"A Tale of an African Desert" (continued 3)

“Where is he?” shouted Max in a voice strident with rage. “He is where you will never be—in an honest man’s grave. He lived long enough to let me know that you and Koos Bester are murderers. I only regret that he did not let me know enough to hang you both.”

Nathan quailed; he wondered how much Gemsbok had told. Then he cast up the column of possibilities in his mind. No, he was all right. There might be suspicion, but there could be no proof that he had been accessory to the crime. However, it would be just as well not to provoke Max any further at present. He walked out of the shop and Max closed the door behind him.

The Desert twilight was quickly fading. Nathan wished to be alone, so he strolled past the camps without calling at any of them, and then back along the road he had just previously travelled.

After he had passed the last camp by about a hundred yards he sat down on a stone. He was sunk in the deepest thought. An idea had struck him just after Max’s outburst and had taken root, branched and burgeoned until it seemed to be a tree full of flowers which promised rich fruit. The muffled thud of tired horses’ feet on the sandy road leading from the dunes broke in upon his reverie. He lifted his head from where it had been sunk upon his breast and chuckled with unclean mirth.

“Well, I think I’m in jam this time,” soliloquised he; “whole blooming coppers of it.”

When he returned home Max was not on the premises. The shop was locked, but the little room at the back where Nathan slept was open. Of late Max had taken to sleeping on the counter in the shop.

Nathan lit a candle and began to undress. The elation of his mind was evinced upon his face. He went to bed and softly whistled the tune of a music-hall song as he lay back on the pillow with his hands clasped at the back of his head. He felt extremely happy. His luck was in—this last development, over which he had been chuckling so, proved that conclusively.

Again the sound which he had heard when sitting on the stone broke in on his waking dreams, the slow tramp, tramp, tramp of the feet of tired horses, muffled by the soft sand. This time the sound came from much nearer than before. Then he heard the creaking of the vehicle and the wisch-wisch of the ploughing wheels. Then the sound ceased. A few moments later he heard a stealthy step approaching the door; just afterwards came a light tap.

“Who is there?” he called out.

“Open the door quickly. It is I, Koos.”

Nathan sprang out of bed and drew back the bolt. Koos at once stepped into the room and glanced furtively around. His face looked drawn and haggard and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Are you alone?” he asked, in a husky voice.

“Yes, I am alone. But be careful, I don’t know where Max is.”

Koos bent forward until his dry lips almost touched Nathan’s ear, and whispered—

“What has happened? Tell me quickly.”

Nathan drew back slightly and let the ghost of a mocking smile flit over his features.

“Oh, I got home all right, thanks. But what brings you here?”

The Boer leant forward across the table and grasped the Jew’s wizened shoulder in his enormous hand. Nathan shuddered convulsively under the pressure; he thought his bones were being crushed. The eyes of Koos seemed to shoot forth dusky flames.

“Tell me quickly,” he said.

“All right,” said Nathan, trying hard to wrench himself free, and feeling, at the same time, that it might be dangerous to take liberties with the man before him, “I’ll tell you, unless you break my blooming back first of all. You kicked a little too hard, Koos; the old nigger is dead.”

The visage of Koos became frightful. He gasped for breath and a low gurgle came from his throat. He sat silent for a few moments with his eyes fixed upon Nathan’s in a burning stare. Then he said in a strained, hoarse voice—

“Tell me more. Tell me all about it.”

“That’s all I know about it myself.”

Koos arose slowly from his seat and stretched his hands out towards Nathan, who, seeing murder in his eye, retreated into the corner.

“Stop, Koos!” he almost screamed. “So help me God, I know nothing more about it than what I’ve told you. I only came home just before you did.”

Koos sank back into the chair and covered his face with his hands. After a few minutes he arose and staggered out of the room. He went to where his tired horses were still standing in the harness, outspanned them, and after tying the front legs of each together with a reim, turned them out to graze. Then he wrapped himself in his kaross, for the night air was chilly, and laid himself down under the cart.

He could not sleep. It seemed to him as if he had never slept, as if the axis upon which the hollow globe of stars turned was laid through his brain, as if there were no such thing as sleep in the whole wide world. The sky was clear and limpid, as only the sky which leans over and seems to love the Desert can be. The sweet, piercing smell of the dew-wet sand came to him and brought memories of nights spent on the hunting-field, when the pungent scent, the very breath and essence of the quick earth, had seemed to renew his spent strength, after the fatigues of the chase. But then he had not stained his hands with blood.

But the awful silence. Would nothing break it? It seemed to press upon and crush him like something ponderable and tangible. He lifted his fist and smote lightly the bottom of the cart just over his head. The sound seemed to split his brain like an axe. Then the returning wave of silence surged around him, and under its impact he seemed to sink as into a quicksand.

At length, a sound. Far away on the waste he heard the long-drawn nasal, melancholy howl of a jackal. Before the weird cry came to an end it was taken up by others at a greater distance, and then repeated on and on like the challenges of crowing cocks in the dawning.

A gush of gratitude came from his darkened heart; he felt that he almost loved the prowling brutes that had drawn his soul out of the quagmire of silence in which it had been sunk. He seemed to feel a kind of fellowship and sympathy with the jackals. He wondered why this was. Then he remembered—

The waning moon had been making paler the western stars, but he had not noticed it. The straining of his sound-sense had left no room for that of sight to come into play. Now the spell of silence was broken, and the sense of sight began to assert itself.

His eyes had been closed for some little time. When he opened them the Desert was flooded with a gentle haze of diaphanous pearl. This made the Namies kopjes look like a group of enchanted islands floating in an unearthly sea. The scene was almost too beautiful for mortal eyes.

As the moon soared higher and higher the stones and bushes, which at a few paces’ distance could not be separated from their shortening shadows, took on strange and ever-changing shapes. God! What was that a few yards from him? Surely they cannot have brought the body up from the gully and left it exposed upon the kopje-side? Yes, there it lay, huddled and horrible.

He must go and look at it—examine it—even if the doing of this killed him or drove him mad. He arose to a crouching position and passed slowly across the intervening space of a few yards with hesitating steps. He bent his horror-distorted face over a stone half hid in tufted pelargonium.

Day came near. The glamour and mystery receded from the Desert, gathered into a wave and broke against the splendid gates of dawn. A short and troubled sleep fell upon the wretched man under the cart, and perhaps saved him for the time being from insanity. He awoke to find the flaming sun high in the brazen sky, and the camp at his feet astir with life.

In the full light of day Koos Bester could hardly realise that he had been a prey to the horrors of the damned during the long hours of the previous night. His terrors had vanished with the distorting moonlight. What did it matter, after all? It was true that Nathan could put the rope around his neck with a word, but he easily persuaded himself the word would never be spoken. His conscience was still sore, but not agonisingly so, now in the daylight. A Bushman was, after all, only a Bushman, and the mind of the Boer always draws an important distinction between a “mens” and a “schepsel.”

He felt hungry, so he strolled down through the camps on the look-out for a breakfast. He did not want to eat with Nathan again if he could possibly avoid doing so. He knew that he must expect to have to run the gauntlet of covert allusion and innuendo. He knew that suspicion of having done the deed—the memory of which hung around his neck like a millstone—had already marked him, in the estimation of some, at least, as a sort of minor Cain. This, however, he was prepared for, and he could meet the prospect with calmness. He was now high at the dizzy extreme of hopeful confidence, resting for the instant’s pause before the return swing of the pendulum to which he was bound, like Ixion to the wheel, should whirl him back towards the ledges of anguish where the vultures of remorse were perched, waiting to tear anew at his vitals.

He was consumed by an apprehensive curiosity which burnt him like a fever. He longed to hear all about the finding of the body, or—horrible thought!—had the man been still alive when found? No, that was impossible; his reason told him from the heights of reassurance, had such been the case he would have been apprehended long before this.

As he walked furtively along, still limping slightly from the effects of the dislocated toe, he glanced hurriedly from side to side from under his bent brows. He fancied he was being watched from every mat-house. Yes, he was. In the gloom of every doorway he could see the dim faces of women and children turned in his direction. Even thus, he imagined, must the Lord have set a mark upon Cain, that all mankind might know him. It seemed as though by some subtle means every one throughout the scattered camps had simultaneously become aware of his presence. Just before descending the hill from where his cart stood outspanned he had heard laughter and the shrill voices of children at play. Now all was mute in an awful, accusing hush. The sudden silence reminded him of what he had suffered during the night, before the jackals claimed fellowship with him, and passed the word of his initiation into their brotherhood across the listening Desert. He felt that the brand of Cain, which none may describe but which none may fail to recognise, was upon him.

Old Schalk was sitting before his tent, smoking. Koos made an effort, and, turning abruptly in his course, walked up and greeted him. Old Schalk returned the salutation with more than ordinary friendliness, and then offered a chair and the inevitable cup of coffee. These were gratefully accepted. The old Boer called to Susannah to bring the coffee. She was in the wagon and was thus unaware of the identity of the visitor. When she came from the scherm with the cup she coloured angrily and her eye flashed. She passed the visitor the cup, but did not offer her hand in greeting. Koos winced. Among the Boers such an omission can only be construed as a deliberate insult.

