"A Romance of the Cape Frontier" (continued 2)

The sight of him angered her, but a thrill of malicious satisfaction shot through her, as she thought of the rude shock she would inflict upon that provoking imperturbability before he was an hour older.

“So you come down from the stool of repentance without permission,” she said, severely.

“Couldn’t stop away any longer,” he replied, without removing his careless glance from her face. “Besides, your sister absolved me in your name.”

“Then you may stay,” she said, graciously, turning to look at the ostriches. The male bird was about fifty yards off, reluctant to leave the spot, and rolling his fiery eye towards them with a frequency that showed he had not quite given up all hopes of making mincemeat of some one of the party that day.

“Mr Claverton,” suddenly exclaimed Ethel, even more graciously. “Do get me those red flowers over there, the ones on the long stalks.”

“With pleasure,” he answered, coming to her side. “Indicate them.”

“There they are, those under that bush.”

She pointed out ten or a dozen wiry-looking stalks with a few red blossoms that would not have overburdened one of them, but were injudiciously distributed amongst the group, which sprouted amid the undergrowth in a small clump of thorn-bushes right in the enclosure. To reach it about seventy yards of open ground, destitute of all cover save for a single mimosa bush growing half-way, must needs be traversed.

“Hold on, let’s get the bird away first,” said Jim, moving off with that intent.

“Never mind the bird, Jim, he won’t interfere with me,” quietly answered Claverton; and without even pocketing his pipe he climbed deliberately over the wall.

“Don’t go, Arthur. Good gracious, he’ll be killed!” cried Mrs Brathwaite, in dire trepidation. “Ethel, how could you?”

“No he won’t, auntie; you’ll see him run in a minute as for dear life. I wanted to make him run,” she added in a low tone, with a mischievous, scornful laugh.

I know of no more perfect exemplification of the old adage about familiarity breeding contempt than the case of the fall-grown male ostrich. In his wild state the most timid and wary of creatures, he is up and away the moment you appear on the skyline, and fleetness and endurance must be the character of your mount if you hope to overtake him. In a state of domesticity, however, his aggressiveness and pugnacity know no bounds. He will charge anything or everything, resistance only adding to his blind ferocity—and when it is understood that a single stroke of his sharp horny toe—for he kicks down, not out—will shatter a man’s skull, not to mention the possibility of a broken limb, it will not be difficult for the reader to realise that this gigantic fowl is a particularly awkward customer to deal with. Of course the bird is easily killed, or disabled, a very moderate blow from a stick being sufficient to break its leg. But it must be remembered that the creature is, so to say, worth its weight in gold, and any one would think more than, twice before slaying so valuable a possession, even in self-defence. So it is manifest that the expedition upon which Claverton had now embarked was by no means free from the element of peril.

Once over the wall he walked coolly forward, seeming altogether to ignore his foe’s existence. The ostrich, however, was by no means disposed to take matters so quietly, for before he had gone fifteen paces it bore down upon him with a savage hiss; but a couple of light bounds brought him to the small bash above mentioned, where he was safe for the moment. For the moment, because it was only a question which of the two would tire first, and they dodged each other round the precarious shelter which was only half-way to his destination.

Soon, however, besieger and besieged alike came to a complete standstill, and the situation began to wax rather monotonous. Then the ostrich, withdrawing a couple of yards, dropped down on its shanks, and contorting its neck, and at the same time fluttering its wings in defiance, produced a curious drumming noise, of which grotesque challenge its human antagonist took not the slightest notice, but waited on as calmly as ever. Suddenly it sprang up, and uttering its trumpet-like hiss, dashed right through the bush at him; then, while it was still blundering among the thorns, Claverton started off upon the remainder of his journey. This he could have accomplished with ease and safety, but that above all he intended to do it quietly. He knew why Ethel had sent him in there as well as she did herself, and that astute young lady should not have the pleasure of seeing him routed, or enjoying a laugh at his expense. Consequently he had not covered more than half the distance that remained to him, at a quick but easy walk, when the ostrich, now simply infuriate by reason of a few pricks from the sharp mimosa thorns, which had penetrated even its tough hide, was upon him. And very huge and formidable looked the ferocious bird, as, rearing itself up to its full height, its jetty plumage erect and bristling, its eye glaring, and its fiery red bill wide open, it rushed upon Claverton, hissing like a fiend. No cover was at hand; there he stood in the open, completely at the mercy of his savage assailant.

In vain Jim and Hicks ran into the enclosure shouting, to draw off the creature’s attention; it manifested a fell fixity of purpose, from which it was not to be turned aside by any such puerile tricks. Mrs Brathwaite grew pale, and averted her head; even Ethel now saw that she had carried her practical joke rather too far; but still her gaze was riveted upon the combatants with a strange, eager fascination.

But Claverton’s coolness always stood him in good stead. He suddenly advanced a couple of paces, thus forestalling the attack, and seizing his powerful antagonist by the lower part of the neck, swung himself nimbly aside, just managing to avoid a kick that would probably have ripped him up, and held on firmly to the creature’s throat, half choking it. It plunged and stamped, its great feet going all the time like sledge-hammers, and to hold on was just as much as he could do, for it was as powerful as a horse. But hold on he did as for dear life; then, watching his opportunity, he flung himself off, and before the bird, half-dazed, had recovered from the effects of the choking it had received, he stood safe within the friendly shelter of the clump of bush, somewhat used up, but uninjured, except that his right hand was torn and bleeding from contact with the bird’s claw. His pursuer, indisposed to venture again among thorns, walked quickly up and down before the entrance to the cover, flicking its wings about in baffled wrath at the unaccountable escape of its victim.

The first thing he did was to gather every one of the flowers he had come for. Then the spectators could see him standing against a tree doing something with a pencil and the back of an envelope.

“Hallo! what on earth are you up to now?” called out Jim. “Tell us when you’re ready, and we’ll get the bird away.”

“By no means,” was the reply. “I’m making a rough sketch of the situation, now that I’m master of the same. Then you may call it a drawing by one of the Masters.”

This sally provoked a laugh from all but Ethel. She was silent. To tell the truth, she was rather ashamed of herself.

In a few moments he put away his pencil and paper, and set to work to cut a couple of large thorn branches. This done, he issued forth from his refuge to return. The ostrich, apparently tired of the turn affairs had taken, had drawn off a little way; but no sooner was he in the open than it charged him again. This time, however, it was out of its reckoning; the chevaux de frise of thorns that Claverton held before him was not to be got over. With a powerful kick or two it beat down the branch, which, however, was immediately replaced by the other, and kick and hiss as it would, it could not get rid of the formidable array of prickly thorns which met its breast and unprotected neck whenever it pressed on to the attack. At last, convinced of the futility of the undertaking, the savage bird turned round and trotted away about fifty yards, and there stood, looking the picture of sullen defeat. Its cool opponent walked leisurely to the wall, and, abandoning his valuable means of defence, climbed over and joined the party.

“By Jove, but you did that well,” said Jim. “Why, man, I expected to see you most awfully mauled.”

“I don’t know. ‘Needs must where the’—but I won’t finish that quotation, either. Here are the flowers, Miss Brathwaite,” he said, handing her the innocent cause of all the pother. “By the way, Hicks, I forgot to tell you as I came down that there’s been a porcupine in the mealie-land during the night. We might set the spring-gun for him, eh?”

“Rather! We’ll set it this evening,” said Hicks, gleefully, his instincts of destructiveness coming again to the fore.

That evening, between nine and ten o’clock, they were all sitting indoors. Jim had left in the afternoon to return to the bosom of his family, after making them all promise to ride over in a day or two. Suddenly a dull, heavy report was heard.

“Pace the porcupine,” remarked Claverton.

“I say,” sputtered Hicks in his eagerness, “let’s go down and see if we’ve got him. We might set the gun again, you know, in case another came.”

“Let’s all go,” cried Ethel. “I’m dying to see the result of our trap-setting. Yes, our trap-setting, Mr Hicks—you know you’d have put that trigger too stiff if it hadn’t been for me.”

“But, my dear child,” feebly protested Mrs Brathwaite, “the grass is as wet as it can be, and—”

“And—there’s a path all the way down, and—it’s a lovely night—and—you’re a dear old auntie—and—we’re going,” she replied, with a hug and a kiss; then darting into the other room reappeared, looking inexpressibly killing, with a light-blue shawl thrown carelessly over her golden head.

“Well, then, don’t be too long, and don’t get into any mischief. Arthur, I shall look upon you as the responsible person. Keep them in order,” said the old lady, with her kindly smile.

“All right, Mrs Brathwaite, I’ll keep them well in hand, I promise you.”

“And—Arthur—just shy that old porcupine up in the air once or twice for Hicks to practise at,” sang out Mr Brathwaite jocosely as they left the room.

It was a perfect night, the moon was at half, and the whole earth slept in silence beneath its mantle of silver sheen, for a heavy dew had fallen. A grass fire or two shone forth redly upon the slopes of the far Amatola. Not a breath stirred the air, save for the faintest suspicion of a cool zephyr which now and again partly dispelled the light clouds of blue smoke which ascended from Claverton’s pipe. Hicks and Laura were on in front. Suddenly Ethel stopped.

“Mr Claverton,” she said. “Do you know I’ve been feeling quite ashamed of myself all day?”

“What about?” asked her companion.

“Why, for sending you after those wretched flowers this morning—I didn’t mean you to get hurt, you know; of course I thought you would easily be able to run away.”

“I see. But running away isn’t altogether in my line—I don’t mean under any circumstances—those who declaim most against the lawfulness of leg-bail at a push are generally the ones most prone to putting it to the test. In fact, I don’t mind telling you that I have ‘run away’ before now, having no alternative.”

“When I saw that dreadful creature coming at you, I declare I would have given anything not to have sent you in there. It was horrible.” And she shivered. “Do forgive me.”

