Tales from the Veld

“Halloa! Uncle; I thought you were drowned.”

“That’s me,” he said, sweeping the water from his eyes; “I’ve been drowned twice over. Got a pipe and baccy? I’m jest perishing for a smoke.”

I saw now that his knuckles were skinned, and that his face was pinched and blue.

“Get up,” I said dismounting.

“Not me. I’d spoil the saddle. Lemme catch hold of the stirrup – so. Now get along quick, for I want to boil this yer soaking of water outer my bones and body.”

We went along, and presently I had a bright fire going in the cave, and the kettle singing, while Abe, stripped of his clothes, sat shivering still in his skin kaross, his eyes fixed on the red torrent, which stretched across for a mile.

A tin beaker of boiling coffee soon brought back the warmth to his body, and when he had my pipe between his teeth he began to talk.

“I believe I’m getting old, sonny; and I’ve lost my fishin’ tackle.”

“Not the kablejauw tackle?”

“Jest that. It’s stood by me, man and boy, for twenty-five years. I’ve waxed it and waxed it, and wired it about the shank, till it were strong enough to haul in a shark, and now it’s gone – all along of this yer flood. I don’t like loosing old things, and the loss of it pains me as tho’ you’d pulled the sinews outer me.”

“How did it happen?”

“Yesterday I came here to fish, and in the afternoon – when the tide crept whispering along the rushes – I cast in from the big rock. ’Twas as quiet as Sunday, with a fringe of bubbles right across the river marking when the tide moved up. On the mud bank, jest below where the big fish would soon be routing up the mud like pigs, there was a blue crane dozing on one leg, with his head bunched between his shoulders; on a dead tree above sat a big black and white kingfisher, with his red beak pointing up, and on the top of the krantz a white-headed eagle was all huddled up. After a smoke, I built up the fire in the cave, then made another cast with the line, for the fish were coming up, and the tide had reached up so high that the crane had to quit. I heaved the lead out about thirty yards, and was drawing her in when there comes a tug, and I was into a steinbrasse. That same moment the eagle started into the air, sailing roun’ and roun’, and letting go screech after screech; and when I looked up at him, surprised at the racket, I yeard a hollow murmur, like an echo that comes from a cave. I knew what it meant.

“’Twas the river comin’ down, and in a hurry I began hauling in that line, when, with a rush that parted the water, a big kablejauw took the steinbrasse, and, with a swirl of his tail, made for mid-stream to bolt his food. I dunno how it happened, but a coil of the line whipped roun’ my leg, and I was yanked on to the broad of my back into the river, with that eagle ’twixt me and the blue sky. That fish pulled me right into the middle, then he paused to take bearings, and when the strain slackened I took a breath, and reached along to get hold of the line. But it was beyond me to slacken the knot without a knife, and I turned over to swim to the rock. ’Twas easy enough till I tautened the line, when the fish made another struggle. ’Twas pull devil, pull saint, and the line wouldn’t break. First he’d gain, then I’d gain; but most of the time we just stuck there – he facing to the sea, me to the rock, and that eagle ripping out up above. And then!”

“Well, Uncle?”

