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+Project Gutenberg's Between Sun and Sand, by William Charles Scully
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Between Sun and Sand
+       A Tale of an African Desert
+
+Author: William Charles Scully
+
+Release Date: June 13, 2011 [EBook #36420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN SUN AND SAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+Between Sun and Sand
+A Tale of an African Desert
+By William Charles Scully
+Published by Methuen and Co, London.
+This edition dated 1898.
+
+Between Sun and Sand, by William Charles Scully.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+BETWEEN SUN AND SAND, BY WILLIAM CHARLES SCULLY.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+Lest the account given in this book of the "trekking" springbucks should
+be considered an exaggeration, it may be mentioned that in 1892, when
+the author held the appointments of Civil Commissioner for Namaqualand
+and Special Magistrate for the Northern Border of the Cape Colony, he
+was obliged to issue a hundred stand of Government arms to the Boers for
+the purpose of driving back the game which threatened to overrun those
+parts of Namaqualand where ground is cultivated.  As it was, there was
+some difficulty in repelling the invasion.
+
+The term "Bushman," strictly speaking, only applies to the diminutive
+former inhabitants of the Desert, who are now practically extinct to the
+south of the Orange River.  The Trek-Boer, however, usually calls every
+Hottentot of low stature a Bushman.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+THE LAND OF THE TREK-BOER.
+
+Immediately to the south of the great Orange River for three hundred
+arid miles of its course before it sinks through the thirsty sands, or
+spooms in resistless torrent into the Atlantic Ocean, lies a region of
+which little is known, in which dwell people unlike any others in South
+Africa, or possibly in the world.
+
+This region is known as Bushmanland--the name having reference to its
+former inhabitants who, proving themselves "unfit," were abolished from
+the face of the earth.  Bushmanland is at present intermittently
+inhabited by a nomadic population of Europeans of Dutch descent, who are
+known as "Trek-Boers."  To "trek" means, literally, to "pull," but its
+colloquial significance is--to move about from place to place.
+
+The Trek-Boers are, so to say, poor relations of the sturdy Dutchmen who
+have done so much towards reclaiming South Africa from savagery.  The
+conditions under which they live are not favourable to moral or physical
+improvement.
+
+These people are dwellers in tents and beehive-shaped structures known
+as "mat-houses," a form of architecture adopted from the Hottentots.
+The latter are constructed of large mats made of rushes strung upon
+strands of bark or other vegetable fibre, and are stretched over wattles
+stuck by the larger end into the ground in a circle, the diameter of
+which may vary from fifteen to twenty-five feet, and which have the thin
+ends drawn down over each other until a dome is formed.  Such structures
+are lighter and more portable than the lodges of the North American
+Indians--in fact one may easily be erected and pulled down within five
+minutes.  Strange to say they are almost completely water-tight.
+
+A wagon and a couple of tents or mat-houses constitutes the camp and
+castle of the Trek-Boer.  He has never known anything else in the shape
+of a dwelling; it satisfies all his architectural aspirations, it
+fulfils his ideal of comfort in a tenement, and he harbours contempt for
+any structure which cannot be moved about to suit the convenience or
+caprice of its owner.
+
+The Trek-Boer owns no land.  He wanders with his flocks and herds over
+the vast, unsurveyed tract which is all the world to him, following the
+uncertain courses of thunderstorms which happen to have been deflected
+from their ordinary beat and strayed across the desert.  The rain from
+these intermittently fills the shallow, cup-like depressions in the
+underlying rock with water.  Such depressions are invariably choked with
+sand, but by digging at certain known spots a scanty supply of water may
+sometimes be obtained.
+
+The Trek-Boer occasionally becomes rich in flocks and herds, but every
+eight or ten years the inevitable drought occurs.  Then his stock dies
+off from thirst and starvation, and he has to begin the world again, a
+poor man.
+
+The Trek-Boer is a being _sui generis_.  He is usually ignorant to a
+degree unknown among men called civilised.  He is untruthful,
+prejudiced, superstitious, cunning, lazy, and dirty.  On the other hand
+he is extremely hospitable.  Simple as a child in many things, and as
+trusting where his confidence has once been given, he cannot be known
+without being loved, for all his peculiarities.  The desert life, which
+has filled the Arab with poetry and a sense of the higher mysteries, has
+sapped the last remnant of idealism from the Trek-Boer's nature, and
+left him without an aspiration or a dream.  The usual lack of fresh meat
+and the absence of green vegetables as an item in his diet, has reacted
+upon his physique and made him listless and slouching in gait and
+deportment, as well as anaemic and prone to disease.  This is especially
+true of his womankind, who, besides being extremely short-lived have, as
+a rule, lost nearly all pretensions to beauty of face or form.
+
+Bushmanland might be described as a desert, the aridity of which is
+tempered by occasional thunderstorms.  Its bounds begin immediately to
+the eastward of the rugged mountain chain which runs parallel with the
+coast-line, about eighty miles inland, and it stretches on for hundreds
+of miles until merged with the central Karoo plains.  These also form
+its indefinite boundary to the southward.  It is, for the most part,
+almost absolutely level.  To the northward, however, a chain of
+mountains, occasionally very lofty, arises.  For stern, uncompromising
+aridity, for stark, grotesque, naked horror, these mountains stand
+probably unsurpassed on the face of the globe.  Composed of deep brown
+granite, with here and there immense veins, or patches many miles in
+extent, of jet-black, shining ironstone, they absorb the torrid sunshine
+all day, becoming almost red-hot in the process.  At night this heat is
+radiated rapidly at high sunlight power, until the furnace of midnight
+becomes like an ice-house at dawn.
+
+The only vegetation to be found among these mountains is a species of
+deadly Euphorbia--formerly much used by the Bushmen in poisoning their
+arrows--and a few stunted shrubs which are rooted deep down in the
+crannies, and which put forth a little timid foliage in the cooler
+season.  The only animals are "klipspringers"--antelopes very like the
+chamois in form and habit; leopards which prey upon these; badgers, wild
+cats, jackals of several kinds, an occasional hyaena, desert mice,
+snakes, gorgeously hued lizards and fierce tarantulas.  A few large
+brown hawks hover above the gloomy gorges and wake weird and depressing
+echoes with their shrill screams.
+
+To the north of this almost impenetrable region the great "Gariep"--the
+"Yellow River" of the Hottentots--now called the "Orange" in honour of a
+former Stadtholder of the Netherlands, has carved out a gorge for its
+devious course, thousands of feet in depth.  Allowing for its many and
+abrupt windings, this gorge, from the point at which the river hurtles
+into it over an obstinate stratum of rock at what is known as the
+Augrabies Falls, must be over four hundred miles in length.  The greater
+part of this gorge is unexplored, being totally inaccessible.
+
+Like the Nile, the Orange River drains an immense area of fertile
+country which is subject to heavy summer rains.  It flows down in a
+raging, brimming flood, which is charged with rich alluvium, during
+several months of the year.  Unlike the Nile, it has carved for itself a
+deep and narrow channel, through which it hurls its fertilising load
+with resistless momentum into the ocean which needs it not.  Under
+different circumstances its valley might have been the cradle of another
+civilisation, and another Sphinx, of Hottentot or Bantu physiognomy,
+might have stood, gazing through forgotten centuries, across the waste
+of Bushmanland.
+
+No more dreary prospect can be imagined than that afforded by
+Bushmanland in its normal condition of drought.  After rain, however, it
+turns for a few short weeks into a smiling garden.  This is especially
+the case around the northern and western margins where, among the rocky
+kopjes forming the fringe of the plain, gorgeous flowers cover the
+ground with vivid patches of colour, and climb and trail over the grey
+stones.  This combination always suggests to the traveller a skull
+crowned with flowers.  The stark rocks, blasted by aeons of burning
+sunshine, are always in evidence, and the wanton luxuriance of the
+garlands seem to mock at and accentuate their death-like rigour.
+
+The grass with which the greater part of the plain is covered grows in
+thick shocks some thirty inches in height, from raised tussocks about
+six feet apart.  In dry weather the fibre of the grass crumbles away in
+dust and the tussock turns black.  After rain, however, the new blades
+shoot out with marvellous rapidity, and the Desert becomes a sea of
+waving plumes, which are tinted a beautifully delicate green.  Between
+the tussocks spring up flowers of marvellous colour, scent, and form.
+It has been libellously affirmed that the flowers of the Desert have no
+scent.  It is true that in the hot, midday glare all are more or less
+scentless, but in the early morning or when the afternoon cools the
+heliophilas, the pelargoniums, the many species of lily, and others too
+numerous to particularise, often make the Desert a veritable "scented
+garden."
+
+The great plain is almost absolutely treeless.  Only in one or two
+localities are a few acacias found.  These are of very large size.  They
+are called "Camel-thorns," for the reason that the camelopard was fond
+of browsing upon their foliage.  Amongst the branches are often found
+the enormous nests of the sociable grosbeaks, sometimes ten feet in
+diameter.  These nests are veritable cities--inhabited by countless
+numbers of birds.  Woe betide the exhausted hunter who seeks the
+deceitful shade of these trees, for the ground beneath is full of the
+dreaded "sampans," which bury themselves in the flesh and cause serious
+injury.
+
+In the fringe of kopjes grow immense aloes (_Aloe dichotoma_--probably
+closely allied botanically to the almost extinct "Dragon Tree" of
+Teneriffe).  These sometimes reach a height of sixty feet, and may
+measure twenty feet around their ridged and gnarled trunks.  This tree
+is locally known as the "koekerboom," or "quiver-tree," a reminiscence
+of the fact that the Bushmen used to remove the fibrous wood from a
+section of a bough and utilise the cylinder of tough bark as a quiver
+for their poisoned arrows.  The koekerbooms are believed to be of
+immense age; the oldest Trek-Boers will point to small trees growing
+close to their favourite camping-places, and tell you that they have not
+sensibly increased in size in upwards of half a century.  Their
+appearance is extremely belated and archaic.
+
+Running through Bushmanland from north-east to south-west is a curved
+ridge which is known as the "Jacht Bult," or "hunt-ridge," from the
+plentifulness of game upon it.  This ridge rises so gradually from each
+side that its very existence is not apparent except for a few minutes at
+morning and evening--and then only if one happens to be on the top of
+it.  Here occurs a curious phenomenon; for, just as the sun is touching
+the western horizon, if one looks eastward he will be startled at seeing
+half of the immense plain shrouded in almost complete darkness.  The
+illusion is due to the western plain being flooded with sunlight whilst
+from the other the sunlight is suddenly and completely cut off.  When
+the sun sinks the illusion vanishes and the eastern plain appears to be
+no darker than the western.  At sunrise these conditions are, of course,
+reversed.
+
+This region is the home of the "springbuck," which still survives in
+countless myriads.  After a large "trek," as the annual migration of
+these animals across the Desert is called, has taken place, the wake of
+the host looks like an irregularly-ploughed field.  Every vestige of
+vegetation is beaten out by the small, sharp, strong hoofs.  It seems at
+such times as if all the springbucks in the Desert were suddenly smitten
+by a mad desire to collect and dash towards a certain point.
+
+The springbucks as a rule live without drinking.  Sometimes, however--
+perhaps once in ten years--they develop a raging thirst, and rush madly
+forward until they find water.  It is not many years ago since millions
+of them crossed the mountain range and made for the sea.  They dashed
+into the waves, drank the salt water, and died.  Their bodies lay in one
+continuous pile along the shore for over thirty miles, and the stench
+drove the Trek-Boers who were camped near the coast far inland.
+
+The oryx, or, as it is called in South Africa, the "gemsbok," is still
+to be found in considerable numbers in the vicinity of the great and
+almost inaccessible sand-dunes which encroach into the desert at several
+points along its northwestern margin.  The gemsbok manages to live
+without drinking water, finding a substitute in a large, succulent root
+which grows in the driest parts of the dunes, and which the animal digs
+up from deep in the sand with its hoofs.  A few hartebeests are also to
+be found.  Immense wild bustards, or, as they are called, "paauws," come
+over from the Kalihari Desert in large flocks.  From the same place the
+desert grouse, which strongly resembles the sand-grouse of Central Asia,
+throng over in countless myriads.  These collect around the open
+water-places every morning when the sun begins to sting.  One dip of
+water they must have.  If the sportsman is hard-hearted enough to remain
+close to the water-hole, they circle round and round uttering their
+plaintive cry in a myriad-voiced chorus of strange twitterings.  Should
+the day be hot and no other water obtainable in the neighbourhood--as is
+often the case--they will drink at one's very feet.  From their cry the
+colloquial name of "kalkivain" is derived.
+
+In hot weather one may trace the zigzag spoor of many a yellow cobra
+across the sands.  By day these creatures remain underground among the
+mouse-burrows--for they could not live upon the scorching sand--but at
+night they wander far and near.  The horned adder--identical in species
+with the "worm of old Nile" with which Cleopatra eased herself of her
+burthen of life--abounds at the roots of the small shrubs and
+grass-tussocks, where it burrows into the sand to escape the heat, or
+when hibernating.
+
+Above all, however, Bushmanland is the home of the wild ostrich.  Here,
+in spite of the number of their enemies, human or other, these noble
+birds are still to be found in considerable numbers.  Their booming note
+heard at night across the waste strongly suggests the distant roar of a
+hungry lion.  When one thinks of the number and ingenuity of the
+ostrich's enemies one wonders that any still exist.  Around every nest
+that one finds are sure to be several jackals and white crows.  The
+jackal rolls the eggs about by butting them with his nose, and thus
+dashes, them against each other until they break; the white crow carries
+stones up into the air and drops them from a height among the eggs,
+smashing them and befouling the nest with what it is unable to gorge of
+the contents of the shell; the prowling Hottentot, or half-breed, will
+follow for days on the spoor until he finds the nest and rifles it.
+
+This region was once the favourite haunt of the Bushman, and long after
+that unhappy race had disappeared from other parts it here maintained
+itself.  At every water-place may still be seen the polished grooves in
+the rocks wherein they sharpened their arrows and bone skinning-knives;
+fragments of their rude pottery lie thickly strewn around.  Mixed with
+the latter may be found, sometimes in considerable quantities, the
+broken weapons of stone which belonged to a still older race, and which,
+perhaps, was driven from the face of the land by the Bushmen, as we have
+driven the latter, and as we ourselves may be driven by some race
+developing a "fitness" superior to our own.
+
+These water-places would thus seem to be of immense antiquity, and the
+inference suggests that the climatic conditions of this end of the
+African continent have not changed appreciably for ages.
+
+The names of a few of these places in the Bushman tongue still survive.
+Some are very suggestive, and indicate that the Bushman was not totally
+devoid of sentiment.  The following are specimens of local Bushman
+topography: "Place of Bleeding," "Withered Flower," "Eggshell Cheeks,"
+"Reed-Possessor," "Take-away-from-me-what-I-have-gained,"
+"Place-where-you-may-dig-out-a-little-pot-of-water."
+
+The Bushman used poisoned arrows.  He obtained the poison usually from
+three distinct sources, namely, the poison gland of the puffadder, the
+black tarantula, and the deadly euphorbia which grows in the river
+gorge.  These he mixed in a paste and smeared upon the sides of his
+arrow blade.  This poison is extremely deadly in its effects, but it
+works far more rapidly in the system of a ruminating animal than in that
+of a man.  The Bushman could also, however, run game down by sheer
+fleetness of foot--running until blown and then handing the chase over
+to another hunter who had posted himself upon the course which, by
+instinct, he had known the animal would most likely take.
+
+The ostrich was the Bushman's favourite and most profitable quarry.
+Dressed in the plumes of a former victim he would stalk into the midst
+of a troop and lay its members low one by one.  When he found a nest he
+would pierce the ends of each egg and blow out the contents.  Then,
+after carefully washing out the shell, he would fill it with water and
+close up each aperture with a wooden peg.  The shell would be buried
+deep in the sand against contingencies of drought.  By some secret sign
+the members of each clan would know the exact spots where water had thus
+been buried by their friends, and thus often avoid death by thirst when
+travelling or hunting.
+
+The Bushman was the true Ishmaelite; he was bound to be eliminated.  As
+a matter of fact there is no room for a Bushman and any one else in any
+given area, no matter how large.
+
+In the region described the Bushmen have left no record in the shape of
+paintings on the rocks, which are so common in other parts.  This may
+perhaps be accounted for by the porous nature of many of the low
+krantzes in which the caves they occupied are situated.  It may be,
+however, that the plants from which their pigments were obtained do not
+grow in this arid region.
+
+When rain has fallen freely, as it occasionally does, the Trek-Boers
+flock into Bushmanland from its fringe, upon which they are always
+hanging.  A few weeks of dry weather, however, suffices to dry up the
+moisture from the shallow, sand-clogged basins, and the country once
+more becomes a solitude.
+
+For some natures this region possesses a deep and abiding charm.  The
+fresh, crisp air of early morning; the peace which sinks like a
+benediction upon the wearied earth when the scorching sun has fallen
+from the sky, and the sand gives off its heat in rapid radiation; the
+sense of immensity made manifest in the wide, wide plains by day, and in
+the almost supernaturally bright skies at night; the booming of the
+ostriches, the bellowing of the rutting springbucks; the queer, snarling
+yelp of the jackals and the "tshok-tshok" of the paauw as it shakes out
+its plumes to the rising sun--and who can define the vivid delight which
+these have brought?  Who that has ever been fortunate enough to
+experience it can recall without a quickening pulse the mad gallop for
+miles across the plains after a herd of gemsbok, or the fierce rapture
+of meeting the noble brute at bay, and slaying the only animal of the
+antelope tribe that has heart enough to face a lion?
+
+It is among the dwellers of this region that the scene of the following
+tale is laid.  These people have but few ideas, and a vocabulary of
+little more than three hundred words to express these ideas in.  The
+Bible is the only book they ever read, and of that they do not
+understand more than half the sense.  In all essentials, however, they
+are of the same mould as other men.  They live and love, hate and die,
+in very much the same manner as do other human creatures.  It is in the
+incidentals that the reader may find some difference between these
+people and the dwellers in more fortunate climes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+THE PATRIARCH OF NAMIES.
+
+There was only one camp at Namies [pronounced "Namees"], for all the
+wells but one had run dry.  It was somewhat early in summer, and as yet
+no thunderstorms had visited the immediate neighbourhood.  The camp
+consisted of a wagon with a fore-and-aft canvas hood, or, as it is
+called in South Africa, a "tent."  On either side of it stood,
+respectively, a mat-house and a square tent.  The particular Trek-Boer
+who was the owner of this establishment was a somewhat distinguished
+specimen of his class.  Old Schalk Hattingh had, like his father before
+him, lived his life upon the fringes of the Bushmanland Desert.  Tall
+and corpulent, with a long, silvery-white beard, he spent his days
+sitting in a big, cushionless, wooden chair.  This chair would,
+according to the weather, be placed either just inside or just outside
+the mat-house.  His legs had become too weak to sustain his large body,
+so he was only able to walk with the assistance of a long, strong Stick,
+which never was out of the reach of his hand.  In the coldest weather he
+wore no warmer clothing than a shirt of unbleached calico--always open
+at the throat, and thus revealing a large area of red skin--a cheap and
+very thin corduroy coat, a pair of breeches, much too short for him, of
+tanned sheepskin, and a jackal-skin cap.  These clothes he invariably
+slept in; in fact, the tradition as to when he had last taken them off
+had been long since lost.  On his extremely large feet he wore
+"veldschoens" of his own make.  Socks he would have looked upon as a
+criminal luxury; pocket-handkerchiefs he had never used in the whole
+course of his life.  Winter and summer he sat, drinking weak coffee all
+day long, smoking strong tobacco at intervals, and continually
+expectorating in all directions.
+
+Namies was his headquarters, and had been so for nearly forty years.
+His well was the best there.  Even that, however, ran dry during the
+early part of summer about once in three years, and he would then shift
+his camp to some more fortunate spot.  But he was always the last to
+leave and the first to return.  No one ever dreamt of camping upon Old
+Schalk's favourite spot or taking possession of his well, yet to these
+he had no special right which could be legally enforced.
+
+Old Schalk was a well-known character, and was looked upon as a
+patriarch and an oracle by the Trek-Boers for hundreds of miles around.
+He had been a famous man in his day, and could tell interesting,
+semi-veracious anecdotes of adventures with Bushmen, lions, and other
+things--predatory or preyed upon.  He had never seen a village in his
+life, excepting the adventitious assemblages of the Trek-Boers.  He was
+known to be a hard man at a bargain, and extremely avaricious;
+nevertheless he was poor.  A few years previous to the period at which
+this tale opens he had been rich in flocks and herds.  Then came the
+inevitably recurring drought, this time one of exceptional severity.
+The sheep and goats became thinner and thinner, until they were too weak
+to go abroad and seek for pasturage.  They lay on the sand all day long,
+eyeing piteously the troughs to which their diminishing dole of water
+was lifted from the well by the creaking derrick.  At last the maddened
+cattle flung themselves down the well, and their ruined owners were
+hardly able to drag themselves to the arid banks of the Orange River
+down the sand-choked gorge at Pella.  Here was at least water to drink.
+
+Old Schalk, like most of his neighbours, found himself a poor man.
+Since the famine he had managed to get a little stock together again,
+but he was in debt to several Jew hawkers, and had some difficulty in
+keeping his head above water.
+
+He held the appointment under Government of Assistant Field Cornet.  It
+was his duty in this capacity to report all crimes to the Special
+Magistrate, to arrest criminals, and to hold inquests in cases of deaths
+by violence in regard to which there was no suspicion of foul play.
+This office gave him a certain position among the Trek-Boers and added
+considerably to his influence.
+
+Old Schalk's wife was only a few years younger than himself, but, as is
+especially the case with Boer women, she looked much older.  His special
+grievance against Providence was that Mrs Hattingh had lived so long,
+and thus kept him out of the enjoyment of the charms of younger women.
+
+"There is my brother Gert," he would say in moments of confidence, and
+without considering whether his wife were present or not, "he has now
+married his third wife; Willem only the other day lost his second; Jan,
+who is fifteen years younger than I, buried his first wife only five
+months ago and is going to marry a fine young girl at the next
+Nachtmaal--and here I am still sitting with my old `Bogh',"--a word
+which may be freely translated as "frump."
+
+From Old Schalk's point of view he undoubtedly had a grievance, for one
+rarely meets an old Boer--and more especially a Trek-Boer--who has not
+been married several times.
+
+Mrs Hattingh never appeared to be hurt by such outbursts against
+unpropitious Fate.  She had no intention of dying just yet; sentiment
+was to her unknown, and she had always taken life philosophically.
+
+"Ja," she would sometimes rejoin, "it is true that I am an old `Bogh,'
+but there's not a woman in Bushmanland who can sew karosses as well as
+I; and if it had not been for the money you got from the Jews for those
+I made from the skins of the sheep that died in the drought, you would
+not have any stock to-day."
+
+"Ja; that is true," Old Schalk would grudgingly admit.
+
+"And you would be a fine one to follow a young wife about and keep her
+in order; with those legs you could not walk the length of the
+trek-chain."
+
+Old Schalk always resented any reference to his unserviceable legs, so
+his wife usually had the last word at these discussions.
+
+The junior members of the Hattingh family consisted of two
+granddaughters and a grand-niece.  The sons and daughters of the camp
+had married and were scattered over the fringe of the Desert.  The three
+girls were orphans.  The two granddaughters were tall, listless-looking
+girls, with dark hair and eyes, and that transparent and unhealthy
+complexion which sometimes gives a fugacious beauty and is often found
+in young women whose diet does not embrace a sufficiency of green
+vegetable food.  Their chests were hollow, their shoulders drooped, and
+they looked incapable of taking much interest in anything.  Their ages
+were respectively, eighteen and nineteen; their names--Maria and
+Petronella.