“But I assure you the whole affair was fun to me. Keeps one in training for emergencies. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Only that I don’t know whether your uncle quite likes his prize ostrich being made the subject of a bull-fight.”

“And—we are friends?”

“I hope so.”

He looked with a trifle of wonder into the lovely eyes, now so soft in the moonlight. What an impulsive little thing it was, he thought. Then she said: “Do give me that drawing you made while the ostrich was waiting for you. It’s sure to be fun.”

“With pleasure. Here it is,” pulling the old envelope out of his pocket. “It about represents the position, though I’m no artist.”

It did. When Ethel examined it in her room half an hour later she found a very comical sketch reproducing the situation with graphic and whimsical distinctness. It was labelled “Cornered—or Brute Force versus Intellect.”

They found the other two standing over the mortal remains of a large old porcupine. The spring-gun had been set with the precision of clockwork, and no sooner had the luckless rodent entered the mealie-land than he ran his nose against the string and promptly received the contents of the infernal machine clean through his marauding carcase. There he lay—a spoiler who would spoil no more. Said Hicks:

“I’ll come down in the morning and get some of his best quills.”

Volume One—Chapter Six.

In a New Line.

“Of course you know the place well?”

“Every inch of it. Two thousand morgen, rather over. What did you say Van Rooyen asks for it?”

“Three thousand. Probably he’d take less.”

“Far too much. It isn’t particularly good veldt; sheep don’t do well there, and the place is nearly all bush. And then there’s that stony hill right over the river, about one-fifth of the whole area. What sort of house is it?”

“A classic tenement meriting the veneration of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings.”

“Humph! You’d better have nothing to do with the concern.”

The above dialogue took place about three weeks after the events recorded in the former chapter, the speakers being Claverton and his host, who were returning from a ride.

“You have made up your mind to settle here, then?” went on the latter.

“Yes, I’ve taken rather a fancy to this part of the country.”

“H’m! Well now, I’ll tell you what I think. Don’t you be in too great a hurry to buy; there’s nothing like keeping your eyes open a bit first, and biding your time. Plenty of these fellows would be very glad to clear out. The Dutchmen round here are mostly a bankrupt lot, living from hand to mouth, and you’ll soon be able to make your own terms and get a much better place than Springkaan’s Hoek, which old Van Roozen, by the way, has done his best to spoil.”

“But do you know of another place about here that would be likely to suit me?”

“Not at present—that is, not one that’s in the market. But I’ve been thinking, why not stop on here a bit and help me? You’d get into practice and learn your craft, so to say. You see, at present you know precious little about it, though you’re quicker at picking up wrinkles than most new hands who come out. I’m getting old now and am beginning to feel it, and can’t look after things as much as I should like them to be looked after. As for Hicks, he’s a smart fellow enough, but then he can’t be everywhere at once, and as it is he has his hands full. Now between you and him, all might be kept going, which would be a great help to me, and, as I said before, you would get the experience you want before setting up on your own account. And it’s not enough to see things done, the great thing is to know how to do them yourself. We do a little of everything here, as you see, and I don’t think you could be much better placed for learning to farm,” added the old man, with a touch of pardonable pride.

Claverton readily closed with this offer. Already during his stay he had done many a hand’s turn, helping Hicks to look up missing stock, or seeing to odd jobs about the homestead when that invaluable majordomo was out of the way; and his host’s practised eye had gauged his capabilities, seeing that he had all the makings of a first-rate colonist. The advantage of this offer Claverton could tell at a glance was all on his own side.

“You see,” pursued Mr Brathwaite, “farming now is not what it was. You needn’t expect to make a fortune at it, but still you can always make a very decent living, and then the position is a thoroughly independent one, the life a free and healthy one, you are absolutely your own master and need care for nobody. Times are very far from what they used to be, I admit; stock is more expensive, and there are more drawbacks in the way of bad seasons, diseases, long droughts and used-up veldt; but even then a good farmer can always manage to keep above water, and in a fairly prosperous season can forge ahead. Look at me: I’ve been burnt out, stick and stone, by the Kafirs in three successive wars, and have had to begin life over again, yet I’ve always got on. The secret of it is to look after everything yourself. It won’t do to set your people to work and go away expecting them to do it, you must off with your jacket and work with them. And you must be here, there, and everywhere at once, Kafirs want continual looking after; directly they begin to think the ‘Baas’ is getting careless, good-bye to anything going straight. I don’t mean to say that you must always be finding fault with them, they are naturally stupid devils and you can’t make them anything else; but you can let them see that you’ve got your eye on them and will stand no nonsense. The great thing is to keep your temper with them, and, above all, to treat them fairly but firmly. Then again, you must make up your mind to being out in all weathers. The heavier and the colder the rains, the more certain are the Kafirs to huddle in their blankets under a bush or before a fire, and leave the flock to take care of itself. With the result that at nightfall about a third of it is missing and remains out in the veldt for the benefit of the jackals and wolves; what these leave perhaps stray to some Dutchman’s place, and when you get them again you find that they are covered with brand ziekte (scab) from his miserable brutes. As I say, there are drawbacks innumerable, but it rests with yourself to minimise them.”

“Yes; I quite grasp the situation in all its bearings.”

“Very well, then, that’s settled, and I think you’ll have reason to see that my plan is the best.”

They were nearing home now, and the sun, which was about an hour above the horizon, shed a soft, golden lustre upon the broad, sloping plains and on shining cliff and undulating vale, with many a dark patch of forest here and there. The peak of the Great Winterberg, his snowy cap now removed—sleeping in a filmy haze against the horizon, and the lofty backs of his lesser satellites purple and gold as they stood in the shade or in the sun—formed a grand and effective background to the picture, the beautiful range stretching from east to west, far as the eye could travel. Beneath lay the homestead, reposing among its shadowy trees, looking the very abode of peace and prosperity. Scarcely a breath of wind to ruffle the balminess of the air, nor a sound to create one, save for the occasional droning hum of some insect, while now and again the soft mellow note of a hoopoe sounded through the slumbrous dimness of the far distance. Looking upon this vista of rest and stillness, and in the midst of its influences, it was hard to realise that the red tide of war could ever engulf this fair land, and its fierce and jarring clangour break rudely upon such quiet calm.

On their return they found a visitor awaiting them. This was one Will Jeffreys, a sturdy, broad-shouldered fellow of five-and-twenty, with rather a heavy expression of countenance bordering on the sullen. A man who was shrewd enough as regarded all matters directly in his line, but would have a difficulty in grasping a very ordinary joke, and who was totally deficient in appreciation of aught beyond the humdrum and practical. A man who might be a good fellow at bottom, but certainly was a crusty dog on the surface. He was the son of the neighbour referred to in the foregoing chapter, as having brought the girls to Seringa Vale, and was well-to-do. But in one respect, at least, Will Jeffreys wandered out of his natural groove. He had a genuine admiration for Ethel Brathwaite, whom he had met on previous occasions of her staying at her uncle’s, and though he had returned home only that morning, had saddled up his horse and ridden over, under pretext of consulting Mr Brathwaite about a certain span of oxen which he thought of buying—most transparent of pretexts, which his good-natured father saw through at once, and went into fits of laughter over as soon as his hopeful’s back was turned.

“Poor Will!” he would say to himself, “he’s only singeing his wings. He hasn’t the ghost of a chance in that quarter.”

“Poor Will” certainly had not the ghost of a chance, for Ethel in no wise reciprocated his admiration, though she would accept his homage carelessly and half unconsciously at one time, and ruthlessly snub him at another, particularly when the admiration became too open and undisguised. Now it so happened that that afternoon they had been discussing the latest importation in all his bearings, with the result that young Jeffreys greeted Claverton with no great show of cordiality when the two were introduced. Nor was it increased by Ethel’s remark: “At last, Mr Claverton! I thought uncle and you were never coming back. Why, you’ve been out nearly the whole day.”

“Well, Will,” said the old settler, heartily. “Had a good trip?”

“Yes, very good on the whole, thanks. It’s rather dry up Colesberg way, and the locusts have been bad there, but my oxen were in good order, and I came through quick.”

He had just returned from a transport-riding trip up the country.

“H’m! By the way, did your father manage to get back his horses?”

“No. He and Bob followed them as far as Tembani. The fellows had got a forged pass (Note 1) and walked through right under the agent’s nose. After that the spoors separated; the thieves had taken two of the horses in the direction of the Tambookie country, the other towards Sandili’s; and, of course, at every kraal they inquired at—for the spoor was soon lost—the headmen did their best to put them on the wrong track, although they set up to be no end sympathetic. We’ve got a spy down in the Gaika location, but a fat lot of good he’ll do; he’s sure to be in league with the rest,” growled Will, who was not in the best of humours.

“No, you can’t do much when the whole country is in league against you. We’re quite at their mercy. I’m afraid you’ll never see a hoof of them again,” said the older man.

“Of course not. Three as good all-round horses as we ever had on the place, though Bles was a dev—er—a brute for bucking, at times. By-the-bye, Mr Brathwaite, there seems to be an awful lot of stock-lifting going on just now. Seven of Dirk van Heerden’s best cows cleared off last week, and not a head of them has he been able to get back, except one which had dislocated its shoulder, and the niggers assegaied it to save its life.”

“Well, it’s time to count the sheep. You’ll stay to night, Will?”

He was delighted.

“Er—thanks—I—er, that is—”

“All right. Better put your horse in the enclosure; only mind the bird.”

“How tiresome that Will Jeffreys is getting!” remarked Ethel that evening, as some of them were standing outside in the garden. “Listen to him prosing away in there.”

“Ssh! He’ll hear you,” said Laura.

“I don’t much care. He comes over to see us, and instead of trying to amuse one he bores us with tiresome yarns about this Dutchman losing his cows and that Dutchman finding his horses.”