“Lord love you, lad. There were a roar in the air; I seed the tree tops above the bend swaying; then there shot into the air a great tongue of water, and round the corner, from side to side, there came a wall – the face of it curved in, the top hissing in foam, and the sides of it running right up the banks, so high it shut out the valley beyond. I gave a yell, then turned over on my back, with my hands clasped behind my head to protect it from the shock, and the next minute I were scooting down the river for the sea, with that wall howling behind me like a thousand thunders.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That kablejauw did. ’Twas a race between him and the flood, and the way he flashed along showed he’d only been fooling with me before. And the line didn’t break, and overhead there sailed the eagle, with his black wings outspread and his white head looking down at me. We flew so fast that in a few minutes I saw the white lines one above the other, which showed where the waves were breaking, and then with a snap like a pistol-shot, the line snapped. ’Twasn’t my weight that broke it, but a snagged tree, into which, with the way on me, I went feet foremost. No sooner’d I clung to a mud greasy branch than, with a roar like a fallen mountain in my head, the red flood tossed the big tree into the air, and, when we come down, we were in the thick of it – rushing on, at a height of twelve feet above the blue waters of the tide. Phew! how we did go; and in a minute there was the mouth of the river, the big waves solemnly rolling in, and beyond them the heaving blue of the ocean. With a fierce rush, like a live crittur, the flood threw itself at the sea. We just footed it over the small waves, then we cut the top off the first roller, throwing up columns of spray high as the church steeple, and then the fight began. Behind us there was a hundred miles of flood; before us was the tide with the Atlantic at the back, and the sea after the first shock jes’ gave a sort of surly roar, and away back of the outermost breaker I seed a dark line coming along steady and unbroken. ’Twas the last of the seven brothers, of the seven big waves that roll in with the tide at intervals, and it was bigger than all. Nearer it came, dark at the base, with a glistening curve, and a light line along the top. We in the front had made a track for the flood behind. For a little we stopped – then my tree was flung forward, and a red, angry column shot forth to meet the big wave. My! Sonny! The music of that meeting! The two waters coming together would neither give in, and they piled up, and up, and up, until there was built up a wall of water high as a hill, red on my side, blue on the other, and up this wall my tree was forced by the flood behind. Up we went, until we were balanced on the very ridge, with a black gulf on the other side of smooth water. A breath we poised there while the fresh and the salt were straining against each other, then a heaving mass out of the sea swiftly smote the great wall, and we went headlong – the tree and me – into the biggest toss-up you ever see. I dunno why it was I kept a-hold, but I think the weight of the waters jammed me into a cleft branch. Anyhow, the life kept in my body, and when I took a breath, the next minute it was dark, the stars were blazing, and the tree was a-rocking up and down away out on the ocean beyond the fighting whirl-about of river flood and tide. In that one second between the time I went headlong from the curling top of that hill-high wall of water into the roarin’ jumble some hours had gone – the tide had flowed and turned, and the old tree, with me on it, hanging like a withered apple, had floated miles. I must have been drowned over and over, and reg’lar pickled with salt. I tell you it was lonesome out there on the sea – and wet.”

“It was a wonderful escape, Uncle.”

“But it warn’t over. Bymby the tide turned again, and the tree made again for the shore, where the fighting was going on jes’ the same from the roar, and when the sun broke I saw we would strike the mouth of the river again. I dunno, sonny, how it is, but it seemed to me the ole sea was entering into the fight, for there was a sort of rush in the great heaving masses that began to pile in out of the blue, and when I came near the beat of the surf where the sea was all red, the breaker that carried the tree on his round back rose higher and higher, as he swept on until he reached the flood water, when he let the head of him curl and plunge with a force that swept everything away, and in the wall of his foam we were shot right into the river. That’s when I was drowned again; and when I came to I found we were settled in the still centre of a great circle of waters under the left bank, outer the main current. Everything that came into that circle went roun’ and roun’ till it came gently into the centre, to drift up against the big tree. Already there were three goats against the tree, legs up, an’ a sheep were drifting up, while in the circle sailin’ roun’ was a straw hat and a pair of trousers. On the tree there was fifteen snakes – all alive, but sluggish, mostly puff-adders, with some long yeller boomslangs, and three or four ugly looking black snakes that must er come way down 200 miles from the karoo veld. While I was looking at these ugly lodgers coiled round the branch, there was a swirl in the water, and the sheep that were drifting along suddenly went under. ’Twas a shark took him. That made things lively, but when three more sharks come up, and after eating the goats, the straw hat, and the trousers began butting at the tree with their shovel noses, I felt there was a lot of excitement in this world if you only look for it patiently. The rolling of the tree stirred the snakes, and the whole fifteen of them began crawling up. If there’d been two I’d kicked ’em off, but being so many I sot and took ’em. When they had settled down again there was one round my neck, a yeller boomslang, making a very fine collar, there were a pair of black snakes on each of my arms, a brown boomslang round my waist, and no less’n six big puff-adders coiled about my legs. I tell you I kept my mouth shut less one should crawl in by mistake, an’ if my hair hadn’t been so scant and wet it would ha’ stood up straight.”

“That was a tight fix, Uncle.”

“Tight! By gum! The pressure of that six foot o’ collar on my neck tilted my chin up in the air, while the chap above my waist nearly broke my ribs. The worst of it wer’ I was freezing.”

“Freezing! and the sun at 108.”