+
+Their cousin, Susannah, was a girl of a different type.  She was small
+of stature, well built, and had a keen and alert look.  Her features
+were strongly marked, her eyes and hair were black, and the redness of
+her lips was rendered more striking by the pallor of the rest of her
+face.  Her movements were distinguished by an energy which was in
+striking contrast to the listlessness of the other girls.  She suggested
+a well-favoured squirrel among a family of moles.  Her features had a
+strongly Jewish cast.  Although not much admired by the young Boers with
+whom she came in contact--probably because she did not reach their
+standard of stoutness--she would have been in other surroundings
+considered a very pretty girl.  There was some mystery in connection
+with her parentage which gave rise to whisperings among the women.  It
+was, however, certain that she was the daughter of one of Old Schalk's
+nieces.
+
+The spot known as Namies is marked by a few stony, irregular kopjes
+which lie like a small archipelago in the ocean-like waste of the
+Bushmanland Desert, not far from its northern margin.  The highest of
+these kopjes is less than four hundred feet above the general level of
+the plains; a circle two miles in circumference would enclose them all.
+They are formed of piles of granite boulders, between which grow a few
+hardy shrubs and koekerbooms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+MAX.
+
+Max Steinmetz stood in the doorway of the little iron shanty at Namies,
+which was built near the foot of a kopje about three hundred yards from
+the Hattingh camp.  Above his head was a signboard bearing the legend:
+"Nathan Steinmetz, Allegemene Handelaar."  [General dealer.]  He looked
+out over the wide, wide Desert and watched the smoke-like courses of the
+violent gusts against which a thunderstorm was labouring from the
+north-east.  The unsavoury odour of half-dried hides assailed his
+nostrils; the ramshackle iron roof rattled to the blasts over his head.
+The season was February, and the tortured plains glowed with absorbed
+heat like Milton's burning marl.
+
+Over the intermittent moaning and howling of the wind could be heard, at
+intervals, the mutterings of thunder.  The Desert now became a roaring
+blast-furnace, fanned by the sand-laden gusts which raged fiercer and
+ever fiercer.  Max closed the door and barred it from the inside.  A few
+gouts of rain began to thud on the roof.  Then a jagged shaft of
+lightning shot from the zenith, shattered itself into coruscating
+splinters against some tempest-packed sheaf of air, and seemed to fill
+the universe with a blinding blaze.  At the same instant the winds were
+stunned by a crash so awful that the solid earth reeled from the shock.
+Then came the rain in dense, white, lashing waves, and in a few moments
+the wide plain became a hissing sea.
+
+The storm-cloud rolled away as quickly as it had come, leaving only a
+few torn wisps of fleecy cloud to mark its wake.  Through these the
+purified sky seemed to open in vaults of azure that pierced the
+infinite.  For a short time the sun flooded the plain with gold and
+rubies; then it sank, and the cool, quickening evening died in peaceful
+splendour in the transfigured west.
+
+The storm over, Max opened the door and stepped outside.  His first
+glance was towards the Hattingh camp.  Then he brought a chair and a
+book out of the shop and sat down where, pretending to read, he could
+look over the top of the page in the same direction.  Soon afterwards
+Susannah came out of the mat-house and superintended the lighting of a
+fire by the Hottentot maid in the kitchen-scherm, the bushes of which,
+scattered by the storm, had been rearranged.  She had discarded her
+cappie, and her luxuriant black hair was blown about by the moist
+breeze.  She gave one hurried glance towards the shop and then stood
+with her back towards it.  Max saw this and, in his inexperience, felt
+saddened.
+
+Max had a face which, had Raphael seen it through the bars of the Ghetto
+gate at Rome, would have made him take pains to secure the young Jew as
+a model.  It was one of those faces which one only--and that but very
+rarely--sees in the youth of Israel.  Its shape was a pure oval.  The
+skin was a clear olive, and the eyes were large, dark, and melting.  His
+jet-black hair clustered over a broad, low forehead, and his full, red
+lips were arched like the bow of the Sun-God.  As yet the stress of
+trade had not awakened the ancestral greed which would one day dominate
+his blood and modify his physiognomy.  Small in stature and of perfect
+symmetry, he did not give one the idea of possessing either strength or
+activity; in feet he looked like a languorous human exotic who had
+strayed from the canvas of some "Old Master" whose brush was dedicated
+to physical beauty.  His age was twenty-one, but he looked several years
+younger.
+
+Max was a clerk at a very small salary in the employ of his brother
+Nathan.  The business was a paying one, but the carrying of it on
+involved extremely hard work.  Nathan spent most of his time in moving
+about from camp to camp among the Trek-Boers and the half-breeds who
+dwelt among the saltpans in the central and southern portions of the
+Desert.  He travelled with a small, strong cart, which was drawn by six
+hardy but debilitated-looking donkeys.  His practice was to leave Namies
+with a load of hucksters' merchandise and to return, generally about two
+months afterwards, with a quantity of ostrich feathers.  The Desert
+abounded in wild ostriches which, although protected by law, were
+ruthlessly hunted down for the sake of their feathers.  There was, of
+course, a certain risk of discovery involved, and this would have been
+followed by heavy penalties, but Nathan was prepared to take this risk
+for the sake of the large profits which he made.  The feathers of the
+wild ostrich fetch a much higher price than those of the domesticated
+bird.  In many of the waste places of South Africa the protecting law is
+often but a name.  Nathan knew that the risk of his being convicted was
+very small.  Just now he was absent upon a trip, but his return was
+daily expected.  In the meantime Max had charge of the store.
+
+Nathan and Max were orphans, and had been brought up by an uncle--a
+pawnbroker of the East End of London.  Their parents were German Jews
+who had settled in England.  They had no brothers or sisters.  Eight
+years previously the uncle had given Nathan a hundred pounds and sent
+him to the Cape to seek his fortune.  Four years afterwards Max
+followed.  In the meantime Nathan had made a little money as a "smouse,"
+or hawker.  With Max's assistance he was able to extend his operations
+considerably.  For the first two years the younger brother had worked
+without any salary; then, at the instance of the uncle, who made
+particular inquiries upon the point, Max was given a small stipend.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+SPRING'S IDYLL.
+
+The next day was a dream of delight.  The evaporation from the sand
+counteracted the heat of the sun, and the pungent air was full of
+germinating energy.  Cool, gentle breezes awoke now and then, wandered
+vaguely to and fro, and then laid themselves down to rest, rising anon
+to play in a circle of mimic whirlwinds.  Old Schalk sat in the doorway
+of the mat-house with his feet in the sun and the large Bible open upon
+his knees.  The combination of Old Schalk and an open Bible meant either
+that he was in extremely good humour and felt at peace with all mankind
+and in general harmony with his environment--or else the direct reverse.
+In the former case he would usually have the volume open at the Song of
+Solomon; in the latter, at the 109th Psalm.  To-day he prayed, although
+he knew it not, for his heart was lifted up in involuntary thankfulness
+and appreciation of the feast which was so lavishly spread around him.
+His happiness was even beyond the terms of his favourite Psalms, which
+he knew off by heart--even the numbers of the great lyric poets of
+Israel seemed to fall short of the music which Nature was making upon
+his worn heart-strings.
+
+Mrs Hattingh was sitting boiling soap inside the kitchen-scherm, her
+failing eyes rendered more than usually red and rheumy by the steam
+arising from the acrid lye.  She, too, felt the benign influences with
+which the Desert was rich; the labour she was engaged in was not as
+irksome as usual.  As she broke the bushes into the soap-pot she might
+have been a rapt sorceress brewing a love-philtre, or a priestess
+sacrificing at the shrine of the God of Cleanliness.
+
+Maria and Petronella were sitting on the wagon-box crooning a weird song
+in a minor key.  They felt sleepy and happy, for Mother Nature had a
+word for them too.  It was a word very softly spoken, and in a language
+which they did not yet fully understand, but it made them dream vague,
+sweet dreams.  Susannah heard the voice, and, low as it was spoken, it
+awoke her and she hearkened to it.  She, too, failed to understand the
+words, but the cadences were sweet and seemed to be full of an infinite
+promise.
+
+Nature, in her spring guise, has to do her work in the Desert, when she
+does it at all, in a hurry.  There the seasons do not follow the regular
+course.  At the end of her summer revel in other southern lands she
+sometimes suddenly bethinks her that away to the northward she has been
+for long neglectful of her duties, so she flies to the arid plains,
+where perhaps the very traces of her footprints have been long since
+forgotten.  Then with a sudden dower of riches she tries to make amends
+for her forgetfulness; she tarries for a few sweet, pregnant hours, and
+the ardours and burgeonings of a season are consummated in one delicious
+day.
+
+Susannah felt the rapid sap of sudden springtime rise in a sweet storm
+to her heart and to her brain.  It seemed to her as though she had
+wings, and she longed to fly out over the infinite waste and beyond the
+blue, mysterious haze in which it merged with the horizon in a sapphire
+ring.  The highest of the little group of kopjes stood just at the back
+of the camp, and her senses bounded at the thought of climbing quickly
+to the summit and thus getting so much nearer the sky.  A tall
+koekerboom which stood on the very top quivered in the wind, and every
+cluster of leaves at the ends of its dichotomous branches seemed to
+beckon to her to come.
+
+She climbed into the wagon, opened the camphor-wood box in which she
+kept her limited wardrobe, and selected her best dress.  This was a
+cheap print, delicately flowered, and of soft hues.  It thus afforded a
+pleasing contrast to the gaudy and crudely coloured habiliments of her
+cousins.  After she had put it on one might have seen that the dress
+fitted her neat figure like a new glove.  Her ample hair she rolled into
+a knot, but, after a moment's consideration, she uncoiled it again and
+shook it back over her shoulders.  Then she put on a "cappie" made of
+print of the same pattern as her frock.  A cheap necklet of coral
+completed her toilet.  She clasped this hurriedly about her throat as
+she sprang to the ground from the back of the wagon.  She panted with
+desire to get away to the high peak where the solitary koekerboom, which
+had defied the sun for centuries, stood beckoning to her, and any delay
+was a pain.  She sped away among the aromatic shrubs that clustered
+among the impassive granite rocks on the side of the kopje, and the
+brown stones she trod on seemed to be as buoyant as the air that filled
+her veins with ecstasy.  In a few minutes she had gained the top of the
+kopje, when she sank down in pleasant exhaustion at the foot of the
+hoar-ancient koekerboom.
+
+As she ascended the kopje the breeze freshened, and the stiff, awkward
+branches of the archaic tree seemed to be seized with excitement
+unfitting its age and experience; it beckoned violently, and until Max,
+who was standing at the door of the shop, saw not alone its signal, but
+the flutter of the delicately flowered print dress which at that moment
+was rippling against its gnarled knees.
+
+Max hurriedly locked the shop and sped up the side of the kopje towards
+the antiquated tree, which now seemed to have fallen asleep, so still it
+was.  Schalk Hattingh's was the only camp then at Namies, and as Nathan
+had given strict injunctions that the Hattinghs were to have no more
+credit, nothing was to be lost in respect of their custom.  Max would,
+he told himself, be able to descry any approaching customers from the
+top of the kopje.
+
+Susannah heard the nearing footstep.  She had now taken off her cappie,
+and was lying back between two of the shapeless roots which were
+continuations of flanking buttresses thrown out by the tree towards the
+north-east, from whence the storms had been trying to uproot it--
+probably ever since the days when the galleys of Pharaoh passed down the
+Red Sea and returned to Egypt through the Pillars of Hercules.  The girl
+arose into a sitting posture and turned towards the boy a face flushed
+with exercise and eyes liquid with delight.  Max put out his hand in
+mute greeting, and she clasped it silently.  Then he threw himself on
+the ground at her feet.
+
+These two had for some time attracted each other.  On Max's side the
+attraction had lately begun to ripen into something very like love.  But
+of this as yet he was unaware.  To-day the universe seemed to breathe of
+music, the boughs of the old tree and the granite rocks were as the
+strings of a sounding harp, touched by the wind as a plectrum.
+
+Spring, in a graciously capricious moment, resolved to crown her holiday
+with an idyll.  Max arose and held out his hand to the girl.  She took
+it, and he drew her gently to her feet.  They wandered on together with
+scanty, broken speech and averted eyes, through lately arid nooks and
+hollows made sweet and full of the promise of verdure by yesterday's
+rain.  The faint-green spear-points of strange vegetation were already
+piercing the brown earth; quaint beetles crawled out from under the
+stones and beat their soft "tok-tok-tok" on the ground, signalling to
+prospective mates; lizards of a deeper and more vivid blue than anything
+else in Nature's storehouse, sunned themselves on the rocks, panting
+with enjoyment.
+
+They came to a flowering mass of gethyllis--that strange plant the
+curled leaves of which wind out their spirals in winter to catch the
+dewdrops and conduct them down their tube-like channels to the
+deep-underground bulb, which waits until the fiercest sun of summer
+shines before it sends up its lovely, tulip-like cup of snowy white or
+vivid crimson.  The luscious scent filled the air and caused a faint,
+delicious intoxication.  They bent over the blossoms and began gathering
+them.  In doing this their hands met by accident and they started apart
+suddenly, thrilling with unknown confusion.
+
+Their faltering speech died away altogether, and they more than ever
+avoided each other's gaze.  After retracing their steps for a short
+distance they again paused.  The vague horizon seemed to become of
+absorbing interest.  Each felt to blame for the abashment of the other,
+and both seemed to drink of a cup of humiliation.  The old tree waved
+sympathetically over them its topmost branches, in which the wind seemed
+to waken a sigh.
+
+Careless Nature, to bring them together, sacrificed a life.  She sent a
+message down through a cleft in the rock against which Susannah was
+dejectedly leaning, and called from the depths where it had long been
+sleeping a poisonous red centipede.  The creature crawled down over the
+girl's shoulder and endeavoured to enter her sleeve at the wrist.  Then
+Max saw it.  He sprang forward in a spasm of terror, brushed the
+centipede aside with his hand; not, however, before it had given him a
+venomous nip.  In an instant he had crushed the life out of the creature
+with his foot; then, with an exclamation of pain, he turned towards the
+girl.  His hand was already beginning to swell.  Susannah tore a piece
+off the curtain of her cappie and began to bind up the injury.  As she
+did so she came so close that she leant slightly against Max.  Then the
+opportunity triumphed over the pain--he passed his arm around her, drew
+her to him, and kissed her on the quivering lips.
+
+The centipede and its sting were soon forgotten.  Nature held them,
+embraced and embracing, for a blissful eternity; they saw the face of
+happiness smiling in the rosy gloom under Love's wing.
+
+The koekerboom became wrapped in a whirlwind of excitement, its gaunt
+boughs swayed until they clashed, and the sap rose in its slowly beating
+heart until the yellow buds which a few of its less mature twigs had put
+forth tentatively, as though half ashamed of such frivolity, burst open
+and sent forth a faint shower of pollen, which fell like a spangling of
+gold-dust upon Susannah's hair.
+
+As they paced away, hand in hand, a small army of fierce desert ants
+were dragging away the still writhing body of the centipede to their
+underground storehouse.  Nature, so very lavish in large matters, is
+extremely economical in trifles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+GERT GEMSBOK.
+
+Gert Gemsbok prowled along the bank of the Orange River and bent an
+attentive eye upon the brimming flood.  The great stream, swollen by the
+summer rains in far-off Basutoland, sped roaring down the rapids just
+above the Augrabies Falls, over which it would plunge into that
+mysterious, unexplored gorge through which its secret way lay for some
+four hundred miles to the Atlantic Ocean.  Brown with the gleanings of
+tens of thousands of square miles of loamy hill and dale swept by
+furious thunderstorms, clogged with the detritus gathered from flooded
+flat and spate-ravaged kloof, foul with the rubbish from many a distant
+mining camp on the banks of its tributary, the Vaal, the torrent swept
+irresistibly on with a growling roar, the might of which could not be
+realised without receding for some distance from the bank.  Then it
+would be felt that the air was filled with continuous thunder and that
+the very earth shuddered with the throbbings of this mighty artery, as
+the body of a man quivers after unwonted effort.
+
+Flotsam and jetsam abounded in every cranny of the bank and on the
+down-stream side of every point and headland.  Strange objects might be
+here and there seen--broken packing-cases, dead cattle, sheep, and
+goats, pumpkins, skins, and old rags.  In every bay of still water lay
+an unsavoury jumble.  Gert examined the swollen carcases one by one in
+the almost vain hope of finding one not too decomposed to eat.
+
+Walking upstream he crossed a promontory covered with scrub.  Behind
+this lay an inlet in the bank which was filled by a slow swirl generated
+by a rapid immediately above.  He paused and cast his eye over the
+different objects which were slowly circling round and round.  One of
+these soon riveted his attention: it was a rough wooden framework
+superimposed upon a strong raft, on which was stretched the body of a
+man dressed in European clothing.  Gert walked round the bend of the
+inlet until he reached a convenient spot on its opposite face.  His
+practised eye recognised this as the place where the object of his
+scrutiny would most probably ground or come close enough to the bank to
+be caught hold of, if necessary.  Having reached the spot in question,
+he sat down on a willow stump and waited.  The wooden raft with its
+gruesome burden kept for some time circling slowly round and round the
+pool, but Gert noticed that at each revolution it seemed to sweep in a
+little nearer the bank.  He began to note the details.  The body was
+that of a very tall man with a full, red beard.  He was dressed in a
+grey flannel shirt, which being slightly open at the throat, revealed a
+brawny chest covered with russet hair.  The nether limbs were clad in
+moleskin trousers and strong, thick-soled boots such as miners often
+wear.  The feet and arms were securely bound to the sides of the
+framework.
+
+At length the raft caught against a submerged stump.  To this it hung
+for a moment; then it heeled over and swayed itself loose, and the
+current washed it slowly against the bank, where it grounded at the
+watcher's feet.
+
+The body was horrible to look upon; the eyes were sunken out of sight or
+had decomposed away--the flesh was livid.  The wrists were cut by the
+cords that bound them, showing that the man had been bound living upon
+the raft.  Into the flesh of his forehead the letter "V," about an inch
+in length, had been cut.  Gert waded into the water up to his waist and
+paused close to the horrible object.  His feet were sore from constant
+wanderings over the stony mountains, and he coveted the dead man's
+boots.  Conquering his repugnance, he drew his knife and severed the
+laces.  Then he pulled the boots off and flung them high on the bank
+behind him.  After pausing for a few seconds he searched the trouser
+pockets, but found that they contained nothing.  As he did this he
+averted his eyes from the dead face.  His search over, he waded along
+the shore towards the outside limit of the inlet, where the current was
+strong, drawing the raft after him.  Launched forward with his full
+strength, the raft was caught by the current and swirled out into the
+mid-stream, where it passed from view into the confused mass of
+wave-tossed rubbish.
+
+Gert then climbed up the bank and returned to where he had flung the
+boots.  Upon examining these he found that the layers of leather forming
+the sole of one were gaping widely at the side.  He tried to press the
+layers together, but found that he could not do so owing to the presence
+of some object which had evidently been inserted between them.  He
+pulled this out and found it to be a piece of rag in which was wrapped a
+diamond as large as a hazel-nut.  Searching farther, he found that in
+each boot holes had been scooped out in the thick mass of leather above
+the outer layer, and diamonds inserted.  He found six altogether--three
+in each boot.  The stones were pure white, and of that peculiar
+crystallisation which characterises the gems found on the banks of the
+Vaal River, as distinguished from those found in what are known as the
+"dry diggings."
+
+Gert looked at the shining gems as they lay upon his hand and marvelled
+exceedingly.  He knew right well that the stones were diamonds, for he
+had worked for a year in the Kimberley mine.  He also knew that the law
+forbade him to have such things in his possession, and that if caught
+with them he would be liable to severe punishment.  Yet here, he
+thought, was the means of attaining riches; surely there must be some
+way of turning to account the prize which he had honestly obtained?
+With a spasm of exultant dread he slipped the stones into his skin
+wallet.  Then he placed a heavy pebble into each of the boots and flung
+them as far as he could into the stream.  He sat in thought for a few
+moments; then he retraced his steps, down-stream, to a spot where had
+been deposited the only half-decomposed carcase of a goat which he had
+raked out of the flood.  This he shouldered and carried up the rocky
+gorge in which the cave was situated, in which he dwelt with his mother
+and his wife.
+
+By this time the wooden raft with its dread enigma had been whirled down
+the rapids and dashed to pieces over the Augrabies Falls.  What dread
+tragedy had resulted in the voyage of this ark with its single gruesome
+passenger upon the bosom of the brown flood through the scorched
+Desert--what terrible act of crime or retribution had sent this sign to
+be revealed for an instant to the startled ken of a prowling savage,
+will probably never be explained until all mysteries are unlocked!
+
+Gert Gemsbok, the Koranna Hottentot, was a remarkable man.  In the
+rebellion of the Griqua and Koranna Clans, which broke out upon the
+northern border of the Cape Colony in 1879, he had taken a prominent
+part.  Captured with arms in his hands and identified as having led a
+certain band of rebels which was concerned in some serious depredations,
+he was sentenced by the Special Court to a severe flogging and a long
+term of imprisonment.  He served the first part of his sentence at the
+Breakwater Convict Station, Cape Town, but was afterwards transferred to
+one of the Diamond Mining Compounds at Kimberley.  Upon his discharge he
+took service as a labourer at the mines, with the view of making
+sufficient money to enable him to return half-way across the continent
+to the Desert which he loved, and somewhere within the indefinite bounds
+of which he hoped to find traces of his family.  He attained his object;
+he found his old mother and his wife living close to Namies in
+Bushmanland, in great misery from want, and suffering from incurable
+disease.  His two children were dead.  The two women were unwholesome
+and in every way unpleasant to look upon, besides being almost helpless,
+but Gert, no less than they, was happy in the reunion.
+
+Having still a few pounds left from his earnings at the diamond fields,
+he bought a few articles of clothing for the two women from a wandering
+hawker.  Then the problem as to how they were to exist loomed up.  Gert
+could easily get work among the Trek-Boers, as a shepherd, but how was
+he to support the two helpless women out of his earnings, which only
+amounted to eight fat-tailed sheep per annum?  The thing was almost
+impossible, but he succeeded in doing it.
+
+Soon, however, he again fell upon evil days.  This time he suffered for
+righteousness' sake.  The Hottentots are, probably, the most untruthful
+race under the sun, but this Hottentot invariably made a point of
+telling the truth, and misfortune fell upon him in consequence.  A
+certain Trek-Boer named Willem Bester was charged with a serious crime
+before the Special Magistrate for the Northern Border.  Gert,
+unfortunately for himself, had been a witness to the act, and was,
+accordingly, called upon to give evidence.  Instead of sensibly lying,
+and thus exonerating the accused, who was related to his master, poor
+Gert injudiciously told the truth.  As a result Bester was convicted and
+sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.  The consequences were
+disastrous to the veracious exception to the rule of his race.  He was
+dismissed from his employment and turned adrift.  He tried to obtain
+service everywhere, but found that he was boycotted--driven away with
+contumely from every Trek-Boer's camp at which he applied.
+
+So the three miserable beings wandered about the Desert from water-place
+to water-place, digging for "veld-kost"--the generic name by which the
+many species of edible bulbs, leaves, and tubers with which the fringe
+of the Desert abounds, are known.  In the short and adventitious spring,
+when the leaves appearing through the sand indicated the proper spots to
+dig at, life was comparatively easy, but after the northern winds had
+scorched away the herbage it was only by a bitter struggle that body and
+soul could be kept together.  Each year, when the Orange River came down
+in flood, the three wretched creatures would occupy a cave close to its
+southern bank just above the Augrabies Falls.  Here, especially when the
+rains had been very heavy in the Orange Free State or the upper reaches
+of the Vaal River, they used to reap a rich harvest of garbage.
+
+Six years of this life had passed prior to the finding of the mysterious
+corpse and the diamonds.