“But what on earth do you want him to tell you about?” asked Hicks.

“Why, some of the news, of course. The gossip, scandal, engagements, and so forth.”

“But he don’t know anything about that sort of thing, so how can he tell you about it?” said Hicks.

“Oh, you’re just as bad. Do go and join him and hear about Dirk van Heerden’s cows. Please take my part, Mr Claverton. Isn’t Will Jeffreys a bore?”

“Haven’t been long enough in his company to answer with any certainty. Will let you know later.”

“How provoking you are! Now I appeal to all of you. If you see me cornered by Will Jeffreys, come to the rescue.”

“The greatest bore I ever knew,” began Claverton, “was a lady—an elderly lady. She would volunteer instruction on any and every subject under heaven, from the precise length of Aaron’s beard, to the cost of soup-kitchens; and once she cornered you, you had to listen or pretend to. One day she cornered me. It was in the drawing-room, and there was no escape; but there was a clock opposite. It occurred to me to time her. For exactly twenty-one minutes she prosed on uninterruptedly, like a stream flowing over its bed; never stopped to take breath once. A sermon was a joke to it. Twenty-one minutes! Heaven knows how much longer she would have gone on, but for a lucky interruption.”

“What was she prosing about?” said Ethel.

“I haven’t the very faintest idea.”

“Well, I don’t believe a word of the story. I believe you made it all up.”

“You don’t believe a word of that story?” said Claverton, with a stare of amazement, while Hicks and Laura went into fits.

“No, I don’t; at least, I’ll say this much—you may have known such a bore, but if so it was a man, not a lady.”

“I’ve told you a bare fact, upon my honour. But if—”

They were interrupted by the appearance on the scene of Jeffreys himself; but Ethel was too quick for him. She had seen him coming, and was already on her way indoors. Then she began to sing duets with Laura, whom she had manoeuvred to the piano by some mysterious signal. Young Jeffreys, feeling very sulky and sore at his enslaver’s capriciousness and want of consideration, went and sat by himself at the other side of the room, whence he could watch the author of his discomfort. The old people, under no necessity to talk, waxed drowsy, and nodded through the music. Presently Laura left the piano and, in a trice, she and Hicks were deep in an animated conversation in a low tone and in a snug corner, under pretence of looking through a pile of music. Ethel the while was extracting wondrous combinations from the keys, under cover of which she was carrying on a sharp running fire of banter, or rather word-skirmish, with Claverton.

Jeffreys, watching them, was on thorns and tenterhooks. Who the deuce was this stranger? A month ago no one had ever heard of him, and now here he was, with his damned finicking ways and smooth tongue, thinking that all the world was made for him. A fellow, too, he’d be bound to say, that with all his easy-going blarney, couldn’t sit a bucking horse, or hit a haystack at ten yards. Yet there was Ethel carrying on furiously with this fellow, while he, Jeffreys, was sent to the wall. In reality, however, there was nothing that those two were saying that all the world—Jeffreys included—would not have been perfectly welcome to hear.

“Claverton,” suddenly exclaimed Hicks, as two hours later they were discussing the usual pipe before turning in. Jeffreys had joined them, but did not add much to the conversation. “I hear you’re going to stay on here.”

“Yes, I am.”

Jeffreys’ jaw fell at this announcement. He had been laying balm to his wounded spirit in the thought that this interloping stranger would soon be going, and then—well, the field would be clear again.

“Glad to hear it, old fellow, awfully glad. By Jove, it’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.”

“The deuce it is! And why, may I ask?”

“Why? Only hear him! Haven’t I had to do everything by myself, and knock about by myself? No fellow to talk to at work, or to go out and sneak a buck with, or to blow a cloud with at night, and so on. Now we’ll have a rare good time of it together.”

“Especially when you go down to feed the ostriches,” said Claverton, with a mischievous laugh.

The other coloured and looked foolish, and was about to make some stammering reply.

“Never mind, Hicks,” said Claverton, in that wonderfully attractive manner which he now and then exhibited, “I don’t think you and I will quarrel. Now I’m going to turn in. Good-night. Good-night, Jeffreys.”

“I say,” inquired Jeffreys, after he had gone out. “Is that cattle-branding on to-morrow?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think I’ll stay and give you a hand, if Mr Brathwaite doesn’t mind. Times are slack, and there’s nothing doing at home.”

“Rather—mind you do; we’ll be only too glad,” answered Hicks with a yawn, as he blew out the candle; and in five minutes more a mild snore or so showed that he was out of reach of any further conversation.

Jeffreys lay and ruminated. Here, at any rate, he would be in his element. What sort of a figure would that stuck-up, priggish fool—again, reader, pardon a jealous man—cut in the cattle kraal among the clashing horns and the charging of maddened beasts, and all the dash and excitement of a piece of very rough work, by no means unattended with danger? He was all there in the drawing-room; but where would he be at this? And Jeffreys dropped off to sleep with a sardonic grin upon his countenance, to dream of his rival—for so he had already begun to regard Claverton—losing nerve, and being tossed and trampled by the wildest brute in the herd. As to the fulfilment of which benevolent expectation the morrow would show.

Note 1. No native is allowed to remove stock from the colony without a pass granted by his late employer to certify that he acquired it lawfully. This pass is countersigned by the various magistrates and native agents along the road.

Volume One—Chapter Seven.

The cattle-branding.

“Here they come. Is the whole of that lot to be done to-day, Xuvani?”

“Ja, Baas,” replied that worthy, swinging back the ponderous gate of the cattle enclosure where he and Jeffreys were standing.

For the ground echoes a low rumble, drawing nearer every moment. It is the trample of many hoofs, and Jeffreys and his swart companion fix their attention upon a troop of cattle coming up the kloof. They are mostly young beasts, and skittish. Now and then one will leave the rest and attempt to strike out a line for itself, but lo, one of the two horsemen riding behind is down on it like lightning; a shout and a crack of the whip, and the recreant is back in the ways of the herd again. Peradventure half-a-dozen will start off headlong down some well-known track, and with frolicsome bellow and heels tossed in the air away they go, refusing to hear the voice of the driver; but the spirited horse darts beneath the spur like a greyhound from the leash; over ant-heap and through rhinoster bush straight as an arrow he flies; and behold, suddenly, from around that clump of spekboem, appears the form of one of the drivers. A shout, half-a-dozen appalling whip-cracks, the errant beasts stop short, heads go up and eyeballs dilate upon the unlooked-for apparition with startled inquiry, then wheeling round they scamper back to their comrades, helter-skelter, and the unruly mass moves swiftly on, urged by the horsemen, eyes glaring, horns clashing, and now and again an aggrieved “moo” as some quarrelsome brute playfully prods his nearest neighbour, in the crush. One young bull especially, a fine, well-made animal with curving wicked-looking horns, and not a speck of alien colour on his glistening red hide, is inordinately given to leading the rest astray, nor does he take kindly to correction, but puts his head down and throws his horns about as if he had more than half a mind to charge his drivers; but he is not quite used to that terrible cracking whip, and thinks better of it.

“That brute’ll make things lively for some of us to-day,” remarked Hicks, as his companion fell behind after “collecting” it for about the twentieth time.

“Shouldn’t wonder. The interesting quadruped appears to be getting his hand in. That last time I had fully made up my mind for a roll, and should have got it too. ‘Sticks’ is an awful fool at getting out of anything’s way.”

“Well, we’re in now,” said Hicks. “Hey, Xuvani!” he called out, darting forward to head the animals into the kraal, “Look out over there!”

The Kafir gave a couple of bounds and threw up his arms. He was just in time; two seconds later and the whole troop would have streamed past him and galloped away across the veldt, which meant that a large part of the morning’s work would have to be done over again. The animals stopped short, glared at the sudden obstacle, then looked wildly round on one side and on the other, but they were hemmed in; the rear part of the herd cannoned against the leaders, who at length made for the only egress open, and amid much crush and plunging, interlacing of horns, and starting eyeballs, the whole crowd poured through the wide gateway, the pungent dust rising in clouds from the trampling hoofs.

“Whew! that’s warm work!” said Claverton, as Xuvani made fast the huge gate and drew a heavy beam across above the top of it for additional security. “Now for breakfast, I suppose. Hallo, Jeffreys. Good-morning.”

“Mornin’,” replied Will, shortly, as they turned towards the stable to off-saddle their horses.

Mr Brathwaite was somewhat unwell that day, and not at all sorry to have the assistance of Will Jeffreys in the morning’s operations. So with many cautions to Hicks about this and that, more by way of showing that he didn’t let everything slide because of a little indisposition, than for any misgivings as to his lieutenant’s skill, he made up his mind to remain quiet in his room. Rheumatism is no respecter of persons, the only wonder being that the old farmer, after such a life of hardship and exposure, should be let down as easily as he was.

“Mr Claverton,” said Ethel, as they were all seated round the breakfast-table, “Laura and I are going to see the branding, so I hope you’ll show us some fun.”

“Are you? That determination I should advise you to reconsider.”

“But we won’t. Aha, I know why you don’t want us. You have never done that sort of thing before, and you don’t want us to see you make a bad shot and run round the kraal with a cow after you. That’s it, isn’t it, Mr Jeffreys?” turning to him. She was in a bright, teasing mood, and looked bewitchingly pretty.

Jeffreys chuckled to himself at Claverton’s expense, as he thought, and mumbled something about “it being dangerous for her.”

“Dangerous! Not a bit of it. We shall stand outside and look over the gate, and we shall be perfectly safe.”

Hicks looked up from his plate with a low whistle.

“Perfectly safe!” he reiterated. “Why, it was only last branding that that big black and white ox of Jim’s, after chevying Tambusa twice round the kraal and knocking him down, jumped the gate, charged a big hencoop that was pitched close by and threw it fifty feet in the air, and then streaked off to the bush like a mad buffalo.”

