veld that stretches up to the frowning height of Hlobane. It was very silent. The burghers smoked, but talked not; and very plain, and seeming very near, came the dismal baying of a Zulu dog from a lofty kraal on Zunguin Nek, where a fire gleamed red through the dark.

“There are men there,” said the Commandant in a guttural whisper. “We must ride hard in the morning when we return.”

“Ja!” said Oom Jan; “else they will cut us off. I hope they will eat and drink much this night, so that they sleep fast.”

The other burghers glanced up at the red fire and round into the darkness, as if calculating which way they would ride in case they were cut off.

Young Piet Uys breathed hard. He had often looked at the steep height of Zunguin’s Kop from afar – and now the dark mass that seemed to shut out half the sky oppressed him with the sense of hidden danger. Moreover, he was hungry and cold. They had been four hours in the saddle, and it was surely time they stopped? Why didn’t they tell his father that the horses would grow tired, and that men couldn’t go on all night without feeding and warming themselves?

“There is water here,” he ventured, “and good grass.”

“Ja!” growled Oom Jan.

“Perhaps we will stop soon,” said the boy timidly.

A burgher on his left grunted, and young Piet felt that he had said something stupid. There was deeper silence now, for they were riding in a hollow, and he heard the sound of eating. Why were they eating? Perhaps they would not stop!

“If we stop,” said Oom Jan, as if answering his thoughts, “we shall not get there before sun-up.”

Young Piet sighed heavily and thought of his rheim bed at home, and then of the little mother. He felt now why it was she cried when he left. This was weary work – this blundering on over rocks and through cold streams, with none of the rush and excitement he had pictured.

“And if we do not get there before sun-up,” continued Oom Jan, in his slow way, “we lose the cattle and all.”

“Hold still!” came a muttered command from the leader.

The men drew up, and the horses shook their heads, then pricked their ears, as out of the darkness ahead came the murmur of a chant, swelling up to a deep boom, and sinking again till almost inaudible.

“They dance and make merry,” said the leader. “Ride!”

Once more the horses moved on, picking their way, while each man unslung his rifle and held it with the butt on his thigh. And louder rose that monotonous chant, mounting to the shrill notes of the women’s voices, and sinking to the menacing bass of the warrior’s deep chest notes; and presently there suddenly started out of the gloom a score of gleaming fires in a circle at the base of a vast bulk that stood for Hlobane.

“Pipes out!” said the leader. “Groot Andries, and you Dick Stoffel, and you Piet Uys, will stand here, keeping out of sight, and fire on the Zulus if they follow. The rest – ride!”

The two burghers and the boy remained, and the others filed out of sight. Slowly the time passed to these three as they crouched behind rocks, with their horses tethered in a hollow, and the cold wind of the early morning numbing their fingers and biting their poorly-clad bodies, till the grey of the dawn appeared and threw the mountain of Hlobane into relief. The singing had died away as the wind rose, the fires were dim, and the silence of the early morn was over the land.

“Look!” said Groot Andries, pointing a huge hand, and a mile off on the buttress of the mountain young Piet saw a dark mass in motion, with a few moving specks behind.

He drew his breath in sharply, and the misery left his face. “They are driving the cattle,” he said.

“Ja!” said Andries, moving in his lair to get more comfortable, and sighting along his rifle.

How quickly they come. Piet could see the gleam of tossing horns – and then he counted the riders, with his father riding last. “They have not been seen,” he whispered.

“Oh, ja!” growled Stoffel, “the verdomde folk come.”

Piet raised his head, and his heart almost stopped, as on the left of the cattle he saw Zulus running like greyhounds, speeding to reach a kopje by which the cattle must be driven, and his startled glance roaming further, marked a thin grey whisp of smoke curling up the mountain’s dark side, while his ear caught the hoarse sound of the Zulu horn spreading the alarm.

Groot Andries turned his head and looked long.

“Alle magtij!” he cried; “they sleep not up there. May the Groot Heer help us out for our wives sake.”

Young Piet stared at the big man, then glanced back up Zunguin’s rock-rimmed summit, and saw tiny dark figures like ants hurrying amid the huge rocks. He moistened his lips, and looked at his horse.

“Mount and ride, neef,” said Andries, softly. “Keep towards the Blood River over by Kopje Alleen. Go, little neef.”

“Ja!” growled Stoffel, who was smoking furiously; “loop, little one!”

Young Piet stared at them wildly, then he looked ahead and saw the cattle coming on in a mass, with his own red heifer leading. He saw, too, his father stand alone, looking back, while the other burghers rode hard behind the cattle, and the Zulus poured along untiring. Why did his father stop? Could he not see the warriors?

“Father,” he screamed; “ride!” He would have risen, but a heavy hand was laid upon him.