+
+The cave was an oval chamber in the sheer granite wall in which the
+flank of a mighty mountain ended.  The floor was of dry sand, and there
+was no drip from the smoke-stained roof to cause inconvenience.  Here it
+was cool in the hottest weather, and when the cold eastern winds
+shrieked in arid wrath down the black gorges, the three waifs lay snug
+and warm.  The furniture of the cave consisted of a few miserable skins,
+two or three earthern pots of native make, a bow and a quiverful of
+poisoned arrows, and a few blunted iron spikes, the latter being used in
+the root-digging operations.  A musical instrument, which will hereafter
+be described, completes the inventory.
+
+Gert was an old man.  His limbs were half-crippled by rheumatism, and
+his sight had begun to weaken.  The Hottentots are a thin-skinned race,
+and flogging is to them a very terrible punishment.  Gert had never
+fully recovered from his experience of the lash.  Had his physical
+vigour been greater he might have been able to kill game from time to
+time, especially when the trek-bucks crossed the Desert.  As things
+were, his hunting never yielded him more than a few snakes and lizards
+and an occasional jackal.  On very rare occasions he managed to get a
+shot at a klipspringer antelope; only, however, after lying in wait for
+hours at a time in a red-hot rock-cleft, on the faint chance of the
+bucks being startled in one of the hollows and running past him on their
+way to the next.  But these waitings were usually unsuccessful and he
+could not afford to lose the time which they took up.
+
+Gert Gemsbok reached the cave with his unsavoury burthen.  This he flung
+down on the ground outside, for its stench would have made the air of
+the cave unbearable.  It was bad enough to have to eat such stuff
+without breathing it as well.  Having skinned the leg of the carcase he
+cut up some of the meat and put it into one of the pots.  From a crevice
+in the wall he took out a handful of strong-smelling herbs; these he
+broke up and added to the stew with the object of deadening the
+effluvium.
+
+After supper he related his adventure to the two women.  The mother was
+half in her dotage, and had almost reverted to the animal in the course
+of the years of misery which she had lived through.  The wife became
+wild with excitement at the idea of once more having money and being
+able to purchase longed-for luxuries.  She tried to persuade Gert to
+start at once on a journey across the Desert to Kenhardt for the purpose
+of realising his property and obtaining coffee, sugar, and tobacco.  The
+memory of these things, none of which had been tasted for years,
+continually tantalised her.  Gert, however, mindful of former
+experiences, had no intention of placing himself within the power of the
+law again.
+
+The old woman had originally come from Great Namaqualand; she belonged
+to the Bondleswartz Clan.  She was continually urging her son to remove
+to the land of her birth; but this he could never be persuaded to do.
+He always clung to the hope of being able to remove to some civilised
+locality where coffee and tobacco would be obtainable.
+
+One mitigation of all this misery existed.  This Hottentot was an
+artist, carrying in his heart a spark of that quality which we call
+genius, and which might be called the flower that bears the pollen which
+fertilises the human mind, and without which the soul of man would not
+exist, nor would his understanding have sought for aught beyond the
+satisfaction of his material senses.  Gert Gemsbok was a musician.  His
+instrument was of a kind which is in more or less common use among the
+Hottentots, and which is known as a "ramkee."  The ramkee is very like a
+banjo rudely constructed.  In the hands of a skilful player its tones
+may be pleasing to the ear.  One peculiarity of the performance is that
+a great deal of the fingering--if one may use the term--is done with the
+chin.  There are usually four strings, but some instruments contain as
+many as seven.
+
+In Gert Gemsbok's ramkee the drum was made from a cross section of an
+ebony log, which had been hollowed out with infinite labour until only a
+thin cylinder of hard, sonorous wood was left.  Across this was
+stretched the skin of an antelope, and inside were several layers of
+gum--this for the sake of enriching the tone.  The bridge was the
+breast-bone of a wild goose; the strings were made of the sinews of a
+number of wild animals, selected after a long series of experiments as
+to their respective suitability to the different parts of the gamut.
+
+The elder woman was almost totally deaf, and the younger too much
+preoccupied by her physical ailments to pay much heed to the music.  The
+musician, however, required no audience to enable him to reap the
+fullest enjoyment from the exercise of his art.  He loved music for its
+proper sake, and under its influence could soar away above his sordid
+surroundings into a heaven of his own creation.
+
+His favourite air was one which ran somewhat as follows.  Upon it he
+would improvise and invent fantastic arabesques and ingenious
+variations:--
+
+The old woman became more and more feeble, until at length she seemed to
+lose every faculty except an appetite for certain kinds of food.  She
+lay for weeks without speaking.  One night she surprised the others by
+complaining, in a very distinct voice, of feeling cold.  Gert stirred up
+the embers and threw a few twigs upon them.  Soon after this she said--
+
+"Now I am going over the river."
+
+Next morning they found she was dead.
+
+Gert walled up the mouth of the cave with the heaviest stones he could
+move, leaving the body inside.  Then he and his wife departed.  He made
+up his mind to attempt once more to obtain employment.  Perhaps after
+six years his crime of truth-telling might have been forgotten or
+condoned.  He now had an object in life--the realisation of the property
+which Fate had thrown in his way.  He would first return to Namies,
+which was a place of congregating for Trek-Boers.  Possibly he might be
+able to get employment there.  Even if unsuccessful, however, there was
+still veld-kost to be had, and there were only two mouths to feed now.
+Alone, he might easily have made his way to other parts and disposed of
+the diamonds--even a tithe of their value would have made him a rich
+man--but his wife could only hobble a couple of miles a day at the very
+most.  He could, of course, have left her to starve, but the thought of
+doing this never so much as crossed his mind.
+
+So Gert Gemsbok, as stout-hearted as any paladian who ever carried a
+lance to the Holy Land, packed up his bundle of worn, dirty skins, and
+tied the pots on the top of it with some withes of twisted bark.  He hid
+his bow and arrows in a dry crevice against the possibility of future
+needs--they would have been regarded, and rightly so, as the Mark of the
+Beast among the Trek-Boers.  Then, with his ramkee slung under his arm
+and his miserable old wife hobbling upon cranky legs behind him--
+blinking in the sunlight to which she had been long unaccustomed--he
+struck boldly back to renew the battle of life among the men who had
+driven him forth to herd with the wild beasts.
+
+His six diamonds, wrapped in a dirty rag, were sewn in a row along the
+bottom of his skin wallet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+TOO GENERAL TO BE SPECIFIED.
+
+When Susannah reached the camp with the afterglow of her lover's kisses
+still upon her lips, she found that dinner was over.  There was a new
+look upon her face and a light in her eye, which were not lost on any
+member of the family.  She took a rusk from the cupboard and then went
+to the scherm for a cup of coffee which Katryn, the Hottentot
+servant-girl, had saved for her.  Katryn had seen Max follow Susannah to
+the kopje, and, as she noticed the new look upon the girl's face, had
+drawn her own conclusions.  After pouring out the coffee she shot an
+extremely sly glance at Susannah's face and then turned away, her
+shoulders shaking with laughter.
+
+Old Schalk turned to his wife, who was sitting beside him in the
+mat-house, hemming an apron--
+
+"Wife, did you see how strange she looked?  I wonder what she and the
+Jew have been doing on the kopje?"
+
+"Let us call her and ask.  Susannah!"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+"Where have you been that you did not come to dinner?"
+
+"At the koekerboom on the top of the kopje, aunt."
+
+"Who was with you?"
+
+"Max, aunt."
+
+"What happened to make you look so strange?"
+
+In the most self-possessed manner possible Susannah replied--
+
+"He told me he loved me, and I promised to marry him."
+
+Old Schalk and his wife both gasped; then the old man broke out--
+
+"You promised to marry _him_--a Jew--one of those who denied the Lord
+Jesus and crucified Him?"
+
+"I am sure Max did not do that; for one thing, he was not born at the
+time."
+
+"Don't tell me!  If he did not do it himself his forefathers did, and
+the Lord laid a curse on the Jews."
+
+"Who ever heard of such a thing as marrying a Jew?" broke in Mrs
+Hattingh.  "I am sure the minister would refuse you the sacrament if you
+were to do it."
+
+"I love him, and I will marry no one else," replied Susannah composedly.
+
+"It is not even as if he were rich," continued Mrs Hattingh; "but he
+has nothing--he is only a servant.  The shop belongs to his brother."
+
+Maria and Petronella, were just on the other side of the mat-house wall,
+listening to all that was said, and giggling and making signs to each
+other.  Old Schalk bethought him of his overdue account at the shop, and
+wondered how this unexpected development would affect his relations with
+Nathan, with whom he could not afford to quarrel.  But Max was often, as
+at present, in charge of the business; he also had to be considered.
+The old Boer came to the conclusion that his safest course was to ignore
+the whole affair, at all events for the present, until after Nathan's
+return.
+
+"The idea of her wanting to marry a little boy like that!  A nice joke,
+indeed!  When Nathan comes back he will soon put him right."
+
+"And to think of her looking at a fellow of his size when a fine man
+like Jan Roster, who has plenty of stock and a farm of his own, just
+wants but a little encouragement to make him have the banns put up for
+the next Nachtmaal."
+
+Susannah turned away indignantly and left the mat-house.  Jan Roster was
+a young farmer who owned land on the opposite fringe on the Desert, many
+arid miles from Namies.  His business, the peculiar methods of which
+will be explained later on, sometimes brought him to northern
+Bushmanland.  Recently he had cast looks of tenderness at Susannah.
+This, however, was not much of a distinction; he was known to be very
+anxious indeed to get married--in fact, he had proposed to nearly every
+good-looking girl within two hundred miles of his farm.  In spite of his
+flourishing circumstances, his bulky build, and his not specially
+ill-favoured appearance, no girl could ever be got to take him
+seriously.  He had spent a few months at a college at Stellenbosch, and
+thus received what, by courtesy, was termed an education.  Theology was
+his speciality, and could he have conveniently combined the ministry
+with farming as carried on upon his peculiar lines, he would undoubtedly
+have attempted to enter the Church.  As things were, he was in the
+habit, when on his rounds, of preaching to the Trek-Boers and
+half-breeds.  It was understood that he was ambitious of entering
+Parliament eventually, and that he looked upon sermons as a preparation
+for debating in the senate of his country.
+
+"Is it true that you are going to marry the little Jew?" asked Maria, as
+Susannah left the mat-house.
+
+Susannah passed on indignantly without deigning an answer.  She was not
+going to stand having her lover referred to in such slighting terms.
+
+It was past eight o'clock when the waning moon looked over the eastern
+rim of the Desert.  Max was sitting on a packing-case outside the shop,
+trying to make up his mind as to whether he ought to walk over to the
+camp and see Susannah or not.  His heart said "Go," but his reason said
+"Stay."  He instinctively divined that there would be opposition to any
+connection between himself and Susannah on the part of the Hattinghs.
+He wondered whether Susannah had told about what had happened.  It
+seemed to him impossible that such a thing could be kept concealed--the
+clucking lizards which came out of their sand-burrows after the sun had
+gone down, and the green pneumoras squeaking on the bushes, seemed to be
+discussing nothing else--to be proclaiming their opinion of the
+occurrence far and wide.  When the moon arose Susannah happened to be
+watching it as well.  Perhaps he saw her face reflected on the gleaming,
+pearly surface.  Max arose from his seat and walked over to the Hattingh
+camp.
+
+He went straight to Susannah and took her shyly outstretched hand.  She
+returned his ardent pressure slightly, and a spasm of bliss went through
+him.  Then he turned and greeted the others with nervous effusiveness,
+but his advances were very coolly received.  No one volunteered a remark
+for some little time.  The silence became oppressive; it was broken by
+Old Schalk, in evident pursuance of a conversation which Max's visit had
+interrupted.  He addressed the visitor--
+
+"What is the real belief of the Jews and the Roman Catholics about
+Christ?"
+
+"I--I don't exactly know," replied Max hesitatingly; "I was very young
+when I left home."
+
+"But you know well enough," said Mrs Hattingh.  "Jan Roster told us all
+about it in his last sermon: Pontius Pilate and the soldiers were Roman
+Catholics, and--and--"
+
+"Well, wife, we are waiting."
+
+"Ach, Schalk, you heard the sermon as well as I.  At all events the Jews
+and the Roman Catholics between them crucified the Lord."
+
+"I know that as well as you do, woman; but what I asked about was their
+belief.  Oom Dantje van Rooyen says that he heard from the minister that
+the Jews and the Roman Catholics do not believe quite the same thing."
+
+"Oh! what should I know about that?  But surely" (turning to Max) "you
+can tell us about your faith?"
+
+Poor Max did not know what to say.  Nathan had, over and over again,
+impressed upon him that, although there was certainly no truth in any
+religion whatever, he must be sure to keep all the Jewish feasts and
+observances--with the exception of fasts, which he was to pretend to
+keep--all the days of his life.  He had heard other Jews discussing
+ritual and religion in the same strain.  He wished heartily that he knew
+the details of Susannah's faith, so that he might believe what she
+believed.  He replied, lamely enough--
+
+"You must ask my brother about these things."
+
+"Another thing I should like to know," said Old Schalk; "that is, why
+they eat children in the synagogues?"
+
+It was strange to hear this echo of one of the lying cries of the
+Judenhetze in this remote corner of an African Desert.
+
+"You must wait and ask my brother," repeated Max.
+
+"Yes; they are a wicked lot in their religion," continued Old Schalk.
+"Fancy a religion that forbids one to eat pork and teaches you to eat
+children--not their own children, oh no, but Christian children that
+they steal in the streets of the big towns, and then fatten up for the
+Passover!"
+
+"But, uncle, I don't think they do so any more," said Susannah, moved by
+the pain in Max's face.  "It was long ago that they used to do that."
+
+"What does a girl like you know about such things?  Did we not read
+about it in the book which Uncle Sarel lent us, and didn't Jan Roster
+say it was quite true, and that they caught the Jews doing it in Russia
+the other day?  Why, even Max cannot say it isn't true."
+
+"I--I never heard of it," faltered Max.
+
+"Never heard of it?" said Mrs Hattingh in low but indignant tones.
+"What a dreadful thing to be so ignorant of one's own religion!"
+
+Max went home slightly consoled in his humiliation by another gentle
+pressure from the hand of Susannah at parting.  But some of the bloom
+had already been rubbed off the blossom which had unfolded in such
+radiant fairness only a few hours before.  He could see that Susannah's
+secret had been surprised from her, and that opposition and danger
+loomed ahead.  He anticipated that Nathan would make his life a burthen,
+would torture him with coarse allusions and unpleasant jokes.  This he
+was prepared for, and the prospect was a sickening one.  The future was
+heavily clouded, and behind the clouds visible he foreboded others.  But
+"the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  His love was sure, and
+he knew it to be returned.  Sleep knit up the ravelled fabric of his
+happiness, and memories of the new bliss he had tasted haunted his
+dreams.
+
+The next morning brought trouble.  Shortly after breakfast Max saw, to
+his dismay, three members of the Hattingh family labouring heavily
+across the sand towards the shop.  Mrs Hattingh was in the centre--she
+leant heavily on the arms of her granddaughters.  As the three entered
+the shop, the two girls looked at Max with an expression of
+indescribable slyness.  Max groaned in spirit; Nathan had given him
+strict injunctions that on no account whatever were any members of the
+Hattingh family to get any more credit.  He knew instinctively that this
+was what they had now come to ask for.
+
+Mrs Hattingh sat down heavily upon a packing-case, panting from the
+exertions of her walk.  Maria and Petronella lifted the flap of the
+counter quite unceremoniously and walked in.  Then they began to pull
+down the goods from the shelves and examine them.  Mrs Hattingh
+beckoned to Max to come to her.  In a low tone and with meaning looks
+she told him that she wanted to buy some material for a dress for
+Susannah.  Max knew this to be a lie, but he did not dare to show his
+knowledge.  She eventually selected enough material for two dresses;
+but, from the number of yards ordered, Max could see that his attachment
+was being used for the purpose of providing the two large specimens of
+young womanhood present with frocks which they badly needed.  Other
+articles were selected by the girls, who kept darting meaning looks at
+him and uttering whispered hints about their cousin.  When they left,
+carrying several large parcels, the Hattingh account had been increased
+on the _debit_ side by upwards of two pounds sterling, and the fact
+pressed like an indigestion upon the already laden breast of poor Max.
+
+Within a few days the Trek-Boers began to flock into Namies.  Pasturage
+was now plentiful, and the gregarious instinct, which is present to a
+certain extent even in a Trek-Boer, prompted them to draw together.  A
+week after the rain there were fully a dozen camps grouped around that
+of Old Schalk.
+
+A good deal of flirting of a sort went on among the young men and
+maidens.  Music nightly startled the coneys until they scuttled away
+among the rocks of the kopje, for "Oom Schulpad" turned up from no one
+knew where with his old fiddle, and played reels and polkas which made
+the feet of the young people itch to be dancing.
+
+Oom Schulpad was an elderly and deformed man who owned a
+disreputable-looking cart and three small donkeys, by means of which he
+used to make extremely long journeys through the Desert, which he knew
+as well as he knew his instrument.  In many places where another would
+have died of thirst, Oom Schulpad could find water.  Music and hunting
+were his two passions, and he loved his rifle as much as his fiddle.
+Sometimes he would penetrate deep into the dunes, and return with a load
+of gemsbok bultong.  He was a thorough vagrant by disposition, and
+hardly ever settled down at one spot for more than a fortnight at a
+time.  His music made him a _persona grata_ at all the camps, so he
+simply passed from one to another--always a welcome guest.
+
+Being very clever and versatile as a mechanic, he could mend harness,
+repair a gun, make veldschoens, or replace a broken spoke in the wheel
+of a wagon.  His name, which means "Uncle Tortoise," was given him on
+account of the shape of his back.  He had a real talent as well as a
+passionate love for music.  His tongue was an extremely bitter one, and
+he was accordingly feared by those whom he disliked.  He had never
+married.  He said that he hated women; nevertheless he was usually to be
+found, when not away hunting, in the company of young girls.  These, as
+a rule, liked and trusted him.
+
+It was with the advent of the Trek-Boers that the real troubles of poor
+Max began.  The relations between himself and Susannah formed the
+standing joke at Namies for weeks.  Every day the shop would be filled
+with idle young men and women whose only purpose was to joke at the
+expense of the unhappy lover.  Many of these jokes were coarse, and made
+Max burn with shame.  He often longed for muscle so that he might
+revenge his wrongs.  Sometimes the supposed prospective domestic
+arrangements of the young couple with reference to the extremely limited
+accommodation at the back of the shop would be discussed in realistic
+and distressing detail.  Attached to the shop was a little room about
+twelve feet square, which formed a lean-to.  This, with the shop and a
+small room at the back which was used as a store for hides, formed the
+whole extent of the premises.  The back room was occupied by the
+brothers jointly as a sleeping chamber.  Their meals were cooked by a
+Hottentot boy behind a bush, and were eaten upon the counter.
+
+Susannah also had her troubles, but she did not suffer nearly as much as
+Max, for she had an extremely bitter tongue, and in the game of chaff
+was more than a match for any one who attacked her.
+
+These two thus underwent a discipline which stood them in good stead
+afterwards.  In the course of a couple of weeks they became more or less
+callous, and were it not for the dread of Nathan's return, which
+oppressed him like a nightmare, Max would have been happy enough.  But
+Nathan was now a fortnight overdue, and was daily expected to arrive.
+
+On the afternoon of the second Sunday after the meeting at the foot of
+the koekerboom on the top of the kopje, Max suddenly made up his mind
+and did what was for him a very heroic deed.  He put on his best
+clothes, went boldly over to the Hattingh camp, at which there was a
+large miscellaneous gathering.  He walked around the circle and shook
+hands with every one present.  Then he took his seat next to Susannah,
+who blushed with pleasure at her lover's daring.  She had been rather
+hurt at the way in which he had kept aloof from her, and his
+vulnerability to the banter which she despised had annoyed her.
+
+After a few minutes the company was electrified mildly by seeing these
+two walk off together.  This time they did not make for the kopje, but
+strolled across the flats, where a few springbucks were playing about
+unconcernedly as though they knew it was Sunday.
+
+Old Schalk snorted violently, and began to mutter questions at his wife.
+She--her conscience gripping her over the credit which, by virtue of
+her tacit approval of his addresses towards her niece she had induced
+Max to give--whispered audibly--
+
+"Ach! what does it matter?  Let the children alone."
+
+The conversation soon glided back to the channel in which it had been
+flowing when the interruption came.  A certain stranger--a man who was
+travelling through Bushmanland for the purpose of buying cattle for the
+Cape Town market--was discussing astronomy with Old Schalk, who was a
+strong supporter of the geocentric theory.  The cattle-dealer was not by
+any means well up in his subject; as a matter of fact, he was simply
+retailing certain notions which he had picked up in a crude state from a
+young relative of his who had been to a college, and which he had not
+been able properly to digest.  Nevertheless he stoutly maintained his
+thesis.
+
+"Ach! what?" said Old Schalk.  "These star-peerers, what do they know?
+Are their eyes better than mine?  Can they shoot springbucks better than
+I can?  Don't I see that the sun gets up every morning _there_" (he
+pointed to the east), "and don't I see every evening that it goes down
+_there_?"
+
+He shook the long stick towards the west, as though threatening an
+astronomer with the consequences of his folly.
+
+"Ja, Oom; but you see it's this way--"
+
+"Ach! don't tell me about your this way and that way.  You find me a
+star-peerer who knows his Bible or has better eyes than I have, and I'll
+listen to him.  Doesn't the Bible say that Joshua told the sun to stand
+still?  Doesn't the Prophet Isaiah say that the Lord stretched the sky
+over the earth like a tent?  These star-peerers are all rogues and
+Romanist heathens."
+
+"But, Oom," said the cattle-dealer, who was, as it were, blowing the
+fuse of a torpedo which he had in reserve, "how is it that these
+star-peerers are able to tell long before the times when the sun and the
+moon will be darkened?"
+
+"How are they able to tell?  Why, they find it out from the almanack, of
+course."  The only almanack with which the Trek-Boer is acquainted is
+one issued by the Dutch Reformed Church.  This document is adorned with
+the Signs of the Zodiac, and is heavily garnished with Scripture texts.
+It is believed by certain classes of the Boers that the almanack is
+annually deduced from the Bible by a committee of Church ministers.
+
+The cattle-dealer, blown up--to change the old metaphor--by his own
+torpedo, had to own himself vanquished.  Old Schalk's reputation for
+wisdom rose higher than ever, and a deadly blow was dealt to the
+heliocentric theory in Bushmanland.
+
+The lovers strolled away over the sandy plain, which was now covered
+with a rich carpet of variously hued flowers.  Gorgeous gazanias of the
+tint of the richest mahogany, and with the base of each petal eyed like
+a peacock's tail; blue, sweet-scented heliophilas, purple and crimson
+mesembryanthemums, and lovely variegated pelargoniums brushed their feet
+at every step.  They said little to one another, and that little could
+interest none but themselves.  Both were ignorant and illiterate to a
+degree; their range of ideas was more limited than it is easy to
+describe, or even to realise; but their hearts were young and full of
+vague, sweet, unutterable thoughts.  The springbucks--the advance
+detachment of a large "trek"--were scattered, singly or in small groups,
+over the illimitable plain.  They sheered off, feeding tamely, to either
+side.  The meerkats scuttled back to their low, burrow-pierced mounds,
+where they sat erect on a tripod, formed by hind legs and tail, ready to
+dart underground.  The striped-faced gemsbuck-mice dashed wildly into
+their burrows in terror, and then out again in uncontrollable curiosity.
+
+As they walked homeward in the short gloaming Max asked Susannah if she
+would always be true, even if her people were against him and his
+brother drove him away.  The girl looked straight into his eyes and
+answered "Yes," in a clear, low tone.  Max, believing her, saw Hope
+shining through the clouds of uncertainty that filled the future, and
+was happy.