Old Schalk was in great form. From the first glance at the face of his visitor he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the slayer of Gert Gemsbok was before him. His previous suspicions were so strong that little room for any doubt had existed in his mind. Here, however, was proof, writ large for all to read. Old Schalk was extremely tolerant where the killing of Bushmen was concerned, and it distressed him genuinely to see Koos take a comparative trifle so much to heart. Old Schalk fell into the error of ascribing all of Koos’ distress to mere fright, so he determined to try and put him at his ease. Koos had been watched carefully since his arrival, and Old Schalk knew it was probable that he was seeking information as to what had transpired since the commission of the deed.

“Did you hear of the accident the other day?” the old man asked, without looking at the man he addressed.

“Ja—that is—I heard something—”

“I have often said that an accident would come from letting that horse of Oom Dantje’s run where he can be caught and ridden by the Bushmen.”

“What did Oom Dantje’s horse do?” said Koos, breathlessly.

Old Schalk shot a glance at him out of the corner of one eye, and looked puzzled. It was evident that Koos had not even heard of the verdict.

“Well, no one saw the horse do it, you know; but from the way that old Bushman was knocked about, I think—myself—that it must have been Oom Dantje’s horse. I reported so to the magistrate.”

Koos set down the empty utensils upon the ground. The cup rattled like castanets upon the saucer. A sense of blissful peace seemed to descend upon him like a dove with healing wings. It was the revulsion of feeling which made him tremble.

“Yes,” continued old Schalk, “that young Jew, Max, wanted to talk some nonsense about what the old Bushman had told him before he died, but I wouldn’t listen. It’s all right, Koos—you needn’t look like that.”

The dove had changed, in the twinkling of an eye, into a vulture; its beak was imbedded in his heart-strings. This was the contingency he had dismissed as being impossible—the man’s having been found alive. He must find out what the dying Hottentot had said, or else go mad. He arose, shook hurriedly the moist hand of his host with his own burning one, and then limped painfully back towards the shop.

Oom Schulpad had watched Koos carefully ever since he arose from his feverish sleep under the cart. The old fiddler was staying, just then, with some people who had camped on the site formerly occupied by Koos; he was sitting in the mat-house with his fiddle on his knee, when Koos came limping up the sandy slope. Then the tones of the air which Gemsbok so often had played upon the ramkee were slowly wailed out from the strings in a minor key. Koos stiffened as though he had received an electric shock, and stood stock still for an instant. Then he resumed his limping towards the shop.

Both Nathan and Max were in the iron building; the former writing at the empty packing-case which served as a desk, and the latter engaged in bartering wild-cat skins from some strange Hottentots from Great Namaqualand. One of the strangers carried a ramkee slung upon his back. This was not a very unusual circumstance, but to Koos it was an item full of horrible significance.

The barter was soon over. Max leaped across the counter and passed out through the door, cutting Koos dead. Nathan came forward, greeted him with hilarity, and then took his stand in the doorway.

The look of hunted terror in the man’s face would have moved his bitterest foe to pity. He sat down helplessly on an empty packing-case which was lying where it had been flung, just outside the door, and looked at Nathan with haggard eyes. Nathan had ceased from his letter-writing and come to the doorway, because he did not care to be alone inside with Koos, after his last night’s experience of being gripped. He stood in the doorway, whistling, and with his hands in his pockets. Then, after a pause—

“Well, Koos, old man, you look chippy to-day. What’s up, eh?”

Koos stood up and again laid his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. Nathan, however, had been prepared for this, so he slipped like an eel from under the huge hand that threatened to crush him, darted away to a distance of a few yards, and then wheeled round facing Koos, who was limping heavily after him with murder in his eye. He determined to risk something. He had planned out moves for the game he had to play. Here, in the full light of day and within sight of the whole of Namies, was the place to begin the struggle.

“Look here, Koos Bester,” he said in a low tone, “if you think you are going to paw me about as you would a blasted Bushman, you are very much mistaken. Understand me now, once and for all—if ever you lay that leg-o’-mutton hand of yours on me again, I’ll—I’ll—Well, I won’t say exactly what I’ll do, but you can just look out for yourself—mind that.”

Koos at once collapsed into abjectness. Nathan pursued his advantage—

“One would think it was I that had booted a blooming nigger to death. Where do you think you’d be if I were to split, eh?”

Here he attempted a somewhat conventional representation of the legal tragedy which follows the donning of the black cap by a certain high judicial functionary. In it his tongue, the whites of his eyes, his left hand, and the butt of his ear played conspicuous parts. Koos gasped and murmured unintelligibly. Nathan resumed—

“Now, look here, I’m not going to split—this is, if you are a good boy and do as you’re told, and keep your paws to yourself. See?” Koos made a dismal attempt to smile, as though he regarded this as a pleasantry. He was now completely cowed, and would have set his neck under the foot of the man before him had he been told to do so.

He came close up to Nathan, cleared his throat, and whispered hoarsely—

“What did he tell your brother?”

“That’s just what I don’t know. My brother and I have had a blooming diplomatic difference; don’t speak, you know. He actually appears to think that I’ve had a hand in this business;—as if your feet were not big enough to do your own kicking.”

Koos gave a gasp of relief. His mind had become almost unnaturally alert under the strain upon it. If Max thought as Nathan said, it was clear that he knew nothing definite.

The unhappy man became conscious of the fact that he had not eaten since early on the previous day. A sudden hunger seized him; he felt like a wolf. He begged of Nathan to give him food. Nathan led the way into the shop, and there produced a loaf of bread, and some bultong which he took out of a sack under the counter. Koos seized greedily upon the food and ate with avidity. Nathan watched him narrowly. When he had finished eating Koos arose and left the shop. Max had just previously come in, so Nathan went out after Koos. He still felt a stiffness in his shoulder from the effects of last night’s gripping. He shrugged it purposely until he felt a severe twinge. The pain was like salt for the feast of his revenge against the strong man who had hurt and insulted him.

“Well, old man, had a good feed?”

“Yes, I ate well.”

“Yes, you seemed to enjoy your grub. I say, Koos, I’ve been thinking things over a bit, and I find I’ll want a few more of those cattle of yours. What do you say to my taking another fifty head?”

Koos looked up. His alert senses had detected something unusual in the tone of Nathan’s voice. Nathan had distinctly said that he did not require any more cattle.

“I’m thinking of taking another trip to Cape Town, and I thought you might just drive another lot down as far as Clanwilliam for me. What do you say?”

“Yes, you can have the cattle, but I cannot leave home just now; you will have to take them over at my camp.”

“Well, old man—to oblige a friend, you know. I think you will be able, at all events, to send them on for me, eh?”

Nathan looked at Koos with such an amount of sinister meaning that the miserable Boer was filled with a vague sense of fresh dismay. Nathan continued—

“Look here, old man, I’ll tell you what we’ll do: we’ll just drive down to your place to-morrow—across the dunes, you know—then we’ll pick out the cattle and arrange about how you will send them down.”

“But how can we cross the dunes? Your mules will never pull the cart through?”

“Quite right, old man; and that’s why you are to drive me down in your own trap. You told me that you crossed the dunes as you came up, so you might as well go back the same way. See?”

“But how are you to get back here if you do not take your own cart?”

Nathan dug Koos playfully in the ribs, and then linked his skinny arm with the Boer’s large limb.

“Well, how stupid of me not to have thought of that. Let’s see—how can I get back, eh? Oh, I’ve just thought of a splendid plan: you’ll drive me back too.”

Koos gave a sidelong glance of such bitter hatred at the stunted figure at his side that, had Nathan seen it, he surely would have recognised the danger of the course he was pursuing. But Nathan supposed that the giant was quite cowed, that this Samson was completely shorn of his locks. In his preoccupation he forgot about the Pillars of Gaza.

His thoughts were far away. He was evolving complicated schemes, planning vast undertakings, which he meant to effect by means of this rough instrument, whose strength might be guided by his puny hand. He had reasoned it out—his theory as to the proper management of this tamed monster, and had come to the conclusion that curb, whip, and spur should be used upon him unsparingly, until he was thoroughly broken to harness.

Koos did not speak for a while. Then he said in a strained voice—

“If I take my horses again through the dunes this weather, they will be quite knocked up. You had better bring your own trap and mules, and we will go round the other way.”

Nathan stood still, and his companion faced him. Then he repeated the pantomime in which his tongue, the whites of his eyes, and the butt of his ear were so suggestively in evidence. The face of Koos turned to the colour of ashes, and he trembled as though he had a fit of ague. Nathan again dug him playfully in the ribs.

“It’s all right, old man, you need not get yourself into a state. I’m fond of you, Koos; I really am—in fact I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. Besides, I’m very fond of your wife. Ain’t she a pretty woman, eh? I say, Koos, did you ever see a man hanged?”

The Boer shook like an aspen through every fibre of his immense frame. His breath came in husky gasps.

“It’s all right, old man,” continued Nathan, “it’s only my fun. We’ll start to-morrow morning before it gets too hot, eh? Your horses will do it right enough. If the weather is very hot I’ll get you to drive me back the other way. I’m not going to ask you to take me to Clanwilliam this time. I’m always willing to oblige a friend—ain’t I, now?”

