From Veldt Camp Fires

All that day he watched and waited impatiently, sitting much with Tom Mainwaring, and keeping him as quiet as possible. At last, towards sunset, the little Bushman, who had been perched upon the hut roof as a lookout, cried excitedly that he could see a cloud of dust from the direction of Masura’s-town. In less than an hour quite a considerable cavalcade came in. Ella Harling, looking very handsome, and, considering her journey, wonderfully spick and span, drove in with her uncle and pretty cousin in a Cape cart. The doctor and two fresh troopers rode alongside, and a light spring waggon, drawn by half a dozen mules, laden with many luxuries and comforts, followed no great way behind.

Parton led Miss Harling silently to Mainwaring’s hut, and, with a wistful look on his face, turned round and quitted her side as she entered the open doorway. The meeting between Ella and Tom Mainwaring was a very tender and yet a very serious one – few more touching have ever taken place in the African wilderness. Presently the doctor came in; Tom was put under his care, and the little party proceeded to make themselves comfortable for Christmas. A tent was pitched for the ladies, another for the colonel and the doctor, the stores were got out, and the place made as cheery and as habitable as possible. The troopers had shot a buck and some partridges and guinea-fowl, and an ox had been slaughtered, so that there was no lack of fresh meat.

Few stranger and yet happier Christmas days have been spent in the veldt. Even Tom Mainwaring, weak though he still was, with Ella beside him and the prospect of long years of life before them both, was as happy as a man with a big spear-wound in his back possibly could be. As for the rest of the company, they had a great and glorious time. There was rifle-shooting at targets in the morning, a big dinner under a shady giraffe-acacia tree at two o’clock, and yarns and much smoking all the afternoon and evening. Colonel Mellersh had thoughtfully loaded a case of champagne, some tinned plum puddings, several boxes of cigars, and some whisky on the spring waggon, and nothing was wanting to complete the proper festivity of the season. Even Parton, having thrown aside his cares, resigned himself, almost with cheerfulness, to the inevitable, and did his best to contribute to the general happiness.

Tom Mainwaring and Ella Harling were married at Cape Town within the next three months – so soon, in fact, as Mainwaring could get his discharge from the Border Police. He and his wife often recall that strange Christmas in the veldt, which, indeed, is not likely to be forgotten by any member of the gathering.

Chapter Seven.

Their Last Trek

The sun was setting as usual in a glow of marvellous splendour as Alida Van Zyl came out from her hartebeest house – a rough wattle and daub structure, thatched with reeds – and, shading her eyes, looked across the country. The little house stood on the lower slope of the Queebe Hills, no great way from Lake Ngami. It was a wonderful sunset. In the north-west a thousand flakes of cloud flushed with crimson lake, just as they had flushed above the vast plains of that wild Ngami country a million times before. Near the sky-line, in a blaze of red and gold, the sun sank rapidly, a mass of fire so dazzling that Alida’s eyes could not bear to dwell upon it. Far upwards the cool and wondrous calm of the clear and translucent pale green sky contrasted strangely with the battle of colour beneath.

Alida shaded her eyes again, looked keenly down the rude waggon-track that led up to the dwelling, and listened. As she had expected – for she had news of her husband’s coming from the Lake – she presently heard the faint cries of a native; that would be Hans Hottentot, the waggon driver, and then through the still air the full, thick, pistol-like crack of the waggon-whip. At these sounds her somewhat impassive face lightened and she turned into the hut again.

In twenty minutes’ time the waggon had drawn up in front of the dwelling, and Karel Van Zyl, a big, strong Dutchman of seven and twenty, had dismounted from his good grey nag and embraced his wife, who now stood with a face beaming with joy, clasping her two year old child in her arms ready to receive him.

“Zo, Alie,” said Karel, holding his young wife by the shoulders and looking first tenderly at her broad kindly face and then at the yellow-haired child lying in her arms, “here we are at last. It has been a long hunt, but a pretty good one. I left a waggon-load of ivory, rhenoster horns, and hides at Jan Stromboom’s at the Lake and got a good price for them I traded fifty good oxen as well and sold them at 3 pounds 10 shillings a head to Stromboom also, after no end of a haggle. It was worth a day’s bargaining though; the beasts cost me no more than thirty shillings apiece all told.”

Then laying the back of his huge sunburnt hand against the cheek of the sleeping babe, which he had just kissed, he added, “And how is little Jan? Surely the child has grown a foot since I left him?”

Alida smiled contentedly, patted her man’s arm and answered, “Yes, the child has done well since the cool weather came, and he grows every day. He gets as slim (cunning) as a monkey and crawls so that I have to keep a boy to watch him, the little rascal. But kom binnen and have supper. You must be starving.”