+
+When they reached the camp the short Desert twilight had nearly faded
+and the eastern stars were burning brightly.  The gathering had
+dispersed, and Old Schalk, sitting smoking in his chair before the
+mat-house, was the only person visible.
+
+"Well," he said, "what is this they tell me about you and my niece?"
+
+"I want to marry her, Uncle; I am very fond of her."
+
+"Marry her?  You will have to become a Christian before you marry _my_
+niece?"
+
+This was meant sarcastically.  No Boer believes in the possibility of a
+Jew becoming a Christian.
+
+"Yes, Uncle, I'll do that at once."
+
+"Hear him, now.  He thinks a Jew can become a Christian as easily as a
+man can change his shirt.  Did you ever hear of a jackal turning into a
+tame dog in a day?"  Max flushed hotly but made no reply.  "I never
+heard of such a thing in all my life," continued the old Boer.  "It is
+not even as if you were rich and had a shop of your own; but you are
+only a poor little boy without anything.  Look here, I do not want your
+brother Nathan to think that I have had anything to do with this
+foolishness."
+
+Just then a diminutive Hottentot approached from behind the camp,
+saluted Old Schalk, and squatted down on the ground close by upon his
+hams.  The man was clad in a few ragged skins and looked weak and
+emaciated.
+
+"Well, schepsel, where do you come from?"
+
+"Out of the veld, Baas."
+
+"And where are you going to?"
+
+"I have come to the Baas."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"I have come to the Baas to look for work."
+
+"Ja, and what is your name?"
+
+"I am old Gert Gemsbok, Baas."
+
+"What!  Are you the vagabond Bushman who got Willem Bester into the
+tronk?"
+
+"I am he, Baas."
+
+"And you come to ask me to give you work?"
+
+"I only told the truth, Baas."
+
+"Ach, what does a Bushman know about truth?"
+
+"If I did a sin when I spoke the truth, Baas, I have had my punishment:
+for six long years I have lived like a badger in a hole.  I am a human
+being, Baas; let me come back and live among other human beings."
+
+"No, no, schepsel; not a Boer in Bushmanland will give you work.  Willem
+Bester died in the tronk.  No, no!"
+
+"I have a sickly old wife, Baas, and she cannot live any longer on the
+veld-kost.  Give me work, Baas, and I will serve you faithfully."
+
+"No, no, schepsel; go back and live with the badgers."
+
+Max heard and wondered.  His awakening soul was shocked at the
+unreasoning cruelty of the old Boer's conduct.  The Hottentot had arisen
+slowly and feebly from the ground and was walking away; the young Jew
+followed and soon overtook him.  Max had been bartering fat-tailed sheep
+for goods with some of his customers and he wanted a herd.  He told Gert
+Gemsbok to follow him to the shop.
+
+That night the old Hottentot told his tale, or most of it, to Max.  They
+sat up in the shop until late, Gemsbok happy in the enjoyment of a
+pipeful of good tobacco.  He had lacked the means of smoking ever since
+he had been driven into banishment.  The suffering which this
+deprivation must have entailed can only be realised by those who know
+the Hottentot's dependence upon his pipe.
+
+Max burned with wrath at what he heard; his ingenuous soul revolted at
+the tale of injustice and stupid cruelty.  By instinct he could tell
+that the old man's story was ingenuous and, so far as it went,
+unreserved.  He called to mind that Old Schalk had not attempted to deny
+Gemsbok's plea that the evidence given by him against Willem Bester was
+true.
+
+Max engaged Gemsbok at a salary of eight shillings per month, with
+rations for himself.  This was a fair rate of remuneration for
+Bushmanland.  The work which the old Hottentot had to do was to look
+after the flock of three hundred fat-tailed sheep which Max had recently
+acquired, to herd them all day in the Desert, and to haul water for them
+with a derrick out of the well when he drove them home every night.
+Gemsbok knew that he could every day gather enough veld-kost to
+supplement his ration and make it suffice for his wife as well as for
+himself.  He had left her under a bush a few miles away.  Before
+daylight next morning he was well on his course to fetch her, with hope
+and gladness filling his heart.
+
+The Gemsbok _menage_ was established in a cleft of the kopje-side about
+fifty yards behind the store.  The habitation consisted of a movable
+screen of loose bushes about two feet high and shaped like a crescent.
+This was shifted from one side to another of the fireplace as the wind
+changed.  A vagrant dog which Gert had found far out in the Desert,
+half-famished for want of water, was added to the strength of the
+establishment, and became the devoted slave of its rescuer.
+
+The old couple now tasted happiness probably far greater than any they
+had previously experienced.  Max was kind to them.  Presents of old
+sacks and a few articles of cast-off clothing, fragments of food from
+his scanty table, an occasional pinch of tobacco,--such things filled
+the hearts of these belated creatures with deep joy and thankfulness.  A
+pot of salve for the old woman's legs was provided, and the result was
+satisfactory.
+
+Max found Gert a most intelligent and entertaining companion, and
+mentally far in advance of any of the inhabitants of the Desert whom he
+had met.  The old man's experiences had been varied and his life full of
+the tragic, and he seemed not to have forgotten anything he had ever
+seen or heard in the course of his long struggles against adverse Fate.
+
+The ramkee was much in evidence.  Oom Schulpad, with a true artist's
+generous appreciation of the art of a fellow craftsman, often brought
+his violin to the shop at night.  There the two musicians would contend,
+like two troubadours, in a kind of tournament of song.  Sometimes they
+would play duets, and it was then that Gemsbok proved his skill, for he
+accompanied without difficulty any air played upon the violin after he
+had heard it once.  He would sit and listen attentively whilst Oom
+Schulpad played it slowly over.  Then the notes of the ramkee would
+second the more civilised instrument as truly as if the music lay
+printed before the player and he could read it.
+
+On the night when this occurred for the first time, after Gemsbok had
+returned to his scherm, Oom Schulpad sat silently on the counter for a
+few minutes.  Then, as he took his departure he said, in a musing tone--
+
+"Ja, he knows more music than I, that old Bushman."
+
+As Gemsbok's poor old wife was entirely helpless, it was he who fetched,
+wood and water and attended to all the domestic duties.  The old woman
+slept most of the day, but at night the cheerful firelight from the
+scherm lit up the kopjes long after the last of the Boers lay snoring.
+Then the old couple would sit, toasting themselves at the cheerful
+blaze, and chatting happily together, except when some lively tune from
+the ramkee startled the ancient silence of the Desert.
+
+One of the Boers camped nearest the shop was a man named Koos Bester,
+cousin of the Willem Bester who had died in prison after being sentenced
+upon old Gemsbok's evidence.  Koos was a very big, sallow, dark-haired
+man with a scraggy fringe of coarse, black beard around his chin, and
+eyes of a very peculiar shade of light grey.  His usual mien was
+melancholy, his strength was prodigious, his hands and feet were of
+enormous size and looked as if they belonged to some one else.
+
+Koos Bester was a man who seldom either spoke or smiled; nevertheless he
+could hardly be called morose.  He was by no means a bad fellow in his
+way, and was devotedly attached to his comely wife and his three small
+children.  His father-in-law, a very old man, lived with him.  The
+Besters usually camped at a water-place on the other side of the dunes.
+As, however, no rain had fallen in that vicinity for some time, they
+moved over to Namies, meaning to return to the spot they had come to
+regard as their home as soon as circumstances permitted.
+
+Koos had been much attached to his cousin Willem and had felt the
+latter's imprisonment and death very keenly.  He hated the sight of Gert
+Gemsbok, who continually reminded him of Willem's fate; the very fact of
+knowing that the old Hottentot was in the neighbourhood was sufficient
+to make him miserable.  One day he asked Max to dismiss Gemsbok, but Max
+indignantly refused.
+
+The scherm was in full view of the Besters' camp, and the sight of the
+cheerful camp-fire with the old couple sitting next to it was a nightly
+affront.  Then the ramkee got upon Koos' nerves to such an extent that
+he became very unhappy indeed.  Gert's tune, with its endless
+variations, became absolutely hateful to the melancholy Boer.  One day,
+in the course of a discussion on the subject, Koos had the bad taste to
+insult Oom Schulpad by a reference to his physical defects.  The old
+fiddler had spoken in terms of admiration of the Hottentot's skill as a
+musician, and Koos lost his temper.  Oom Schulpad said nothing at the
+time, but he scored up a grudge against Koos.  Whenever Oom Schulpad
+felt that he owed another anything in this way, he took a pride in
+devising means to pay the debt.
+
+At length Koos found that he could stand the ramkee no longer, so he
+shifted his camp to the other side of the kopjes, where the tune could
+not reach his disgusted ears.  A few days afterwards a thunderstorm
+passed over the eastern fringe of the dunes, and he returned to his
+favourite camping-place.  But Gert Gemsbok's air haunted him for weeks
+with deadly persistency.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+HOW JAN ROSTER WAS TWICE INTERRUPTED.
+
+One day four sleek mules drawing a light buggy came trotting along the
+sandy road from the southward to Namies.  In the vehicle were sitting
+Jan Roster and his half-breed servant, Piet Noona.  They came from that
+part of Bushmanland in which no European can dwell, on account of the
+extreme brackishness of the water--from an area the only inhabitants of
+which are a few dozen families of half-breeds, who live by poaching wild
+ostriches in defiance of the law.  These people are very like human
+red-herrings in appearance--probably from the amount of salt which they
+constantly imbibe.
+
+The right of occupation of the district had been leased by Roster from
+Government, and he, in turn, sublet his rights to the half-breeds.  The
+rent was paid in ostrich feathers; these the landlord collected himself,
+and took over at his own price.
+
+The unique method practised by these people in hunting the ostrich may
+be worth describing shortly.  The ostrich runs probably swifter than any
+other description of game.  It has, however, one peculiarity--if kept
+moving, even with comparative slowness, for more than a couple of hours
+on a hot day, it gets heat-apoplexy, and suddenly dies.  The manner of
+its dying under these circumstances is peculiar.  It drops in its
+tracks, rolls over three times upon the sand, turns on its back and
+expires, with legs extended vertically.
+
+The half-breeds sent out boys mounted on ponies, sometimes for a
+distance of seventy or eighty miles, into the Desert.  These start in
+two parties, each taking a different direction.  After reaching ground
+where, from the spoor, it can be seen that ostriches abound, the two
+parties converge towards each other, leaving, at intervals, individuals
+stationary at certain points.  A chain, the links of which are several
+miles long, is thus formed around a large space, into the centre of
+which all the ostriches which it contains are gradually coaxed.  As soon
+as the cordon is complete, the birds are started at a run towards the
+saltpans, where the camps of the half-breeds are.  As the horses of the
+hunters actually engaged in chasing become exhausted, their places are
+taken by others waiting along the wide-apart lines, between which the
+hapless birds are being driven.  After a time the birds begin to drop,
+one by one.  The hunters who made the running at the beginning, and who
+now come slowly along on the spoor of the chase, pick the carcases up,
+one by one.  Then the feathers are carefully plucked out and tied in
+bundles, whilst the meat is cut from the bones and hung across the
+saddles of the weary horses.
+
+Jan Roster's buggy was of unusual make.  It had a skeleton frame, and,
+where the well ought to have been under the seat, was fitted an ample
+tin case, which could be easily unshipped.  The reason of this was well
+known to every Trek-Boer in Bushmanland.  The box was the receptacle of
+the feathers collected as rent from the half-breeds, and, in the rare
+event of Jan's meeting a policeman or the Special Magistrate upon his
+rounds, it could be slipped off and buried in the sand.  Once he had
+reached home with his collections Jan felt himself quite safe.  He
+farmed tame ostriches himself, and the possession of the feathers could
+always be accounted for as being the result of legitimate pluckings.
+
+Jan's tin box was full of feathers as he drove up to Namies, but this
+fact did not cause him the least embarrassment.  He pulled up within a
+few yards of Old Schalk's camp, and, while Piet Noona was outspanning
+the mules, he untied the tin box and carried it at once into the
+mat-house.  From the way in which he did this, it could be seen that he
+had evidently done the same kind of thing before.  He knew that he ran
+no risk of being betrayed--"Hawks dinna pyke out hawks' een."
+
+It was Saturday afternoon when Jan arrived; he was soon sitting in the
+mat-house drinking coffee, munching Boer biscuit, and glancing tenderly
+at Susannah from time to time.  Maria and Petronella sat on the big bed
+giggling, whispering together, and nudging one another.  Mrs Hattingh,
+exhausted by the heat, was sitting near the door fanning her perspiring
+face with her cappie.
+
+Susannah's countenance shone with a new light which made it very good to
+look upon.  Ever since her engagement she had become much neater and
+more tasteful in her dress.  In this respect she had always been in
+strong contrast to her cousins, who, in spite of their taste for
+pronounced colours, were utter slatterns.  To-day they were dressed out
+in finery of a distressing type.  Maria wore a new light-pink cashmere
+dress, a purple-flowered cappie, and around her neck a dark-blue
+handkerchief.  Petronella's frock was light blue, her kerchief was
+scarlet, and her cappie was of the same kind as her sister's.  Both
+sisters wore white cotton stockings and new veldschoens--the latter just
+finished for the occasion by Oom Schulpad.  The dresses were made of the
+material which had been obtained upon Mrs Hattingh's fraudulent
+representations to the effect that it was required for Susannah.
+
+There was a reason for all this splendour of attire.  Maria and
+Petronella had just made a double conquest, and the double-conquered
+were immediately expected to call.  These were two young men who had
+recently come to Namies on a courting expedition, from eastern
+Bushmanland.  They came, saw, and succumbed, all within the space of a
+week.  They had not yet declared themselves, but were expected to do so
+that afternoon.  These two hunted in a couple; one never came without
+the other, and they did not feel the slightest embarrassment in making
+love ardently in each other's immediate neighbourhood.
+
+It was about the middle of the afternoon when the expected swains
+arrived.  Both were tall, loose-jointed young men.  They had been to the
+shop and there purchased suits of "reach-me-downs" of distressing
+texture, pattern, and cut, as well as flabby-rimmed "smasher" hats.
+They had rather vacant faces, with good-natured expressions.
+Christoffel (commonly called "Stoffel") van Lell, Maria's admirer, wore
+a tweed coat, which was much too small for him, and the sleeves of which
+severally revealed half a foot of red, bony wrist.  His trousers were of
+brown corduroy of the most fragrant quality.  Willem Henrico, the
+willing slave of Petronella's charms, wore a suit of Bedford cord, the
+jacket of which was double-breasted and adorned with white delft buttons
+as large as cheese-plates.  New veldschoens and cheap, glittering spurs
+adorned their extensive feet.  Spurs serve as a sort of trade-flag in
+courting on the high plains; a young man with a new pair is known to be
+in search of a wife.
+
+A walk was proposed.  This Mrs Hattingh agreed to with the proviso that
+the road over the plains was taken and strictly adhered to, and that the
+couples kept close together.  The young men wanted to wander among the
+kopjes, and the girls seemed to approve of that route.  Mrs Hattingh,
+however, was inexorable.  When she emphatically repeated her injunction
+about keeping close together, Maria said, deprecatingly: "Ach, Ou' Ma,"
+[Ou' Ma, grandmother] and pouted.  Susannah flatly refused to go,
+although Jan's request that she should do so was ostentatiously seconded
+by Mrs Hattingh.  Jan, accordingly, decided to remain at the camp, so
+the other couples started by themselves.
+
+Mrs Hattingh soon afterwards stood up and waddled to the scherm,
+leaving Jan and Susannah alone together.  Old Schalk was sitting in his
+chair on the other side of the wagon, in the shade.
+
+Jan became very nervous.  After a few minutes he got up hesitatingly,
+and moved his chair close to the little cross-legged stool on which
+Susannah was sitting.  He cleared his throat several times before he
+could force himself to speak.  Susannah was pale, but quite
+unembarrassed.  She regarded her unwelcome admirer with eyes that had a
+wicked snap in them, and he became demoralised under her disdain.
+
+In vain did he speak of his house, his flocks, his horses, and the
+places he had seen--not to mention the important people with whom he was
+on terms of intimacy.  None of these things moved Susannah.  Her hands
+were closed into two shapely little fists--so tightly that there was not
+a vestige of blood to be seen in the knuckles.  Jan ought to have
+noticed her hands, and taken warning accordingly, but he rushed blindly
+upon his fate.
+
+"Susannah," he said, beseechingly, "I have come a long way to see you."
+
+"So?  Was that why you brought the tin box?"
+
+He floundered; in spite of the practice he had had, proposing was
+difficult.  Besides, Susannah's last remark was not calculated to set
+him at his ease.
+
+"Are you not glad to see me, Susannah?"
+
+"Why should I be?"
+
+"Well, I--you see--I wanted to tell you about my new house."
+
+"What have I to do with houses?  I live in a mat-house."
+
+"But wouldn't you like to live in a big house with rooms, and a stoep,
+and a harmonium inside, and furniture brought all the way from
+Clanwilliam?"
+
+Susannah's thoughts wandered.  In a dreamy tone she replied--
+
+"I don't know; perhaps I might."
+
+Jan took this for a sign of yielding.  He bent over and passed his arm
+around the girl's waist.
+
+Susannah's dreaming was over.  She sprang up and, in the act of doing
+so, swung round and dealt Jan a swinging blow on the ear with her small,
+but firm and nervous fist.  Jan felt as if the thunders of the
+Apocalypse had discharged themselves over his left shoulder.  He put his
+hand up to the side of his head to ascertain whether his ear was still
+there or had been burnt off.  Susannah had hurt her hand so much that
+the tears started in her eyes.  However, she managed to escape from the
+mat-house without showing her distress.
+
+Jan, very much crestfallen and with a bad singing in the left side of
+his head, strolled away among the other camps.  He could see, far out on
+the plains, the two double dots which indicated the respective pairs of
+lovers, and the spectacle made him sigh with envy.  As the violent pain
+in his ear calmed down to a sensation more like that of being gently
+roasted, he began to make excuses for Susannah.  Perhaps, he thought, he
+had been too precipitate.  At all events he would go back to tea, Mrs
+Hattingh having invited him to do so.
+
+When Jan returned at dusk he found van Lell and Henrico sitting on the
+big cartel bed in the mat-house--the nuptial couch of Old Schalk--with
+their arms around the waists of their respective charmers.  On each of
+the four faces was an expression of fatuous bliss.  The lovers took not
+the least notice of Old Schalk or Mrs Hattingh, or, for the matter of
+that, of Jan himself.
+
+At table the lovers did not allow their affections to prevent their all
+making excellent suppers.  The expected proposals had been duly made
+that afternoon.  During the meal each of the affianced maidens passed
+little tit-bits into her lover's mouth with her own fair fingers from
+time to time.  These were munched with expressions of rapture by the
+recipients.  Susannah was still indignant, and glanced at Jan from time
+to time in a manner that made him lose his appetite.  The pain in her
+hand had lasted longer than that in Jan's ear; of course she blamed him
+exclusively for the hurt.
+
+After supper another walk was proposed, but this was uncompromisingly
+vetoed by Mrs Hattingh.  Max came in later, and, as usual, sat down as
+far from every one as possible.  Jan wondered at the black looks which
+the visitor got from the old couple.  By and by, however, Susannah
+brought her little stool close to where Max was sitting, and then a
+glimmering of the true state of affairs came to Jan.  The pain seemed to
+come back to his ear with renewed intensity.  Ere long he found he could
+stand the strain no longer, so he said, "Goodnight," and rose to depart.
+In response to a question from Old Schalk, he said that he would hold a
+religious service on the following day.
+
+Next morning at about ten o'clock there was a considerable gathering of
+Boers at the Hattingh camp.  Stout, frowsy "tantas" and portly "ooms"
+strolled up with dignity or waddled laboriously through the sand.
+Gaudily arrayed maidens followed with their attendant swains.  A general
+requisition for stools and benches, had been made, and these were
+arranged in a semicircle in front of the wagon.  The children of the
+congregation sat on the ground where sheepskins had been stretched at
+the feet of the elders.  Old Schalk's chair was placed apart,
+immediately below the wagon-box, in a position from which he could note
+the effect of the exhortations on the faces of the others.  The service
+began with a psalm sung after the fashion followed in the Scotch kirks
+of a century ago--very slowly, and much through the nose.  Old Schalk
+followed with a prayer, which might be described as so much denunciation
+of people in general, clothed in the phraseology of the Prophet
+Jeremiah, when the utterer of the Lamentations was most exercised over
+the sins of Israel.  There was a rumour afloat to the effect that the
+Government was about to tax the Trek-Boers to some slight extent, in
+proportion to the number of stock they depastured in Bushmanland, so Old
+Schalk was the mouthpiece of the general indignation.
+
+The prayer over, Jan Roster mounted the wagon-box and began his sermon.
+His text was a wide one--it embraced the whole of the Ten Commandments.
+In an unctuous and impassioned manner he fulminated against all sorts
+and conditions of transgressors.  Some of the Commandments he slurred
+over--others he expounded at great length.  When he reached the fourth
+he glanced menacingly at Max, who stood outside the circle, opposite
+where Susannah was sitting.  The breaking of the Sabbath was, according
+to Jan, the root of all evil.  He called upon the legislators of the
+land to impose the heaviest penalties for all contraventions of the
+Divine ordinance on the subject.  He spoke in the most opprobrious terms
+of the Jews, who, out of the wickedness of their unregenerate hearts,
+desecrated this most holy day, and kept Saturday as a day of devotion in
+its stead.  He, Jan, was a sinner, but among all the faults which his
+conscience laid to his charge, Sabbath-breaking was not to be found.
+No, he had always kept holy the Lord's day--never travelled on it--never
+attended to worldly concerns between midnight on Saturday and the
+morning of Monday.
+
+Just then an interruption came.  Piet Noona, Jan's driver and
+confidential servant, forced his way along the side of the wagon until
+he reached the front wheel, just over which Jan was holding forth from
+the wagon-box.
+
+"Baas, Baas!" said he, in an agitated whisper.  Jan glanced down with
+displeasure in his eye, frowned, shook his head, and proceeded to the
+discussion of the fifth commandment Piet, however, was not to be put
+off.  He caught hold of the leg of Jan's trousers between his finger and
+thumb, and began to tug at it.
+
+"Baas, Baas!" said he again, in a tone almost of agony.
+
+"Go away--wait until I have finished," said Jan, in an irritated
+whisper.
+
+"Baas, Baas!" reiterated Piet, in a whisper which could be heard by all
+the congregation, "die Magistrate zijn wa' kom aan."  ["The Magistrate's
+wagon is approaching."]
+
+Jan reeled and staggered as if he had received a blow.  Then he bent
+down towards the agitated Piet and whispered hysterically the word
+"Inspan!"
+
+Piet darted off.  From the curt and summary way in which Jan dealt with
+the remaining Commandments one might have thought that they were of
+comparatively little importance.  He brought the service to a close in
+almost indecent haste, and then dived from the wagon-box behind the
+canvas curtain, in front of which he had been holding forth.  From there
+he rushed to the mat-house, whence he emerged in an incredibly short
+space of time, carrying the box of feathers.  This he ran with to the
+buggy.  He shoved it under the seat, and over it he draped a sheepskin
+kaross with ostentatious carelessness.  In a few minutes the astonished
+congregation, which had scattered into interested groups, was
+scandalised at seeing Jan Roster, the strict Sabbatarian, disappear in a
+dusty cloud on the road which led southward through the Desert.
+
+However, Jan had got safely away with his tin box and its incriminating
+contents, and there was not the slightest fear of any of the Boers
+giving information to the authorities on the subject.
+
+The Spedai Magistrate's wagon brought the Namies mail from Kenhardt.
+The mail consisted of three letters--two of which were for Max--and a
+few circular advertisements from enterprising promoters of patent
+medicines.
+
+Max's letters filled him with joy.  One was from his brother Nathan,
+saying he had made so successful a trip--having secured a large quantity
+of feathers of the very best quality--that he had decided to visit Cape
+Town for the purpose of disposing of his spoils and buying a fresh stock
+of "negotie," or trading truck.  Consequently he did not intend
+returning for about another six weeks.
