The Settler and the Savage, Robert Michael Ballantyne [icecream ebook reader .TXT] 📗

"excuse me, my dear, for so flat a contradiction, but I have seen Gertie frequently overcome by things,--by Junkie's obstinacy for instance, which I verily believe to be an insurmountable difficulty, and I've seen her thoroughly overcome, night after night, by sleep.--Isn't that true, lass?"

"I suppose it is, father, since you say so, but of course I cannot tell."

"Sleep!" continued Brook, with a laugh, "why, would you believe it, Mr Skyd, I went into what we call the nursery-tent one morning last week, to try to stop the howling of my little boy, and I found him lying with his open mouth close to Gertie's cheek, pouring the flood of his wrath straight into her ear, and she sound asleep all the time! My nurse, Mrs Scholtz, told me she had been as sound as that all night, despite several heavy squalls, and notwithstanding a chorus of hyenas and jackals outside that might almost have awakened the dead.--By the way, that reminds me: just as I was talking with nurse that morning we heard a most unearthly shriek at some distance off. It was not the least like the cry of any wild animal I have yet heard, and for the first time since our arrival the idea of Kafirs flashed into my mind. Did any of you gentlemen happen to hear it?"

The brothers looked at each other, and at their friend Dobson, and then unitedly turned their eyes on George Dally, who--performing the combined duties of cook and waiter, at a fire on the ground, not fifteen feet to leeward of the dinner-party--could hear every word of the conversation.

"Why, yes," said John Skyd, "we did hear it, and so did your man Dally. We had thought--"

"The truth is, sir," said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,--I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' so said nothing about it."

"You looked as if you had seen one," observed Frank Dobson, drawing down the corners of his mouth with his peculiar smile.

"Did I, sir!" said George, with a simple look; "very likely I did, for I'm timersome by nature an' easily frightened."

"You did not act with your wonted wisdom, George, in concealing this," said Edwin Brook gravely.

"I'm afraid I didn't sir," returned George meekly.

"In future, be sure to let me know every symptom of danger you may discover, no matter how trifling," said Brook.

"Yes, sir."

"It was a very tremendous yell, wasn't it, Dally?" asked John Skyd slily, as the waiter-cook was turning to resume his duties at the fire.

"Wery, sir."

"And alarmed us all dreadfully, didn't it?"

"Oh! dreadfully, sir--'specially me; though I must in dooty say that you four gentleman was as bold as brass. It quite relieved me when I saw your tall figurs standin' at the mouth o' your cavern, an' the muzzles o' your four double-guns--that's eight shots--with your glaring eyes an' pale cheeks behind them!"

"Ha!" exclaimed John Skyd, with a grim smile--"but after all it might only have been the shriek of a baboon."

"I think not, sir," replied George, with a smile of intelligence.

"Perhaps then it was the cry of a zebra or quagga," returned John Skyd, "or a South African ass of some sort."

"Wery likely, sir," retorted George. "I shouldn't wonder if it was-- which is wery consolin' to my feelin's, for I'd sooner be terrified out o' my wits by asses of any kind than fall in with these long-legged savages that dwell in caves."

With an appearance of great humility George returned to his work at the fire.

It was either owing to a sort of righteous retribution, or a touch of that fortune which favours the brave, that George Dally was in reality the first, of this particular party of settlers, to encounter the black and naked inhabitant of South Africa in his native jungle. It was on this wise.

George was fond of sport, when not detained at home by the claims of duty. But these claims were so constant that he found it impossible to indulge his taste, save, as he was wont to say, "in the early morn and late at eve."

One morning about daybreak, shouldering his gun and buckling on his hunting-knife, he marched into the jungle in quest of an antelope. Experience had taught him that the best plan was to seat himself at a certain opening or pass which lay on the route to a pool of water, and there bide his time.

Seating himself on a moss-covered stone, he put his gun in position on his knee, with the forefinger on the trigger, and remained for some time so motionless that a North American Indian might have envied his powers of self-restraint. Suddenly a twig was heard to snap in the thicket before him. Next moment the striped black and yellow skin of a leopard, or Cape tiger, appeared in the opening where he had expected to behold a deer. Dally's gun flew to his shoulder. At the same instant the leopard skin was thrown back, and the right arm of a tall athletic Kafir was bared. The hand grasped a light assagai, or darting spear. Both men were taken by surprise, and for one instant they glared at each other. The instance between them was so short that death to each seemed imminent, for the white man's weapon was a deadly one, and the cast of the lithe savage would doubtless have been swift and sure.