Van Zyl gave some orders to his Hottentot man, as to his horse, the trek oxen and some loose cows and calves, and went indoors.

Half an hour later husband and wife came forth again, and, sitting beneath the pleasant starlight, talked of the future. Their coffee stood on a little table in front of them, and Van Zyl, stretching out his long legs and displaying two or three inches of bare ankle above his velschoons – the up-country Boer is seldom guilty of socks – puffed with huge contentment at a big-bowled pipe.

“Karel,” said his wife, after hearing of his last expedition, “I am getting tired of this flat Ngami country, with never a soul to speak to while you are away. When shall we give it up and go back to the Transvaal? I long to see the blue hills again and to hear the voices of friends. Surely you have done well enough these last few years. You can buy and stock a good farm – 6,000 morgen at least. (A morgen is rather more than two acres.) And you told me when we married – now three years agone, Karel,” – she laid her hand upon his as she spoke, “that you did not mean to spend all your life, like your father, in the hunting veldt.”

“No, Alie, I don’t,” rejoined Van Zyl, taking his wife’s hand into his two and pressing it tenderly. “You shall go back to the Transvaal, my lass, and we will buy a farm in Rustenburg and live comfortably and go to Nachtmaal (Communion) once a quarter. And if I do want a hunt now and again, why I’ll cross the Crocodile River and try the Nuanetsi and Sabi River veldt, where Roelof Van Staden and his friends travel to. But we must have one more trek together, Alie, and this time you and the child shall go with me. Coming to the Lake, on my way home from this last hunt, I met messengers from Ndala, captain of a tribe far up the Okavango, who asks me to take my waggon up to his kraal and hunt elephants in his country. He promises me the half of all ivory shot, and will find spoorers and show me his best veldt and give me every help. Twice before has Ndala sent to me thus, and once to my father in years gone by. I believe it is a splendid hunting veldt. Elephants as thick as pallah in river bush, thousands of buffalo, plenty of rhenoster and lots of other game. We ought, with luck, to pick up four hundred pounds worth of ivory. And so, wife, we’ll pack the waggon, get more powder and cartridges at the Lake and trek up to Ndala’s.”

“And this shall be your last trek in this country, Karel?” asked his wife.

“Myn maghtet, the very last,” said Van Zyl. “How soon can we start?”

“I shall be ready in three days,” returned Alie.

“In three days be it,” said Van Zyl in his deep voice. And then, with a mighty yawn, he stretched himself, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and, putting his arm round his wife’s waist, went indoors for the night.

Two months later the Van Zyls were nearing Ndala’s kraal on the Okavango, sometimes called the Cubangwe River – that great and little known stream flowing from the north-west towards Lake Ngami. They had had a hard trek of it past the Lake; across a score or two of streams and small rivers, skirting many a swamp and lagoon, and now at last, one hot afternoon, as they looked up the broad, shining river, they set eyes on a green island lying in midstream, dotted about with huts, and knew that they were in sight of Ndala’s kraal. Hans, the Hottentot, had once been up to this place and knew Ndala, and Hans pointed out the captain’s hut and showed them where their waggon should stand by the river bank, and so they outspanned and prepared to make themselves comfortable. Across the river, beyond the island, the country undulated gently in well-wooded, bush-clad, sandy ridges, with here and there a palm or a baobab to catch the eye. Reddish boulders of sandstone projected from the river’s brim, between the southern shore and the island, forming a little cataract over which the swift waters poured with a pleasant and not too angry or unseemly swirl. And as they unyoked the tired oxen and Alida Van Zyl, tired with sitting, descended from the waggon to look about her, all seemed fair and pleasant and peaceful to the travel-stained trekkers. For they had had a hard passage up the river, and the cattle were in need of rest and good feeding, if they were to drag the great waggon back to the Lake and thence – Alida’s soul rejoiced as she thought of it – to the dearly-loved Transvaal once more.

And now long, narrow, dug-out canoes shot out from the island and came paddling across the stream with envoys from the chief, to know whose was the waggon and what was the business of the newcomers, and to bring a message of greeting and peace from Ndala, the lord and ruler of all this wild and little known country.

Whilst his wife unpacked some of her waggon gear, and Zwaartbooi, the foreloper, got out the pots and kettle and lit a fire to prepare the evening meal, Van Zyl, taking with him Hans as interpreter, ferried across in one of the native canoes to interview Ndala.