+
+Nathan gave minute directions upon many points connected with the
+management of the business--more especially with reference to the giving
+of credit to the Boers, who, as he knew, would soon be collecting at
+Namies in considerable numbers.  The Hattingh account was, if possible,
+to be closed at once; in no case was any more credit to be given in that
+direction.  Max sighed with deep relief.  After the daily dread of
+Nathan's arrival which had overshadowed him for so many weary weeks,
+this long respite seemed like a prospective eternity.
+
+The other letter bore a foreign post-mark.  It was from a notary in
+Hamburg, informing him that an uncle, of whose very name he had but a
+faint recollection, had recently died and left him a legacy of about 150
+pounds.  It seemed a fortune.  Why, with that sum he could open a store
+for himself, as large as the one he was managing on a pittance for
+another.  What a relief it was to find himself independent of Nathan--to
+realise that there was now some prospect of his being able to make a
+home for Susannah.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+THE TREK-BOKKEN.
+
+The great annual "trek" of springbucks began, and Namies fell into a
+state of ferment.  For about a week small droves of bucks had been seen
+passing to the westward.  One morning clouds of dust were noticed
+arising into a windless sky about ten miles away to the south.  By this
+it was known that the "trek" had really begun, and that the drove of
+game was passing unusually far to the northward.  Within an hour after
+sunrise the Wagons were emptied of their contents, whilst every male of
+European descent above the age of ten was furbishing up a gun.
+
+All sorts and conditions of firearms were to be seen, from the
+flint-lock of three-quarters of a century ago to the modern Martini and
+Express.
+
+Breakfast over, the wagons, drawn by teams of oxen which had been
+standing in the yoke since early morning, moved off towards different
+points on the trek-line.  No horses were taken; a waterless country was
+now to be entered, and a horse becomes useless in hot weather after a
+day and a half without water.  On the other hand, an ox can endure
+thirst for a week without becoming incapable of work.
+
+Each wagon carried a couple of small kegs of water, a pillow-case full
+of Boer biscuits, a small bag of ground coffee, and a kettle.  The more
+luxuriously inclined among the hunters took with them karosses, made of
+the skins of fat-tailed sheep, to lie under at night.  The majority,
+however, took nothing whatever in the way of bedding.
+
+As the wagons cleared the circle of low kopjes it could be seen that the
+trek was an unusually large one.  As far as the eye could range from
+north-east to south-west the horizon was obscured by rising clouds of
+dust.  Here and there in the immense vista, a particularly dense cloud
+could be seen ascending slowly.  This indicated a locality where a mob
+of more than average compactness was pressing westward, impelled by the
+strange trek instinct.
+
+Old Schalk was a keen sportsman--as that term is understood among the
+Trek-Boers.  In fact the "trek-bokken" were the only things he ever got
+very excited about.  Sitting in his chair--which had been tied in the
+wagon--and accompanied by a youth whom he had provided with an old gun
+and some ammunition, and who had agreed to give up half of what he shot
+in payment, he was drawn towards the trek as fast as a fresh span of
+oxen could go with the almost empty wagon.  Besides his gun Old Schalk
+took two large "slacht eizers," or iron traps--cruel things with toothed
+iron jaws that would smash the leg of a horse.
+
+As the wagons approached the immense drove the dust began to die down,
+for the tired bucks had paused for their regular rest during the heat of
+the day.  Far away could be seen dense white masses, between which
+light-coloured dots were thickly sprinkled.
+
+The springbuck is pure white on the belly and flanks, and has a mane of
+long, white, hair extending from the root of the tail to the shoulders.
+This mane is usually concealed to a great extent by the fawn-coloured
+ridges of hair between which it lies.  It can, however, be erected at
+will to about five inches in height, and extended to about six inches in
+breadth.  The sides of the animal are a light fawn colour, upon which
+lies a horizontal stripe of dark brown about two and a half inches in
+width and extending from the shoulder to the flank.  The horns, shaped
+like the classic lyre, are about eight inches in length, and are ringed
+to within a couples of inches of the tip.  The animal stands about two
+feet nine inches in height at the shoulder, and weighs about ninety
+pounds when fully grown.
+
+Seen at a distance, or when the sun is shining against them, the
+springbucks appear to be white all over.  It is in the early morning, or
+when running away from or in circles around a bewildered dog--deceived
+into the idea that it is about to succeed in catching the lissom
+quarry--that the springbucks are seen at their best, and in their most
+characteristic attitudes and movements.  Then the spine becomes arched
+until the nose almost touches the ground, the mane of long, stiff, white
+hair expands laterally, whilst every fibre stands erect and apart.  As
+the animal careers along with the appearance of a bounding disc, its
+feet are drawn together and it sways, like a skater, first to one side
+and then to the other--some times to an angle of thirty degrees from the
+vertical.
+
+There is something inexpressibly sad about the fate of these hapless
+creatures.  Beautiful as anything that breathes, destructive as locusts,
+they are preyed upon by man and brute in the illimitable wilderness--
+even as the great shoals of fish are preyed upon by their enemies in the
+illimitable ocean.  The unbounded Desert spaces, apparently meant for
+their inheritance, hold for them no sanctuary; the hyaena and the jackal
+hang and batten on the skirts of their helpless host; the vultures wheel
+above its rear and tear the eyes out of the less vigorous which lag
+behind.  Sportsman and pot-hunter, Boer, half-breed and Bushman, beast
+of the burrow and bird of the air, slaughter their myriads; but still
+the mighty mass assembles every year and surges across the Desert like a
+tempest in its travail of torture.  Why should all this loveliness and
+symmetry have been created in such lavish prodigality only to be
+extinguished by a slow process of agony and violent death?
+
+For if there be any design anywhere in Nature's so-called "Plan," the
+Desert was meant to be the inheritance of these animals.  They were
+developed under its conditions, its sparse and tardy products are for
+them all-sufficing; they were in harmony with their ungracious
+environment until man came to disturb the balance.  The semi-civilised
+human beings who are superseding the springbucks are, physically, and,
+_pari passu_ mentally, deteriorating under the conditions subject to
+which the latter flourished.
+
+Within a measurable time the lyre-shaped horns strewn thickly over the
+veld will be the sole remaining sign of a vanished race, for the
+springbuck will inevitably become extinct in Bushmanland, as the bison
+has become extinct in the North American prairies.
+
+The "trek" is due to the instinct which impels the does to drop their
+young somewhere upon the eastern fringe of the Desert, which extends,
+north and south, for several hundred miles.  This fringe is the limit of
+the western rains.  These fall between April and September, when the
+Desert is at its driest, and bring out the green herbage necessary for
+the new-born fawns.
+
+As the area over which the bucks range becomes more and more
+circumscribed, the trek, although the number of bucks is rapidly
+diminishing, becomes more and more destructive, owing to its greater
+concentration.  The fawning season over, the herd melts slowly and flows
+gradually westward, until some night distant flashes of lightning on the
+cloudless horizon indicate where--perhaps hundreds of miles away--the
+first thunderstorm of the season is labouring down from where its bolts
+were forged in the far, tropical north.  Next morning not a single buck
+will be visible--all will have vanished like ghosts, making for the
+distant track of the rain.
+
+The wagons were drawn for some little distance into the course of the
+drove, and halted a few miles apart.  Then the oxen were unyoked and
+driven back towards Namies.
+
+Immediately there began a great and ruthless slaughter.  Whilst trekking
+the bucks are very easy to shoot; in fact, if the trek be a large one
+there is no sport involved in killing them, for they press blindly on,
+only sheering off slightly to avoid an enemy.  They become bewildered in
+strange surroundings; their only impulse is to surge forward in a
+flood-tide of destruction and beauty.
+
+From right and left could be heard the dropping shots--some far away and
+some near--each the death-knell of one of the loveliest of created
+things.  The Boers had crept out for some distance from the wagons, and
+each had taken up what he considered a favourable position.  Here he
+cleared a circular space about ten feet in diameter by pulling the
+karoo-bushes, roots and all, out of the sand.  The bushes were then
+piled around the space cleared until a low, inconspicuous fence, about
+nine inches in height, was formed, the root-ends of the bushes lying
+inwards.
+
+Behind this fence the hunter lay prone, peering over it now and then to
+mark the approach of the game, which wandered aimlessly about, singly or
+in small groups.  Whenever a buck approached to within a few yards of
+the scherm, the occupant, with unerring aim, would send a bullet through
+some vital part, and the animal would fall, its companions scattering,
+often only to get within range of another scherm.  The karoo-bushes grow
+to a height of about a foot; consequently the dead bucks were usually
+concealed from view.  If one lay unduly revealed, the hunter would creep
+out and strew a few bushes over it, thus hiding it effectually.
+
+At evening the Hottentot servants drove in the oxen, inspanned them to
+the wagons, and drove out to the various scherms for the purpose of
+bringing back the game to the different camping-places.  The carcases
+were then split down in front and laid open in the cool night air.
+
+Old Schalk, on account of his weak legs, was conveyed by wagon right to
+the spot where he decided to establish his scherm; then the wagon moved
+back for a couple of miles and the oxen were outspanned.  He laid
+himself down comfortably in his scherm, where he kept a Hottentot boy to
+attend him.  Under his large body was a sheepskin kaross, for he
+believed in doing his shooting, like everything else, comfortably.  The
+two terrible traps were brought into requisition.  By means of the
+united exertions of Old Schalk and the Hottentot the springs were forced
+back and the frightful jaws laid open.  Then the traps were carried out
+and carefully set, one on each side, and half buried in the loose sand.
+They were placed each about a hundred yards away from the scherm, and a
+troop of bucks would sometimes pass over one or other of the intervening
+spaces.  Under ordinary circumstances no buck would tread upon so
+unusual looking an object.  At a shot, however, the frightened creatures
+would spring into the air in different directions, and in the confusion
+one would perhaps alight on the engine.  Then the horrible jaws would
+snap, and the poor animal, held by the sinews of a shattered limb, would
+roll over and over on the sand, bellowing in agony.
+
+At nightfall the herd suddenly began to move on once more, in obedience
+to some mysteriously communicated impulse.  All night long the muffled
+thunder of their hoofs could be heard, whilst clouds of dust hung
+motionless in the dew-damp air.  Now and then the faint shock of a
+distant gun discharge could be distinguished above the sound of the
+trampling.  In their mad career some of the larger and more consolidated
+troops would rush to within a few yards of a wagon before they became
+aware of its presence.  Then the mass would open out slightly and flow
+onwards in a divided stream, which, however, would reunite a few yards
+farther on.  On occasions such as this the Boers or their Hottentot
+servants would shoot into the dense multitude, sometimes killing or
+wounding three or four bucks at one shot.
+
+Old Schalk now set a trap at each side of the wagon, and the Hottentots
+had to get up several times in the night to cut the throats of the
+captured animals and reset the engines.
+
+Early in the morning the wagons were sent back to Namies loaded with the
+slaughtered game.  Late in the afternoon they returned empty, to go back
+again on the following morning with a fresh load.
+
+For three days and nights the trek was at its height; then no more dense
+troops were to be seen.  For a week or more, however, plenty of
+profitable shooting could be had at the stragglers.
+
+At Namies the Boer women and children were busy cutting up the carcases
+and converting the meat into "bultong."  From each haunch the bone was
+removed, whilst the meat which lay thick along the back where the ribs
+join the spine was cut out in long strips.  All the meat was then
+slightly sprinkled with salt and left to lie in heaps for twenty-four
+hours.  After this it was hung for a few days upon lines slung between
+the ribs of the mat-houses and the laths of the wagon-tents.  Then, if
+the sun did not shine too fiercely, it would be hung out in the open.
+
+After a few weeks of such treatment the "bultong" is fit for use, and if
+stored in a dry place may be kept for an indefinite time.  This
+substance forms the staple animal food of the Trek-Boer for the greater
+part of the year.
+
+The skins were pegged out on the ground to dry; then they were stowed
+away in heaps, afterwards to be "brayed" soft, sewn into mats, and
+bartered to the Jew hawkers.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE LAST OF THE "OLD WOMAN."
+
+Max had no taste for slaughter.  The hunter's instinct, which makes so
+many otherwise humane men cruel, was not in him.  He therefore felt it
+no privation that he was unable to leave the shop and join the hunters
+as he had done in previous years when the trek had taken place.  On the
+other hand he felt with satisfaction that he could now see more of
+Susannah, her uncle being out of the way, and he made the most of his
+opportunities in this respect.
+
+Max was rapidly developing from a boy into a man, and many of the little
+traits specially characteristic of modern Israel began to show
+themselves in him.  Of Old Schalk he stood in awe; the brutal directness
+of the way in which the old Boer uttered all his thoughts frightened
+him.  Mrs Hattingh, however, had ceased to impress him since the day
+she had obtained the dresses for her granddaughters fraudulently and on
+the strength of his attachment to Susannah.  Max felt that he held her
+at a moral disadvantage, and she tacitly acquiesced in this.
+
+Max spent every evening while Old Schalk was away at his sweetheart's
+side.  He told her of his legacy, and around this nucleus they began to
+weave plans for the future.  Max had saved a little money out of the
+small salary which his brother allowed him.  He thought seriously of
+leaving Nathan's service as soon as the latter returned, and setting up
+on his own account as a hawker.
+
+His first notion was to buy some stock and set up as a Trek-Boer, but
+Susannah put a decided veto upon this proposal.  The prospect of being
+married to a man who spent most of his life in wandering about with a
+cart and four donkeys was almost equally unattractive.  The latter
+alternative might, however, lead to something better eventually.
+Susannah was in no hurry; she told her lover plainly that although she
+was prepared to wait indefinitely for him she would not marry until he
+could give her a proper home.
+
+Late one night, after Max had returned home to the shop, he heard a
+knock at the door.  He found Gert Gemsbok standing before the threshold.
+The old Hottentot stepped in, and, as usual, sat down on the floor.
+
+"Baas Max, I want to tell you a secret."
+
+"Yes; what is it?"
+
+"Baas Max, when I was living down on the bank of the river I one day
+picked something up."
+
+"Yes; what was it?"
+
+"You have been kind to me and I can trust you.  Here is what I picked
+up."
+
+Gemsbok handed over to Max the smallest of the six diamonds.  He had,
+after careful consideration, determined to trust his master so far, with
+the view of realising part at least of his valuables.
+
+Max took the stone and looked carefully at it.  He knew well enough that
+it was a rough diamond; as a child in Cape Town he had often seen
+illicitly obtained stones of this kind handed round among the Jews who
+frequented the lodging-house where he stayed for a short time upon his
+arrival in the colony.  The gem weighed about eight carats; it was of
+good water and perfect shape.
+
+"I found it," continued Gemsbok, "hidden in a boot which came down in
+the flood, just above the Augrabies Falls.  I know, for I have worked at
+the diamond fields, that I should be sent back to the tronk if that
+stone were found on me, so I thought you might sell it and give me half
+the money.  If you will do this it will satisfy me."
+
+Max considered for a while, and then decided that this was a matter for
+his brother to deal with.  He knew well enough that the possession of
+diamonds which could not be satisfactorily accounted for was a criminal
+offence severely punishable.  The law was to Max a thing very dreadful.
+He had never seen its manifestations, but he had heard of Willem Bester
+and others who had broken the law and suffered grievously in
+consequence.  Nathan, however, as was proved in his ostrich-feather
+dealings, held the law in sovereign contempt.  Nathan was the man to
+deal with a matter such as this; Max would have none of it.  In the
+meantime, however, he agreed to keep the stone in the small iron safe
+and to advance Gemsbok some coffee, sugar, and tobacco, for the
+delectation of himself and his "Old Woman," as the latter always called
+her, upon its security.
+
+But the "Old Woman" had no long enjoyment of the luxuries, for two days
+later, when Gemsbok came in from the veld with his flock, he found that
+she was dead.  She had passed away in her sleep.  Gemsbok expressed
+himself to Max as being glad that the poor old creature had breathed her
+last.  She had, he said, suffered so much of late, and now she would
+never feel pain or privation any more.  He dug a hole in a sandy gully
+behind one of the smaller kopjes and there the poor, unlovely corpse was
+laid.  In spite of her physical sufferings the quaint old creature had
+spent a very happy time at Namies.  She had enjoyed a sufficiency of
+fairly wholesome food, besides the occasional trifles in the way of
+coffee, sugar, and tobacco which Max's bounty supplied her with.  These
+had afforded her the keenest and, perhaps, the only enjoyment she was
+capable of feeling.
+
+Gemsbok, in spite of his repeated declarations that he was glad the "Old
+Woman" was gone, did not appear to be happy.  No matter how bright the
+fire of candle-bushes, the scherm was lonely at night--even an old woman
+so broken down by rheumatism and poverty of blood that she could not use
+her limbs and was hardly capable of carrying her food to her mouth, was
+better than no human companion at all.
+
+Gemsbok had now no companion but his dog, which was an animal as
+friendless as its master.  All day long alone in the veld, under the
+changeless Desert sky; all night long alone in the scherm, under the
+unregarding stars.  Man is a gregarious animal, and the burthen of one's
+own presence galls as only those burthens do which carry as dead weight
+the broken shackles of one of Nature's disregarded laws.
+
+Sleep was difficult to get.  It had been usual for the old couple to
+remain awake talking half the night through.  Lying awake alone proved
+to be a very different thing.  He moved his scherm to another spot; that
+did not improve matters, so he moved it back again.  He no longer
+enjoyed his coffee or tobacco.  The average man almost invariably gets
+to love anything totally dependent on him--no matter how unlovely it may
+be.  Some loves are not recognised in anything like their fulness until
+the removal of the thing loved leaves a void which can never be filled.
+
+A Hottentot is naturally among the most sociable of beings; Gert Gemsbok
+was no exception to the rule of his race in this respect.  He had,
+however, made no friends among his own race at Namies.  He could not
+visit the scherms of the other Hottentots; all were in the service of
+Trek-Boers, and the boycott against him was strict.  As a protest
+against Max's unheard-of conduct in keeping such a man in his service,
+all the Boers had given strict injunctions to their servants to have
+nothing to do with the informer against Willem Bester.  Besides, Gemsbok
+was; morally and intellectually, far in advance of all with whom he
+might, under other circumstances, have associated.  Aristotle's aphorism
+as to the effect of solitude upon man is very true, and Gert Gemsbok had
+not become a beast in his exile.
+
+Max noticed that now the old man never lost an opportunity of being near
+him.  In the evenings, whenever Max happened to be in the shop, Gemsbok
+would come in, sit on the floor, and tell of his experiences.  He thus
+told the true story of his life in detached fragments.  And what a tale
+it was! what a lurid record of long-drawn, strenuous suffering made
+bearable, at first by the memory and afterwards by the companionship of
+a kindred mate!  One night the old man told Max that he did not expect
+to live long; he felt his time had nearly come and he had no wish to
+prolong an existence which was now more than ever a weariness.
+
+He did not, he said, care much whether he obtained any of the proceeds
+of the sale of the diamond or not; he had no desire now except to get
+enough food for himself and an occasional bite for his dog.  The "Old
+Woman" was gone, and the sooner he too went the better.
+
+His music now was all in a minor key; no more reels and jigs that made
+one long to caper.  The old, stock melody ran through all he played,
+making it like an endless, barbaric fugue--weird and melancholy.  His
+nocturnal performances sometimes made the dog leap out of the scherm and
+howl despairingly at the stars.  In accompanying Oom Schulpad his hand
+seemed to have lost his cunning.  The old fiddler would, however, sit
+for long periods, astonished and uncannily fascinated by the eerie tones
+scattered by the saddened strings of the ramkee.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+NATHAN THE TEMPTER.
+
+One evening just after sunset Nathan arrived, driving a team of six
+smart mules before a brand-new cart.  He had bought the turn-out at
+Clanwilliam on his return journey from Cape Town.  He was accompanied by
+Koos Bester, at whose camp he had called in passing.
+
+Nathan had entered into a contract to supply a firm of butchers in Cape
+Town with slaughter oxen; Bester, who owned a lot of cattle which were
+running, half-wild, in Bushmanland, agreed to sell him a certain number
+upon terms very advantageous to the purchaser.
+
+Nathan was as unlike Max as it is possible for one brother to be unlike
+another.  He was a low-sized, knock-kneed man of a fair complexion which
+burnt to a fiery red on the least exposure.  His features were of the
+lowest Hebrew type--his lips were full and shapeless, his nose large and
+prominent, his eyes small and colourless, but exceedingly bright and
+glittering.
+
+Since Max had awakened from boyhood to manhood he had come to hate this
+brother of his, to whom money was the only god worth worshipping, and
+who sneered at every impulse or aspiration that did not have gain for
+its object.
+
+Next morning poor Max had a bad time of it.  The books were examined,
+and when the debit entry against the Hattinghs came to light and Max was
+unable to give any satisfactory explanation as to why he had disregarded
+his instructions in allowing this account to be increased, Nathan
+treated him to the grossest abuse.  However, things were found to be in
+a satisfactory condition on the whole; in fact Nathan could find nothing
+but this one item to find fault with.  All day long he kept recurring to
+this one blot upon a good record, until at length Max became extremely
+angry and said that if Nathan would only stop talking about it he would
+pay the value of the articles sold out of his own salary.  At this
+Nathan looked at him with a searching glint in his eye, but said nothing
+further on the subject.
+
+In the afternoon Nathan went for a stroll among the camps, in the course
+of which he learned two things, namely, Max's relations with Susannah,
+and the fact that old Gert Gemsbok, the Hottentot, who had been placed
+under the ban for giving evidence against a Boer, was in his service.
+Nathan returned to the shop, filled with sardonic fury.  Max at once saw
+that the hour he had been dreading for months had come.
+
+"Well," said Nathan, after he had regarded his brother for a few seconds
+with an evil smile, "going to get married, eh?"
+
+"Yes--what of that?"  Max felt his courage rising; he no longer dreaded
+the thing before him.
+
+"You, a Jew, and the child of Jews, to talk of marrying a Christian slut
+who was born under a bush and reared by stinking Boers in a mat-house?"
+
+"If I am a Jew it is more than you are; you often said that you didn't
+believe in God."
+
+"What has God got to do with it?  A Jew is a Jew, God or no God, and a
+Christian is of no use except to make money out of.  Nice idea, a chap
+like you thinking of getting married.  Going to reside in this
+fashionable suburban villa, or do you mean to build a mansion for
+yourself?"
+
+"Well, I sha'n't live here or anywhere else near you!"
+
+Nathan blinked in astonishment; it was something quite unheard of, Max
+taking such a tone.  The fear that inevitably strikes at the heart of
+the bully whenever even the weakest resists him, bridled his tongue for
+a minute; then he resumed--
+
+"Well, you can take your Boer slut and breed babies under a koekerboom
+whenever you feel inclined, so far as I care; but if you want to stay on
+with me you will have to give up this rot."
+
+"I do not want to stay another day with you," replied Max, in a quiet
+voice.  "I want to have done with you as soon as I can, and then I shall
+not care if I never see you again."
+
+Nathan, for the first time in his life, began to feel a glimmering of
+respect for his brother.  However, it would not do to let Max see that
+this was the case.  He began to expound upon the text of his other
+grievance--
+
+"That old nigger you have hired; you must clear him out at once."
+
+"You are master; if you want to get rid of him you had better give him
+notice.  He is hired by the month."
+
+"Yes, as soon as I can get another herd I will give your old pal notice
+with a sjambok.  I'm not going to have my trade with the Boers spoilt by
+keeping on a damned old nigger-informer like that."
+
+"I've got something belonging to him here," said Max, producing the
+diamond.  "He picked it up on the bank of the river.  He wants you to
+sell it and give him half the price."