“Remember the order,” growled Stoffel – “to keep ourselves hid.”

“I will be still,” said Piet, quietly. Then he saw his father throw up his gun and shoot, while another burgher halted and wheeled round with his rifle ready. With a rush the cattle swept by – the burghers after.

Not one drew rein. Not even the Commandant, who simply glanced at the three forms as he went by, last of all, saying briefly, “Shoot straight, and follow fast!”

“Wait, little neef,” said Andries, “and don’t fire anyhow, but single out your man. Then load, mount, and gallop.”

Piet was calm now that he was called upon to act. He dropped a warrior in his stride, loaded quickly, making the ramrod spring, and was waiting by his horse with the reins of the other two all ready for their riders.

“Good neef,” said Andries, as he swung into the saddle, and having momentarily checked the enemy’s advance, they dashed after their comrades. A quarter of a mile further on they passed an ambush, where three other burghers were lying in readiness, and then they dashed up to the cattle with a whoop. Young Piet, flushed with his act, looked for approval from his father, but the Commandant’s gaze was fixed anxiously ahead on a column of dark figures leaping like antelopes down Zunguin’s side. From the rear, too, came the loud slap of three rifles, and the angry war shout of the Hlobane warriors.

“They will head the cattle off,” said Stoffel; “and we will be caught between two fires. Let us leave the cattle and ride to the left, when they will let us go free.”

“That is a bad word,” said the Commandant, sternly. “We go back with the cattle or not at all.”

They rode, then, into a stretch of donga-worn country, where they had to slow up; and the cattle, no longer hard pressed, stood to get their wind, with their heads down and tongues lolling out.

It was only a brief rest; but the Zunguin warriors profited by it, and their fleetest men were already rounding the cattle to turn them up the hill. There rang out the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the black warriors pitched forward on his face.

“Keep your fire,” said the Commandant, sternly, as he looked round at his son. “Was that you, Piet? It was a good shot, my little one.”

Piet hung his head, and looked askance to see whether any of the men were laughing at him, but they were never so far from laughter as then. Several were hedging away to the left, looking at the Commandant out of the tail of their small eyes, ready for the bolt across the rolling plain to the Blood River.

“We must turn the cattle,” said the leader. “Come, all together,” and he moved on up the hill. But no one followed.

“If we are killed,” said Oom Jan, slowly, “our wives and children will suffer more than if we return not with the cattle.”

“Ja, ja! that is altogether true,” said the others, eagerly.

The Commandant glanced back and saw that he was alone.

“Keep the Kaffirs back,” he said, without any anger, “and I will myself turn them.”

So he urged on his great horse up the hill, while the others faced about and fired, not recklessly, but only when they were sure.

Young Piet looked after his father and feared, and urged his horse forward, and drew back as he saw dark figures crouching low along the hillside, and flitting swiftly from rock to rock. Up the hill his father went, menacing now one warrior, now another, with his rifle, getting at last above the cattle, then with a roar he turned and swept the herd before him down on to the rolling grass veld again.

All would have been well if the burghers had stood fast a moment longer, but seeing the cattle safe they galloped after, and the Zulus, fearing to be baulked of their prey, made their last effort.

“My Gott!” cried the Commandant, “why do you run? Hold them back!” But the men had got the madness of flight in their blood now, and nothing would hold them, though the Zulus were now out on the plain and without shelter. So once again he stood alone, checking the rush of the foe with his menacing rifle before he galloped on. Assegais whizzed by his head; then his horse reared with a shrill scream of pain, and he was hurled headlong.

When he presently sat up with a ringing in his head, he saw the Zulus standing away off with the assegais poised, and he attempted to rise.

“My leg is broken,” he muttered.

“Lay still, my father. Oom Jan will come for you.”

The big man looked round and saw his son standing behind, with his rifle ready, facing the warriors, alone. “Oh, Heer! Oh, Heer!” he groaned. “My son, why are you here?”

“Oom Jan will come,” muttered the boy, huskily.

“Anything but this,” cried the big man. Then he said sternly, “Give me your rifle, Piet, and run – run for your mother’s sake. Run, you are untired and the Kaffirs have come miles. Your rifle – quick!”

Young Piet shook his head. “Oom Jan will come,” he whispered.

The Zulus, silent with quivering nostrils and gleaming eyes, drew in closer.

The veld echoed the sound of rapid hoof-beats.

Old Piet Uys raised himself on his arm and looked over the veld. He saw his burghers coming; but they were far, and he faintly heard Oom Jim’s voice ring out in encouragement.

“Run, my little one,” he repeated; “run, I order you! Your father tells you,” and the man looked sternly at his son.

The boy shook his head, his lips parted, but the words never came. The next instant his rifle spoke its last message, and the Zulus rushed in.