Just as night was falling Oom Schulpad went for a walk to the other side of the group of kopjes. It was dark when he returned, carrying a large armful of candle-bushes, which he had collected during the day and hidden in a safe place. He took these—not to the scherm belonging to the camp at which he was a guest, but to the deserted scherm formerly occupied by Gert Gemsbok. The scattered bushes of the scherm fence he rearranged, not against the wind but on the side facing the shop. He piled the candle-bushes upon the cold hearth and then stole quietly away.

Later, when the lights began to go out in the camps, he stepped quietly out of the mat-house, in which he was in the habit of sleeping, with his fiddle under his arm, and went softly up the hillside. When he reached the deserted scherm he laid himself down behind the rearranged fence, lit his pipe, and waited.

Koos Bester had no supper. After he had parted from Nathan he went and sat upon a rock a short distance from where his cart was standing. His horses were hobbled close by on the side of the kopje. He wanted their companionship during the interminable hours of the coming darkness.

His terrors of the supernatural had, for the moment, burnt themselves out. It was the sense of being subject to the ruthless bondage of Nathan which, just now, maddened him. He did not expect to sleep, but he thought he might be able to rest, wrapped in the regal quiet of the night.

When all was still, when the very last glimmer of light had disappeared from the camps, Koos arose and returned to his cart. He wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down between the wheels. His brain seemed to become a little cooler; the dulness of utter fatigue benumbed his faculties and mitigated his tribulation. He felt the gracious touch of the wing of Sleep across his eyelids. Surely God was taking pity on him—

A strange flicker of light rose and fell. What could it possibly mean? It came from the hillside above the shop. He must get up and see what it meant. Horror! a bright blaze was rising and falling in the scherm of the man he had slain. Yet, he tried to reason to himself, what nonsense to think that there was anything ghostly about the circumstance. No doubt some wandering—

His hair stood upon end and he shrieked aloud. From the scherm arose the notes of the air he knew so well. Struck from the strings, the pizzicato tones of the deadly tune seemed to run through his body until every nerve vibrated with the hateful sound. He rushed across the intervening space and beat with his fists against the iron door of Nathan’s bedroom, until the whole building thundered.

Nathan sprang out of bed in deadly fear.

“Who is that, and what is the matter?” he called.

“Open, quick! It is I, Koos. Open, open!”

Nathan drew back the bolt and Koos sprang into the room, panting.

“I have seen his ghost—it is there in the scherm.”

“Rot, Koos. Go to bed.”

“It is there; go and see for yourself.”

Nathan had no fear whatever of the supernatural. He slipped on a pair of shoes and came outside, followed by the trembling Boer. All was in darkness; not the faintest glimmer of light could be seen in the neighbourhood of the scherm, not a sound broke the stillness of the night.

“Why, you must have the ‘rats,’ Koos. Go to bed.”

Koos begged humbly to be allowed to lie down on the floor in Nathan’s room until morning. Nathan grumbled a bit, but at last consented to grant his request.

Chapter Thirteen.

“Whoso Diggeth a Pit...”

Next morning, just as day was breaking, Nathan and Koos Bester took their departure from Namies. Koos had not slept at all during the previous night. His face looked pinched and haggard, his hands trembled so that he was hardly capable of buckling the straps of the harness.

The morning was as pellucid as a dew-drop and the dunes looked preternaturally clear and distinct, the hollows being filled with amber-tinted shadow. The track lay like a narrow, coiling ribbon over the waste of plumy grass. The weird form of Bantom Berg arose gradually before the travellers like a warning finger, indicating the vast death-trap of which it is the centre, when, as the sun appeared above the horizon, its shafts smote suddenly as though a furnace-door had been suddenly opened. A short, hushing breath, as it were a gasp of apprehension of the fiery terrors of the day, seemed to pass westward over the Desert.

They reached a place called “Inkruip,” and here it was decided to outspan and rest the team. The name is a literal translation into Dutch of a word in the Bushman tongue which means “creep in.” A small stone kopje stands here, and in its side is a narrow passage through which an ordinary-sized man may just manage to force himself. A small chamber is then reached, and from this another passage leads. Into this one can only pass upon hands and knees. It rapidly gets narrower, and at length dips suddenly at an angle of about forty-five degrees for some ten feet. At the bottom is a little hollow, in which is always to be found a few pannikinfuls of beautifully clear, fresh water, which is icy cold. It takes, however, two people to obtain water at Inkruip, for the man who descends the sloping shaft cannot get out again unless he is assisted by some one who pulls him back by means of a reim tied round his feet.

The rocks on the western side of the little kopje still afforded a slight protection from the blazing sunlight. The two men crept close against a low, perpendicular ledge of rock, over which the rays of the terrible sun were slowly encroaching. The sand was so hot that the horses were unable to stand still, so they moved uneasily about in the vain hope of easing their scorching feet.

“My, but ain’t it just sultry!” said Nathan. He had managed to squeeze his small body into a wedge of shade too small to accommodate the bulk of the Boer, who was largely exposed to the sun-glare.

Koos murmured an unintelligible reply. Nathan, in spite of the heat, felt in good form; he was determined to converse.

“My, but ain’t it funny that a big, strong chap like you should have to do just as I tell you, eh?”

Nathan could not see his companion’s face, so he went on garrulously—

“I’ll tell you what I mean to do; I’m just going to have a jolly rest down at your camp for two or three days. You can go down to Gamoep and collect the stock; I’ll stay behind and cheer up the missus, eh?”

Koos bit his lip till the blood came. His face, still averted from Nathan, turned almost purple; the veins of his temples appeared as though they would burst. Nathan went on—“You must excuse me, old man; I’m not a married man myself, and, what’s more, I don’t know that I ever will be, but I’ve often thought that a married man should keep no secrets from his wife. Don’t you agree with me, eh?” Koos still maintained silence. “Well, silence gives consent, as the copybooks say, so I suppose you agree with me. That being so, and without for a moment wishing to say anything that might lead your thoughts back in an unpleasant direction—and I’m sure you’ll see that it’s only out of friendship that I ask it—which is: Did you tell your wife about that little spree the other day?”

“No,” replied Koos hoarsely.

“Well, I think you’ve made a mistake in not doing so, and you must let me persuade you to tell your wife all about it as soon as we get to your camp. If you like you may put off telling her until the morning, but you’d better get it over, as the man said when he jumped on the back of the alligator.”

“Why should I tell my wife?”

“Several reasons. One is that if she were to hear about the thing from any one else she would think you didn’t trust her, don’t you know. Another is that I have reason to suspect your wife doesn’t like me quite as well as I like her, and I want her to know what a friend I’ve been to you all through this business. See?”

In the brain of Koos something seemed to snap. The tension at once ceased, and he breathed freely. Strange lights flickered before his eyes, and his ears were filled with extraordinary sounds. He seemed to live through hours of rather pleasant delirium in the course of a few seconds. The voice of Nathan recalled him to a sense of his surroundings. Then the lights and sounds were suddenly swept away, and the idea which had been born in the turmoil stood forth adult in terrible and ravishing nakedness. His thirsty soul drank deep at the cup of an awful hope, and the dunes seemed to blossom into a red-hot, infernal garden.

“Look here, old chap,” continued the Jew, plucking at his companion’s sleeve to emphasise what he said. “No nonsense, mind; you’ve got to tell your wife all about it. See?”

“I’ll tell her.”

“Yes; and tell her, too, that she’s got to make me jolly comfortable while you’re away; and, in fact, to do every blessed thing I tell her. See?”

“Yes; I’ll tell her all that.”

“Now that’s the way I like to hear you talk—nice and friendly, you know. I can see we’re going to be good friends right enough. I’ll not be hard on you, Koos; and if you do all I want you to, we’ll both be quite happy. See?”

Koos replied in an even, cheerful voice that he would do all he possibly could to meet Nathan’s wishes in everything. Nathan said—quite voluntarily—that if the weather continued hot he would not insist on being driven back through the dunes; he would submit to the inconvenience of a two-days’ journey round by Puffadder instead. Koos expressed himself as being appropriately grateful for this evidence of consideration.

Cordiality being thus restored, the two chatted in the friendliest manner. In fact one would have thought that the mutually satisfactory relations of a week previously had never been interrupted.

When the time came to make another start, Nathan asked Koos to excuse him from getting up and helping to inspan, so Koos went around the kopje to where the cart stood and laid out the harness ready to be placed upon the horses.

Koos carried back to the cart from the kopje the little keg of water which had been placed in the shade. No one ever dreams of entering Bushmanland without at least one of such kegs. He had taken some pains to persuade Nathan against drinking more than a mere sip. Nathan, being accustomed to travelling in the Desert, knew that this was good advice, however hard to follow; that one should never touch water if one can avoid it whilst exposed to the rays of a hot sun. Nathan was extremely proud of the self-command which he evinced in following the advice, for he was very thirsty indeed and would have given a lot for a deep drink of something cool.