+
+Nathan took the stone and glanced at it.  Then he gave a short whistle
+expressive of surprise and walked over to the window, in the light from
+which he examined the stone carefully.  This done he slipped it into his
+trouser pocket and turned again to Max--
+
+"No, my boy; that's a little too thin.  Stones like this are not picked
+up in Bushmanland.  This here diamond has been stolen from Kimberley,
+and I mean to keep it until I can restore it to its rightful owner.
+See?"
+
+Here he winked.  Max looked at him with deep scorn.  Nathan left the
+shop and walked to a short distance, whistling a lively tune.  Then he
+stood and critically regarded the sunset, with his hands in his pockets.
+
+Soon afterwards old Gemsbok drove up the flock of sheep to where they
+always lay at night, on the side of the kopje behind the shop.  Nathan
+called to him, and he came.
+
+"Well, you're a nice sort of a scarecrow to come here spinning yarns
+about picking up diamonds in Bushmanland.  I've a good mind to send you
+to the magistrate for having a stolen diamond in your possession."
+
+"The diamond is not a stolen one, Baas."
+
+"A likely story.  I suppose you'll tell me next that you've never been
+to Kimberley, eh?"
+
+"I have been to Kimberley, Baas."
+
+"I thought so.  Perhaps you'll tell me next that you've never been in
+the tronk, either, eh?"
+
+"I have been in the tronk, Baas."
+
+"Well, well; if that ain't wonderful guessing I'm a Dutchman.  Beg your
+pardon, I'm sure"--here he grinned ironically at Max, who had just come
+out of the shop.  "Let's try again.  It might also be possible that your
+back has been tickled by the `cat,' and that you didn't laugh, neither?"
+
+"My back has felt the `cat,' Baas."
+
+"Ex-tra-ordinary!  Why, I'm as good at pulling out facts as a corkscrew
+at opening bottles"--here he turned and winked at Max, who felt himself
+tingling with disgust.  "Now look here, Mister Nigger-informer--who has
+been to the diamond fields, also in the tronk, to say nothing of other
+places, and whose back has been tickled by the `cat' until you didn't
+laugh--I'm just going to stick to this here shining gem until I find the
+rightful owner.  Of course, if you're not satisfied you can go and
+complain to the magistrate next time he comes round.  See?"
+
+"I see, Baas."
+
+As Gert went to his scherm Nathan turned and winked to Max again.  The
+latter walked away with rage and shame seething in him.  Nathan went
+into the little back room and threw himself on the bed.  He lay there
+and chuckled over the prize he had so easily acquired.  "Why," he
+thought, "it must be worth at least fifty pounds."  Well, at last his
+luck was properly booming.  First, the big haul of feathers safely
+disposed of; next the cattle contract and the arrangement he had made
+with Koos Bester, under which Koos had to do all the work and he,
+Nathan, had only to pocket the profits; now this diamond.  He began to
+calculate: at this rate he would be a rich man in a few years.  Then he
+would go away and enjoy himself, would steep himself to the lips in
+vice, as he had often longed with the full strength of his weasel's soul
+to be able to afford to do.
+
+A knock on the iron front of the door startled him from his dream.
+
+"Come round here, whoever you are--especially if you have petticoats
+on!" he shouted.
+
+Then the tread of a heavy man drew near, and Koos Bester entered the
+room.
+
+"Well, Koos, my son, how do you feel this fine evening?"
+
+"Fresh, thank you."
+
+"Well, I don't know when I ever felt so happy.  I don't know why I
+should" (here he thought he had been possibly injudicious in revealing
+his blissful condition to Koos) "after all the money I've been losing
+lately, and after the price I'm going to pay you for these cattle; but
+somehow I do."
+
+Koos lit his pipe and smoked in silence.  The Trek-Boer is seldom
+lively; in fact he is usually silent whenever he can possibly avoid
+speaking.
+
+"Koos, have you heard that the old nigger who got Willem into that mess
+is here working for me, hired by my brother?"
+
+"Ja, I heard so."
+
+"Of course, I will give him the sack as soon as ever I can get another
+boy."
+
+"Ja, I am glad to hear that."
+
+"Koos, why don't you get him on the quiet and give him a good licking?"
+
+"Ja, I should like to do that if you will not mind."
+
+"Mind!  No; I'll be only jolly glad if you will do it.  But take him on
+the quiet, give him his dressing when there's no one about.  Whatever
+you do, don't trust my brother; he makes quite a pal of him."
+
+"Good, I'll make a plan.  But when are we to start?"
+
+"Let's see--this is Tuesday; supposing we get away on Friday.  Say
+Friday morning at daylight."
+
+"It'll be no use starting so early; we cannot get to my camp, round by
+Puffadder, in a day.  It will be time enough to start after breakfast."
+
+"But why do you want to go all that way round?  Can't we go through the
+dunes?"
+
+"No! you won't catch me going through the dunes this weather with mules.
+I have four horses that could do it; I wouldn't take them there now for
+five pounds."
+
+"All right, Koos; we'll go round by Puffadder and start after breakfast
+on Friday."
+
+The vast group of sand-dunes beyond which Koos Bester lived lies like a
+red-hot spider across the north-eastern section of the Desert, with the
+legs extending principally towards the south and south-west.
+
+Rather, perhaps, is it like a menacing hand stretched forth by the giant
+Kalihari--that waterless waste of loose sand which extends northward
+indefinitely from just across the Orange River--to seize the southern
+extremity of the African Continent in a fiery grip.  The river gorge cut
+the hand off at the wrist, else the eternal dribble might, in course of
+time, have overwhelmed all the western districts of the Cape Colony.
+
+The dunes are, as a rule, only from ten to twenty feet in height, except
+in the central area where they are piled high about an abrupt,
+strange-looking hill which has a stratum of red stone encircling it like
+a belt.  This hill is called "Bantom Berg," which means "belted
+mountain."  The many mile-long fingers straggle over the Desert,
+gradually encroaching.
+
+No one ever enters the dunes twice, except in case of the most urgent
+necessity.  At every step the traveller sinks to below the ankles in the
+fine, light, scorching sand.  It is sometimes practicable to cross the
+dune-tract in a light vehicle, if the weather happens to be cool and
+one's horses are in good condition.  But crossing them is, however,
+never safe, for there is no water to be had within their repulsive
+bounds.  The bones of many a lost wanderer lie there, covered by the
+sand streaming over the flat dune-top, under the lea of which he may
+have crept in the vain hope of getting shelter from the flame-hot wind
+from the north.  In such a case the body would be buried deep, beyond
+the reach even of the jackals, in a very short time.  If ever uncovered
+it would be found converted into a black, shrunken mummy, for the
+intense dryness of the sand is such that a body buried in it never
+decomposes; the moisture is rapidly drained out of it until nothing is
+left but a parchment bag of bones.
+
+Max gave Nathan a month's notice of leaving next day.  As, however, he
+had drawn his salary by the quarter, Nathan insisted on three months'
+notice being given.  In this Max had to acquiesce, but he did so with a
+very bad grace.
+
+Up to Friday morning Koos Bester had no opportunity of carrying out his
+intention of giving Gert Gemsbok a thrashing on the quiet.  By Thursday
+night he had quite given up the idea.  His slow mind had gradually come
+to recognise that he had better leave the old Hottentot alone--this in
+spite of Nathan's daily promptings on the subject.  The old man looked
+so frail and bent.  Some unrecognised remnant of chivalry in the Boer's
+nature made him dimly see that for a man of his strength to attack one
+who would be as a child in his hands would be base and cowardly.  But
+Willem, whom he had loved as more than a brother, had been done to death
+by this baboon-like creature.  Then for a few minutes the face of Koos
+would darken with the desire for revenge.  He began to long for the time
+of departure, so as to be away from the temptation to do the deed that
+he loathed and longed for the doing of at the same time.
+
+Friday morning came, and after breakfast Nathan and Koos departed from
+Namies in the cart drawn by the six smart mules.  The road led around
+the kopjes to the westward, so the cart was out of sight of the camps a
+few minutes after the start.
+
+The distance to Koos Bester's camp would take two short days to
+accomplish, but could not possibly be accomplished in one.  The dunes
+were avoided on this route by passing over the point where the red-hot
+hand had been amputated and the stump frayed away by the winds of
+centuries.  After travelling a mile or so they passed over some ground
+where a lot of shallow gullies, which carried off the occasional
+thunderstorm drainage from the kopjes, intersected each other.  A flock
+of sheep could be seen grazing a few hundred yards to the right of the
+road, amongst the gullies.  Between them and the road could be seen the
+figure of a man sitting on a doubled-down tussock of "twa" grass.
+
+Koos felt the blood rise to his brain, but he averted his eyes from the
+figure and sucked violently at his pipe.  Nathan pulled at the reins,
+and the mules came to a standstill.  Just then the man arose from the
+tussock and disappeared over the edge of one of the gullies.
+
+"Koos, my son, there's your chance."
+
+"Never mind; I'll let the old vagabond alone to-day.  I haven't got a
+sjambok with me, and that whip of yours wouldn't hurt him enough.  Drive
+on."
+
+"Rot! man alive; let's have some sport.  Give him a taste of those
+pretty little feet of yours.  Go on, I'll see fair play."
+
+Koos alighted from the cart and began adjusting a part of the harness
+which had got out of gear.  Then he walked back and put his foot on the
+step preparatory to climbing in.
+
+"What! ain't you going to give it to him?  Well, you most likely won't
+have another chance; I've told Max to give him the sack as soon as ever
+he can get another boy, so he'll likely be gone by the time we return."
+
+Koos stood with his foot resting on the step, still undecided.
+
+"Never mind," he said, "I'll let him alone to-day."
+
+"And poor Willem, who died in the tronk all through that chap.  Koos,
+I'm ashamed of you; be a man and give him what for."
+
+Koos no longer hesitated.  The reference to Willem turned the scale; his
+good angel soared away from his side for ever.  The blood arose in his
+veins until his face and neck became purple.  He uttered a curse and
+walked off, at first with hesitation still apparent in his movements.
+He was now eager to go, but his legs seemed reluctant to carry him.  To
+harden his purpose he began to think of Willem's case; of how he had
+sworn to be revenged; of how a Boer, a man of his own blood, had been
+sent to herd with blacks at a convict station, and had there died
+miserably, all through the "thing" before him.  At length his very bile
+seemed to stir with black rage, and he strode on with his hands and feet
+tingling for vengeance.
+
+Gert Gemsbok watched over the edge of the gully the approach of Koos,
+and guessed the purpose of the Boer.  Then he dropped back into the
+hollow behind him and ran down it as hard as he could in the hope of
+reaching some ground which he might tread on without leaving a spoor.
+He had caught up the little dog so that it should not betray him by
+following.
+
+He might have escaped from Koos were it not that the cart stood on
+higher ground, and thus Nathan caught sight of his crouching form
+passing over an exposed spot.  The Jew yelled to Koos that he was to
+trend to the left, and then indicated a small bush close to which he had
+caught sight of the fugitive.  Koos, now thoroughly roused and thirsting
+madly for vengeance, started off at a run towards the bush Nathan had
+pointed out.  In a few moments he nearly ran over the old Hottentot, who
+was hiding under an overhanging bank.
+
+The sorry deed did not take long to accomplish.  With his powerful hand
+Koos seized Gemsbok by the skinny arm and hurled him to the bottom of
+the gully.  Not a word was spoken on either side.  The old Hottentot was
+like a paper doll in the hands of the heavy, muscular Boer, and he fell
+with a thud upon the soft sand.  Then Koos, beside himself with mad
+anger, leaped upon him like a tiger, stamped upon the shrunken body with
+his heavy feet, and kicked it until his toes, badly protected by the
+thin and supple-soled veldschoens, began to hurt him severely.
+
+The pain brought Koos partly to himself.  Casting one look upon the
+motionless, huddled body, he climbed out of the gully and began walking
+quickly back towards the cart.  He found, however, that the great toe of
+his right foot caused him excruciating pain, so he could only limp
+slowly over the broken ground.
+
+"Hello, Koos; did the old man show fight and knock you about?  What's up
+with your little hind paw?  Why, you look as white as a blooming sheet."
+
+Koos climbed into the cart and Nathan drove on.  There was something in
+the expression of the Boer's face which taught the Jew that it would not
+be safe to take any liberties just then.
+
+After a few minutes Nathan found that he could sustain his curiosity no
+longer--
+
+"Come along, old man," he said coaxingly; "tell us all about it."
+
+Koos did not reply.  He was in great pain, and was wondering what the
+effect of the particular kick which hurt him so had been on the man whom
+he kicked.  His toe began to press against the upper-leather, and he
+felt that it was dislocated.
+
+The still, huddled figure lying in the sand at the bottom of the gully
+was as if photographed on the retina--it was literally so vividly before
+his mental vision that physical vision seemed to be suspended.  And the
+pain in his toe!  He longed to take off the veldschoen and ease the
+pressure, to examine the injury, regarding which he was consumed with a
+deadly curiosity, but he hated to attract Nathan's attention.
+
+He moved the foot slightly and the agony almost made him shriek aloud.
+A spasm of frantic terror gripped him by the heart-strings until he
+nearly swooned.  Why, the man _must_ be dead.  He thought of his own
+bulk, of his strength, and of how passionately and recklessly he had
+leaped and stamped upon the nearly passive body.  The details of what
+had happened had seemed lost to him for a time; in all but the merest
+and flimsiest general outline he had forgotten what had occurred between
+his gripping Gemsbok by the arm and his changing his walk into a hobble
+as he returned to the cart.  Now, under some strange psychological
+sympathetic ink the smallest details appeared in pitiless distinctness,
+and stood out before his shuddering soul in lurid relief.
+
+A wild rage against the man next to him, who had incited him to the
+deed--without whose fell, artful suggestion and encouragement his
+conscience would now have been clear--surged up in him.  He felt, for a
+few minutes, as black an anger against Nathan as he had felt when he
+gripped the man he thought had wronged him, and dashed him down.
+
+The day was hot and windless.  He glanced up and saw the red-belted cone
+of Bantom Berg towering up amid the dunes.  The cone was clear, and the
+waves of rarefied air quivered along the tops of the sand mounds like
+living flames, until they flashed into a lovely mirage away to the
+south, where the Desert line was unbroken.
+
+He looked straight ahead and drew a deep sigh of relief, for red wisps
+of sand were tossing into the air, lashed by the fury of the first gusts
+of one of those fearful wind-storms from the north which were so common
+at that season.  Soon the Desert would be tortured by moaning tempests,
+and then his footprints would be blotted out in the twinkling of an eye.
+A feeling of relief and subsequent elation swept through his mind.  He
+was all right now; he had only been afraid of his spoor being found.  He
+felt quite safe.  They might, of course, suspect him; that did not
+matter, for Nathan, he knew, would never give information against him.
+Why, Nathan was almost an accomplice.  The thought of his companion's
+knowledge of what he had done seemed to bring vague suggestions of
+disquiet in its trail; nevertheless his mind was able to poise itself
+still for a while on the dizzy pinnacle of elation to which it had swung
+out of the depths, impelled by a strange momentum.  The Hottentot was
+dead--that was certain to him now.  He seemed to be able to weigh and
+measure the force of every individual one of the kicks he had given, and
+the result of this sum in mental arithmetic was--death.
+
+Nathan stole another glance at his companion's face and saw that it was
+now less terrible to look upon.  His curiosity had become a positive
+pain.  He felt he must venture to ask again for details.
+
+"Come along, Koos," he coaxed; "tell us all about it."
+
+"There's not much to tell.  I just gave him a few thumps and left him."
+
+"Why on earth didn't you bring him to the top of the bank and operate
+there?  I didn't see any of the fun."
+
+Here the Jew touched his companion's foot accidentally.  Koos shrieked
+with anguish and uttered a horrible curse.  Nathan seemed very much
+astonished.  He riveted his gaze on the foot.
+
+"Why, Koos, there's blood on your veldschoen.  Did you cut your foot?"
+
+Koos could stand the pain no longer.  He lifted his foot upon his left
+knee and began to untie the reimpje with which the veldschoen was tied.
+Nathan stopped the mules.
+
+When the veldschoen was removed the great toe was found to be
+dislocated.  It had turned from its usual direction and was pointing
+backward, owing to the strain on the tendon.  The whole front part of
+the foot was turning purple.
+
+"My eye!" said Nathan, "you must have given it to him precious hot.
+Why, you've unlatched your blooming big toe.  That ain't your blood,
+neither.  My eye!  And I didn't see it happening.  Just like my luck!"
+
+Koos felt sick with pain.  He wrapped his jacket around the injured foot
+and leant back.  The sand-storm swept down in fury.  Nathan relieved his
+feelings by fluent cursings.  To Koos the fiery wind with its burthen of
+stinging sand was more grateful than the zephyrs of a springtime dawn.
+
+"Ain't it lucky we didn't take the road through the dunes?" shouted
+Nathan during a slight comparative cessation of the wind.
+
+Koos did not reply.  He was wishing with the full strength of his
+tortured soul that they had taken the dune route, whatever its dangers
+might have been, in preference to the one which had led him to the scene
+of his crime.
+
+They reached the water-place which is known by the name of "Puffadder,"
+and there saw the mat-houses of several Trek-Boer camps.  By agreement
+it was stated that Koos had injured his foot by hitting it, when
+running, against a stone.  An old woman who was skilled in herbal
+remedies and rough surgery made him lie down on his back upon the
+ground.  Then she tied a thin reim around the dislocated toe and got two
+of her sons to haul at it.  The toe slipped back into its socket, but
+Koos fainted from the pain.  When he came to himself the evil face of
+Nathan was peering into his.  He closed his eyes to shut out the sight
+of that which he had now come to hate as he had never hated anything
+before.
+
+"Well, old man," said Nathan, "it strikes me you must have smashed that
+blooming stone you ran your foot against into splinters."
+
+After the mules had been watered and had taken a roll in the sand
+another start was made.  The old woman had boiled down some dried herbs
+in a tin pannikin and tied rags soaked in the decoction around the
+injured toe.  This treatment relieved the pain considerably.  When they
+inspanned and made another start the wind had completely ceased, the
+sunlight had lost its sting, and the stillness of infinite peace seemed
+to brood like a bright-plumaged dove over the Desert.  There was no
+sound but the faint creak-creak of the harness as the mules trotted
+along over the soft sand.  Nathan made several attempts to elicit
+further particulars as to what Koos had done to the old Hottentot, but
+his companion remained obstinately silent, and he felt instinctively
+that it would not be safe for him to pursue the subject farther just
+then.
+
+The sun was nearly down when they reached Koos Bester's camp on the
+following day.  In the interval the mind of the unhappy Boer had
+perpetually oscillated between two poles--that of remorse, terror, and
+despair on the one hand, and that of unreasoning elation on the other.
+But he would not speak of the thing which had happened.  Sometimes he
+persuaded himself that the old Hottentot was surely dead; anon he
+reasoned that the proverbial physical toughness of the race to which the
+man belonged would enable him to recover.  But the limp, passive,
+huddled form, prone on the sand at the bottom of the gully, haunted him
+with deadly persistence, and his detestation of the Jew who had
+persuaded him against his will to do the deed grew in intensity.
+
+The collecting of the cattle, which ranged over a couple of thousand
+square miles of Desert, occupied several days.  Nathan made himself as
+agreeable as possible to Mrs Bester and the children, who, however,
+cordially and instinctively disliked him.  Koos turned upon him from
+time to time a slow gaze in which smouldering hatred seemed to lurk.
+This was especially noticeable when the Jew, as he often did, began
+paying Mrs Bester extravagant compliments.
+
+Koos' foot became much better under the treatment recommended by the old
+woman who had assisted him at Puffadder.  She had given him a supply of
+her medicinal herbs, and of these infusions were made, the application
+of which was followed by the best results.
+
+Koos had repeated to his wife and her father the story as to his having
+injured his foot by hitting it against a stone.  The father-in-law
+caused some embarrassment by questioning him closely as to the details
+of the accident.  The answers were not very consistently given, and when
+the discrepancies were commented on Koos lost his temper.  Nathan was
+present at this scene and keenly enjoyed it.
+
+After the cattle had been collected and the number purchased by Nathan
+selected and marked, the latter took his departure.  In returning to
+Namies he followed the course he had come by.  When nearly home he
+glanced regretfully in the direction of the broken gullies, thinking of
+the piece of sport he had missed, on the details of which Koos Bester
+had been so strangely reticent.
+
+Next morning Koos inspanned his cart just after daybreak.  He could no
+longer endure the suspense of waiting for information as to the result
+of his violence.  He drove a team of rough ponies, the equals of which
+for endurance could hardly have been found in Bushmanland.  He travelled
+in a light cart which had no hood.  As the day seemed to promise
+coolness he decided to venture on taking the road through the dunes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+THE BROKEN RAMKEE.
+
+About half an hour after the departure of Nathan and Koos Bester from
+Namies Max was surprised to see Gert Gemsbok's dog running back from the
+veld with every appearance of terror.  It rushed straight to the scherm,
+and there stood panting and with air erect along its back.  Its ears
+were cocked and its tail tucked under, as it gazed back in the direction
+whence it came, sniffing the time with wide, dilated nostrils.  This
+struck Max as extremely strange and eerie.  He knew the habits of this
+dog; never since Gemsbok had rescued it had the animal left the side of
+its master.
+
+Oom Schulpad happened to come to the shop shortly afterwards, and Max
+mentioned the circumstance to him.  Together they walked up the side of
+the kopje to the scherm.  The dog was so preoccupied by whatever was the
+cause of its agitation that it appeared unaware of their approach until
+they got quite close to it.  Then the animal crept in under the fence of
+bushes and lay there whining.
+
+"That dog has had a fright," said Oom Schulpad.  "I have sometimes seen
+dogs like that, and it was always after they had seen something bad
+happen.  See, now, if something has not happened to the old Bushman."
+
+Max returned to the shop.  After dinner, as no customers were about, he
+started out to search for Gert Gemsbok.  He went up to the scherm and
+caught the dog.  At first the animal snapped and snarled when he
+approached it.  Max had, however, taken some pieces of meat with him,
+and these he held out in propitiation.  Thus mollified, the dog allowed
+itself to be caught and a reim tied around its neck.
+
+The Desert was a whirling hell of blinding and scorching sand-clouds.
+Max staggered on along the course which he had seen Gemsbok take that
+morning with his flock.  The dog at first showed the most violent
+disinclination to follow, and had to be dragged along struggling and
+biting at the reim.
+
+During a lull in the wind Max saw that the sheep were scattered about in
+groups far distant from each other; some were sheltering themselves
+among the stones on the side of the kopje and others were far out on the
+plain.  He took his course towards the farthest group of sheep that he
+could distinguish.  The dog now became very much excited; every now and
+then it would tug at the reim and try to bound forward in a certain
+direction.  Then it would recoil in terror and endeavour to bolt back.
+
+Max worked his way onward across the gullies in the direction indicated
+by the dog's alarmed gaze.  At length he reached the edge of a gully, on
+the opposite side of which was an overhanging bank.  Huddled under this,
+as though to get shelter from the wind, he recognised the motionless
+form of Gert Gemsbok.
+
+Lying about in the sand, and partly covered by its drift, was the
+ramkee, shattered into fragments.  Gemsbok was lying half on his face,
+with his head leaning forward on his arm.  Max bent over, and as soon as
+he ascertained that his old friend was faintly breathing, spoke his
+name.  Gemsbok tried to lift his head, but failed in the attempt.  Then
+Max gently passed his arm around the bruised body, and drew it back
+until the head rested on his shoulder.
+
+The poor old man opened his eyes.  They were dull and glazed.  Then he
+moaned heavily and went off into a faint.  Max noticed that the head was
+swollen on one side, and that a small trickle of blood came from the
+mouth.  The wind had almost ceased, so Max drew Gert's limp body
+tenderly down the loose sandbank and laid him on his back.  After a few
+seconds he returned to consciousness, and the eyelids again lifted--very
+slowly this time.
+
+In a broken gasp he uttered the word "Water!"