They found them both; the boy lying across his father’s broad breast. And the little mother sat tearless through the night crying that “The Groot Heer was good, but he had taken all – all,” while Oom Jan wept like a child.

Chapter Thirty Five

Uncle Abe and the Snake

The day was wet, the ploughing was over, and as we had an idle spell, what more natural than that most of us should find business at the store? where we sat on bags and boxes, and smoked and talked, or sometimes sang beautifully to the wailing tunes from Long Jim’s concertina. This day old Abe Pike, humped up on the counter, with his heels drumming against the side of it, was holding forth on the iniquity of Parliament, when a stranger entered, wringing wet, and Abe stopped to investigate his appearance.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said the stranger – a townsman evidently, from his dress and assurance.

“Take a seat,” said Abe, pointing with his boot at a box of soap. “Not walking, are yer?” with a curious glance at the stranger’s knickerbockers. “Going far? Stopping here long? Stranger, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes,” said the newcomer with a laugh. “I’ve come thirty miles since breakfast.”

“Grub early?”

“I beg your pardon? Oh, no; had breakfast at eight, left at nine.”

“Phew!” said Abe, “thirty miles in four hours. Must be a good horse you’ve got.”

“It is rather,” said the stranger, with a curious smile.

“Hoss knocked up, I s’pose. Been riding too hard?”

“No, not at all. He’s good for another thirty miles before sunset,” and he gave us a wink.

Abe looked gravely at the stranger for some seconds, while one by one, on some excuse or other, we went outside to look at the stranger’s horse. We found a new pattern bicycle in the shed – new to us – and we returned to the room looking as much unconcerned as we could, but eager to get a rise out of Abe.

“That’s a fine animal,” said Long Jim; “clean in the limbs, with plenty of grit, and full of fire. Never turned a hair, too, what’s more!”

Abe looked at Long Jim, who was trying to suppress a smile; then he relit the pipe he had suffered to go out.

“Reminds me,” he said, “of that there hoss Topgallant, which carried me one hundred miles twixt sun-up and sun-down.” Fixing his eyes on – the stranger, he launched into a long yarn about some impossible incident. He was not, however, up to his usual form, being suspicious of our nods and winks, and the stranger was not astonished.

“It’s a curious thing,” he said, “that people are slow to believe in things which have not come under their own observation unless they read of them in print. Now this very morning I met with an experience which may seem to you incredible.”

“Go ahead,” said Long Jim. “If you’ve got a story, tell it, and we’d be thankful to you, after the stuff we’ve been obliged to swallow from Mr Pike there.”

“If I may say so,” said the stranger, “his story was fair, but it lacked circumstance. There is an art in building up a story which perhaps my friend on the counter has missed.”

“Fire away,” said Abe, grimly. “I’m not too old to larn.”

“Thank you. Of course, you all know the long descent into Blaauw Krantz, and the sharp elbow bend in the wood near the bottom before the steep fall into the river. Of course. Well, I have been in the habit of riding out on Saturday evenings to visit a farmhouse on this side, and, as a precautionary measure, I ring the bell continuously while riding down the slope.”

Abe arrested the narrative by a gesture – “Whatjer carry a bell for?” he asked, suspiciously.

“To warn people ahead. You see,” with a slight movement of the eyelids, “I travel so fast that I am obliged to herald my approach.”

“Better carry a trumpet,” growled Abe. “Well, ring along.”

“You are doubtless aware,” continued the stranger, with a keen look at the old man, “that snakes are sensitive to the influence of music.”

“I’ve marked that circumstance,” said Abe, with a lingering on the word. “Why there’s a snake in our Chapel as beats time to the ‘Ole Hundred,’ and many a time I’ve – ”

“Oh! shut up,” said Long Jim. “You were saying, sir – ”

“My bell,” continued the stranger, speaking more rapidly and keeping his eye on Abe, “has a most melodious tinkle, and on the second occasion of my visit to the house I have mentioned I noticed just at the elbow bend what appeared to be the head and neck of a large snake thrust out from the bush. On my next visit I observed the same spot more carefully, and saw that I had not been mistaken. On three separate occasions that snake was there, evidently attracted by the music of the bell.”

“Why – ” began Abe.

“I understand what you mean,” exclaimed the stranger. “Why did I not stop? Because I was travelling too fast; and whenever I returned up the hill, going naturally slower, I could never see the slightest trace of the snake. To come to the climax, this morning I sounded the bell as usual, and on nearing the bend I saw that there were two snakes, and that one of them, in order probably to hear the music more distinctly, had glided partly into the road with his head raised about three feet. To take the bend I was obliged to keep on the outer edge, which brought me closer to the snake than I could wish – and evidently too close for his comfort – for as I whizzed by he lost his presence of mind, and, instead of retreating, advanced, with the result that his head and neck went through the spokes of the front wheel.”