But Koos did a very curious thing after he had laid the harness out; he scraped a hole in the red-hot sand with his foot, and into this he poured every drop of the contents of the little keg. He need not have taken the trouble to scrape the hole, for the thirsty sand drank up the water as quickly as if it had been poured into space over the edge of the car of a balloon. However, there is nothing like being systematic when one has important work in hand. He stowed away the empty keg under the seat of the cart, and then went to fetch the horses.

These poor animals were standing, only a few hundred yards away, perched like so many goats upon a low ledge of light-coloured stone. This was more bearable to their feet than the red, scorching sand. The docile, well-trained brutes stood still until Koos went up and caught them. He laughed so heartily that the tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was hardly able to untie the hobble-knots from the forelegs of the youngest horse, which, being given to roaming, it was always necessary to secure. He led the horses back to the cart, and in a few minutes they stood in the traces uneasily shifting their feet from time to time, and looking round impatiently for the signal to start. Koos called to Nathan, who came forward and took his place, with many groanings, upon the hard, unprotected seat of the vehicle.

A start was made. Nathan seemed to fry in the heat. There was no longer a track, for whenever the wind blew the ever-shifting sand would have obliterated the trail of an army in an hour. Koos, however, knew every turn and changing fold in the limbs of the dune-monster, and took advantage of each depression, enabling him to force through one after another of the interminable series of tentacle-like ridges at its most vulnerable point.

The heat was indescribable. The horses broke into a lather of sweat at every ascent. This at once dried into adhesive flakes of white paste whenever the course led downhill. Nathan suffered increasing agonies from thirst, but he still listened to the persuasions of his companion against drinking whilst in the hot sunlight, and thus relaxing his pores until every drop of moisture drained out of his body. He accordingly, with increased admiration for his own powers of endurance, determined to hold out to the last extremity. From his manner it might have been supposed that this exercise of obvious discretion for his own advantage was really a something which Koos ought to have been extremely grateful for.

Twenty torrid miles of the dune-ground had to be travelled; on a day such as this, better fifty in the open Desert. After they had covered about eight miles, Nathan found his thirst absolutely intolerable, so he made Koos stop the cart and get the keg out from under the seat.

“Allemagtig!” exclaimed Koos, “the keg is empty!”

“Empty!” shrieked Nathan in agony. “Then I’ll die of thirst. Look here, you damned murdering hound; I’ll make you swing for this.”

Koos replied to the effect that he was very sorry; he supposed the cork must have sprung out from the jolting. Nathan’s moods alternated between the whimperingly pathetic and the impotently furious; his words, between blasphemous revilings and minor-keyed entreaties. Koos did his best to comfort him, promising water within two hours at the most.

The course now led up a deep and narrow passage between two branches which were rooted in the main dune almost at the same point, and which ran parallel for several miles. One of these had to be crossed close to its point of origin at a spot where it curved slightly, and where the winds had blown a shallow gap. This locality was like the innermost circle of hell. As the horses bravely struggled up to the gap through the scorching sand, into which they sank above their fetlocks, Koos leaped out of the cart so as to ease the strain, and asked Nathan to do the same. Nathan, however, plaintively declined, saying that he could not walk ten yards in the sand.

They reached the top of the ascent, and Koos stopped the horses for the purpose of giving them a blow. Then he climbed into the cart and took his seat beside his suffering companion. After they had rested for a couple of minutes, Nathan said, in tones of husky despair—

“Go on, Koos, for God’s sake! I’m dying of thirst!”

Koos gathered the reins up preparatory to making a start. Then he asked Nathan to stand up for a moment so that he might adjust the seat. Nathan, groaning, leant forward and crouched with his hands on the splash-board. Koos seized him between his huge hands, lifted him high with a wrench, and flung him down the side of the dune.

The reins he had gripped between his knees, the whip stood ready at his hand. In a moment the team, refreshed by the short pause, were dragging the cart down the side of the dune at a floundering gallop.

After going for about two hundred yards Koos hauled the horses back almost upon their haunches, and the cart suddenly stopped. He looked round; Nathan was stumbling slowly down the sandy slope, falling every few yards. Koos allowed him to come to within about fifty yards of the cart, and then he urged the horses into a walk. Nathan made a desperate effort and broke into a staggering run, which somewhat decreased the distance. Koos then whipped the horses into a trot, and he heard behind him a hoarse and stifled cry as of a wild beast in agony. After a few minutes he again pulled the team into a walk and looked back. A motionless figure lay huddled with its face upon the sand.

Koos uttered a wild laugh, frightful to hear, and urged the horses forward at a mad gallop.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Nachtmaal, and After.

A few days after the departure of Nathan and Koos Bester the great annual event, the visit of the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church to Namies, took place.

The Reverend Nicholas Joubert, who resided at Garies, two hundred miles as the crow flies, across the Desert, made a tour through Bushmanland every autumn. He travelled in his own comfortably appointed spring-wagon, teams of horses for which were provided by the more well-to-do among the Trek-Boers, as relays along a prescribed course.

The Trek-Boers congregated at the different water-places to meet the pastor. Services would be held, catechisings instituted, confirmations, marriages, and christenings solemnised.

Namies, if the summer rains happen to have been copious, is the great assembling-place for the Trek-Boers of Northern Bushmanland; in fact, several dozen camps may be seen grouped around the kopjes on these occasions, and the pastor has known what it is to preach there to several hundred souls.

There is little that is distinctive about these meetings. Enthusiasm is not an element in them, for the Boer, and more especially the Trek-Boer, takes his religion, like everything else, quietly and without passion or excitement. The sermons are mainly theological, the prayers are extremely long, the Old Testament is more in evidence than the New, the singing of the psalms and hymns is nasal, and extremely trying to any one with a musical ear.

This species of religious gathering is known as the “Nachtmaal,” which is the Dutch equivalent for the Lord’s Supper. In the more civilised districts the Boers gather from far and near around the different church-buildings four times annually. In Bushmanland, however, no church-buildings exist, so the pastor gathers his wandering sheep together once in every year, usually in autumn, but of course the time must be determined by the rains. They are thus kept in touch with the formal observances of their professed religion.

It is a strange and motley gathering which one sees under the awning of “buck-sails,” as the canvas overalls of the wagons are called, stretched over poles. Probably the assemblage contains a larger proportion of unattractive female countenances than one would find in any other collection of Caucasians. Here and there, however, one may notice a strangely beautiful face shining like a fresh lily between withered cabbages. Among the faces of the men one notices many diverse types. Some show a rugged nobility that would ensure their owners a fair livelihood in any city where art is followed. The most salient characteristic of both men and women is the listlessness of attitude as well as of expression.

All were wondering at Nathan’s absence; for obvious reasons he always made a point of being present at the Nachtmaal. This is the great time for squaring off accounts, for bartering piles of hides, jackal-skins, and karosses, the latter made by the deft fingers of the Boer women from the skins of the fat-tailed sheep, as well as from those of wild animals. Nathan had left no instructions; he had even taken the keys of the little iron safe in which the promissory notes, “good-fors,” and acknowledgments of debt which the Boers had signed from time to time to cover their accounts, were kept. Such transactions involved a ruinous rate of interest for the accommodation granted, and were generally made payable at Nachtmaal-time. Max knew that Nathan had an unusually large number of these on hand. On several grounds Nathan’s absence was absolutely unaccountable.

As the Trek-Boers assembled from far and near Max had a busy time of it. It seemed to be a sine qua non among the Boers that each individual should have at least one new article noticeable in his or her attire at the Nachtmaal. It was customary for Max to nail down the flap of the counter at Nachtmaal-time, so as to prevent the women, many of whom are incorrigible pilferers, from crowding round beneath the shelves and “snapping up unconsidered trifles.”

Sunday passed with its almost interminable services, and on Monday Maria and Petronella were united in marriage to their respective swains. The weddings were only two among some dozen or so. These were, however, the most notable—one would hardly use the term “fashionable.”

The brides were attired in white muslin frocks and pale green sashes. A single wreath of orange-blossoms was divided between them. The bridegrooms levied contributions on several friends for the black broadcloth attire in which they were wed. Black broadcloth, largely irrespective of fit, represents the Boer ideal of the perfection of male garb.

In the evening something remotely approaching a jollification was held at the Hattingh camp. Next to Old Schalk’s wagon stood another, which had been borrowed for the occasion, and between the tent-frames of these vehicles some of the buck-sails, which had formed the roof of the extemporised church of the previous day, were stretched. In the space thus covered in the company sat whilst innumerable cups of coffee were handed round. Mynheer, the minister, came and remained for about half an hour. After he had taken his departure for his wagon, which was outspanned on the other side of the kopjes, Oom Schulpad produced his violin and struck up a lively polka.

Dancing was, of course, out of the question under the awning on account of the sand. In the large mat-house and in the tent, however, the floors had been hardened by use. The contents of these edifices were soon removed and piled outside, and a few couples forthwith began dancing. Each respective bride and bridegroom danced exclusively one with the other, and the couples who stood up at first remained, as a rule, partners for the whole evening.

At the conclusion of each dance the couples in possession of the limited spaces came outside and seated themselves under the awning, thus making room for another relay. The only lights came from a few dip candles, and the dust kicked up from loose floors hung about in thick clouds. Dancing was carried on in a silent, business-like manner, each lady holding her partner with interlocked fingers behind his neck, whilst he passed his arms around her substantial body just below the armpits, and clasped his hands behind her back.

