Jess, H. Rider Haggard [books you need to read .TXT] 📗

stop in the place He has made for us. But it is a fine country, and" (dropping his voice) "I think it is a finer country than it used to be."

"You mean that the veldt has got 'tame', Meinheer?"

"Nay, nay. I mean that the land is English now," he answered mysteriously, "and though I dare not say so among my volk, I hope that it will keep English. When I was Republican, I was Republican, and it was good in some ways, the Republic. There was so little to pay in taxes, and we knew how to manage the black folk; but now I am English, I am English. I know the English Government means good money and safety, and if there isn't a Raad (assembly) now, well, what does it matter? Almighty, how they used to talk there!--clack, clack, clack! just like an old black koran (species of bustard) at sunset. And where did they run the waggon of the Republic to--Burghers and those damned Hollanders of his, and the rest of them? Why, into the sluit--into a sluit with peaty banks; and there it would have stopped till now, or till the flood came down and swept it away, if old Shepstone--ah! what a tongue that man has, and how fond he is of the kinderchies! (little children)--had not come and pulled it out again. But look here, Captain, the volk round here don't think like that. It's the 'verdomde Britische Gouvernment' here and the 'verdomde Britische Gouvernment' there, and bymakaars (meetings) here and bymakaars there. Silly folk, they all run one after the other like sheep. But there it is, Captain, and I tell you there will be fighting before long, and then our people will shoot those poor rooibaatjes of yours like buck, and take the land back. Poor things! I could weep when I think of it."

John smiled at this melancholy prognostication, and was about to explain what a poor show all the Boers in the Transvaal would make in front of a few British regiments, when he was astonished by a sudden change in his friend's manner. Dropping his enormous paw on to his shoulder, Coetzee broke into a burst of somewhat forced merriment, the cause of which, though John did not guess it at the moment, was that he had just perceived Frank Muller, who was in Wakkerstroom with a waggon-load of corn to grind at the mill, standing within five yards, and apparently intensely interested in flipping at the flies with a cowrie made of the tail of a vilderbeeste, but in reality listening to Coetzee's talk with all his ears.

"Ha, ha! nef (nephew)," said old Coetzee to the astonished John, "no wonder you like Mooifontein--there are other mooi (pretty) things there beside the water. How often do you opsit (sit up at night) with Uncle Croft's pretty girl, eh? I'm not quite as blind as an ant-bear yet. I saw her blush when you spoke to her just now. I saw her. Well, well, it is a pretty game for a young man, isn't it, nef Frank?" (this was addressed to Muller). "I'll be bound the Captain here 'burns a long candle' with pretty Bessie every night, eh, Frank? I hope you ain't jealous, nef? My vrouw told me some time ago that you were sweet in that direction yourself;" and he stopped at last, out of breath, looking anxiously towards Muller for an answer, while John, who had been somewhat overwhelmed at this flood of bucolic chaff, gave a sigh of relief. As for Muller, he behaved in a curious manner. Instead of laughing, as the jolly old Boer had intended that he should, although Coetzee could not see it, his face had been growing blacker and blacker; and now that the flow of language ceased, with a savage ejaculation which John could not catch, but which he appeared to throw at his (John's) head, he turned on his heel and went off towards the courtyard of the inn.

"Almighty!" said old Hans, wiping his face with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief; "I have put my foot into a big hole. That stink-cat Muller heard all that I was saying to you, and I tell you he will save it up and save it up, and one day he will bring it all out to the volk, and call me a traitor to the 'land' and ruin me. I know him. He knows how to balance a long stick on his little finger so that the ends keep even. Oh, yes, he can ride two horses at once, and blow hot and blow cold. He is a devil of a man, a devil of a man! And what did he mean by swearing at you like that? Is it about the missie (girl), I wonder? Almighty! who can say? Ah! that reminds me--though I'm sure I don't know why it should--the Kafirs tell me that there is a big herd of buck--vilderbeeste and blesbok--on my outlying place about an hour and a half (ten miles) from Mooifontein. Can you hold a rifle, Captain? You look like a bit of a hunter."

"Oh, yes, Meinheer!" said John, delighted at the prospect of some shooting.