The chief, a tall youngish Cubangwe, with a rather shifty eye, received them in his kotla, an open inclosure adjoining his hut, surrounded by a tall reed fence. He expressed himself pleased to see Van Zyl and hoped that he might have much fortune with the elephants in his country. Then Van Zyl, having thanked the chief for his courtesy, ordered his Hottentot, Hans, to lay before Ndala the presents which had been brought for him. These were a fine blanket of gaudy colours, a quantity of beads, a cheap smooth-bore musket, and some powder, bullets and caps. As these articles were temptingly laid before Ndala, the chief’s eyes gleamed approvingly and, in spite of his efforts, a broad grin overspread his features. Then more conversation followed between Ndala and Hans – conversation which Van Zyl was unable to follow – and presently, after half an hour’s interview, the reception was at an end. Van Zyl was paddled back to his waggon, and during supper related to his wife the friendly reception he had met with from the Cubangwe captain.

Next morning at about eight o’clock Ndala in person came over to the Boer’s camp. Never before had he seen a white man’s waggon, and he was naturally burning with curiosity to set eyes upon the treasures gathered within the recesses of that mysterious house on wheels. He brought with him as presents a goat, some Kaffir corn, and a tusk of ivory weighing about 30 lbs. Nothing would content him but that he should mount the fore-kist (box) of the waggon and pry into that strangely fascinating interior. He saw many things that stirred his cupidity. Two fine rifles, cartridges, bags of sugar and coffee, cases of trading gear – store-clothing, cheap knives, blankets, beads, looking-glasses, powder, lead, and other rich and rare things which were being got out for purposes of trading and with a view to re-settling the contents of the waggon after the confusion of a long trek. And, with the greedy delight of a miser with his gold, he plunged his arms up to the elbows in a case of blue and white bird’s eye beads, which lay too temptingly exposed to his gaze, and asked that the whole of this fabulous treasure should be despatched to his kraal. To this Van Zyl demurred. He would give the chief a portion of the beads, a complete suit of cord clothes, a shirt and a pair of velschoons. After a long and heated argument, conducted through the interpretation of Hans, Ndala somewhat sulkily gave way and expressed himself content to take what the Boer offered him. As for Van Zyl, his eyes flashed angrily, as, turning to his wife, sitting in the shade near the back of the waggon, he said, “They are all alike these kaal (naked) Kaffir captains. Thieves and schelms, only desiring to rob of his all the white man who ventures into their country. I thought, from what Hans had said, that this Ndala was a better fellow; but, Allemaghte! he’s no better than the rest of the dirty cattle. However, there’s ivory to be got here, without doubt, and we must have patience.”

“For my part,” Alida replied, “I like the appearance of this man not at all. Watch him, Karel. I believe he will try to do you an ill turn before you have finished with him.”

Meanwhile Ndala had been holding conversation with Hans, as he peered about the camp and inspected the cattle, and especially that, to him, wonderful curiosity the Dutchman’s hunting horse. Van Zyl had started from the Queebe Hills with three nags. Of these one had died of horse-sickness, while another had been killed by lions, so that only his grey, a tried old favourite, “salted” against the sickness and a splendid beast in the hunting veldt, remained to him. Ndala gazed long and curiously at the shapely grey, as Hans indicated its good points and expatiated on its manifold virtues.

Once more the chief wandered back to the waggon, where Van Zyl was measuring out some of the blue and white beads into a skin bag. His greed was too much for him, and again through Hans he demanded that the Dutchman should hand him over the whole case full, pointing out that, considering his importance as monarch over all these regions, so trifling a present ought not to be denied to him.

But Van Zyl was, like many of the Dutch Afrikanders, a man of quick temper, little accustomed to be dictated to by natives who in his own country were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water to the white man. The blood sprang to his face, his eyes flashed angrily, and, flinging down the leather bag of beads, which he had just tied up, he turned angrily upon the chief.

“Tell him,” he said, with an impatient gesture to Hans, “that he may take it or leave it. I have offered gifts enough until I see elephants and gather ivory. If Ndala is not content, tell him I’ll inspan the waggon again and trek out of his country and go into some other veldt, where elephants are at least as plentiful and chiefs more accommodating.”

Ndala had taken one quick glance at the angry Boer, as he burst forth, and now stood, till he had finished speaking, motionless, impassive, with eyes downcast. He uttered not another word to Van Zyl, but with a swift motion of his hand from Hans to the bag of beads, said to the Hottentot:

“Carry it to the boat. I will go across again.”

Accompanied by three of his headmen who had come across with him, Ndala stalked down to the shore, talking meanwhile quietly to Hans. Arrived at his boat, he saw his presents carefully bestowed, and then taking his seat was poled over to his kraal.