Susannah refused to dance; she and Max sat together just outside the awning, listening to the music. Oom Schulpad sat playing between the mat-house and the tent, so that the polkas could be heard equally well in both.

Old Schalk sat in his chair under the awning and talked oracularly to an attentive circle. His wife, fatigued from the exertions of the day, had collapsed on a stool in the scherm, from which she continually dispensed coffee, with the assistance of the Hottentot maids.

“I wonder where Koos Bester is,” said Oom Dantje van Rooyen; “I never knew him miss a Nachtmaal before.”

“I passed his camp on Thursday,” said a Boer from the eastward, “and his wife told me that he was lying sick in the mat-house.”

“Did she say what was the matter with him?” asked Old Schalk.

“Yes; she said it was pains in his head, and that he could not sleep and would not eat or speak. Did you hear that he killed two of his horses when going through the dunes after he left here? They died just after he reached home.”

“No, I didn’t hear that. Was Nathan at the camp?”

“No, I heard nothing of Nathan.”

“That is strange; he and Koos left here last Friday week.”

“How can that be, then? My son Diedrik met Koos driving home from the dunes on Friday evening, and he was alone.”

Old Schalk smoked in silence for a few moments; then he called to Max, who came in immediately.

“Max, have you heard when Nathan is coming back?”

“No, Oom, I have heard nothing of him since he left here with Koos Bester.”

“That was on Friday week, eh?”

“Ja, Oom.”

Old Schalk smoked for a long time in silence; Max rejoined Susannah outside. One by one the male guests arose from their seats and left the awning. Outside they collected in two or three groups and conversed in whispers. Diederik, the young Boer who had been referred to in the conversation with Oom Dantje van Rooyen, was called from the mat-house, where he was dancing.

Diederik repeated his story. He had, undoubtedly, seen Koos Bester driving alone from the direction of the dunes on the evening of the day upon which Koos and Nathan left Namies. Although not spoken of, it was well known that Koos Bester had killed Gert Gemsbok, and every one had noticed the strangeness of Koos’ manner ever since.

A shadow of apprehension seemed to have fallen on the company. Men glanced up in silence and read in each other’s eyes their own ominous thoughts. Max noticed the change which had come over the others, and inquired as to the reason. Old Schalk sent again for him, and quietly told him the facts as they stood, and left him to draw his own deductions.

At midnight the newly married couples were escorted to their respective wagons, which were standing within a short distance of each other, by a party of young men and maidens. After some uncouth romping and unrefined jokes the escort returned to the Hattingh camp. Contrary to usage the party broke up at once, the different families returning to their respective camps, silent, or whispering to each other the forebodings which they felt.

Afterwards a few of the Boers met as a sort of informal council to discuss the situation and decide as to what was best to be done under the circumstances. The meeting took place at the Hattingh camp, and Max was present. It was settled that a party of six men should start at once for Inkruip. After resting there until daylight they would take on the spoor of the cart through the dunes. The dune route being the shortest cut to Koos Bester’s camp, there was no necessity for sending a party round by the road.

Of course the most urgently necessary thing to do was to interrogate Koos himself. The wind had not blown with any degree of violence since the date of the departure of the missing man, so there would be no difficulty in finding and following the spoor.

During the discussion several very suspicious circumstances came to light. These were all more or less trifles, but, under the circumstances, they became significant. One had noticed Koos walking by himself, muttering, and with hands convulsively clenched. Another had seen him look at Nathan with a terrible expression. Then the killing of the horses. It was well known that Nathan had been in Koos’ company when Gert Gemsbok had been killed. Over and over again the young man who had passed Koos on his way from the dunes was interrogated and cross-examined, but his story could not be shaken. Every one felt satisfied that a tragedy had taken place, and was eager to clear up the mystery.

Within an hour the party, under the leadership of Oom Dantje van Rooyen—who rode the identical horse that was supposed to have killed Gert Gemsbok—had started. Inkruip was reached shortly before dawn. Here a halt was made. The most slender man was made to go down the inclined shaft for the purpose of filling the water-bottles. At the first glimmer of dawn the saddles were again placed upon the horses.

The spoor of the cart lay as clearly defined as if it had only been made on the previous day. It is a peculiarity of the Desert sand that if the wind has not happened to blow hard it retains a spoor distinctly for weeks, or even months.

Shortly after starting it was found that the ordinary course through the dunes had been departed from; the spoor trended away to the left, towards Bantom Berg, and led through a tract which, according to the patriarch of the party, had never been crossed by a vehicle before.

“Allemachtig!” said Oom Dantje, as he ploughed through sand which nearly reached his horse’s knees, “no wonder he killed two of his team!”

More and more the spoor trended towards Bantom Berg. The day was cool, a light breeze blowing from the south, so neither men nor horses were much distressed. Suddenly the spoor curved towards a gap in the right-hand dune. In climbing to this the men, with one accord, dismounted from their horses. When they reached the middle of the gap they stood still to recover breath.

“Look there,” said Oom Dantje, pointing to a couple of jackals slinking off into a small patch of scrub about two hundred yards ahead.

“Yes, and there are the ears of another sticking out over that tuft,” said one of the men.

They moved slowly on. As they did so they saw several more jackals. These trotted or slunk away to right and left. Oom Dantje reined in his horse and raised his hand as a sign to the others to pause. Then he pointed to what appeared to be fragments of torn clothing scattered about on the sand at each side of the track. They rode a little nearer, but again paused—with one accord this time, for under the surrounding bushes, whither they had been dragged by the jackals, they saw the scattered bones of a human body.

There was no doubt as to the identity of the remains. The different articles of clothing were well known as having belonged to Nathan. Every fragment was carefully gathered up and placed in a sack which one of the men had been using as a saddlecloth. A pocket-book containing papers, a bunch of keys and a silver watch, were also found. These were carefully placed in a saddle-bag.

The gruesome bundle was tied across the saddle upon one of the horses, and the cavalcade started back for Namies, the men dismounting by turns to give a lift to the man who had lent his horse for the purpose of carrying the remains. It was nearly midnight when they reached Namies.

Old Schalk at once woke to sense of his duty as Assistant Field Cornet. Within half an hour a mounted messenger was on his way to the Special Magistrate with a quaintly scrawled report of the case.

Max was sent for. He stood over the sack which contained the mortal remains of his brother with a very white, scared face. He was filled with horror, but felt no grief. The dead man had earned his brother’s hatred and contempt. Max did not pretend for a moment that he felt any sorrow. He could not but feel that the fate which had befallen one whom he instinctively knew was responsible to a great extent for a foul murder committed on an innocent fellow-creature was largely deserved.

Within a quarter of an hour almost every inhabitant of Namies was at the Hattingh camp. Old Schalk sat on his chair and propounded oracularly his views upon the occurrence to all and sundry. A fire was lit—kettles, pannikins, and other requisites were fetched from the surrounding camps, and a sort of coffee-parliament held session until long after sunrise.

The sack containing the horror had not been opened, pending the arrival of the Special Magistrate; it was hung in the fork of a high koekerboom about fifty yards away. Towards this tree which bore such terrible fruit furtive and frightened glances were shot from time to time. The children, who had crept out and joined the elders, cowered in terror against the latter’s legs whilst the darkness lasted. After daylight had come, curiosity got the better of fright, and they crept out and took up positions in small groups around the koekerboom, but at a respectful distance. For hours they silently gazed, wide-eyed and fascinated, at the Thing which hung in its fork, lifted thereto by its own act when a sentient being, even as Haman of old was hung upon the high gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.

Chapter Fifteen.

“Whoso Breaketh a Fence...”

The night had just fallen when Koos Bester arrived at his camp after leaving Nathan, his persecutor, to his dreadful fate in the burning dunes. Koos arrived in the wildest state of excitement and the highest of spirits. His team was in a miserable condition; the poor horses just staggered away for a few yards when outspanned and then sank exhausted on the ground. The Hottentot servants attempted to make them get up and walk slowly about so as to cool gradually before drinking. With some difficulty the leaders were got upon their legs. The wheelers, however, could not be induced by either blows or persuasion to arise; about an hour afterwards it was found that they were dead.

Mrs Bester was very uneasy; she felt that something was wrong. Koos drank quantities of water but could not be induced to eat. After a while he flung himself upon the bed and fell at once into a deep sleep which lasted until noon of the following day. Then he became violently ill. At his wife’s earnest solicitation he had eaten a little food upon awakening, but this he was unable to keep upon his stomach. Then he lay on the bed for a couple of days, during which he hardly spoke.

All the other Boers had trekked away to the Nachtmaal at Namies, so, with the exception of her old and feeble father and the Hottentot servants, Mrs Bester had no one to turn to for assistance or advice.

One night Koos began muttering to himself; from this time he seemed to be quite bereft of his understanding. He sometimes ate food that was placed before him with avidity. Six days and nights passed in this manner. He appeared to suffer acute pain in his head and to be continually thirsty. At length he again slept deeply. Mrs Bester had taken the children out of the mat-house and was staying with them in the wagon for the purpose of keeping them quiet. In the middle of the night she stole quietly out and went on tiptoe to the mat-house door. She listened carefully, but there was no sound of breathing. Then she softly struck a match and looked in under the door-flap. The bed was empty. She called up the servants and a search was made, but no trace of her husband could be found.