“That’s so; but fright turns a chap cold, and them snakes were drawing all the remainin’ warmth outer me. And ther’ were those sharks promenadin’ roun’ and roun’ the tree, every now and again givin’ it a lazy shove. Jes’ then the tide turned, and the tree began to move on another cruise. This time I knew it would be all up with me. I couldn’t live through another fight with the surf, and if I moved there was the snakes and the sharks. Soon as the tree moved those snakes woke up and began hissing an’ puffing an’ swaying their heads about, while their eyes got bright and brighter. Suddenly the collar chap crept up over my face and took a twist round my head with the end of his tail in my ear; then one by one the other snakes crawled up over my face, each one of ’em giving me such a look as threatened my life in case I moved. I wondered what they were about, for I couldn’t see, but the pressure on my neck was terrible, when, after the last one had gone, I heard a hiss, a whizz, and a thud. What jer think?”

“I suppose they flew away.”

“They jest piled on top of each other, tail round the other’s neck, till they made a column that would reach the bank; then the topmost one bent forward, and there was a line of snakes from the tree to the bank. A big puff-adder was at the far end, and he hitched his fangs over a tree stump. Right there I spotted my chance. I softly hauled on the line, and drew the tree ashore, when I jumped to the ground and cut.”

“And where did you find the otter?”

“Picked him up, sonny. And to think that I lost my line.”

“That’s a wonderful story, Uncle.”

“Eh! but it’s so. You can see yourself I’m soaked through and through, and if you look out, there’s the river in flood plain enough, and here’s the otter which will make a good weskitt.”

Chapter Thirteen

The Black Tiger Again

Abe suffered for several days from an attack of rheumatism in his shoulder, brought on by his immersion in the flood waters, and he applied himself steadily to the manufacture of a wonderful lotion, in which camphorated oil was the main stock, with a dash of turpentine, a strong trace of eucalyptus, and a few drops of the powerful euphorbia juice, together with extracts from sundry potent herbs. When I visited him this concoction was brewing in a pot, the steam from which filled the house with an extremely pungent smell.

“There,” said he, holding up a wooden ladle full of the mixture, “jes’ take a sniff of that. That’s the sort to sift right through you, and yank out rheumatics from the knuckle joints.”

“It certainly is strong.”

“Yes, sonny; but it lacks one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Jes’ a lump, as big as your fist, of fat from a tiger’s inside.”

“Is that so?”

“’Tw’d give substance to it; bind all these yer scents together, and make ’em settle down to their work instead of fighting against each other. This euphorby juice is mighty cantankerous, and is given to blisterin’ unless it’s toned down by tiger fat.”

“Well, Uncle, that black tiger is still alive.”

“Hum! I don’t know that the black tiger is good for this purpose. What do you say?”

“I know nothing about it; but, if any tiger is good, I should say a black tiger, by reason of his greater strength, should suit best, and, if you remember, you said you had a plan for trapping him. I believe he’s still in the big kloof.”

“Yes, he’s there. That ole man baboon’s been aroun’ here, and maybe he’s got some notion of showing me where the black fellow takes his snooze. I’ll jes’ think over it.”

“If you want any help I can bring along some dogs and a couple of guns?”

“Dogs, eh! Seems to me that tiger’s too smart for dogs. He chawed up one of yours. I don’t want no dogs, sonny, and if this tiger is to be downed, he’s got to be downed by cunning. You leave him to me.”

After the lapse of a week I rode over to see how the old man had succeeded, and found him peacefully employed boiling down wax berries for the manufacture of candles for his own lighting – the rheumatism, apparently, having been vanquished.

“Hallo! Abe,” I said, taking a look round the room, “where’s the tiger skin?”

“I speck it’s on the tiger.”

“So your plan didn’t succeed?” Abe solemnly skimmed a ladle full of melted wax from the water, and poured it into a bamboo mould.

“Berries is terrible skerce this season. Time was when a body could gather a bagful in a day from the bushes above the beach; but now – lor’, everything’s different now. This very earth’s agoing downhill – it’s getting played out.”

“Are you mixing any tiger fat with that wax, Uncle, to bind it?”

“Maybe goose fat would be better, sonny; have you got any to spare?”

“That tiger must be a cunning beast if he’s got the better of you, Uncle!”

He shook his head gravely. “He’s no tiger. He’s jes’ a ole witch prowling aroun’, that’s what he is.”

“Eh?”