In that instant of uncertainty the white man's innate spirit of forbearance acted almost involuntarily. Dally had hitherto been a man of peace. The thought of shedding human blood was intensely repulsive to him. He lowered the butt of his gun, and held up his right hand in token of amity.

The savage possessed apparently some of the good qualities of the white man, for he also at once let the butt of his assegai drop to the ground, although he knew, what Dally was not aware of, that considering the nature of their weapons, he placed himself at a tremendous disadvantage in doing so--the act of throwing forward and discharging the deadly fire-arm being much quicker than that of poising and hurling an assagai.

Without a moment's hesitation George Dally advanced and held out his right hand with a bland smile.

Although unfamiliar with Kafir customs, he had heard enough from the Dutch farmers who drove the ox-teams to know that only chiefs were entitled to wear the leopard skin as a robe. The tall form and dignified bearing of the savage also convinced him that he had encountered no ordinary savage. He also knew that the exhibition of a trustful spirit goes a long way to create good-will. That his judgment was correct appeared from the fact of the Kafir holding out his hand and allowing George to grasp and shake it.

But what to do next was a question that puzzled the white man sorely, although he maintained on his good-natured countenance an expression of easy nonchalance.

Of course he made a vain attempt at conversation in English, to which the Kafir chief replied, with dignified condescension, by a brief sentence in his own tongue.

As George Dally looked in his black face, thoughts flashed through his brain with the speed of light. Should he kill him outright? That would be simple murder, in the circumstances, and George objected to murder, on principle. Should he suddenly seize and throw him down? He felt quite strong enough to do so, but after such a display of friendship it would be mean. Should he quietly bid him good morning and walk away? This, he felt, would be ridiculous. At that moment tobacco occurred to his mind. He quietly rested his gun against a tree, and drew forth a small roll of tobacco, from which he cut at least a foot and handed it to the chief. The dignity of the savage at once gave way before the beloved weed. He smiled--that is, he grinned in a ghastly way, for his face, besides being black, was streaked with lines of red ochre--and graciously accepted the gift. Then George made an elaborate speech in dumb-show with hands, fingers, arms, and eyes, to the effect that he desired the Kafir to accompany him to his location, but the chief gravely shook his head, pointed in another direction and to the sun, as though to say that time was on the wing; then, throwing his leopard-skin robe over his right shoulder with the air of a Spanish grandee, he turned aside and strode into the jungle.

George, glad to be thus easily rid of him, also turned and hurried home.

This time he was not slow to let his employer know that he had met with a native.

"It behoves us to keep a sharp look-out, George," said Brook. "I heard yesterday from young Merton that some of the settlers not far from his place have had a visit from the black fellows, who came in the night, and while they slept carried off some of the sheep they had recently purchased from an up-country county Dutchman. We will watch for a few nights while rumours of this kind are afloat. When all seems quiet we can take it easy. Let Scholtz take the first watch. You will succeed him, and I will mount guard from the small hours onward."

For some days this precaution was continued, but as nothing more was heard of black marauders the Brook family gradually ceased to feel anxious, and the nightly watch was given up.


CHAPTER EIGHT.


SHOWS THE PLEASURES, PAINS, AND PENALTIES OF HOUSEKEEPING IN THE BUSH.

"Don't you think this a charming life?" asked Mrs Brook of Mrs Merton, who had been her guest for a week.

Mrs Merton was about thirty years of age, and opinionated, if not strong-minded, also rather pretty. She had married young, and her eldest son, a lad of twelve, had brought her from her husband's farm, some three miles distant from that of Edwin Brook.

"No, Mrs Brook, I don't like it at all," was Mrs Merton's emphatic reply.

"Indeed!" said Mrs Brook, in some surprise.

She said nothing more after this for some time, but continued to ply her needle busily, while Mrs Scholtz, who by some piece of unusual good fortune had got Junkie to sleep, plied her scissors in cutting out and shaping raw material.

The two dames, with the nurse and Gertie, had agreed to unite their powers that day in a resolute effort to overtake the household repairs. They were in a cottage now, of the style familiarly known as "wattle and dab," which was rather picturesque than permanent, and suggestive of simplicity. They sat on rude chairs, made by Scholtz, round a rough table by the same artist. Mrs Brook was busy with the rends in a blue pilot-cloth jacket, a dilapidated remnant of the "old England" wardrobe. The nurse was forming a sheep skin into a pair of those unmentionables which were known among the Cape-colonists of that period by the name of "crackers." Mrs Merton was busy with a pair of the same, the knees of which had passed into a