Koos Bester awoke just before midnight and sat up in bed. He could not remember where he was or what had happened. He got up and groped about; then he realised that he was at home, in his own mat-house. Then the past came back to him, bit by bit, and the wretched man realised that he had stained his soul with a double murder. He would be hanged, that was now certain; he would give himself up and get the thing over as soon as possible. To get it over quickly was all he was very anxious about.

But where were his wife and children? Some faint flickering memories of what had occurred during his delirium came back to him, and he arrived at a true inference regarding their absence. He was glad. It was terrible to be alone, but the dread of meeting his wife and telling her—as he felt he inevitably must when next he saw her—of what he had done, kept him from calling her. He felt quite sure that she and the children were in the wagon, close at hand.

The darkness was full of terrible and menacing shapes; huddled figures crouched all over the floor. The far, faint yowl of a jackal sounded from the direction of the dunes; it reminded him of Nathan’s hoarse, despairing scream when he realised that he was abandoned to die of thirst. The mat-house, with its population of mysterious shadows and huddled shapes, became intolerable. Better the sense of freedom outside under the accusing stars, where a man can get away from the thing that seems to crawl to his feet as though to clasp his knees. He lifted the door-flap and stepped out into the night.

The Hottentot servants had inhabited a scherm about fifty yards to the rear of the camp. Hottentots often sit up more than half the night, chatting, laughing, and dancing. Mrs Bester, for the sake of keeping the neighbourhood quiet, had told the servants to move their scherm farther away. They had, accordingly, taken their belongings to the other side of a little knoll about two hundred yards away, on the right-hand side of the camp. Here they might hold their nocturnal jollifications to their hearts’ content without disturbing anybody or anything except the meerkats in the adjacent burrows.

A wandering stranger from Great Namaqualand had arrived during the course of the evening. This man had a ramkee upon which he performed with skill. A few months previously he had visited Namies, and had one night listened to Gert Gemsbok playing his favourite tune. Being struck with admiration of the melody, he had picked it up. He was now popularising it among the dwellers of the Desert, for he played it at every scherm he visited.

Coffee had been made of burnt rye, a sheep had died on the previous day; thus the scherm contained the materials for a feast. The company had been dancing to a series of inspiriting reels, but were now resting a space from their laborious leapings and gruntings. The stranger was playing Gert Gemsbok’s tune as an interlude to the reels. A bright fire of candle-bushes was burning. All but the ramkee player were lying down resting behind the scherm fence.

When Koos Bester stepped out of the mat-house he at once experienced a sense of relief. His head was bare and the cool breeze which wandered over the Desert refreshed his brain. The stars could, he found, pity as well as accuse; the night seemed to take compassion on his misery. He looked round to the back of the camp in the direction of where the scherm of the servants had been, and was relieved to see no light. He wanted to be free—even of the suggestion of the presence of another human being—until he had rearranged his distorted faculties. The sandy road led past the camp; he turned to the right and paced slowly along it, with bent head.

He stopped short, for a sound of horribly familiar music reached his ear; then he started and gasped, for the glow of a fire smote his eyes, coming from behind the little knoll. Being to windward of the knoll, he could not exactly distinguish what tune was being played. He knew that the instrument was a ramkee—that, in itself, was sufficiently horrible. A cold hand seemed to steal into his breast and gradually close upon his stricken heart. He stood rigidly still and tried to catch the tune exactly. He strained every nerve with this end, but the breeze freshened slightly, and only an indefinite tinkle reached him. In the midst of his reeling consciousness only one idea stood firm—he must go closer and determine who the player was and what the tune that was being played. He pressed his hands convulsively to his ears and stepped, crouching, towards the knoll.

He reached the knoll and cautiously raised his head till he was able to see over its top. The musician was sitting with his back towards the watcher, and just inside the scherm. Against the diffused glow of the embers—for the flame had died down—the outline of his head and shoulders stood clear and black. To the mind of Koos came the certain conviction that he was looking at the ghost of the man he had murdered. With a supreme effort of despairing will he tore his shielding hands away from his ears, and the unmistakable tones of the dead man’s music crashed like thunder into his brain.

Then Koos Bester’s madness returned upon him, and he fled away noiselessly across the Desert sands in the direction of the dunes.

It was long before he paused, for the fever in his brain prevented him from feeling fatigue. At length, as he was running over the roofs of a city of Desert mice, the ground gave way beneath his foot and he fell. The shock rendered him almost senseless. After a few minutes he sat up, pressed his hands to his temples, and began to grope in the haunted spaces of his darkened intellect for some clue to guide him.

He looked around. The dew-washed air of the Desert night was clear as crystal, the pulsing stars were domed over him sumptuously. He dug his hot hands into the cooling sand and lifted his faced to meet the soft, refreshing breeze.

The Hottentots at the scherm had evidently thrown another armful of candle-bush upon the embers, for a bright flame shot up and momentarily increased in volume. Koos gazed at it, fascinated. As the fire grew brighter he thought it was rushing toward him with terrific speed. The flames had been sent from hell to consume him quick. Like Abiram, God had doomed him for his crimes to go down alive into the pit. He sprang to his feet with a terrible cry, and again fled onwards in the direction of the dunes.

When he again paused he was wading in the heavy sand on the flank of the main dune. He had ascended slightly and thus could overlook a large area of the Desert. The cold breath which circles around the world as the precursor of the dawn was stealing over the plains. The rain had fallen recently upon this side of the Desert, and many of the Boers had sent their stock, in charge of herds, to graze on the track of the shower. The scantily clad Hottentots awoke to the chill, so they began to light fires. Here and there, at immense distances apart, he could see the sudden leapings of the flames from the easily kindled candle-bushes. To the demented brain of the fugitive it appeared as if the whole Desert were full of fiends seeking him with torches, far and near. Where the Milky Way dipped to the horizon the thronging stars seemed each a torch lit at the nether flame, and borne by a searching demon. In among the sinuous dunes he might escape. If he could but reach Inkruip he might creep down the water-shaft and hide. They would never think of looking for him there. In the icy water he might cool his scorched brain.

He stumbled on, crossing dune after dune and ploughing through the sand as with the strength of a giant. In one of the hollows he came to a clump of low bush. Into this he crept for hiding. He lay prone, completely covered, and looking out through a narrow opening. The morning star tipped the back of the dune he had last crossed and thrilled through the clear atmosphere with almost super-stellar brilliance. Koos took this for the torch of a tracking fiend, and again rushed forward with a scream of agonised dismay. His only possible refuge now was under the ground at Inkruip.

The sun arose and scorched his bare head. He was now almost unconscious; he simply pressed forward in obedience to a blind, animal instinct—a sort of momentum generated by the terror which had passed away with the darkness.

It was an awful day, not a breath of wind could be felt, but the sun smote down from a pitiless heaven in all the fulness of its torrid might. Koos pressed blindly up the side of a steep, high dune—his breath coming in husky, choking gasps. Then something seemed to explode in his head with the sound like that of a cannon, and he fell upon his face in the sand.

He had one blinding flash of consciousness, during the continuance of which he seemed again to live through all his lifetime and see anew everything he had ever seen. The minutest trifles of former experience became distinctly apparent, as the smallest details of a landscape show up when lightning flashes near and vividly on a dark night. Then came the darkness which men call death.

As soon as ever day broke the spoor of the missing man was found and followed. Mrs Bester, assisted by her old father, inspanned four horses in the cart and drove on behind the trackers. When she reached the dunes she found that the horses could take the cart no farther, so she outspanned the team and tied the legs of each animal together to prevent it from straying.

She sat through weary hours in the broiling heat. Early in the afternoon one of the Hottentots returned with word that her husband’s dead body had been found. The horses were at once inspanned, and the cart taken by a roundabout course to the vicinity of where it was lying. It was late at night when she arrived at the camp, with the corpse of her husband tied, stiff and stark, on the seat beside her.

Next day two constables came with a warrant for Koos Bester’s arrest, but he had gone before a higher tribunal than that of the Special Magistrate.

Chapter Sixteen.

A Conversion, a Wedding, and several other Things.

Max, being heir to his brother’s estate, was now well off. Old Schalk, mindful of his account as standing in the books at the shop, felt obliged to be civil. Max was, and felt himself to be, master of the situation.

No longer the shy, diffident dreamer of a few months back, Max developed a keenness and aptitude for business which came as an unpleasant revelation to those who tried to get on his blind side. In fact Max had no blind side—he seemed to have eyes all round his head.

He soon satisfied himself of one thing, namely, that a business such as his, unless the legitimate gains were supplemented by the profits of the illicit trade in wild ostrich feathers, would not pay at Namies. Not seeing his way towards following Nathan’s dangerous methods, he determined to wind up the business as it stood, and reopen in some spot in Southern Bushmanland were the farmers were in better circumstances, and where communication with more civilised parts was neither so difficult nor so uncertain. However, he kept these conclusions strictly to himself.