“Yes. You believe me, that’s what ole Black Sam is. I worked out a plan to catch him, supposin’ I could find where he put up in the daytime, and what path he took on setting out in the night, for you know these critturs in the woods don’t go along anyhow, but follow paths jes’ as you or me would, and some of these paths they’re more fond of than others. Well, I kep’ watch on that ole man baboon, and when I see him strolling along outside the kloof I up and follered him. He knew, bless you, what I was after, and the way he led me into the dark of that kloof was a caution; so silent he went, and so careful to take the proper track. Bymby he stopped and pointed – yes, pointed with his finger at the ground – then he jumped for a bough, and there he sat grinning an’ working his eyebrows. Well, blow me, ef there wer’n’t a spoor of the tiger where he pointed, and squinting along through the underbush I see a clean walk which the tiger had made – the sides of the trees worn smooth and the ground jes’ trodden down. That was enough. So I went home and made a pill of meat, with enough poison in it to kill a museum full of stuffed critturs. Nex’ morning I went down, and if that baboon hadn’t a almost stopped me by force I’d a run bang into that tiger.”

“Was he dead?”

“Dead! Thunderation! he was jes’ lying full-stretched for a spring from a tree branch jes’ above where I laid that pill, awaiting for me to come along. The baboon jes’ invited me to climb a tree, and looking through the leaves, I spotted that black devil, with his tail a-switching and a-jerking. I jes’ climbed down, and slipped off like a shadder, with my heart in my boots. Well, I did some thinking. You know cats is fond of certain smells, so is dogs – only dogs is not so dainty as cats. It’s jes’ the same with a tiger, and he’s got a nose for a partickler herb which he rubs his head into. I dug up one of these year herbs, and I fixed it up fine, jes’ over the spring of a big man trap. Then, it being near dusk, I climbed into a yeller wood, and waited for Black Sam to walk up and put his foot into the jaws of that trap; but the dark came before he did, and then I wasn’t going to trust myself in the wood – so there I stuck, with the stiffness in all my bones, till the morning. By gum! it were skeery work, sittin’ up there with the wind moaning over the tree, and sounds of creeping things all aroun’. Then, blame me! the first thing I clapped eyes on in the morning was that black crittur standing there in the path, staring at that scent bush ’sif it were somethin’ to be suspicious about instead of a nice smellin’ bottle. There he stood like a dark shadder, working his nose for maybe half an hour, when he walked all around, finally sitting down on his tail with a pucker between his eyes jes’sif he were thinking. Yes, he sat there working his brain; then up he stood, looked about for a spell – then, I’m hanged, if he didn’t pick up a dry stick in his mouth and poke it at that bush.”

“What’s that?”

“Yes, sir. He jes’ sprung the trap. Of course, soon’s he poked the bush the spring give, and the jaws flew together with a snap that bit clean through the stick. Then that there witch reached for the bush with his claw, and fetched a grin that spread all over his face like a gash in a water-melon. Then he smelt that trap all over and began to switch his tail, and with a growl in his stummick off he went slinking on my trail, taking long strides with his ears flattened. Luckily he went on the long trail leading from the house, and soon’s he’d gone I lit out for the top of the krantz, where I could see the veld right up to my door.”

“Well?”

“Well, after a time, I saw him crossing the veld, making himself small when he was on the level, and running when he got in a holler. Right up near the house he went and hid himself in a clump of wild cotton, waiting and watching for me to come out o’ the door. I tell you he stopped there till the sun was right over head, then suddenly he ran right up to the house and looked in at the winder. I never was so glad at being not at home to a visitor. He walked all round the house and got on the roof; then he came back, full lick, having made up his mind I was in the kloof. Yes, then I made a bee line for home, and shut myself in.”

“And that ends it?”

“No, sonny, it’s the beginning of the chapter. He’s jes’ scheming to get me; but the ole baboon’s on the watch and maybe I’ll have the black skin yet.”

Chapter Fourteen

Buffalo Bull and the Shorthorn

In one of the kloofs near the Fish River, an old buffalo bull had taken up his quarters, and, like all solitary males, he was suspicious and savage.

“And I don’t wonder at it,” said Abe Pike, when discussing the bull’s points. “Trouble sours the best of us, and he’s had his share of trouble – what with his struggles as a youngster to get a footing in the herd, and his struggles, when he became leader, to guard his position against enemies without in the shape of tigers and hunters, an’ against enemies within in the shape of younger bulls, not to speak of the jealousy of his wives; and then on top of all this, the trouble of being driven from the family when his powers were failing, maybe by a own son of his. Yes, sir, that lonely animile, for all he’s so savage, an’ a’most knocked the life outer me, has my sympathy in his proud old age. Proud he is, you believe me. He might a stayed with the herd ef so be he choose to behave himself and foller with the calves, but once a king always a king. Ef he can’t rule in the herd, he’ll rule all alone in that kloof – nursing his pride and his memories – and going scatter – dash – on sight for any critters mad enough to enter his domain.”