+
+Max sprang up, meaning to run back to Namies and fetch a drink, but
+Gemsbok motioned to him to come close.  Max bent over him again.
+
+"Baas Max... leave... the water... it is... too late...  I die for...
+the old sin...  In my bag... sewn up... there is something...  They are
+yours...  I came honestly... by them..."
+
+Then the head fell back, and with a low moan of pain Gert Gemsbok drew
+his last breath--an obscure martyr in the cause of Truth, at whose
+deserted shrine in the Desert he had worshipped to his own despite.
+
+Max tried to revive him, but soon found that his attempts were useless.
+The dog sat on the bank at the edge of the gully, giving vent to
+long-drawn howls.
+
+Max stood and looked at the body through a mist of blinding tears.  Then
+he gathered up the fragments of the instrument which had been the only
+solace of the man lying dead before him through years of misery, and
+laid them reverently at the side of the corpse.  He closed the lids of
+the dim and tired eyes and tied up the fallen jaw with his
+pocket-handkerchief.  In doing this his hand came in contact with the
+reim by which the skin bag was slung over the dead man's shoulder.  This
+reminded him of the words with which Gemsbok had gasped out his life.
+He drew the bag softly away and began to examine its contents.
+
+He found a pipe, a tinder box, tobacco, some dried roots, and a few
+strings for the ramkee in course of preparation out of sinew; nothing
+else.  Then he discovered that the bottom of the bag had been sewn up
+from corner to corner, and that some hard bodies were secured under the
+sewn portion.  He ripped open the stitches and the five diamonds rolled
+into his hand.
+
+Max gazed in astonishment at the stones for a few seconds and then
+slipped them into his pocket.  He felt dazed by all he had experienced.
+He sat down to collect his scattered thoughts.  He looked once more upon
+the dead face.  The diamonds were at once forgotten, and he burst into
+passionate sobs.  The weight of all the wickedness of the world seemed
+to press upon him, and a sense of the futility of good darkened his
+soul.
+
+He climbed out of the gully and hastened back to Namies.  In a few
+moments all the men there were on their way to the spot where Gert
+Gemsbok lay as if enjoying a peace in death such as he had never known
+when living.
+
+It was Old Schalk's duty as Assistant Field Cornet to hold an inquest,
+and, if there were discovered the slightest sign of foul play, to send
+immediately a report on the subject to the magistrate.
+
+The body was stripped, and was found to be horribly bruised and swollen.
+The Assistant Field Cornet at once gave it as his opinion that the
+deceased had come to his death through being thrown from a horse.
+
+"It is well known," said he, "that these Bushmen are in the habit of
+catching the Boers' horses in the veld and riding their tails off."
+
+"But," broke in Max, "this man never interfered with anybody's--"
+
+"Young man," said Old Schalk with severity, "when you have lived as long
+in Bushmanland, and seen as many dead Bushmen as I have seen, you'll
+perhaps be entitled to give an opinion."
+
+"But," said Max excitedly, "the man told me just before he died that--"
+
+"Young man," interrupted Old Schalk, who had made a shrewd guess as to
+the perpetrator of the deed, and felt that his duty to the Trek-Boers of
+Bushmanland forbade him to permit indiscreet revelations, "are you the
+Field Cornet or am I?  What does it matter what he told you--who ever
+knew a Bushman tell the truth?  It is well known that Oom Dantje van
+Rooyen has a very vicious horse, which only last year threw a man to the
+ground and then kicked and bit him.  That very horse is running in this
+veld at present--I saw it myself only yesterday.  I am quite sure that
+nothing but the horse did this.  The case is quite clear."
+
+A buzz of approval on the part of the Boers followed this verdict.  Here
+was a dead Bushman whose body showed lesions and appearances such as
+might be caused by equestrian misadventure.  Grazing somewhere in the
+neighbourhood was a horse which had been known to kick and bite a man
+after it had thrown him.  Of course the case was perfectly clear.
+
+Max looked around the ring of faces and saw nothing but amusement at his
+warmth of expression, mingled with slyness, depicted upon them.  There
+was no pity for the sufferings which the man must have endured before he
+died--no horror that such a deed had been perpetrated by one with whom
+they were on terms of intimacy upon a sentient human being, was
+suggested.  He felt an arm slipped within his.  Looking round he saw the
+inscrutable visage of Oom Schulpad close beside him.
+
+"Come, children, let us go and drink some coffee," said Old Schalk as he
+led the way, assisted by a stalwart Boer, to the cart which had conveyed
+him from his camp to the nearest available point.
+
+As the others followed in small groups Oom Schulpad heard one young Boer
+say to another--
+
+"Got, kerel, maar Koos hat die ou' Boschmann lekker geskop."
+
+[God, old fellow, but Koos kicked the old Bushman nicely.]
+
+Oom Schulpad gave a sardonic grin which might have been expressive of
+anything, from rapture to nausea, and turned back to where Max was
+sitting fuming with indignation and grief.  He laid a sympathetic hand
+upon the boy's shoulder and bent his rough face, which now bore a kindly
+expression, over him.
+
+"Never mind, child," he said, "the poor old schepsel is not going to
+suffer any more pain.  Who knows but he may be with the old woman now,
+and she, perhaps, may have got a new pair of legs."
+
+"But the man has been murdered," replied Max hotly, "and he wants to
+screen the murderer--"
+
+"Shush, shush.  Young tongues gallop into dangerous places.  What good
+can you do by making a disturbance?  You won't bring the old Bushman to
+life again, and it would be a bad thing for him if you could.  Besides,
+a man must never try to set the world right all by himself."
+
+"But he wouldn't hear what I had to say.  I shall let the Government
+know what sort of a Field Cornet he is."
+
+"And get nothing for your pains except the hatred of every one about
+here.  What does the Government care?  It only wants not to be troubled
+about things.  When you are as old as I am you will not be put out by
+anything done by people like Old Schalk."
+
+"I shall send a letter off at once to the magistrate and ask him to come
+here and see for himself."
+
+"No, I think you had better do nothing of the kind.  If you did, the
+magistrate and the doctor would perhaps arrive in three weeks from now
+and when they came what would they be able to find out from the body?
+Besides, in that case it would probably turn out that some one had seen
+him riding Oom Dantje's horse, or had even seen him thrown and trampled
+on.  No, you had better do nothing at all but just bury the old Bushman.
+I liked him because he knew more music than I did.  Come, I will help
+you to bury him.  We'll dig his grave next to where the old woman lies--
+among the kopjes.  I'll inspan my donkeys and we'll draw him up in the
+cart."
+
+Max and Oom Schulpad wended back to Namies, and, with a couple of spades
+which they took out of the shop, soon dug a grave in the sluit at the
+back of the little kopje.  It was easy ground to work, and, in spite of
+his deformity, Oom Schulpad was a first-rate hand at digging.  In a
+little more than half an hour the grave was ready, and then Oom Schulpad
+harnessed his donkeys to the little cart and drove down to fetch the
+body.
+
+Max had brought some clean, white linen from the shop, and in this they
+wrapped the earthly remains of Gert Gemsbok, the lonely, martyred votary
+at Truth's neglected shrine.  The fragments of the ramkee were
+reverently tied together by the old fiddler, who was honest artist
+enough to acknowledge a superior when he met him.  He laid the shattered
+instrument where the stiffened hand might press upon the slackened
+strings until both turned to dust.
+
+The full moon lifted her sweet face over the rim of the world, and,
+under the spell of her smile, the Desert took on beauty of a weird and
+unearthly kind.  The plumy heads of the grass became pendant with
+dew-diamonds; every tussock was transformed into a fairy-forest lit by
+sparkling lamps.  The ice-plants glinted so brightly that they seemed to
+merge together a few yards from the observer's feet, and from there to
+form a shining pathway to the moon.
+
+The strange funeral _cortege_ wended up between the camps of Namies.
+Oom Schulpad walked at the side, holding the reins; Max, with bent head,
+followed close behind the body.
+
+So they laid Gert Gemsbok in the sand, next to his "Old Woman" and with
+his broken ramkee at his side.  If what some tell us about a future life
+be true, that ramkee will surely be recreated in the celestial
+equivalents of the rarest earthly instruments of music--if not something
+as valuable and more sonorous.
+
+Old Schalk was sitting in the moonlight at the door of his mat-house
+talking to a few cronies when the funeral passed.  A silence fell upon
+all when they saw what it was that the patient donkeys were hauling up
+the hill through the heavy sand.  Just after the vehicle had passed out
+of sight around the flank of one of the kopjes Old Schalk broke the
+silence.  He turned to one of his companions and said--"I never yet knew
+a man who could play the fiddle well who was not a little mad."
+
+"Ja," replied the other, "I have often heard that such is the case."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE BONDAGE OF KOOS BESTER.
+
+Max's mourning for his old friend was deep and sincere.  The heart of
+the young man, from its first awakening, recoiled from the sordidness of
+most of those with whom he had come in daily contact, and clave to the
+best within its reach--this by virtue of its natural intuitions.  For a
+time it seemed as though a blank had been created which could never be
+filled.  The evenings spent in the shop when Oom Schulpad and Gemsbok
+had contended like a couple of troubadours--the weird tales of his
+experiences during the six years of his banishment from the tents of
+men, which the old waif had related with such tragic and truthful
+pathos--his devotion to his miserable old wife, that decayed relic of
+womanhood, which was as tender as ever his love could have been for the
+companion of his early years--all these dwelt in the mind of Max and
+tinged it with what he deemed would be an abiding sadness.
+
+On the other hand the acquisition of the five diamonds had materially
+improved his prospects.  He hid them in a safe place and determined not
+to mention the fact of their existence to any one but Susannah.  They
+were stones of very pure water, averaging about ten carats each in
+weight.  Max knew that they must be very valuable, but he was unable to
+guess their worth.  He made up his mind that he would have to take them
+to Europe and realise them there.
+
+Even Oom Schulpad seemed to be depressed by the old Hottentot's fate.
+When he now came to see Max of an evening he did not bring his violin.
+The two would just sit and smoke in silence, each well aware of what was
+filling the thoughts of the other.  To Max it seemed as if the ghost of
+the slain man haunted the room on these occasions, asking why his only
+friends had not taken vengeance upon his slayer.
+
+Oom Schulpad did not believe very much in anything outside the circle of
+his experiences--certainly not in ghosts.  He had attained to a
+philosophy which might be summed up in a phrase--"Never interfere in
+anything that does not directly concern you."  His stock formula into
+which the foregoing principle had crystallised was--"No man should ever
+rub resin on any but his own bow."
+
+"But," he continued one night after reiterating this phrase several
+times, "I mean to scratch Koos Bester's nose with a certain piece of
+resin which I have in my pocket.  He had no business to put his big
+hands upon any man who could make music like that, Bushman or no
+Bushman."
+
+Max pricked up his ears and looked at the old fiddler with a question in
+his eyes.
+
+"I know Koos," continued Oom Schulpad, "and if he does not bark his
+shins as well as his nose against the lump of resin which I will put in
+his path--well, I'm no fiddler and the Bushman knew no music.  He said
+my back was like a springbuck's when it `pronks,' did he, and that my
+mouth was as poisonous as a sand-adder's?  Also he broke the ramkee--to
+say nothing of killing the old Bushman."
+
+"What do you intend to do to him?" queried Max.
+
+"I'll tell you that when he comes back, my child.  It will be all right,
+don't fear.  You shall, perhaps, help me.  I know Koos well.  When he
+was quite a big boy he used to be afraid of being alone in the dark.
+I'll make him dance a new step to the old Bushman's music.  Ja, he knew
+more music than I, that old Bushman."
+
+Three days elapsed after the tragedy before Max visited the Hattingh
+camp.  He found Old Schalk looking extremely sulky.  Max, however, had
+ceased to take much heed of people or their moods.  He no longer dreaded
+Old Schalk.  As in the case of Mrs Hattingh, he now felt he had him at
+a moral disadvantage.  His recent experiences had tended to give Max
+considerable self-confidence.
+
+He found Susannah alone in the mat-house, and asked her to go with him
+for a walk.  As they passed out it seemed as though the old man sitting
+in the chair meant to stop them.  He bent forward with an angry
+expression, removed the pipe from his mouth, and opened his lips as if
+to speak.  Max, however, looked him steadily in the face, so he
+remembered his account at the shop--it seemed as though Nathan meant to
+stay away indefinitely--and Old Schalk's sack of coffee was running very
+low indeed.  At the same instant he thought of the inquest--the menace
+which he seemed to read in Max's face might perhaps have reference to
+that judicial triumph.  Whilst these considerations were working through
+his mind the lovers passed him and he made no protest.  They climbed the
+big kopje and again sat at the foot of the large koekerboom.
+
+Max poured out his sorrow and indignation in a flood.  Susannah had been
+told simply that Gert Gemsbok had met his death through an accident in
+connection with a horse.  She had seen the strange funeral and wondered
+thereat.  Now Max's account of the old Hottentot's life, which she had
+never heard before, and of his cruel and mysterious death, moved the
+girl to deep sympathy.
+
+A horrible suspicion had haunted Max from the first--he could not avoid
+connecting his brother with the murder, for such he was convinced had
+occurred.  Nathan had taken his departure with Koos Bester just before
+the deed was done; it was inconceivable that he could be ignorant of the
+crime.  Max believed him to be fully capable of participating in the
+commission of any evil.
+
+When Susannah questioned him as to whom he suspected, Max tried hard to
+avoid replying.  When he could no longer do this he told the girl all
+his thoughts and then bent his head on her knee and wept bitter tears.
+It was the shame of being related to a creature such as Nathan which
+struck him to the heart.  A hatred of his surroundings, and more
+especially of his brother, had been born in him.  He made up his mind to
+leave his brother's service at once, come what might.
+
+"Susannah, I can stay here no longer; will you come away with me?"
+
+The girl did not reply.  She sat thinking of what the consequences of
+such a step would be.  Her utter inexperience of life was strongly
+qualified by natural caution, as well as by that instinct of
+self-preservation which clothes most women like an armour of proof.
+
+"I feel I can stay here no longer," he continued.  "Leaving out Oom
+Schulpad and yourself, I hate and despise every one here.  Will you come
+away with me?"
+
+"I will go with you when you marry me, Max."
+
+"How can I marry you when you are only nineteen and your uncle will not
+give his consent?"
+
+"I will wait for you.  Go away, and you will find me here when you come
+back--if there is any water left in the well."
+
+"I do not want to go away without you, and I feel I cannot endure to
+stay.  Why are you afraid to trust me?"
+
+"I am not afraid to trust you, but--while you were talking at first I
+was thinking.  I thought to myself that we could not get away and that
+there was no place for us to go to."
+
+"You can leave all that to me--"
+
+"No, no, it cannot be.  If you want to marry me, Max, you must make up
+your mind never to live in any place but Bushmanland--"
+
+"What! live all our lives at Namies?"
+
+"No, not at Namies.  Bushmanland is large; there are many camps and many
+water-places in it.  You know that I am only a poor Boer girl and that I
+could not live among those women whose pictures you showed me in the
+fashion books and who never speak anything but English; you would be
+ashamed of me and I should want to come back to live among the people I
+know."
+
+Max, after the manner of lovers, assured her that he never could, under
+any possible circumstances, be ashamed of her.  She continued in the
+same strain as formerly--
+
+"I once saw some girls who went past our camp in a wagon, when we dwelt
+on the other side of the Desert, far away to the eastward, and I felt
+like a Bushwoman beside them when I noticed their clothes and heard them
+talk.  No, Max, I will never go to any place where you would be able to
+compare me with women such as those."
+
+Max assured her that she could easily challenge comparison with any girl
+in South Africa for physical advantages.  Her colour heightened with
+pleasure at his compliments, but she was not to be moved from her
+resolution.
+
+"Max, I shall never live in any place outside Bushmanland, so you had
+better make up your mind to that.  Besides, you will have to wait for me
+until I am old enough to marry without my uncle's consent.  Bushmanland
+is long and wide, but when a girl is talked about for doing what you
+want me to do, the tongues of the women are heard, louder than thunder,
+from one side of it to the other.  If I were to do this thing the people
+of the only land I can live in would look upon me as being no better
+than a Hottentot girl at the Copper Mines."
+
+Max felt, instinctively, that the girl was right.  He made no further
+attempt to move her, but he reconsidered his decision about leaving
+Namies at once.  At all events he would wait for Nathan's return.  As
+the lovers walked back to the camp, they said few words to each other.
+
+Nathan returned late in the afternoon of the next day.  The brothers met
+outside the shop.  Nathan greeted Max with cheerfulness, as though he
+wished to ignore what had last passed between them.  Max looked him
+straight in the eyes without acknowledging his salute.
+
+"Hello," said Nathan, "got the hump, eh?"
+
+Max went into the shop; Nathan followed him after outspanning the
+horses.  In the meantime the flock of sheep had been driven home by a
+strange herd.  Nathan burned with curiosity to know what had transpired.
+He walked up to Max and addressed him again--
+
+"Where's your old chum?  I see you've got a new nigger."
+
+Max gave him a contemptuous glance and then went on with what he had
+been doing, without replying to the question.
+
+"Are you deaf?"
+
+"I'm not deaf; neither am I blind."
+
+"Then why the devil don't you answer me?  Where's the old nigger?"
+
+"Mightn't he be lying dead in a sluit where you and Koos Bester left him
+last week?"
+
+"Look here, none of your blasted conundrums.  I didn't pull you out of a
+Whitechapel gutter and bring you here to get lip from you."
+
+Max went on with his occupation of tidying the goods upon the shelves,
+without making any reply.  Nathan, furious, strode round the counter and
+gripped him by the arm.  Max turned and gazed steadily into his eyes.
+
+"You bastard Christian dog, if you don't answer my question I'll make
+pork sausages of you!"
+
+Max seized Nathan by the throat and flung him backwards.  The latter's
+foot caught against the corner of a box and he fell sprawling under the
+counter.  As he picked himself up Max strode towards him.  Nathan
+recoiled in alarm; he had not expected such treatment from the shy,
+silent, diffident lad whom he had been in the habit of cuffing and
+cursing at whenever he felt in a bad temper and wanted to relieve his
+feelings.
+
+"Where is he?" shouted Max in a voice strident with rage.  "He is where
+you will never be--in an honest man's grave.  He lived long enough to
+let me know that you and Koos Bester are murderers.  I only regret that
+he did not let me know enough to hang you both."
+
+Nathan quailed; he wondered how much Gemsbok had told.  Then he cast up
+the column of possibilities in his mind.  No, he was all right.  There
+might be suspicion, but there could be no proof that he had been
+accessory to the crime.  However, it would be just as well not to
+provoke Max any further at present.  He walked out of the shop and Max
+closed the door behind him.
+
+The Desert twilight was quickly fading.  Nathan wished to be alone, so
+he strolled past the camps without calling at any of them, and then back
+along the road he had just previously travelled.
+
+After he had passed the last camp by about a hundred yards he sat down
+on a stone.  He was sunk in the deepest thought.  An idea had struck him
+just after Max's outburst and had taken root, branched and burgeoned
+until it seemed to be a tree full of flowers which promised rich fruit.
+The muffled thud of tired horses' feet on the sandy road leading from
+the dunes broke in upon his reverie.  He lifted his head from where it
+had been sunk upon his breast and chuckled with unclean mirth.
+
+"Well, I think I'm in jam _this_ time," soliloquised he; "whole blooming
+coppers of it."
+
+When he returned home Max was not on the premises.  The shop was locked,
+but the little room at the back where Nathan slept was open.  Of late
+Max had taken to sleeping on the counter in the shop.
+
+Nathan lit a candle and began to undress.  The elation of his mind was
+evinced upon his face.  He went to bed and softly whistled the tune of a
+music-hall song as he lay back on the pillow with his hands clasped at
+the back of his head.  He felt extremely happy.  His luck was in--this
+last development, over which he had been chuckling so, proved that
+conclusively.
+
+Again the sound which he had heard when sitting on the stone broke in on
+his waking dreams, the slow tramp, tramp, tramp of the feet of tired
+horses, muffled by the soft sand.  This time the sound came from much
+nearer than before.  Then he heard the creaking of the vehicle and the
+wisch-wisch of the ploughing wheels.  Then the sound ceased.  A few
+moments later he heard a stealthy step approaching the door; just
+afterwards came a light tap.
+
+"Who is there?" he called out.
+
+"Open the door quickly.  It is I, Koos."
+
+Nathan sprang out of bed and drew back the bolt.  Koos at once stepped
+into the room and glanced furtively around.  His face looked drawn and
+haggard and his eyes were bloodshot.
+
+"Are you alone?" he asked, in a husky voice.
+
+"Yes, I am alone.  But be careful, I don't know where Max is."
+
+Koos bent forward until his dry lips almost touched Nathan's ear, and
+whispered--
+
+"What has happened?  Tell me quickly."
+
+Nathan drew back slightly and let the ghost of a mocking smile flit over
+his features.
+
+"Oh, I got home all right, thanks.  But what brings you here?"
+
+The Boer leant forward across the table and grasped the Jew's wizened
+shoulder in his enormous hand.  Nathan shuddered convulsively under the
+pressure; he thought his bones were being crushed.  The eyes of Koos
+seemed to shoot forth dusky flames.
+
+"Tell me quickly," he said.
+
+"All right," said Nathan, trying hard to wrench himself free, and
+feeling, at the same time, that it might be dangerous to take liberties
+with the man before him, "I'll tell you, unless you break my blooming
+back first of all.  You kicked a little too hard, Koos; the old nigger
+is dead."
+
+The visage of Koos became frightful.  He gasped for breath and a low
+gurgle came from his throat.  He sat silent for a few moments with his
+eyes fixed upon Nathan's in a burning stare.  Then he said in a
+strained, hoarse voice--
+
+"Tell me more.  Tell me all about it."
+
+"That's all I know about it myself."
+
+Koos arose slowly from his seat and stretched his hands out towards
+Nathan, who, seeing murder in his eye, retreated into the corner.
+
+"Stop, Koos!" he almost screamed.  "So help me God, I know nothing more
+about it than what I've told you.  I only came home just before you
+did."
+
+Koos sank back into the chair and covered his face with his hands.
+After a few minutes he arose and staggered out of the room.  He went to
+where his tired horses were still standing in the harness, outspanned
+them, and after tying the front legs of each together with a reim,
+turned them out to graze.  Then he wrapped himself in his kaross, for
+the night air was chilly, and laid himself down under the cart.
+
+He could not sleep.  It seemed to him as if he had never slept, as if
+the axis upon which the hollow globe of stars turned was laid through
+his brain, as if there were no such thing as sleep in the whole wide
+world.  The sky was clear and limpid, as only the sky which leans over
+and seems to love the Desert can be.  The sweet, piercing smell of the
+dew-wet sand came to him and brought memories of nights spent on the
+hunting-field, when the pungent scent, the very breath and essence of
+the quick earth, had seemed to renew his spent strength, after the
+fatigues of the chase.  But then he had not stained his hands with
+blood.
+
+But the awful silence.  Would nothing break it?  It seemed to press upon
+and crush him like something ponderable and tangible.  He lifted his
+fist and smote lightly the bottom of the cart just over his head.  The
+sound seemed to split his brain like an axe.  Then the returning wave of
+silence surged around him, and under its impact he seemed to sink as
+into a quicksand.
+
+At length, a sound.  Far away on the waste he heard the long-drawn
+nasal, melancholy howl of a jackal.  Before the weird cry came to an end
+it was taken up by others at a greater distance, and then repeated on
+and on like the challenges of crowing cocks in the dawning.
+
+A gush of gratitude came from his darkened heart; he felt that he almost
+loved the prowling brutes that had drawn his soul out of the quagmire of
+silence in which it had been sunk.  He seemed to feel a kind of
+fellowship and sympathy with the jackals.  He wondered why this was.