There was one drawer in the little iron safe of which Nathan had always kept the key. Upon opening this he found, to his astonishment, documents which showed that there was a balance to his credit in one of the Cape Town banks of over a thousand pounds, and that the stock, which was worth several hundreds more, was fully paid for. He was a rich man. The diamonds were worth a considerable amount—but these he would have to keep until he could go to Europe before he could realise them.

Amid the flux and reformation of his character his love for Susannah never changed. It was probably owing to this that he did not, under his recent experiences, lose all faith in human nature. He now felt that he was in such a position that he could marry whenever he wanted to. As a measure of policy he allowed, at this juncture, the Hattinghs to have a little more credit, and the quality of the coffee dispensed so lavishly by Mrs Hattingh from the scherm—to all comers—improved very much in consequence. He made up his mind that as soon as Susannah became his wife he would write off the whole of the Hattingh account as a bad debt, and afterwards take care that no further credit was given in that quarter.

“I will marry you as soon as ever you like,” said Susannah to him one day; “but you must first become a Christian; then I know Uncle will not refuse.”

Max had not the slightest objection to doing this. He had left his people when but a child, and had thus never acquired that pride of race which so distinguishes the average Jew, and which often causes him to cleave passionately to the observances of that religion which still keeps Israel a separate people, even after all faith in dogma may have perished.

Max had come in contact with no Jews except Nathan and others of his class. These had earned the young man’s unmitigated contempt. As to Christianity—he looked upon its profession as a mere matter of convenience. The only Christians whom he knew were very sincere in their faith, and would have looked upon any one harbouring the slightest religious doubt as being worse than heathen Bushmen, yet their religion did not appear to have the slightest effect upon their conduct. The case of poor old Gert Gemsbok had set Max thinking deeply upon these matters, and the conclusions he arrived at were only negative ones.

The mind of Max, from utter want of culture, was probably not well fitted to deal with the higher problems. Had it been so he might easily have seen that the so-called Christians who inhabited Bushmanland were really far more like Jews than the worshippers in any modern synagogue on Saturday, for they looked upon themselves as the Almighty’s chosen people, and felt that the heathen had been given to them as their inheritance, even as the Hittites, the Hivites, and other unhappy tribes had been given for spoiling unto the followers of Moses. In this essential of all Christianity worth the name the love of one’s kind, irrespective of colour or class, the Boer certainly fails. On the other hand, his attitude towards the inferior race is almost exactly that of the Old Testament Jew, with, however, one important reservation—he does not look upon it as a sacred duty to destroy them, nor does he do so unless he considers that they have provoked destruction by refusing to obey his behests.

Max possessed a useful native faculty for arranging evidence, digesting it, and deciding impartially thereon. He brought this faculty to bear upon the question of religion, with the result that he made up his mind that the two religions he had had some experience of were equally true and equally false. Certainly he had very little evidence, one way or another, to go upon. His surroundings, rather than he, were responsible for this. Probably, moreover, the religious sense was absent from his organisation. His natural impulses were good, he had no ideals or aspirations. He looked upon most of the people with whom he came in contact with a kind of mild contempt. He saw clearly in them weaknesses of which he himself was free. Thus, without being in any way conceited, he felt instinctively that he was superior to the generality of those he met.

Life with Susannah appeared good to him, and he would not let the faint and mainly instinctive scruples which he felt about professing a religion he did not believe in, stand in the way of the realisation of his happiness. So he borrowed a Catechism of the Dutch Reformed Church from Old Schalk and began to read up towards his conversion.

He found that without any further explanations he had come to be looked upon as Susannah’s accepted lover. It was, of course, assumed that he was to be baptised and received as a Church member as soon as possible.

By collusion with Mrs Hattingh he managed so that some feminine habiliments of very superior quality, which came with his last consignment of goods from Cape Town, were purchased for Susannah. Her lover had, accordingly, the pleasure of at length seeing Susannah dressed in a manner which did something like justice to her beauty.

Max caused two commodious mat-houses to be put up at the back of the shop, on the site of poor old Gemsbok’s scherm. These he furnished simply but comfortably.

In the course of a few months the Reverend Nicholas Joubert received a call at Garies from a young Jew, who stated that he had abjured the errors of Judaism and wished to embrace the Christian faith. Although his face seemed familiar, Mr Joubert did not at first recognise the convert. However, he eventually recalled—or said that he recalled—having seen him at Namies. As the convert stated that the services held by Mr Joubert were the only Christian ones he had ever been present at, the minister naturally enough attributed this remarkable conversion to the efficacy of his own personal ministrations, and was favourably disposed to the neophyte accordingly—especially as the latter answered all questions put to him most discreetly and knew his Catechism so well. No obstacles intervening, the preliminary steps towards Church membership were at once taken, and Max returned without delay to Namies.

He took back with him some books, with the contents of which he had to make himself familiar. Before leaving he made an arrangement of terms in which the minister, for a consideration, agreed to make his next visit to Bushmanland at a much earlier date than usual, and to solemnise a certain confirmation and a wedding—the confirmed party being the bridegroom—on the same day.

This programme was carried out. Max and Susannah were married. There were very few Boers in the vicinity of Namies just then, so the wedding was an extremely quiet affair. The short honeymoon was spent in Old Schalk’s wagon (lent for the occasion) at Agenhuis, a water-place about forty miles away. In the midst of his raptures Max found time to effect a favourable deal in fat-tailed sheep, which were just then very much in demand by the travelling agents of the Cape Town butchers.

Very soon after his marriage Max began to make arrangements for winding up his business. He had heard of a spot on the southern margin of the Desert where rains fell with comparative regularity, and where a profitable trade might be done in salt from the neighbouring “pans.” Here he determined to establish a business. Old Schalk did not like the idea of his leaving Namies, but Susannah raised no objection whatever to his doing so.

It is not many years since all this happened. To-day, at a certain place where there is a well which affords a copious supply of very pure water, in the northern part of the Calvinia Division, there stands a small but comfortable house built of red brick. Over the front door is a signboard bearing the legend: “Max Steinmetz, Allegemene Handelaar en Produkten Kooper.” (“General Dealer and Produce Buyer.”) Behind the counter you may see Max, and sometimes Susannah. Playing about outside, whenever the weather is cool enough, may be noticed several small, dark-eyed children of remarkable beauty. Max has changed in appearance more than Susannah. The sedentary life and close application to business has made his shoulders stoop somewhat and given deepening lines to his face. He is still handsome, but, somehow, one feels that Raphael would no longer have cared to paint his portrait.

Susannah is as pretty as ever, and has acquired a touch of refinement which was wanting before. On the other hand, her features have a suspicion of dawning sharpness which they lacked in the old days at Namies.

Max has prospered. The moral trade in salt gives smaller profits than did the immoral trade in wild ostrich feathers, but it is safe, and there is no heavy legal penalty hanging like a Damocles sword over the head of the trader. The business now supports a clerk—a young Englishman of good education but indifferent lungs, and who was ordered a karoo climate by the doctors.

It is the rule of the Steinmetz household that nothing but the English language shall be spoken—unless when there happen to be Dutch guests present. Susannah is thus rapidly acquiring a knowledge of her husband’s mother-tongue. To this end Max encourages her to read English books, and he corrects, in private, the faults of her speech.

Max still has the diamonds in his safe. He means some day to take them to England. If, however, his business continues to prosper at the same rate as during the past few years, there is at least a chance of his not disposing of them. It may be—for Max has a sound instinctive knowledge of human nature—that he will have them cut and made into a necklace, and that he may attempt to bribe Susannah with this to reconsider her decision never to leave her beloved Bushmanland. Max knows that Susannah has an extremely pretty neck; what is more, she knows it too—moreover, he knows that she knows it.

If Susannah’s command of the English language improves, it is quite possible that the effect of the necklet may be all that Max desires.

Bultong.—Dried meat.

Cartel.—A framework of wood, filled in with laced thongs. It is usually slung in the tent of a wagon, but is occasionally fixed upon forked sticks driven into the ground, and used as a bedstead.

Kaross.—A rug made of brayed skins.

Kloof.—A valley with steep sides.

Koekerboom.—A large arboreal aloe (Aloe dichotoma).

Kopje.—An abrupt hillock.

Mat-house.—A structure made of mats stretched over laths.

Meerkat.—A weasel-like ichneumon.

Mens.—A person.

Nachtmaal.—The celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Oom.—Uncle.

Ou’ ma.—Grandmother.

Pronk.—The springbucks are said to “pronk” when they bound along with arched back and erected mane.

Ramkee.—A musical instrument resembling a banjo, which is in use among the Hottentots.

Reim.—A thong.

Sampau.—A creature resembling a tick, which is extremely poisonous.

Schepsel.—Creature, usually meant in a derogatory sense.

Scherm.—A low screen of bushes.

Tanta.—Aunt.

Trek.—(verb) To pull. The term is used to describe anything moving from place to place.

Tronk.—A prison.

Veld.—The open, uncultivated country.

Feld-kost.—Tubers, bulbs, of wild plants, suitable as food.

Chapter Seventeen.