Late that night, while the Van Zyls slept peacefully in their waggon, Hans, the Hottentot, crept stealthily down to the river, without waking a single member of the camp, and was ferried across to Ndala’s by a couple of strong-armed natives waiting for him with their canoe. Arrived at the island, he was conducted to the chief’s hut, and there alone with Ndala he sat in deep and secret colloquy for a full hour or more. Presently he was ferried back very quietly to the south shore again, where, creeping into his own camp, he regained the shelter of his blanket without having awakened a soul.

Next morning a canoe came across early from Ndala, laden with a number of sweet water melons, some more grain and another goat as a present to the Van Zyls. At the same time the chief sent a message to Van Zyl to say that, if he were ready for a hunt on the following day, some of his tribesmen would be ready to act as spoorers and show him a troop of elephants which was known to be frequenting some bush about half a day’s journey from the kraal. This was excellent news, and Van Zyl brightened up instantly.

“Myn maghtet, Alie!” he said to his wife, after taking a huge pull at his kommetje of coffee, “the carle is not so bad as I thought him. Tell his headman, Hans,” he said to his Hottentot, “that I’ll swim the horse across as soon as day breaks to-morrow and go after the elephants.”

For the remainder of that day the whole camp was busily employed; Van Zyl and his two men in completing a big and strong thorn kraal for the cattle, against the attack of lions; Alida Van Zyl in finishing off some bültong (dried meat), cooking bread, tidying up the stores and putting together various articles required by her husband while away hunting. Towards afternoon Van Zyl, having finished his work at the ox-kraal, opened a keg of powder, heated some lead and zinc, and sat himself down to the work of reloading some cartridges for his elephant rifle.

Near him, in the shade of the spreading acacia tree by which the waggon was outspanned, crawled on a couple of blankets little Jan, his two year old child. Now and then the big Boer would pause from his work to admire the strong, chubby limbs of his little son, or would stretch forth a big hand to tickle the restless little rascal, eliciting from him crows, gurgles and screams of childish laughter. Once Alida came from her cooking to look at the pair.

“Maghte!” said her husband, as he looked up at her from playing with the boy. “How the child grows. If he goes on like this, he will be strong enough to carry a rifle by the time he is ten years old.”

They retired early that night – before eight o’clock – and at the earliest streak of dawn Karel Van Zyl had drunk his coffee, eaten some meat and a rusk and said farewell to his wife and child. He kissed Alida’s broad, smooth cheek and, yet more tenderly, his sleeping child, lying there up in the waggon, on the kartel-bed, in the big hole which his sire had lately quitted. And then, taking with him Hans and his horse, he went down to the stream. The good grey had swum rivers before and understood the business; yet he paused for a moment on the brink, looking forth over the broad, swift stream, and snuffed the air once or twice.

“Crocodiles, oude kerel (old fellow)?” said his master, patting him on the neck. “They shall not harm you.”

The grey tossed his head, shook his bit, and Hans, looking at him, said to his master:

“He is all right, Baas. He trusts you. Witfoot will swim.”

So, unfastening the long raw-hide reim from the head stall, they lead Witfoot down, got into a couple of canoes and pushed off. Witfoot swam quietly and cleverly between the two canoes, and presently, passing below Ndala’s island, they reached the northern bank. Here Ndala was waiting for them with a number of his tribesmen. They exchanged greetings, and then the Cubangwe captain picked out a dozen of his best hunters to accompany Van Zyl and his Hottentot and show them where the elephants were. And so, bidding friendly farewells, they parted.

Hans marched just ahead of Van Zyl, carrying, as he always did, till game was known to be near, his master’s rifle and a bandolier full of spare cartridges. One of Ndala’s men carried the second rifle, with which Hans himself was usually intrusted. For three hours they marched north-west under the blazing sun, over heavy sand-belts, through bush and thin forest, until high noon, when Van Zyl reined up his horse, pulled off his broad-brimmed hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his big cotton print handkerchief.

“Hans,” he said, looking round for Ndala’s hunters, “those schepsels are surely spreading out very wide for the spoor. I haven’t seen one of them for half an hour past.” As he spoke he climbed leisurely from the saddle and loosened the girths. Hans, who alone knew why the men had vanished, answered him:

“I don’t think you will set eyes on them again, Baas. You may say your prayers, for your last hour is nigh and I am going to shoot you.”

Van Zyl heard the clicks of two hammers being cocked and turned swiftly round.

“That is a verdomned impudent joke of yours, Hans,” he said, “for which I shall welt you handsomely when we get back to camp. Give me the gun.”

But Hans, standing within ten feet of his master, had the rifle at the ready, and there was a fiendish look in his eyes which Van Zyl had never before remarked.