"Ah, I thought so. All you English are sportsmen, though you don't know how to kill buck. Well now, you take Oom Croft's light Scotch cart and two good horses, and come over to my place--not to-morrow, for my wife's cousin is coming to see us, and an old cat she is, but rich; she has a thousand pounds in gold in the waggon-box under her bed--nor the next day, for it is the Lord's day, and one can't shoot creatures on the Lord's day--but Monday, yes, Monday. You will be there by eight o'clock, and you shall see how to kill vilderbeeste. Almighty! now what can that jackal Frank Muller have meant? Ah! he is the devil of a man," and, shaking his head ponderously, the jolly old Boer departed, and presently John saw him riding away upon a fat little shooting-pony which cannot have weighed much more than himself, but that cantered off with him on his fifteen-mile journey as though he were a feather-weight.

CHAPTER IX(JANTJE'S STORY)

 

Shortly after the old Boer had gone, John went into the yard of the hotel to see to the inspanning of the Cape cart, where his attention was at once arrested by the sight of a row in active progress--at least, from the crowd of Kafirs and idlers and the angry sounds and curses which proceeded from them, he judged that it was a row. Nor was he wrong in his conclusion. In the corner of the yard, close by the stable-door, surrounded by the aforesaid crowd, stood Frank Muller; a heavy sjambock in his raised hand, as though in the act to strike. Before him, a very picture of drunken fury, his lips drawn up like a snarling dog's, so that the two lines of white teeth gleamed like polished ivory in the sunlight, his small eyes all shot with blood and his face working convulsively, was the Hottentot Jantje. Nor was this all. Across his face was a blue wheal where the whip had fallen, and in his hand a heavy white-handled knife which he always carried.

"Hullo! what is all this?" said John, shouldering his way through the crowd.

"The swartsel (black creature) has stolen my horse's forage, and given it to yours!" shouted Muller, who was evidently almost off his head with rage, making an attempt to hit Jantje with the whip as he spoke. The latter avoided the blow by jumping behind John, with the result that the tip of the sjambock caught the Englishman on the leg.

"Be careful, sir, with that whip," said John to Muller, restraining his temper with difficulty. "Now, how do you know that the man stole your horse's forage; and what business have you to touch him? If there was anything wrong, you should have reported it to me."

"He lies, Baas, he lies!" yelled out the Hottentot in tremulous, high-pitched tones. "He lies; he has always been a liar, and worse than a liar. Yah! yah! I can tell things about him. The land is English now, and Boers can't kill the black people as they like. That man--that Boer, Muller, he shot my father and my mother--my father first, then my mother; he gave her two bullets--she did not die the first time."

"You yellow devil!--You black-skinned, black-hearted, lying son of Satan!" roared the great Boer, his very beard curling with fury. "Is that the way you talk to your masters? Out of the light, rooibaatje"--this was to John--"and I will cut his tongue out of him. I'll show him how we deal with a yellow liar;" and without further ado he made a rush for the Hottentot.

As he came, John, whose blood was now thoroughly up, put out his open hand, and, bending forward, pushed with all his strength on Muller's advancing chest. John was a very powerfully made man, though not a large one, and the push sent Muller staggering back.

"What do you mean by that, rooibaatje?" shouted Muller, his face livid with fury. "Get out of my road or I will mark that pretty face of yours. I owe you for some goods as it is, Englishman, and I always pay my debts. Out of the path, curse you!" and he again rushed for the Hottentot.

This time John, who was now almost as angry as his assailant, did not wait for the man to reach him, but, springing forward, hooked his arm around Muller's throat and, before he could close with him, with one tremendous jerk managed not only to stop his wild career, but to reverse the motion, and then, by interposing his foot with considerable neatness, to land him--powerful as he was--on his back in a pool of drainage that had collected from the stable in a hollow of the inn-yard. Down he went with a splash, amid a shout of delight from the crowd, who always like to see an aggressor laid low, his head bumping with considerable force against the lintel of the door. For a moment he lay still, and John was afraid that the man was really hurt. Presently, however, he rose, and, without attempting any further hostile demonstration or saying a single word, tramped off towards the house, leaving his enemy to compose his ruffled nerves as best he could. Now John, like most gentlemen, hated a row with all his heart, though he had the Anglo-Saxon tendency to go through with it unflinchingly when once it began. Indeed, the incident irritated him almost beyond bearing, for he knew that the story with additions would go the round of the countryside, and what is more, that he had made a powerful and implacable enemy.

"This is all your fault, you drunken little blackguard!" he said, turning savagely on the Tottie, who, now that his excitement had left him, was snivelling and drivelling in an intoxicated fashion, and calling him his preserver and his Baas in maudlin accents.

"He hit me, Baas; he hit me, and I did not take the forage. He is a bad man, Baas Muller."

"Be off with you and