“Front wheel!” said Abe with a snap.

“Certainly – the front wheel of the bicycle.”

“A bysticle!” ejaculated Abe, with a snort of disgust that would have sent us into an explosion of laughter if we had not been too much absorbed in the story.

“Of course, the revolution of the wheel swung the remainder of the body clear of the bush, and the tail whizzed by my head. To my fear and horror, the next instant my left wrist was seized as in a grasp of iron by the tail. The head, after one or two sickening thuds on the hard road, which must have temporarily stunned the creature, slipped out on the left side, when the momentum of the wheel immediately strung the entire body straight out behind me, where it streamed with all its twenty pounds weight acting as a brake.”

“A brake?” said Long Jim.

“Yes, sir. As the tail seized my wrist, the curve of it took a bend also round the handle bar. To that circumstance I owe my life. The slackening in the speed of the machine, over which I had lost control, owing to the dead weight of the serpent, prevented what would most certainly have been a fatal smash among the boulders in the river bed. As it was, the bicycle narrowly missed a large rock, and ran straight into deep water, where it was, of course, brought to a stop. You notice that my clothes are wringing wet still. I was, of course, thrown out of the saddle by the jerk of the sudden stoppage, but as my wrist was manacled to the handle bar I was in danger of suffocation by drowning.”

The stranger paused, and Abe observed him with an admiring glance.

“How did you escape?” asked Long Jim.

“Why, sir, owing to the gratitude of that serpent. The cold bath revived him, and when he realised the situation, he swam ashore and drew me out with the machine. Yes, gentlemen, I assure you that was the case. Then he unwound his tail and moved his wounded head, while regarding me with a bright, but rather disconcerting, stare. I realised in a flash what he was waiting for, and I rang the bell for five minutes, when he slowly moved off into the wood, looking very sick from the severe bashing. I do not ask you to believe the story, gentlemen, but I am convinced that if the next time you come down Blaauw Krantz on a bicycle you ring your bell you will credit me with keeping to the exact facts.”

“That beats your yarns, Abe Pike,” said Si Amos, who had often been the butt of the old man; “beats them to smithers.”

“Jest does, and no mistake,” said Long Jim.

“Why, Abe couldn’t tell a story like that, with ‘circumstance’ in it, to save his life,” said a third.

Abe shook his head sadly, and left the store, the stranger bidding him good-bye very politely, then turning to join in the laugh. He was a very pleasant young fellow, and he received our open flattery with a quite affable air.

Old Abe, however, had not retired vanquished from the scene. When we trooped out of the store we saw him lost in solemn contemplation of the stranger’s bicycle.

“A good horse, is it not?” said the stranger slyly. “Like to mount?”

“Sir,” said Abe, “allow an old man to shake hands with you. I’m thankful for your offer, but I won’t mount now.” The boys laughed. “No, sir, not now; but, if you’re coming down Blaauw Krantz next Saturday week I’ll meet you at the top and ride down.”

“Can you manage a bicycle?”

“I can’t now; but I’ll larn. Is it a go?”

“Let him,” said Long Jim, “and we’ll all be at the bottom to pick him up.”

The stranger at last consented, very reluctantly; and it was agreed that on the day named we should be at the “drift”. Abe disappeared for several days, returning at the end of that time with several scratches on his hands and a decided stiffness in his legs. He would say nothing to satisfy our curiosity beyond the simple remark that he had been “Larning to steer a lightning wheel-barrer down a hill.”

On the appointed day, having satisfied ourselves that Abe Pike meant to stick to his contract, we all rode off to the “drift” to await the descent and pick up the pieces.

The stranger kept up his side of the agreement; and, as it turned out, he gave up his machine into the shaky control of Uncle Abe, after much advice upon the art of steering round a corner on a slope.

Precisely at noon we heard, far up the hill, coming out of the dense wood which hid the road and the curve from our view, the silver tinkle of a bell rung continuously. Clear and sharp the sound came to us as we waited in silence, for the space of a minute, growing louder, till suddenly it ceased. After waiting a minute we all mounted and galloped up. At the great elbow bend we saw the stranger tearing down on foot, but there was no sign of Abe or of the machine.

On the road, however, there was the track of the wheel in the dust – a track that faded away up the road, but stopped short at the bend.

“Where the blazes!” said Long Jim, looking around and up into the sky.

“What’s that in the trees?” said Si, pointing down into the forest below the bend.

“It’s my cycle!” gasped the stranger, as he came up. “What a mad fool I was to let him ride.”

“Damn your cycle!” said Jim; “where’s the old man?”

We peered over the edge, and saw him in a thicket blinking up at us.

We had him out and up in no time, while two men climbed the tree to recover the machine, the stranger dancing about as if he were on hot bricks.