“What nonsense, Ethel! Of course you can’t go,” said her aunt, who had re-entered the room during this conversation. “Why, the things often break out of the kraal.”

“Very well, aunt, I don’t want to be a witness to poor Mr Claverton’s discomfiture;” and she cast at him a glance of petulance, mingled with compassion, whose effect upon the object thereof was absolutely nil.

A business-like appearance was that of the scene of operations. The animals were standing quietly about the large enclosure seventy yards in diameter, with its solid, bristling thorn-fence eight or nine feet high and its massive five-barred gate. In the centre burnt—or rather smouldered, for it was of the red-hot glowing order—a great fire, over which bent the bronzed form of Xuvani, the cattle-herd, superintending the due heating of the branding-irons and gossiping in subdued gutturals with the other “hands”—two Kafirs and a smart, wiry little Hottentot, who, with the penchant of his race for scriptural appellations, rejoiced in the time-honoured and patriarchal one of Abram. Xuvani was a man of between fifty and sixty, of middle height, and of powerful, almost herculean build; the muscles stood out upon his limbs like great ropes, and a blow from his fist—that is, if he had known how to make use of his fists, which Kafirs very seldom do know—would have sufficed to fell an ox. He was rather light in colour, and his beard and woolly head were just shot with grey; there was shrewdness in his rugged features, and a twinkle of satiric humour lurked in his eye. He had been a long time in the service of his present master, who had found him a cut above the average Kafir in honesty and trustworthiness. Moreover, he was greatly looked up to by the other natives, not only on account of his great physical strength, but also as one who had shown his prowess in a marked manner during the wars which have been alluded to. Although far from quarrelsome by nature, Xuvani never needed a second challenge. His kerries were all ready, as more than one party of Fingoes passing Seringa Vale in search of employment could testify, to its sorrow. Indeed, once he had expiated his share in one of these African Donnybrooks by a sentence of several months in gaol.

“Well, Xuvani!” sang out Hicks, as they slipped off their jackets and flung them on to the kraal fence—“Got the iron hot? All right, let’s begin. Now then, Piet—what the devil are you standing there for, grinning like a Cheshire cat? Lay hold of the reim and catch that heifer.”

Piet, a stalwart Kafir, grinned all the harder, and drawing out the running noose of the reim he made a cast, then, as the heifer ran over it, with a mighty jerk he drew it taut and the animal, noosed by the hind leg, fell. Before it could rise again they all threw themselves upon it, and in a trice its legs were securely bound while two men firmly held its head. In a second Hicks had taken the branding-iron from one of the Kafirs, and held it for half a minute lightly but firmly pressed against the fleshy part of the thigh. The poor brute groaned and struggled violently as it felt the hot iron; there was a sharp, hissing sound from the singeing hair, a foetid smoke arose, diffusing a smell of burnt flesh, and the operation was complete. Whatever danger there is in the performance generally falls to the lot of him who releases the victim, which not unfrequently, as soon as it feels its logs again, fiercely charges its emancipator, all the others having previously withdrawn themselves behind some of the other cattle standing about the kraal. The first animal, however, was not of an inherently vicious nature. Consequently, no sooner was it free than it ran off among its kindred, greatly scared and bewildered. All went merrily enough till they had got a fine black and white cow under the iron. She lay still, but there was rage mingled with pain in her groaning.

“She’ll be at some of us when she gets up,” said Jeffreys, exerting all his strength to restrain the frenzied plunges of her pointed horns.

They stood aside, as, with a rapid turn of the wrist, Xuvani deftly cast loose her bonds. She sprang to her feet in a twinkling, and, lowering her head, furiously charged the old cattle-herd, who, there being no room for dodging, was constrained to run, with his late victim after him, head down, all ready to fling him a dozen feet in the air. But the consummate coolness and agility of the Kafir was to the fore. He zigzagged as he ran, to avoid a charge, then, seizing his opportunity, he sprang aside, and placing one hand between the animal’s shoulders he vaulted lightly over her back as she sped past him and got in among the rest. A cheer broke from the spectators at this splendid feat, but before it had time to die, a shout of “Look out, she’s coming this way,” sent them all scattering; and sure enough, singling out Jeffreys, she made at him like a streak of lightning. He just avoided her charge by dodging round the rear of a great trek ox, who was standing quietly wondering what the deuce all the hubbub was about. The furious charge of the maddened cow into his unoffending flanks may, or may not, have enlightened him on the point; anyhow, he resented the familiarity by lashing out with his heels, one of which coming in violent contact with the chin of his assailant had the effect of somewhat modifying that exuberant animal’s spirits, and she slunk off in aggrieved fashion, all thoughts of vengeance at an end.

“By Jove!” said Claverton. “Xuvani’s a smart fellow. That’s one of the neatest things I ever saw done.”

The old Kafir grinned a little, and they went on with the programme. After two or three more beasts had been branded, Jeffreys remarked:

“Now then, you fellows, there are lively times in store. It’s that bull’s turn. I’ve been watching him, and he looks wicked—devilish wicked.” He pointed to the young bull which had been troublesome in the morning.

“All right,” said Claverton. “That’s my speciality. I made up my mind to have the burning of that chap when I turned him back twenty-one times this morning.”

“The branding’s nothing; it’s the letting him up that’s the fishy part,” said Jeffreys, with a thinly-veiled sneer.

Noose in hand the Kafirs advanced towards the bull, who was standing in a corner of the kraal, pawing up the ground, with his head down, and rolling his eyes viciously.

“Look out,” warned Hicks, “he’s all ready for a charge!”

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than the animal sprang forward as the noose was thrown down in front of him; then, as he rushed over it, the thong was tightened, and he fell sprawling on all-fours and roaring hideously. He plunged and struggled as for dear life, but another jerk of the reim threw him, and in ten seconds he was lying bound and helpless.

“Now then, Tambusa, bring the iron. Sharp’s the word!” cried Claverton; then receiving it, he deliberately imprinted a neat B upon his prostrate foe, whose frenzied roars drowned the hissing of burnt flesh, as the moist steam rose in clouds from his tortured thigh.

“By Jove, there’s a spree sticking out!” said Hicks, emphatically. “We shall have to mind our eye when he gets up. Are you ready, Xuvani?”

“No, he isn’t. I’m going to loosen the reim,” answered Claverton, preparing to make good his words.

“Bosh, old chap! Better let him do it, he’s used to it,” remonstrated Hicks.

“Devil a bit. Now! Stand aside!” and as the others made themselves scarce, he drew off the noose, and the bull, springing to his feet, vented his feelings in an appalling roar as he glared round in search of somebody to pulverise. As luck would have it, at this moment a cow behind which Tambusa had taken refuge quietly walked away, thus disclosing that unfortunate aboriginal to the full view of the infuriated beast, which came straight at him there and then. Now Tambusa was a youthful Kafir, and naturally of a mild and unaggressive disposition, and when he saw the fierce brute making for him, he lost nerve and blindly fled. The kraal gate towered in front of him, and with the energy of despair he half leaped, half scrambled over it, and his foot catching the topmost bar he was hurled headlong, half-stunned and wholly bewildered, a dozen yards off upon the smooth green sward outside. His pursuer, without pausing, cleared the gate like a stag, and there he lay entirely at the mercy of the infuriated bull. Another minute, and he would be gored and torn in pieces. But a cool brain and determined heart was between him and certain death. Seizing his jacket from the hedge whereon it had been flung, Claverton was through the kraal gate in a twinkling, and not one second too soon, for the bull, who had been carried on some fifty yards by the impetus of his leap, had now turned, and with head lowered was thundering down upon his prostrate prey, “brilling” (Note 1) savagely. At this juncture Claverton darted in front of him, and throwing out his jacket, after the manner of the cappa of a torero, he succeeded in drawing off the headlong charge, which temporary respite Xuvani was able to make the most of by lugging his young compatriot through the gate again. Then the bull stopped, glared for a moment, and with a terrific roar came at Claverton again. This time he nimbly leapt aside, striking the animal across the eyes with the jacket. Had the bull charged at that moment it would probably have gone hard with him, for what with the violent exertion and the tension of the nerves, he was somewhat exhausted; but it did not. And what a picture was that upon the smooth sward. There stood the red savage brute, the sun glistening on his sleek hide and white horns, lashing his tail and pawing up the ground with his hoofs; the foam dropping from his mouth as with head lowered he gathered himself for one more terrific rush. Facing him ten yards off—his intrepid adversary, unarmed and exposed to his full fury. The spectators might well hold their breath. And yet as he slowly retreated step by step, and though he never took his eyes off the bull, Claverton was aware of every single movement that went on around him. He knew that the doorway leading into the garden was thronged, mistress and servant alike being attracted by the frenzied roars of the maddened beast. He saw Ethel faint dead away, and then summoning up nerve and strength for one final effort, he flung the coat right upon the gleaming horns of the ferocious brute, as with a new fury begotten of its short respite it made its deadly charge. Suddenly blinded, the bull stopped and began turning round and round in its efforts to free itself, for the jacket had caught firmly on its horns; but taking advantage of his dexterous coup de main, Claverton was over the gate again and safe, while his antagonist, having amused himself by tearing the garment to ribbons, trotted away down the kloof, growling in baffled wrath.

“Well, he can go, we’ve done with him this time, but Heaven help any nigger that has the ill luck to cross that chap’s path within the next quarter of an hour,” were Claverton’s first words. He was panting and breathless, but wanted to create a diversion from the string of congratulations which he knew was forthcoming; for, of all things, he hated a scene, and didn’t see what there was to make a fuss about because a fellow had had a little spree with a bull, to divert his attention from a young idiot of a nigger who had been ass enough to tumble head-over-heels just at the wrong moment. Whatever his faults, there wasn’t a grain of vanity in the man.