Noquala’s Cattle—A Tragedy of the Rinderpest.

A Kaffir at Home.

It was about eleven o’clock of a winter’s morning in 1897 when Noquala stood before his hut and watched his cattle being driven in for milking. A noble, dun-coloured bull, in whose lowing the amatory and the defiant were about equally mingled, led the herd through the narrow gateway of the kraal, in which ample enclosure he stood, pawing the dusty manure over his shoulders and flanks. From a smaller enclosure a few yards away to the right came a chorus of agonised appeals for milk from the waiting calves. The herd of cattle numbered rather more than a hundred, and it could be seen by the most unprofessional eye that in quality its members were far superior to the usual run of cattle that one sees at the ordinary native kraal. The majority were dun-coloured.

Noquala was a jovial-looking Hlubi of about fifty years of age, stoutly built, and with a shrewd, lively eye. His hair and beard were markedly tinged with grey. His only clothing was a red blanket loosely drooped around his middle, leaving his trunk and his strong shoulders bare. On his right arm, above the elbow, he wore a thick ring of ivory; otherwise he wore no ornament whatever.

Makalipa, Noquala’s wife, was sitting in the sun at the side of the hut, lazily engaged in making a mat out of rushes. She addressed her husband by name once or twice, but he, being absorbed in the contemplation of his herd of cattle, which was the thing he most loved in the world—his children not excepted—took no notice whatever of her.

“You, you—I wonder you do not sleep in the kraal; I wonder you do not eat grass,” she said, in an audible soliloquy. “If I loved cattle like you do I would tie a pair of horns on my head and go on all fours. You are more of a bull than a man, and ought to be married to a cow.”

The cattle were all in by this time, and the youngest of the calves, a glossy-black little beast, was conducted to the kraal by a naked lad, about ten years of age. The little animal strained at the leash like a hound, and plunged forward with its tail twisting violently, roaring lustily the while. Others followed, and then the milking began. Noquala turned to his wife—

“What were you saying, old money-buryer?”

Makalipa was a large, spare, angular woman, whose years were probably ten less in number than those of her husband. She was dressed in a clean white skirt and a very short bodice. As the garments did not meet, a zone of black skin was strongly visible between the respective upper and nether edges. Over her head was folded, in the characteristic native fashion, a coiffure of red Turkey twill. She paused in her occupation of mat-making, letting her hands rest upon her knees, and regarded her husband with a half-angry expression.

“Have you forgotten that your son, your eldest son, Elijah, will arrive this evening, and that you promised to kill a goat so that he might have a bit of meat to eat after his long walk?”

“If you did not love your mats more than I love my cattle you would know that the best goat of my flock is now hanging in the store-hut.”

“Hau! You killed it secretly, so that I might not get the skin to sell at the shop, eh?”

“Did you want the money to bury, or the meat for your son—your eldest son?”

Noquala walked away without giving his wife time to reply. She at once arose from her work and strode over to the store-hut, whence she emerged soon afterwards, carrying a quantity of meat, which she began to prepare for cooking.

Noquala, although a heathen, was not a polygamist—a fact, for a man of his wealth, deserving of note. Makalipa was a Christian. When he married her, twenty-two years previously, Noquala promised never to take another wife. To every one’s (including, probably, Makalipa’s) surprise, he never even suggested breaking his promise.

Noquala was certainly the richest man in his district. The herd of cattle which he kept at his own kraal only represented about half of his wealth. Far and wide his stock was distributed—let out to be farmed on shares, under the custom called “ngqoma,” in terms of which cattle are assigned by the owner to some one who looks after them, milks them, and receives as reward a small share of the increase. Sometimes stock let out under this system is handed down from generation to generation. Even at the present day lawsuits are instituted for the recovery of cattle, the progenitors of which were assigned in the days of Tshaka. Native law recognises no prescription.

Some there were who smiled meaningly when the persistent faithfulness of Noquala to Makalipa was spoken of, and it was hinted that the rigours of his monogamy were somewhat mitigated by certain relationships which he had contracted at kraals where the whole wealth was held under his “ngqoma.” Be this as it may, Makalipa seemed quite contented with her lot. She was her husband’s only “wife,” and that was enough for her.

Noquala was really a very liberal man, and was deservedly popular, so it was not by grasping and overreaching his fellows that he became wealthy. His success could only be attributed to sheer good fortune. His kraal was situated in a warm, fertile nook of one of the foot-ranges to the Drakensberg, and cattle throve there passing well. He inherited a fair amount of stock from his father, and this herd became a fountain of the only kind of wealth which the native values. His principle for many years had been to weed out the inferior animals, and substitute for them any superior cattle obtainable. If a young man paying “lobola” (The cattle given in payment for a wife) had a very good cow, he knew that by taking it to Noquala’s kraal he could exchange it for two oxen of fair quality. As “lobola” cattle are estimated by number and not by individual value, the gain to the young man is, of course, obvious.

Goats and sheep he also had, but these he did not much regard. In fact, if it had not been for his wife he would not have had any small stock at all, except a few goats for slaughtering.

Makalipa was intensely frugal, if not miserly, by nature—and was well known to have a considerable store of money put by. She kept her wealth wrapped up in rags, and buried in various places. She had thus been amassing money by little and little for over twenty years. She claimed as her perquisite the proceeds of every skin of the respective beasts that were slaughtered or that died; and she earned a great deal by making and selling mats. The first and only time she ever drew any of her savings was when she put her son Elijah to school at Blythswood. It was her dream that Elijah should be a minister, and his own ambitions seconded hers. He was now a man of twenty-one, and had made good progress with his studies. At the point where this story opens he was expected back for his holidays. The school had broken up two days previously, and he was due to arrive within a few hours.

Noquala did not oppose actively his son’s becoming educated. He would have preferred him to have followed the calling of a peasant, such as he himself was. The second son, an astute youth named Zingelagahle, was more after his father’s heart. He did not care about book-learning, and was quite content to look after the cattle, knowing that the largest share of them would eventually fall to him.

The educated young native is almost invariably a prig, and cannot help showing his uncivilised relations that he feels himself to be far superior to them. As a rule this superiority is assumed by both parties; thus not much friction results.

Elijah, to do him bare justice, was perfectly sincere in his faith and in what he believed to be his vocation for the ministry. He thus felt himself to be far superior to all the others at his paternal kraal. His mother, of course, was a Christian—nominally, at least, but for years past she had taken little interest in anything but her son’s education and her money-making. She did not even belong to any church. Once, when it was decided by the local Christians to erect a chapel, Noquala had been applied to for a subscription, and he had referred the applicant to his wife, stating that she had money whereas he had none. This was a literal fact. One of his peculiarities was never to own any money. Whenever taxes had to be paid or purchases had to be made, Noquala would sell to the nearest trader just sufficient sheep for the purpose, and immediately make a point of spending the last penny thus realised.

When Makalipa was applied to she had just paid her son’s half-yearly fees at the seminary, and she flatly refused to contribute a sixpence towards the new building. This caused remonstrance, which was followed by recrimination. The matter ended by Makalipa withdrawing from connection with local religious enterprise. Representatives of the rival churches made advances towards this erring sheep with the heavy fleece, but without any result. Religion meant spending money, and so long, at all events, as she was paying her son’s fees at the seminary she felt she was doing enough and to spare for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Chapter Eighteen.

Elijah.

It was late in the afternoon when Elijah arrived, somewhat tired from his long walk. He was a spare, loosely built youth with heavy features and a gloomy expression of countenance. His mother greeted him with much tenderness, and his father tried to be genial. But conversation between this father and son was extremely difficult. The involuntary mutual foundation of feeling was contempt, and the superstructure of conventional tolerance which formed their plane of communication was not conducive to geniality. They had thus got into the habit of having as little to say to each other as possible, and Noquala usually felt it necessary to start on one of his rounds of inspection of his “ngqoma” cattle within a few days of his son’s return for the holidays.

On the present occasion the cordiality which usually was maintained between the mother and son as soon as the father’s back was turned was somewhat impaired. There was a strong restraint on the son’s side, which the mother found it hard to combat. When, however, Elijah had been at home for a week the cause was made clear in the following conversation:—“Mother,” said Elijah, after an awkward interval, “when were you at church last?”

Makalipa flashed her keen eyes upon her son’s gloomy face for an instant before she answered—

“You know quite well how it is that I do not go to church.”

“Yes, mother, but I want you to go. Think what people must say about me, a man who wants to be a minister, and who has a mother who, although she is a Christian, does not go to church.”

“Elijah, my son, I do not go to church, it is true, but I can read my Bible, and I don’t remember the chapter in which it teaches that a son should instruct the mother who bore him. Of course, when you are a minister it will be different. Then I will go and hear you preach. So you had better make haste and have a church of your own if you want to save my soul.”

Elijah walked away without replying. The day was warm, so he went and threw himself down upon his mat in the big hut in which his father and mother also slept. His mother, remorseful of having snubbed him, brought him some food a short time afterwards, but he refused to eat and said that he only wanted to sleep. Makalipa put this down to the sulks—a complaint to which Elijah had been subject to from earliest childhood—so she set the food aside and went down to the fields to superintend the harvesting of the grain.