“Did you run against him, Uncle?”

“Well – I’d put it the other way – that he run against me. I tole you often how he fit and killed my rooi bonte bull, Red Prince, that old red and white chap with a cross of shorthorn that was so masterful you couldn’t keep him in any kraal if he wanted to move out I’ve seen him fix his horns under a heavy pole that took two men to place across the gate, and jest hoist it as tho’ it were a straw, and if he set out to go into the mealie patch why he’d go in, an’ there was an end of it, bellowing all the time fit to drown the roar of the sea.”

“Did the old solitary kill your bull?”

“You know that, sonny, for you saw his body with the rip that went to his heart. I yeared ole Prince bellow one morning, and, lookin’ over the veld, I saw him away off yonder on the ridge slowly moving, with his big head swaying from side to side, and as I watched him he would, every now and again, stop to paw the ground and toss his horns. I thought, maybe, there was some stray cattle beyond, and I set off after him with the sjambok. After he topped the ridge I could still hear the rumble of his challenge, and when I reached the divide there he was down below raking up the earth with his hoof, but there was no sign of a horn or hide beside him. I ran down to him, and at the sound of my running he turned his head, showing the red of his eyes. He blew through his nostrils at me, and he looked that wicked that I dodged away behind a big rock, and soon’s I peeped out I saw he was looking at the kloof with his ears pricked forward. So I scanned the edge of the wood, which was about fifty paces off, and there, poking out of the shadows, was the head of that buffel, his black muzzle held high, and the sharp curved tips of his horns showing above the great mass of bone on his forehead. The foam was dripping from his muzzle. I saw, then, that red crittur of mine had got the scent of the buffel, and here he had come to do battle out of the love of a fight. I called to the old fool to come back, but, with another dig of his hoof and a shake of his head, he went forward with that slow, steady stride of a crittur that knows no fear. From the wood there came a menacing growl, and at the hoarse rumble of it the red bull sunk his crest and let out a beller that went rolling over the kloof. Then the old solitary stepped out, big and black, with white scars showing on his shoulders and his head held high and threatenin’. There the two of them stood face to face with twenty yards between, their ears twitching and the tails jerking against their sides, Red Prince looking heavier with a mightier neck, the crest arching like the neck of a horse, and the dewlap hanging down between his wide knees. Bigger and stronger he looked than the buffel, but my heart went weak within me for him when I saw the wild gleam of the buffel eyes, and dwelt on the pile of rugged bone that spanned his forehead. Slowly they walked up to each other, muttering deep threats, then their horns clashed, and their foreheads were pressed closer and closer to the strain of heaving quarters. A minute they stood so, the breathing coming heavily, so that the dust below was blown about – then my old red chap turned the buffalo right round, and with a snort and a sidelong blow, he ripped a long red streak in the black thigh. The buffel sprang a step aside, then his tail went up over his back, and he rushed forward. Right round on his pins as nimble as a yearling the old red went, and catching the buffel between the forelegs, he heaved him up and sent him with a thud on to his side. If he had only known, poor old chap, he would never have let his enemy reach his feet again, but he curled his nose up and jest stood there watching the black devil gather himself together. The buffel was up – phew – and then, with a savage roar, his eyes gleaming like a tiger’s, he jest leapt at the big red body standing there so proud, and the next moment – ’twas done so quick – I saw the blood running from his side. I wept, lad, at the sight. There stood the buffel, with his muzzle up – and the foam dripping from it – watching the red bull, whose legs were planted wide apart to steady himself. While the life was flowing from that terrible wound in his side the old chap shook his head again. So they stood silent, eyeing one another, then Prince lurched forward – dead – and the buffel went up and smelt him, with his back toward me. I had moved round the rock to watch the fight, and as I stood there tremblin’ from the excitement, that old black devil suddenly whipped round, and with a most hair-rising roar, came straight at me. The outer curve of his horn caught me on the shoulder, and sent me spinning till I tripped over a rock, and when he turned I squeezed tight against the shelter of the stone. Then that ole brute came and stood by with his nose a few inches off, and his bloodshot eyes glaring at me, and every minute or so he’d try to chop me with a hoof, or hook me out with his horns. And three times he trotted off to smell the red bull – the which times I’d try to squeeze closer to the rock, and then at the third time he cleared off to the left at a gallop.”