“Now then, Xuvani—Piet!” he went on sharply, as the Kafirs, with a chorus of emphatic “whouws,” were gazing after the retreating form of the cause of all the shindy. “What the devil are you fellows staring at? Come on—fall to—we’ve lost enough time already.”

They resumed operations. Now and then a beast, when it was let up, would run at the Kafirs, but in a bewildered, half-hearted sort of a way, and without doing any damage; and all the younger cattle were disposed of. There yet remained four or five large oxen who had come into their present owner’s possession late in life, and who were to be sealed. These were not thrown down, however, but their heads made fast to a post by a reim round their horns, while with another reim the leg to be operated on was drawn out at tension. They were sober, sedate creatures who had undergone plenty of the troubles of life, common to their race, in the shape of heavy loads, scarcity of water and often of grass in dry seasons, but, as if to make up for it, a plentiful allowance of whip; and took this additional affliction philosophically enough.

The result of the day’s doings was to open Jeffreys’ eyes. His estimation of the other had undergone a considerable change since the previous evening. The dressed-up, finicking carpet skipper was fully his own equal in pluck, and in cool-headedness immeasurably his superior. This he could not but recognise, though he regarded Claverton with no increase of cordiality.

Yes, life would flow pleasantly enough in this unruffled fashion, thought Claverton, as they were all strolling in the garden towards sundown. After the stirring events of the day, the quiet and rest of a perfect evening seemed more than ordinarily grateful. All was so still, and calm, and soothing, and such sound as reached them seemed so softened and mellowed by distance as to harmonise rather than to disturb. A dove cooed softly from an adjacent thorn-brake, and bees returning to the old basket hive set in a nook in the wall, made a tuneful hum upon the sensuous air. Yonder a dragon-fly zigzagged on gauzy wing above the glassy surface of the dam, seeking its prey among the gnats whose chrysalids were hatched beneath the overhanging weeds. Suddenly this idyllic scene was invaded by a brace of Kafirs. They were Xuvani and Tambusa, and they began to accost Claverton.

“What on earth do they want? Something to do with that eternal bull, I suppose. I wish the brute had found its way into some butcher’s shop long ago! Here, Hicks I come and interpret, there’s a good fellow!”

“He says Tambusa is his sister’s child, and that you saved his life,” interpreted Hicks; “that is to say you saved his—Xuvani’s life, Kafir way of putting it, you know—and not only did you save his life, or rather both their lives,” went on Hicks, manfully unravelling the native’s long-winded oration; “but you nearly lost your own.”

“That all?”

“No—don’t interrupt him. He says that they are grateful—both he and the boy. That the future is uncertain, and that we never know what turn events will take—”

“He never spoke a truer word than that, anyhow.”

“And that if ever at any time he or Tambusa can render you any service they will do so, even should it be at the risk of their lives—a life for a life—and that they are glad to have looked upon such a howling big swell,” concluded Hicks, with the result that Ethel was obliged to turn away to stifle her laughter.

“Bosh, Hicks! He didn’t say that, you know.”

“He did, upon my word. At least, to be more literal, he said he was glad to have looked upon so great a chief. But my rendering was more euphonious—more poetical, don’t you see?”

Then Tambusa knelt down and kissed his rescuer’s foot, and the two Kafirs withdrew. Claverton looked after them with a curious expression.

“That’s all too thickly laid on,” he said. “Gratitude, ‘lively sense of favours to come,’ i.e. prospective ’bacco. H’m! much too thick!”

“What a dreadful person you are!” expostulated Ethel. “Why shouldn’t they mean what they say? I declare that speech of Xuvani’s was a perfect flower of savage poetry, and you don’t know what a good fellow he is. I think it’s quite horrid of you to throw cold water on him.”

“So it would be if I had. The noble savage don’t affect that fluid much as a rule in any state of temperature.”

Did the Kafir mean what he said? We shall see.

Note 1. Frontier term for the growling noise which is neither roar nor bellow, made by enraged cattle.

Volume One—Chapter Eight.

Spoek Krantz.

It is Sunday.

Ride we behind the horseman who is picking his way down a stony path through the ever present bush, making for yon thatched building down there in the hollow. A low, rough shanty, built in the roughest and readiest fashion, and of the rawest of red brick. Three windows, cobwebbed and cloudy with many a patched-up pane of blue or brown paper, admit light and air, and a door made to open in halves. A smaller edifice hard by, with tumble-down mud walls and in a state of more or less rooflessness, does duty as a stable, and in front of the two an open space slopes down a distance of one hundred and fifty yards to the river, whose limpid waters dash and sparkle over their stony bed, between cactus-lined banks—the stubbornly encroaching and well-nigh ineradicable prickly pear. Opposite rises a great cliff, whose base and sides are set in the greenest and most luxuriant of forest trees, but whose brow, like its stern face, is bare of foliage and stands out in hard relief against the sky. There seems no reason why this cliff should be there at all, seeing that the hill would have been far more symmetrical without it, unless in its wild irregularity it were destined for the purpose alone of giving a magnificent—if a trifle forbidding—frontage to the ill-looking and commonplace dwelling-house. On all sides the towering heights rise to the sky, shutting in this beautiful and romantic spot which might be a veritable Sleepy Hollow, so far does it seem from the sights and the sounds of men. But it must be confessed that its beauty and romance are utterly thrown away upon its present occupant, who is wont to describe the place as “a beastly stifling hole out of which I’d be only too glad to clear to-morrow, by Jove; but then one can’t chuck up the lease, you know, and it isn’t half a bad place for stock, too.” It rejoices in the inviting name of Spoek Krantz (Ghost Cliff), and is held in awe and terror as an unholy and demon-peopled locality by the superstitions natives, as well as by the scarcely less superstitious Boer; and gruesome tales are told of unearthly sights and sounds among the rocky caves at its base; shadowy shapes and strange fearful cries, and now and again mysterious fires are seen burning upon its ledges in the dead of night, while the most careful exploration the next morning has utterly failed to discover the smallest trace of footprint or cinder. Native tradition has stamped the spot as one to be avoided, for the spirit of a mighty wizard claims it as his resting-place. Even by day the place, shut in by its frowning heights, is lonely and forbidding of aspect.

But utterly impervious to supernatural terrors is he who now dwells in the haunted locality. The grim traditions of a savage race are to him as mere old wives’ fables, and he laughs to scorn all notion of any awesome associations whatever. He would just like to see a ghost, that was all, any and every night you pleased; if he didn’t make it lively for the spectral visitant with a bullet, call him a nigger. Yes, he would admit seeing strange lights on the cliff at times, and hearing strange sounds; but to ascribe them to supernatural agency struck him as utter bosh. The lights were caused by a moonlight reflection, or will-o’-the-wisps, or something of that sort; and the row, why, it was only some jackal yowling in the krantz, and as for getting in a funk about it, that would do for the niggers or white-livered Dutchmen, but not for him. Tradition said that there was a secret cavern in the cliff, but the entrance was known to very few even among the natives themselves, and only to their most redoubted magicians. Certain it is that no Kafir admitted knowledge of this, and when questioned carefully evaded the subject.

And now, as the horseman we have been following emerges from the bush on to the open space surrounding the low-roofed, thatched shanty, a man is seated in his shirt-sleeves on a stone in front of the door, intently watching something upon the ground. It is a large circular glass cover, such as might be used for placing over cheese or fruit; but to a very different use is it now being put. For imprisoned within it are two scorpions of differing species—a red one and a black one—hideous monsters, measuring five inches from their great lobster-like claws to the tip of their armed tails, and there they crouch, each upon one side of its glass prison-house, both, evidently, in that dubious state aptly known among schoolboys as “one’s funky, and t’other’s afraid.”

“Hold on a bit,” called out the man in the shirt sleeves, but without turning his head, as the trampling of hoofs behind him warned of the approach of a visitor, “or, at any rate, come up quietly.”

“Why, what in the name of all that’s blue have you got there?” demanded Hicks, dismounting; for he it is whom we have accompanied to this out-of-the-way spot. “Well, I’m blest?” he continued, going off into a roar of laughter as he approached near enough to see the other’s occupation.

“Tsh! tsh! Don’t make such an infernal row, man, you’ll spoil all the fun, and make me lose my bet.”

“What’s the bet?”

“Why, I’ve got five goats against that blue schimmel heifer of old Jafta’s on these two beggars, that the black one’ll polish off the red ’un; but they are to go at it of their own accord, and now I’ve been watching them for the last half-hour, but the beggars won’t fight,” replied the other, still without moving, or even so much as looking over his shoulder.

“Stir them up a bit,” suggested Hicks.

“Can’t; it’d scratch the bet.”

“Where’s Jafta?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t wait. Went away laughing in his sleeve. He’ll laugh the other side of his mouth, the old schelm, when he has to fork out.”

“Well, you must have been hard up for some one to run a bet with. A nice little occupation, too, for a Sunday morning,” replied Hicks, with sham irony.

“Sunday be somethinged. There’s no Sunday on the frontier. Hullo!”

This exclamation was the result of a change of attitude on the part of the grisly denizens of the glass. Slack began slowly to move round the circumference of his prison, in process of which he cannoned against red, and Greek met Greek. With claws interlaced, the venomous brutes plied their sting-armed tails like a couple of striving demons, till at length their grip relaxed, and red fell over on his back with his legs doubled up and rigid.

“Hooroosh! I’ve won,” called out our new acquaintance, jumping up gleefully. “Hi! Jafta, Jafta!” he bawled, anxious to notify his triumph over his sceptical retainer.

“Hold on; not so fast,” put in Hicks, “t’other fellow’s a gone coon, too, or not far from it. Look,” he added, pointing to the glass.

And in good sooth the victor began to show signs of approaching dissolution, which increased to such an extent, that in a couple of minutes he lay as rigid and motionless as the vanquished.

“Never mind, it all counts. He did polish off the other. Jafta, we’ll put my mark on that cow to-morrow.”

“Nay, Baas,” demurred that ancient servitor, who had just come up. He was a wiry little old Hottentot, with a yellow skin, and beady monkey eyes, and as ugly as the seven deadly sins. “Nay, Baas, the bet’s an even one; neither thrashed the other. Isn’t it so, Baas Hicks?”

“Well, as you put it to me, I think the bet’s a draw,” began Hicks.

“Oh, no, that won’t do,” objected Jafta’s master, “the black did polish off the red, you know. If he went off himself afterwards, it was owing to his uneasy conscience. That wasn’t provided for in the agreement. But never mind, Jafta, you can keep your old ‘stomp-stert’ this time.” (Note 1.)

The old Hottentot grinned all over his parchment countenance, and the numerous and grimy wrinkles thereof puckered themselves like the skin of a withered apple. He, and his two sons, strapping lads of eighteen and nineteen, constituted the whole staff of farm servants. No Kafir could be induced to stay on the place, owing to its weird associations; a circumstance which, according to its occupant, was not without its compensating advantage, for the marauding savage, in his nocturnal forays, at any rate kept his hands off these flocks and herds. The old fellow, however, was fairly faithful to his employer, though not scrupulously honest in all his dealings with the rest of mankind at large; the place suited him, and as for ghosts, well, he had never seen anything to frighten him.

And now the jolly frontiersman, who has been driven to so eccentric a form of Sabbath amusement, rises, and we see a man of middle height, with a humorous and gleeful countenance; in his eyes there lurks a mirthful twinkle, and every sun-tanned lineament bespeaks “a character.” And he is a character. Always on the look-out for the whimsical side of events, he is light-hearted to childishness, and has a disastrous weakness for the perpetration of practical jokes—a vein of humour far more entertaining to its possessor than to its victims—and game to bet upon any and every contingency. He is about thirty, and his name is Jack Armitage.

“Well, Hicks, old man,” said this worthy. “Taken pity on my lonely estate, eh? That’s right; we’ll make a day of it. Had breakfast?”

“No.”

“More have I; we’ll have it now. Er—Jafta!” he shouted, “Jafta! Wheel up those chops. Sharp’s the word.”

“Ya, Baas. Just now?” called out that menial, and from the kitchen sounds of hissing and sputtering betokened the preparation of a succulent fry.

“Just now! Only listen. Why, he’ll be twenty minutes at least.”

“Not he,” said Hicks; “he’s nearly ready, I can smell that much.”

“Nearly ready! Give you a dollar to five bob he’s twenty minutes from now. Is that on?” he inquired, putting out his watch to take the time. (Rix dollar, 1 shilling 6 pence.)

“No, it isn’t. I’m not going to encourage your disgraceful and sporting proclivities,” was the reply, as they entered the house. Three partitions boasted this domicile—a bedroom, a sitting-room, and the kitchen aforesaid. Of ceiling it was wholly guiltless, the sole canopy overhead being plain, unadulterated thatch; and the mud floor, plastered over with cow-dung, after the manner of the rougher frontier houses, gave forth a musty, uninviting odour, which it required all the ingress of the free air of Heaven to atone for. A large, roomy wooden press, and a row of shelves, with a green baize curtain in front, stood against the whitewashed wall, and in the middle of the room a coarse cloth was laid upon the wooden table, with a couple of plates and knives and forks. Armitage dived into the press and produced a great brown loaf, a tin of milk, and a mighty jar of quince jam.

“Hallo! the ants are in possession again,” said he, surveying the jar, whence issued an irregular crowd of those industrious insects—too industrious sometimes. “Never mind, we can dodge them; besides, they are fattening. Ah, that’s right, Jafta,”—as that worthy entered with a dish of fizzing chops in one hand and a pot of strong black coffee in the other. “Now we can fall to.”

“By the way, I shall have to go back soon,” said Hicks. “I only came to see if any of those sheep we lost had got in amongst Van Rooyen’s, and thought I’d sponge on you for a feed whilst I was down this way.”

“Oh, that can’t be allowed; I thought you had come to help a fellow kill Sunday. Hang it, man, don’t be in a hurry; stop and have some rifle practice, and then we can take out that bees’ nest down by the river. Ah, but I forgot,” he added, with a quizzical wink. “Never mind, my boy; I don’t want to spoil fun, you’ll be better employed at home.”

Hicks was sorely puzzled. He was a good-natured fellow, and could see that the other had reckoned upon his company for the day. Yet he had his reasons for wanting to get back. “Look here, Jack,” he said, at length, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll hold on here a little and help you to get out that bees’ nest, then you can go back with me and we’ll get to Seringa Vale just nicely in time for dinner. Will that do?”

“All right,” assented the other, “that’ll do me well enough. I’ve had nothing but my own blessed company for the last fortnight, except for a Dutchman or two now and again, and a little jaw with my fellow creatures will do me a world of good. By the way, is that chap Claverton still with you?”

“Yes. How d’you like him?”

“Oh, he seems good enough sort, but about the most casual bird I ever saw. He was down here one day; did he tell you about it? No! Well, then, a couple of Dutchmen came in—Swaart Pexter and his brother Marthinus—and Swaart, who is one of your bragging devils and ‘down on’ a ‘raw Englishman’ like a ton of bricks, after yarning a little while points to Claverton, who was sitting over there blowing a cloud in his calm way, and says rather cheekily: ‘Who’s that?’ I told him. ‘Can he talk Dutch?’ was the next question. ‘Don’t know,’ says I. ‘How long has he been in this country?’ says he. ‘Tell him a year,’ says Claverton, quietly, without moving a muscle. I told him. ‘A year!’ says Pexter, turning up his nose more cheekily than before. ‘A year and can’t talk Dutch yet! He must be domm,’ (stupid). Thereupon Claverton looks the fellow bang in the eyes, and says in Dutch, ‘Can you talk English?’ ‘No!’ replies Pexter, with a stare of astonishment. ‘And how long have you been here?’ ‘Been here!’ says the other, with a contemptuous laugh at this—to him—new proof of the other fellow’s greenness. ‘Why, I was born here.’ ‘How old are you?’ goes on Claverton in a tone of friendly interest. ‘Forty-seven last May,’ says the Dutchman, wondering what the deuce is coming next. ‘Forty-seven last May!’ repeats our friend, calmly knocking the ash out of his pipe. ‘That is, you have been in this country forty-seven years, and can’t talk English yet. Well, you must be domm!’ I roared and so did Marthinus. ‘Got you there, old chap,’ says I. Swaart Pexter looked rather shirty and tried to laugh it off, but Claverton had him. Had him, sir, fairly—lock, stock, and barrel. Well, after a while we went outside and stuck up a bottle at four hundred yards to have some rifle practice. The Dutchmen are first-rate shots, and I—well, a buck or a nigger would be anything but safe in front of me at that distance—but I give you my word that none of us could touch that bottle. When we had fired a dozen shots apiece and nearly covered the beastly thing with dust, and ploughed up the ground all round it as if a thunderbolt had fallen, out saunters Claverton with a yellow-backed novel in his fist. ‘Doesn’t your friend shoot?’ asks Marthinus. ‘Suppose so,’ says I. ‘Have a shot, Claverton!’ ‘Don’t mind,’ says he, taking over my gun. I could see a malicious grin on Swaart’s ugly mug, and hugely was he preparing to chuckle over the ‘raw Englishman’s’ wide shooting. Claverton lay down, and without much aiming—bang—crash—we could hardly believe our eyes—the bottle had flown. By Jove it had. ‘Well done,’ says I, ‘but do that again, old chap’; yes, it was mean of me, I allow, but I couldn’t help it. ‘Don’t want to do for all your bottles, Armitage,’ says my joker as quietly as you please, as I sent the boy to stick up another, and I had just time to start a bet of five bob with Marthinus in his favour when—bang—and, by Jove, sir, would you believe it? that bottle shared the fate of the first. Well, we were astonished. ‘Aren’t you going to shoot any more?’ says Marthinus, handing over the five bob with a very bad grace. ‘Too hot out here,’ replies he, sloping into the shade of the house; and diving his nose into the yellow-back again, leaves us to our bottle-breaking or rather to our attempts at the same, for I’m dashed if we touched one after that. After the Pexters had gone I says, ‘Look here, old chap, we’ll have a quiet match between ourselves, five bob on every dozen shots—you shall give me odds.’ ‘My dear fellow,’ says he, ‘odds should be the other way about. I shan’t touch that bottle again three times if I blaze away at it the whole morning.’ ‘The Lord, you won’t,’ says I; ‘never mind, let’s try.’ He did, and was as good as his word, and handed over fifteen bob at the close of the entertainment, having hit the mark twice to my seven times. ‘And how the deuce did you pink it before—twice running can’t be a fluke, you know?’ I asked, when we had done. ‘Well, you see, those louts were bent on seeing me shoot wide, so I held straight just to spite them,’ was his cool answer. But didn’t he tell you all about it?”

“Not a word,” said Hicks. “He just said he had been down here, and a couple of slouching Dutchmen had looked in and tried to take a rise out of him, but didn’t manage it.”

“Well, he is a rum stick and no mistake. What’s in the wind now?” and as the trampling of hoofs fell upon the speaker’s ear, he got up hastily and made for the door, knocking over a wooden chair in his progress, and treading on the tail of a mongrel puppy which had sneaked in and was lying under the table, and which now fled, yelling disconsolately. “Here come two chaps,” he went on, shading his eyes from the sun’s glare and looking out into the veldt. “Dutchmen—no—one is—David Botha, I think; t’other’s Allen—no mistaking him. Wheu-uw! Now for some fun, Hicks, my boy. We’ll make him help us with the bees’ nest, and if you don’t kill yourself with almighty blue fits, call me a nigger.”

The two drew near. The Boer with his stolid, wooden face, slouch hat (round which was twined a faded blue veil), and bob-tailed and ancient tail-coat, was an ordinary specimen of his class and nation. The Englishman, however, was not. He was rather a queer-looking fellow, tall and loosely-built, with a great mop of yellow hair and an absent expression of countenance. His age might have been five or six-and-twenty. He had not been long in the colony, and was theoretically supposed to be farming. On horseback Allen was quaint of aspect. His seat in the saddle would not have been a good advertisement to his riding-master, putting it mildly, and he invariably rode screws. Moreover, he was great on jack-boots and huge spurs.

“Good day, David,” said Armitage, as the Boer extended a damp and uncleanly paw. “Hallo, Allen! you’re just in the nick of time. We are just going to get out a bees’ nest, and you must come and bear a hand.”

“But—er—I’m not much use at that sort of thing. Botha will help you much better.”

“Won’t do, old chap—won’t do,” said Armitage, decisively. “In the words of the poet, ‘Not to-day, baker!’ So come along.”

Allen’s jaw fell. If there was one thing on this earth he hated, it was depriving the little busy bee of the hard-earned fruits of his labours, not on humanitarian grounds—oh, no—but the despoiled insects had a knack of buzzing viciously around the noses and ears of the depredators and their accomplices in a way that was highly trying to weak nerves, to say nothing of the absolute certainty of two or three stings, if not half-a-dozen. He glanced instinctively towards David Botha as though mutely to ask: “Why the deuce won’t he do?” But that stolid Boer sat puffing away at his pipe, and showed no inclination to come to the rescue.

“Hicks, give Allen one of those big tins to put the honey in while I hunt up some brown paper to make a smoke with,” said Armitage, as they went into the house. It had been arranged that Allen should hold the receptacle for the honey, otherwise he would inevitably have sloped off.

They went down to the river bank, Armitage leading the way. A keg fixed in the fork of a small tree constituted the hive, and the busy insects were winging in and out with a murmuring hum. Armitage divested himself of his coat so that the bees shouldn’t get up the sleeves, as he said, and slouched his hat well over his face and neck; then with a chisel he removed the head of the keg, while Hicks ignited the brown paper and made the very deuce of a smoke.

“Not much in it—quite the wrong time of year to take it,” said Armitage, as the waxen combs in the hive were disclosed to view. “Never mind, they’ll make a lot more. Oh-h!” as one of the outraged insects playfully stung him on the ear. “Come a little nearer, Allen;” and he threw a couple of combs into the tin dish, while Hicks stood close at hand plying the smoke with all the energy of a Ritualistic thurifer.

“Oh-h—ah!” echoed Allen, in dismal staccato, as he received a sting on the hand, and another on the back of the neck.

“Hang it, man, don’t drop the concern!” exclaimed Armitage, pitching another comb or two into the large tin; nor was the warning altogether ill-timed, for poor Allen was undergoing a mauvais quart d’heure with a vengeance, ducking his head spasmodically as the angry insects “bizzed” savagely around his ears, and all the time looking intensely wretched under the infliction.

And in truth the fun began to wax warm. Armitage’s hat was invisible beneath the clusters of bees which swarmed over it, while others were crawling about on his clothes. Now and then he would give vent to an ejaculation, as a sting, inflicted more viciously than usual, told through even his hardened skin; but he kept on manfully at his task, cutting out the combs and depositing them in the tin, while the air was filled with buzzing angry bees and suffocating smoke.

“Think we’ve got enough now,” he said at last, drawing his face out of the cask, and quickly heading up the latter. Allen, to whom this dictum was like a reprieve to a condemned criminal, gave a sigh of relief, and began to breathe freely again. But his self-gratulation was somewhat premature, for at that moment a bee insinuated itself into his thick, frizzly-hair just above the neck, and began stinging like mad. Crash! Down went the tin containing the honey-combs, while the victim danced and capered and executed the most grotesque contortions for a moment; then, in a perfect frenzy, away he rushed to the nearest point of the river—a long, deep reach—where he plunged his head into the water, and losing his centre of gravity, ended by incontinently tumbling in, while the spectators were obliged to lie down and indulge their paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth to the very uttermost.

“Oh, oh, oh-h-h!” roared Armitage. “P-pick him out, some one; I’m n-not equal to it.” And he lay back on the sward and howled again.

And in good sooth the warning came none too soon, for at that point the current flowed swift and deep, and poor Allen, what with his exertions and the weight of his jack-boots, was in a state of dire exhaustion, and a few moments more would have put an end to his hopes and fears. Hicks and the Dutchman, who had managed to recover themselves, ran down to the water’s edge, and shouted to him to seize a branch which swept the surface, and at length the involuntary swimmer was fished out and stood dripping and shivering, and looking inexpressibly foolish, on the bank.

“Oh-h, Lord! oh, Lord!” roared Armitage, bursting out afresh as he picked up the fallen tin, and gathered up the fragments that remained. “I never saw anything to beat that, by the holy poker I never did! Come along, old man. We’ll tog you out while I get out some of these stings. The brutes must have been under the impression that I was a jolly pincushion, and have used me accordingly.”

“Dud—dud—don’t think I’ll go up to Seringa Vale to-day,” stuttered Allen, as soon as he recovered breath. He feared the chaff which he knew full well awaited him on the strength of this latest escapade.

“Nonsense, man! We’ll tog you out in no time, and then we’ll all ride over together and have a jolly day of it,” said Armitage.

Allen yielded, and was speedily arrayed in various garments which didn’t fit him. The jack-boots were inevitably left behind, to the great concern of their owner, for there was no possibility of their being dry before sundown at the earliest. Towards noon the horses were brought round and saddled, and having locked up the house the three started, while the Dutchman took his leave and rode off home to regale his vrouw and hinders, and his cousins and his aunts, with the story—highly coloured—of the “raw Englishman’s” discomfiture.

Note 1. “Stump tail.” Taillessness is frequent among colonial cattle—the result of inoculation.

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

In Which the Reader Becomes a Party to More Chaff.

They rode merrily along, or rather two of them did, for ever and anon Allen’s steed would drop behind, and its sorry pace wax slower and slower, till at length, taking advantage of its rider’s abstraction, it would stop and snatch up a tuft of grass here and there by the way-side.

“What the deuce has become of that fellow again?” exclaimed Armitage for the fifth time since their start, as he rose in his stirrups and turned to look back. “Hi—Allen. Come on, man, we shan’t get there to-night!” he bawled.

“All right,” echoed feebly from afar; and the white top of a pith helmet, which had escaped its owner’s immersion, hove in sight over the scrub like a peripatetic mushroom, as the laggard came trotting up.

“Come on! We thought you had got another bee in your bonnet,” was Armitage’s salutation. “Hi—Bles you schelm—hold up!” This to his horse, which started violently as something sprang up at its very feet; something lithe and red, with curious pointed ears, which darted away over the ground with lightning speed. “A rooi-cat (lynx), by Moses!” he went on, “after some of the late lambs. Hicks, where is that old shooting-iron of yours?” and thinking that though powerless to hurt the objectionable feline, at any rate he could frighten it, Armitage opened his mouth and gave vent to a true Kafir war yell, which certainly had the desired effect.

“Didn’t bring it. Sunday, you know; must respect people’s prejudices,” replies Hicks.

“Oh, Lord! and I would have liked to have peppered that chap’s hide,” groaned Armitage.

They rode on over hill and dale. Suddenly the rasping cry of the wild guinea-fowl brought Hicks’ heart into his mouth, and he certainly did not bless the good old-world prejudice in deference to which he had left his beloved gun at home on the first day of the week, and as a cloud of those splendid game birds rose from a grassy bottom within a few yards of them and winged away with their chattering note, poor Hicks fairly groaned.

“Look at that. Only look at that!” he exclaimed in tones of wrathful disgust. “Such a chance; did you ever see them rise like that! When a fellow has his gun and is all ready for them, blest if they won’t run hundreds of yards before they’ll get up, whereas—”

“I suppose they know it’s Sunday,” put in Allen, with a feeble attempt at chaff.

The other turned from him impatiently, without replying. Good-natured as he was habitually, there were moments when even Hicks felt justifiably cantankerous. This was one of them.

They continued their way without event, and, cresting the last ridge, descended into the long valley, at whose head stood the old farmhouse.

“Hallo! some one’s turned up,” said Armitage, indicating the white tent of a Cape cart, which stood outspanned before the stable-door, with the harness lying beside the swingle bars.

“Looks like Naylor’s trap,” said Hicks.

“Good. The more the merrier,” rejoined Armitage, as they cantered up and dismounted.

An air of perfect rest and peace seemed to enshroud the place, as though nature would supply the absence of all outward signs of the Sabbath. The gates of the empty kraals stood open, and save for a sickly sheep or two feeding about near the homestead, there was not a sign of animal life. Here and there a long rakish-looking hornet flitted beneath the leaves of a trellised vine, or sought the entrance of his pendulous paper-like nest in the verandah. In the garden a few butterflies disported, vying with the flowers in their bright colours; and big bumble-bees boomed in the burning glow of the noonday sun. There was that about the sultry stillness which warned of thunder in the air, a presage not unlikely to be borne out towards evening, judging from the great solid bank of clouds which loomed up blackly from behind the distant mountains.

Hicks was right as to the identity of the visitors, whose conveyance they had descried. Edward Naylor, Mr Brathwaite’s son-in-law, a jolly bluff frontiersman, whose weather-tanned face heavily bearded, was the soul of geniality, was seated on the disselboom of a waggon, discoursing on the state of the country with his host. His wife, a pretty, fair-haired woman of about thirty, was sitting with Ethel and Laura in the verandah, and was at that moment arbitrating, amid much laughter, in an argument which the former had started with Claverton, by way of passing the time.

“Hallo, Armitage,” said that worthy, as the new arrivals drew nigh. “I was expecting to be summoned to your funeral.”

“My funeral! What the dev—er—what d’you mean?”

“Well, you see, it’s such a time since I beheld the light of your countenance that I began to think you must be dead.”

“Wheuw! That’s what I call a cheerful greeting,” replied Armitage, shaking hands with the rest of the party.

The two who had been talking shop now appeared on the scene.

“How do, Armitage? Hallo, Allen, who’s your outrigger?” said Naylor, eyeing the unwonted garb of that luckless youth, which garb bore unmistakable appearance of makeshift from head to foot.

“Er—I stumbled into the river, and—”

“What; boots and all?” There was a joke about Allen’s jack-boots, which he was seldom seen without.

“‘What is good for a bootless bene?’” quoted Claverton. “Never mind, Allen, don’t you let them chaff you.”

Naylor was an inveterate joker. When he and Armitage got together the same room would hardly hold them, and when the two got Allen between them, then, Heaven help Allen. Now this is precisely what happened, for at that moment the dinner-bell rang, and all adjourned to the festive board, when, as luck would have it, the unfortunate youth found himself—partly owing to that curious practice which is, or was, so often found in frontier houses, of all the men hanging together on one side of the table, leaving the other to the fair sex—in the neighbourhood of his tormentors; but he was a good-natured fellow, and took chaff very equably.

“I say,” began Armitage, “here’s a riddle—a regular Sunday one.”

“Is there? Roll it up this way,” said Claverton, from the other end of the table, where he was seated between Mrs Naylor and Ethel, for he resolutely defied the dividing custom above mentioned.

“Here you are, then. Why is Allen like Moses?” asked Armitage.

“Oh, villainous!” laughed Claverton. “Don’t anybody attempt it. I really think you might trot out something a little more original, Armitage.”

Of course, every one then and there tried hard to solve the conundrum, and, of course, half of them gave it up, and, of course, the reply came even as was to be expected: “Because he was drawn out of the water.”

“Oh-h!” groaned the whole party; while the object of the aqueous jest sat and grinned placidly, and made play with his knife and fork as though he were the perpetrator of it instead of its butt.

“I say, Allen,” put in Naylor, on the other side, “has that shooting match between you and Hicks come off yet?”

“What are the conditions?” asked Armitage.

“Dollar a side—Target, the shearing-house door—Distance, five yards—Hicks to be allowed four yards on account of his want of practice. I’ll bet on Hicks;” and the speaker roared at his own sorry wit.

“Eh! what’s that about me?” called out Hicks from the other end of the table, which was longer than usual, by reason of the advent of the Naylors with their five olive-branches. He had just caught his name.

“Nothing, old man, nothing; we were only talking of those three guinea-fowl you shot this morning, coming up,” replied Armitage, grinning mischievously.

“But bother it, I had no gun,” said Hicks, thrown off his guard for the moment by this bare-faced accusation of Sabbath-breaking, and fairly losing his head as he caught a reproachful glance from Laura, which seemed to say: “Didn’t you promise me you’d leave your gun at home when you went out this morning?” For he had confidentially imparted to her his intention to take the trusty shooting-iron, as he was starting so early that there would be no one about to be scandalised; and Laura, who had her own ideas of right and wrong, had peremptorily forbidden his doing anything of the kind.

“I say!” exclaimed Armitage, with admirably-feigned amazement. He had taken in the other’s look of confusion, and, incorrigible joker as he was, resolved to turn it to his own mischief-loving account.

“But, confound it!” began Hicks, wrathfully; for that mute upbraiding glance made him really savage with his tormentor, who he thought was carrying the joke too far. Chaff was all very well, but this kind of thing went beyond chaff, and he would give him a piece of his mind by-and-by.

“Er—n-no—of course—you hadn’t a gun—I forgot—er—I—was thinking of yesterday,” rejoined Armitage, with the well-simulated air of a man who has “put his foot in it,” and is endeavouring to withdraw that unlucky member—and endeavouring deucedly badly, too.

“I say, Jack, what about the scorpion fight, eh?” and Hicks proceeded to narrate how he had found that unscrupulous joker in the thick of the useful and intellectual little amusement at which we saw him in the last chapter, thus drawing upon him the laughter and sallies of the assemblage, under cover of which he said quietly to Laura: “I didn’t really take the gun this morning, ’pon my word of honour I didn’t; it’s only that fellow’s lies. He might draw the line somewhere; chaff’s all very well, you know, but hang it, that’s beyond a joke.”

“Yes, I think it’s really too bad of him. I oughtn’t to have thought you did what you told me you wouldn’t do,” she replied, with an almost imperceptible stress on “me,” and a glance which Hicks thought fully compensated for the former doubt. Leave we them beneath the friendly shelter of the noise at the other end of the table, and turn to the rest.

“Don’t care, I won my bet,” Armitage was saying.

“What! And so you were betting on it, too—and on Sunday! I think it’s disgraceful of you,” said Ethel.

“He’s come up here to be reformed,” put in Allen.

“Oh, you needn’t talk,” said Armitage, turning off the attack on to the last speaker. “Miss Brathwaite, what do you think of a fellow who comes down to my place on a Sunday, and bothers me to take out a bees’ nest; on a Sunday, too!”

There was a great laugh at this. The notion of Allen bothering any one to take out a bees’ nest, Sunday or any other day, struck them all as ineffably rich. He would rather travel twenty miles than embark knowingly in that lively enterprise. And then the joke about the stings, and the plunge into the river came out, and poor Allen was roasted unmercifully on the strength of it, and the fun grew apace, when a vivid flash darting in upon them, and playing upon the knives and glasses with a blue steely gleam, brought the conversation up with a round turn.

“We shall have a storm,” said Mr Brathwaite, glancing at the window. The deep azure of the heavens had become dark and overcast, and even as he spoke there pealed forth a long, angry roll of thunder.

A general move from the table now took place, and every one adjourned to the verandah, which looked out on the wide sweep of country constituting the great charm of the situation of the house. But now the joyous sunlight had disappeared, and the earth slept in a dread and boding stillness. Tall pillars of cloud, black as night, moved steadily on, their jagged edges taking the forms and faces of hideous and open-mouthed monsters. All nature seemed waiting for the battle of the forces of the air, the discharge of the pent-up cloud artillery which was to strike the awed surface of earth with its blasting fire. Then, athwart the hot, listening deadness of the atmosphere comes a dazzling flash, bathing the valley in a sea of flame; and a roll of thunder, long, loud, and close at hand, makes the expectant group, which is standing on the verandah to watch the storm, involuntarily start, and the silence is more intense than before. And now a great chain of fire shoots from the blackness immediately overhead, and before you could count one, an appalling crash shakes the solid old house to its very foundations, while the windows rattle like castanets.

“Let’s go inside,” suggested Ethel; “I don’t like this.”

“It’s getting wicked,” said Armitage. “It was just such a shot as this that killed old Simmonds. That was up in Kaffraria, where the storms are about as bad as anywhere. He and I were standing in the doorway watching the fun; I went in to light my pipe, and while I was fumbling about for the matches something knocked me clean over, and I heard a bang and a crash enough to wake the dead. At first I thought I had upset the crockery shelf on top of me; but no, there it stood; then my head felt queer, and there was a smell of burning about the place. Then I remembered, and got up and went to the door. There lay poor Simmonds, half in and half out, as dead as a log. The lightning had caught him bang on the head, burnt his coat and waistcoat to rags, and mauled him about horribly. I can tell you it wasn’t a nice thing for a fellow to see, having just narrowly escaped the same luck himself—Ah!”

Again a sheet of flame darts down, and a roar and a crash as of the discharge of a dozen eighty-one-ton guns follows upon it. This time they beat a retreat indoors; and when they had a little recovered from the momentary shock, Armitage goes on.

“Well, as I was saying, poor Simmonds was so knocked about, that his early sepulture became a matter of necessity; besides, the first thing to do was to get him into the house. He was enormously heavy, and I couldn’t get a Kafir on the place to give me a hand. Not for the cattle upon a thousand hills will they so much as touch anything that has been killed by lightning with the end of their little fingers, and the nearest neighbour was twenty miles off. However, I managed to lug the poor fellow in, and the next day we buried him.”

“That’s a cheerful old yarn of yours, Jack, and well calculated to reassure Miss Brathwaite,” struck in Claverton.

“I believe he’s only trying to frighten us,” said Ethel.

“’Pon my word of honour, every word of what I told you’s true,” protested Armitage; and with that love for the horrific implanted in the human breast, one story led to another, and the storm raved and flashed without, and a few preliminary hailstones rattled at intervals upon the roof.

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

Caveant!

“Well, you’ll have a fine day for your ride. Hicks, leave a buck or two up at Jim’s in case I should be coming over. I suppose you’ll all be back the day after to-morrow. Good-bye.”

The speaker was Mr Brathwaite; the spoken to, an equestrian group of four, consisting of Claverton, Hicks, and the two girls, who were starting on a long-promised visit to Jim Brathwaite’s place, where a bushbuck hunt was to be organised on the following day. It was the morning after the narrow escape of the luckless Allen from a watery demise—he and Armitage had returned home to fetch their guns, and were to rejoin the others at the farm of a certain Dutchman who abode half-way. The Naylors had gone on ahead in their trap, and the four equestrians were the last to start. And such a morning! The rain had cleared away, and the great deep vault overhead was unflecked by a single feathery cloud. The sun shot his golden darts from his amber wheel, and the outlines of the mountains slept in soft-toned relief beneath the liquid blue. A perfect day, with exhilaration in every breath of the fresh, healthy atmosphere, now cooled by the thunderstorm and rain of the previous evening. And the glorious freshness and radiant sunlight communicated itself to the spirits of the riders, as they cantered gaily along, chatting and laughing in thorough enjoyment of the unclouded present.