+Then he remembered--
+
+The waning moon had been making paler the western stars, but he had not
+noticed it.  The straining of his sound-sense had left no room for that
+of sight to come into play.  Now the spell of silence was broken, and
+the sense of sight began to assert itself.
+
+His eyes had been closed for some little time.  When he opened them the
+Desert was flooded with a gentle haze of diaphanous pearl.  This made
+the Namies kopjes look like a group of enchanted islands floating in an
+unearthly sea.  The scene was almost too beautiful for mortal eyes.
+
+As the moon soared higher and higher the stones and bushes, which at a
+few paces' distance could not be separated from their shortening
+shadows, took on strange and ever-changing shapes.  God!  What was that
+a few yards from him?  Surely they cannot have brought the body up from
+the gully and left it exposed upon the kopje-side?  Yes, there it lay,
+huddled and horrible.
+
+He must go and look at it--examine it--even if the doing of this killed
+him or drove him mad.  He arose to a crouching position and passed
+slowly across the intervening space of a few yards with hesitating
+steps.  He bent his horror-distorted face over a stone half hid in
+tufted pelargonium.
+
+Day came near.  The glamour and mystery receded from the Desert,
+gathered into a wave and broke against the splendid gates of dawn.  A
+short and troubled sleep fell upon the wretched man under the cart, and
+perhaps saved him for the time being from insanity.  He awoke to find
+the flaming sun high in the brazen sky, and the camp at his feet astir
+with life.
+
+In the full light of day Koos Bester could hardly realise that he had
+been a prey to the horrors of the damned during the long hours of the
+previous night.  His terrors had vanished with the distorting moonlight.
+What did it matter, after all?  It was true that Nathan could put the
+rope around his neck with a word, but he easily persuaded himself the
+word would never be spoken.  His conscience was still sore, but not
+agonisingly so, now in the daylight.  A Bushman was, after all, only a
+Bushman, and the mind of the Boer always draws an important distinction
+between a "mens" and a "schepsel."
+
+He felt hungry, so he strolled down through the camps on the look-out
+for a breakfast.  He did not want to eat with Nathan again if he could
+possibly avoid doing so.  He knew that he must expect to have to run the
+gauntlet of covert allusion and innuendo.  He knew that suspicion of
+having done the deed--the memory of which hung around his neck like a
+millstone--had already marked him, in the estimation of some, at least,
+as a sort of minor Cain.  This, however, he was prepared for, and he
+could meet the prospect with calmness.  He was now high at the dizzy
+extreme of hopeful confidence, resting for the instant's pause before
+the return swing of the pendulum to which he was bound, like Ixion to
+the wheel, should whirl him back towards the ledges of anguish where the
+vultures of remorse were perched, waiting to tear anew at his vitals.
+
+He was consumed by an apprehensive curiosity which burnt him like a
+fever.  He longed to hear all about the finding of the body, or--
+horrible thought!--had the man been still alive when found?  No, that
+was impossible; his reason told him from the heights of reassurance, had
+such been the case he would have been apprehended long before this.
+
+As he walked furtively along, still limping slightly from the effects of
+the dislocated toe, he glanced hurriedly from side to side from under
+his bent brows.  He fancied he was being watched from every mat-house.
+Yes, he was.  In the gloom of every doorway he could see the dim faces
+of women and children turned in his direction.  Even thus, he imagined,
+must the Lord have set a mark upon Cain, that all mankind might know
+him.  It seemed as though by some subtle means every one throughout the
+scattered camps had simultaneously become aware of his presence.  Just
+before descending the hill from where his cart stood outspanned he had
+heard laughter and the shrill voices of children at play.  Now all was
+mute in an awful, accusing hush.  The sudden silence reminded him of
+what he had suffered during the night, before the jackals claimed
+fellowship with him, and passed the word of his initiation into their
+brotherhood across the listening Desert.  He felt that the brand of
+Cain, which none may describe but which none may fail to recognise, was
+upon him.
+
+Old Schalk was sitting before his tent, smoking.  Koos made an effort,
+and, turning abruptly in his course, walked up and greeted him.  Old
+Schalk returned the salutation with more than ordinary friendliness, and
+then offered a chair and the inevitable cup of coffee.  These were
+gratefully accepted.  The old Boer called to Susannah to bring the
+coffee.  She was in the wagon and was thus unaware of the identity of
+the visitor.  When she came from the scherm with the cup she coloured
+angrily and her eye flashed.  She passed the visitor the cup, but did
+not offer her hand in greeting.  Koos winced.  Among the Boers such an
+omission can only be construed as a deliberate insult.
+
+Old Schalk was in great form.  From the first glance at the face of his
+visitor he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the slayer of Gert
+Gemsbok was before him.  His previous suspicions were so strong that
+little room for any doubt had existed in his mind.  Here, however, was
+proof, writ large for all to read.  Old Schalk was extremely tolerant
+where the killing of Bushmen was concerned, and it distressed him
+genuinely to see Koos take a comparative trifle so much to heart.  Old
+Schalk fell into the error of ascribing _all_ of Koos' distress to mere
+fright, so he determined to try and put him at his ease.  Koos had been
+watched carefully since his arrival, and Old Schalk knew it was probable
+that he was seeking information as to what had transpired since the
+commission of the deed.
+
+"Did you hear of the accident the other day?" the old man asked, without
+looking at the man he addressed.
+
+"Ja--that is--I heard something--"
+
+"I have often said that an accident would come from letting that horse
+of Oom Dantje's run where he can be caught and ridden by the Bushmen."
+
+"What did Oom Dantje's horse do?" said Koos, breathlessly.
+
+Old Schalk shot a glance at him out of the corner of one eye, and looked
+puzzled.  It was evident that Koos had not even heard of the verdict.
+
+"Well, no one saw the horse do it, you know; but from the way that old
+Bushman was knocked about, I think--myself--that it must have been Oom
+Dantje's horse.  I reported so to the magistrate."
+
+Koos set down the empty utensils upon the ground.  The cup rattled like
+castanets upon the saucer.  A sense of blissful peace seemed to descend
+upon him like a dove with healing wings.  It was the revulsion of
+feeling which made him tremble.
+
+"Yes," continued old Schalk, "that young Jew, Max, wanted to talk some
+nonsense about what the old Bushman had told him before he died, but I
+wouldn't listen.  It's all right, Koos--you needn't look like that."
+
+The dove had changed, in the twinkling of an eye, into a vulture; its
+beak was imbedded in his heart-strings.  This was the contingency he had
+dismissed as being impossible--the man's having been found alive.  He
+must find out what the dying Hottentot had said, or else go mad.  He
+arose, shook hurriedly the moist hand of his host with his own burning
+one, and then limped painfully back towards the shop.
+
+Oom Schulpad had watched Koos carefully ever since he arose from his
+feverish sleep under the cart.  The old fiddler was staying, just then,
+with some people who had camped on the site formerly occupied by Koos;
+he was sitting in the mat-house with his fiddle on his knee, when Koos
+came limping up the sandy slope.  Then the tones of the air which
+Gemsbok so often had played upon the ramkee were slowly wailed out from
+the strings in a minor key.  Koos stiffened as though he had received an
+electric shock, and stood stock still for an instant.  Then he resumed
+his limping towards the shop.
+
+Both Nathan and Max were in the iron building; the former writing at the
+empty packing-case which served as a desk, and the latter engaged in
+bartering wild-cat skins from some strange Hottentots from Great
+Namaqualand.  One of the strangers carried a ramkee slung upon his back.
+This was not a very unusual circumstance, but to Koos it was an item
+full of horrible significance.
+
+The barter was soon over.  Max leaped across the counter and passed out
+through the door, cutting Koos dead.  Nathan came forward, greeted him
+with hilarity, and then took his stand in the doorway.
+
+The look of hunted terror in the man's face would have moved his
+bitterest foe to pity.  He sat down helplessly on an empty packing-case
+which was lying where it had been flung, just outside the door, and
+looked at Nathan with haggard eyes.  Nathan had ceased from his
+letter-writing and come to the doorway, because he did not care to be
+alone inside with Koos, after his last night's experience of being
+gripped.  He stood in the doorway, whistling, and with his hands in his
+pockets.  Then, after a pause--
+
+"Well, Koos, old man, you look chippy to-day.  What's up, eh?"
+
+Koos stood up and again laid his hand on Nathan's shoulder.  Nathan,
+however, had been prepared for this, so he slipped like an eel from
+under the huge hand that threatened to crush him, darted away to a
+distance of a few yards, and then wheeled round facing Koos, who was
+limping heavily after him with murder in his eye.  He determined to risk
+something.  He had planned out moves for the game he had to play.  Here,
+in the full light of day and within sight of the whole of Namies, was
+the place to begin the struggle.
+
+"Look here, Koos Bester," he said in a low tone, "if you think you are
+going to paw me about as you would a blasted Bushman, you are very much
+mistaken.  Understand me now, once and for all--if ever you lay that
+leg-o'-mutton hand of yours on me again, I'll--I'll--Well, I won't say
+exactly what I'll do, but you can just look out for yourself--mind
+that."
+
+Koos at once collapsed into abjectness.  Nathan pursued his advantage--
+
+"One would think it was _I_ that had booted a blooming nigger to death.
+Where do you think you'd be if I were to split, eh?"
+
+Here he attempted a somewhat conventional representation of the legal
+tragedy which follows the donning of the black cap by a certain high
+judicial functionary.  In it his tongue, the whites of his eyes, his
+left hand, and the butt of his ear played conspicuous parts.  Koos
+gasped and murmured unintelligibly.  Nathan resumed--
+
+"Now, look here, I'm not going to split--this is, if you are a good boy
+and do as you're told, and keep your paws to yourself.  See?"  Koos made
+a dismal attempt to smile, as though he regarded this as a pleasantry.
+He was now completely cowed, and would have set his neck under the foot
+of the man before him had he been told to do so.
+
+He came close up to Nathan, cleared his throat, and whispered hoarsely--
+
+"What did he tell your brother?"
+
+"That's just what I don't know.  My brother and I have had a blooming
+diplomatic difference; don't speak, you know.  He actually appears to
+think that I've had a hand in this business;--as if your feet were not
+big enough to do your own kicking."
+
+Koos gave a gasp of relief.  His mind had become almost unnaturally
+alert under the strain upon it.  If Max thought as Nathan said, it was
+clear that he knew nothing definite.
+
+The unhappy man became conscious of the fact that he had not eaten since
+early on the previous day.  A sudden hunger seized him; he felt like a
+wolf.  He begged of Nathan to give him food.  Nathan led the way into
+the shop, and there produced a loaf of bread, and some bultong which he
+took out of a sack under the counter.  Koos seized greedily upon the
+food and ate with avidity.  Nathan watched him narrowly.  When he had
+finished eating Koos arose and left the shop.  Max had just previously
+come in, so Nathan went out after Koos.  He still felt a stiffness in
+his shoulder from the effects of last night's gripping.  He shrugged it
+purposely until he felt a severe twinge.  The pain was like salt for the
+feast of his revenge against the strong man who had hurt and insulted
+him.
+
+"Well, old man, had a good feed?"
+
+"Yes, I ate well."
+
+"Yes, you seemed to enjoy your grub.  I say, Koos, I've been thinking
+things over a bit, and I find I'll want a few more of those cattle of
+yours.  What do you say to my taking another fifty head?"
+
+Koos looked up.  His alert senses had detected something unusual in the
+tone of Nathan's voice.  Nathan had distinctly said that he did not
+require any more cattle.
+
+"I'm thinking of taking another trip to Cape Town, and I thought you
+might just drive another lot down as far as Clanwilliam for me.  What do
+you say?"
+
+"Yes, you can have the cattle, but I cannot leave home just now; you
+will have to take them over at my camp."
+
+"Well, old man--to oblige a friend, you know.  I think you will be able,
+at all events, to send them on for me, eh?"
+
+Nathan looked at Koos with such an amount of sinister meaning that the
+miserable Boer was filled with a vague sense of fresh dismay.  Nathan
+continued--
+
+"Look here, old man, I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll just drive down
+to your place to-morrow--across the dunes, you know--then we'll pick out
+the cattle and arrange about how you will send them down."
+
+"But how can we cross the dunes?  Your mules will never pull the cart
+through?"
+
+"Quite right, old man; and that's why you are to drive me down in your
+own trap.  You told me that you crossed the dunes as you came up, so you
+might as well go back the same way.  See?"
+
+"But how are you to get back here if you do not take your own cart?"
+
+Nathan dug Koos playfully in the ribs, and then linked his skinny arm
+with the Boer's large limb.
+
+"Well, how stupid of me not to have thought of that.  Let's see--how can
+I get back, eh?  Oh, I've just thought of a splendid plan: you'll drive
+me back too."
+
+Koos gave a sidelong glance of such bitter hatred at the stunted figure
+at his side that, had Nathan seen it, he surely would have recognised
+the danger of the course he was pursuing.  But Nathan supposed that the
+giant was quite cowed, that this Samson was completely shorn of his
+locks.  In his preoccupation he forgot about the Pillars of Gaza.
+
+His thoughts were far away.  He was evolving complicated schemes,
+planning vast undertakings, which he meant to effect by means of this
+rough instrument, whose strength might be guided by his puny hand.  He
+had reasoned it out--his theory as to the proper management of this
+tamed monster, and had come to the conclusion that curb, whip, and spur
+should be used upon him unsparingly, until he was thoroughly broken to
+harness.
+
+Koos did not speak for a while.  Then he said in a strained voice--
+
+"If I take my horses again through the dunes this weather, they will be
+quite knocked up.  You had better bring your own trap and mules, and we
+will go round the other way."
+
+Nathan stood still, and his companion faced him.  Then he repeated the
+pantomime in which his tongue, the whites of his eyes, and the butt of
+his ear were so suggestively in evidence.  The face of Koos turned to
+the colour of ashes, and he trembled as though he had a fit of ague.
+Nathan again dug him playfully in the ribs.
+
+"It's all right, old man, you need not get yourself into a state.  I'm
+fond of you, Koos; I really am--in fact I wouldn't hurt you for the
+world.  Besides, I'm very fond of your wife.  Ain't she a pretty woman,
+eh?  I say, Koos, did you ever see a man hanged?"
+
+The Boer shook like an aspen through every fibre of his immense frame.
+His breath came in husky gasps.
+
+"It's all right, old man," continued Nathan, "it's only my fun.  We'll
+start to-morrow morning before it gets too hot, eh?  Your horses will do
+it right enough.  If the weather is very hot I'll get you to drive me
+back the other way.  I'm not going to ask you to take me to Clanwilliam
+this time.  I'm always willing to oblige a friend--ain't I, now?"
+
+Just as night was falling Oom Schulpad went for a walk to the other side
+of the group of kopjes.  It was dark when he returned, carrying a large
+armful of candle-bushes, which he had collected during the day and
+hidden in a safe place.  He took these--not to the scherm belonging to
+the camp at which he was a guest, but to the deserted scherm formerly
+occupied by Gert Gemsbok.  The scattered bushes of the scherm fence he
+rearranged, not against the wind but on the side facing the shop.  He
+piled the candle-bushes upon the cold hearth and then stole quietly
+away.
+
+Later, when the lights began to go out in the camps, he stepped quietly
+out of the mat-house, in which he was in the habit of sleeping, with his
+fiddle under his arm, and went softly up the hillside.  When he reached
+the deserted scherm he laid himself down behind the rearranged fence,
+lit his pipe, and waited.
+
+Koos Bester had no supper.  After he had parted from Nathan he went and
+sat upon a rock a short distance from where his cart was standing.  His
+horses were hobbled close by on the side of the kopje.  He wanted their
+companionship during the interminable hours of the coming darkness.
+
+His terrors of the supernatural had, for the moment, burnt themselves
+out.  It was the sense of being subject to the ruthless bondage of
+Nathan which, just now, maddened him.  He did not expect to sleep, but
+he thought he might be able to rest, wrapped in the regal quiet of the
+night.
+
+When all was still, when the very last glimmer of light had disappeared
+from the camps, Koos arose and returned to his cart.  He wrapped himself
+in his blanket and lay down between the wheels.  His brain seemed to
+become a little cooler; the dulness of utter fatigue benumbed his
+faculties and mitigated his tribulation.  He felt the gracious touch of
+the wing of Sleep across his eyelids.  Surely God was taking pity on
+him--
+
+A strange flicker of light rose and fell.  What could it possibly mean?
+It came from the hillside above the shop.  He must get up and see what
+it meant.  Horror! a bright blaze was rising and falling in the scherm
+of the man he had slain.  Yet, he tried to reason to himself, what
+nonsense to think that there was anything ghostly about the
+circumstance.  No doubt some wandering--
+
+His hair stood upon end and he shrieked aloud.  From the scherm arose
+the notes of the air he knew so well.  Struck from the strings, the
+pizzicato tones of the deadly tune seemed to run through his body until
+every nerve vibrated with the hateful sound.  He rushed across the
+intervening space and beat with his fists against the iron door of
+Nathan's bedroom, until the whole building thundered.
+
+Nathan sprang out of bed in deadly fear.
+
+"Who is that, and what is the matter?" he called.
+
+"Open, quick!  It is I, Koos.  Open, open!"
+
+Nathan drew back the bolt and Koos sprang into the room, panting.
+
+"I have seen his ghost--it is there in the scherm."
+
+"Rot, Koos.  Go to bed."
+
+"It is there; go and see for yourself."
+
+Nathan had no fear whatever of the supernatural.  He slipped on a pair
+of shoes and came outside, followed by the trembling Boer.  All was in
+darkness; not the faintest glimmer of light could be seen in the
+neighbourhood of the scherm, not a sound broke the stillness of the
+night.
+
+"Why, you must have the `rats,' Koos.  Go to bed."
+
+Koos begged humbly to be allowed to lie down on the floor in Nathan's
+room until morning.  Nathan grumbled a bit, but at last consented to
+grant his request.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+"WHOSO DIGGETH A PIT..."
+
+Next morning, just as day was breaking, Nathan and Koos Bester took
+their departure from Namies.  Koos had not slept at all during the
+previous night.  His face looked pinched and haggard, his hands trembled
+so that he was hardly capable of buckling the straps of the harness.
+
+The morning was as pellucid as a dew-drop and the dunes looked
+preternaturally clear and distinct, the hollows being filled with
+amber-tinted shadow.  The track lay like a narrow, coiling ribbon over
+the waste of plumy grass.  The weird form of Bantom Berg arose gradually
+before the travellers like a warning finger, indicating the vast
+death-trap of which it is the centre, when, as the sun appeared above
+the horizon, its shafts smote suddenly as though a furnace-door had been
+suddenly opened.  A short, hushing breath, as it were a gasp of
+apprehension of the fiery terrors of the day, seemed to pass westward
+over the Desert.
+
+They reached a place called "Inkruip," and here it was decided to
+outspan and rest the team.  The name is a literal translation into Dutch
+of a word in the Bushman tongue which means "creep in."  A small stone
+kopje stands here, and in its side is a narrow passage through which an
+ordinary-sized man may just manage to force himself.  A small chamber is
+then reached, and from this another passage leads.  Into this one can
+only pass upon hands and knees.  It rapidly gets narrower, and at length
+dips suddenly at an angle of about forty-five degrees for some ten feet.
+At the bottom is a little hollow, in which is always to be found a few
+pannikinfuls of beautifully clear, fresh water, which is icy cold.  It
+takes, however, two people to obtain water at Inkruip, for the man who
+descends the sloping shaft cannot get out again unless he is assisted by
+some one who pulls him back by means of a reim tied round his feet.
+
+The rocks on the western side of the little kopje still afforded a
+slight protection from the blazing sunlight.  The two men crept close
+against a low, perpendicular ledge of rock, over which the rays of the
+terrible sun were slowly encroaching.  The sand was so hot that the
+horses were unable to stand still, so they moved uneasily about in the
+vain hope of easing their scorching feet.
+
+"My, but ain't it just sultry!" said Nathan.  He had managed to squeeze
+his small body into a wedge of shade too small to accommodate the bulk
+of the Boer, who was largely exposed to the sun-glare.
+
+Koos murmured an unintelligible reply.  Nathan, in spite of the heat,
+felt in good form; he was determined to converse.
+
+"My, but ain't it funny that a big, strong chap like you should have to
+do just as I tell you, eh?"
+
+Nathan could not see his companion's face, so he went on garrulously--
+
+"I'll tell you what I mean to do; I'm just going to have a jolly rest
+down at your camp for two or three days.  You can go down to Gamoep and
+collect the stock; I'll stay behind and cheer up the missus, eh?"
+
+Koos bit his lip till the blood came.  His face, still averted from
+Nathan, turned almost purple; the veins of his temples appeared as
+though they would burst.  Nathan went on--"You must excuse me, old man;
+I'm not a married man myself, and, what's more, I don't know that I ever
+will be, but I've often thought that a married man should keep no
+secrets from his wife.  Don't you agree with me, eh?"  Koos still
+maintained silence.  "Well, silence gives consent, as the copybooks say,
+so I suppose you agree with me.  That being so, and without for a moment
+wishing to say anything that might lead your thoughts back in an
+unpleasant direction--and I'm sure you'll see that it's only out of
+friendship that I ask it--which is: Did you tell your wife about that
+little spree the other day?"
+
+"No," replied Koos hoarsely.
+
+"Well, I think you've made a mistake in not doing so, and you must let
+me persuade you to tell your wife all about it as soon as we get to your
+camp.  If you like you may put off telling her until the morning, but
+you'd better get it over, as the man said when he jumped on the back of
+the alligator."
+
+"Why should I tell my wife?"
+
+"Several reasons.  One is that if she were to hear about the thing from
+any one else she would think you didn't trust her, don't you know.
+Another is that I have reason to suspect your wife doesn't like me quite
+as well as I like her, and I want her to know what a friend I've been to
+you all through this business.  See?"
+
+In the brain of Koos something seemed to snap.  The tension at once
+ceased, and he breathed freely.  Strange lights flickered before his
+eyes, and his ears were filled with extraordinary sounds.  He seemed to
+live through hours of rather pleasant delirium in the course of a few
+seconds.  The voice of Nathan recalled him to a sense of his
+surroundings.  Then the lights and sounds were suddenly swept away, and
+the idea which had been born in the turmoil stood forth adult in
+terrible and ravishing nakedness.  His thirsty soul drank deep at the
+cup of an awful hope, and the dunes seemed to blossom into a red-hot,
+infernal garden.
+
+"Look here, old chap," continued the Jew, plucking at his companion's
+sleeve to emphasise what he said.  "No nonsense, mind; you've got to
+tell your wife all about it.  See?"
+
+"I'll tell her."
+
+"Yes; and tell her, too, that she's got to make me jolly comfortable
+while you're away; and, in fact, to do every blessed thing I tell her.
+See?"
+
+"Yes; I'll tell her all that."
+
+"Now that's the way I like to hear you talk--nice and friendly, you
+know.  I can see we're going to be good friends right enough.  I'll not
+be hard on you, Koos; and if you do all I want you to, we'll both be
+quite happy.  See?"
+
+Koos replied in an even, cheerful voice that he would do all he possibly
+could to meet Nathan's wishes in everything.  Nathan said--quite
+voluntarily--that if the weather continued hot he would not insist on
+being driven back through the dunes; he would submit to the
+inconvenience of a two-days' journey round by Puffadder instead.  Koos
+expressed himself as being appropriately grateful for this evidence of
+consideration.
+
+Cordiality being thus restored, the two chatted in the friendliest
+manner.  In fact one would have thought that the mutually satisfactory
+relations of a week previously had never been interrupted.
+
+When the time came to make another start, Nathan asked Koos to excuse
+him from getting up and helping to inspan, so Koos went around the kopje
+to where the cart stood and laid out the harness ready to be placed upon
+the horses.
+
+Koos carried back to the cart from the kopje the little keg of water
+which had been placed in the shade.  No one ever dreams of entering
+Bushmanland without at least one of such kegs.  He had taken some pains
+to persuade Nathan against drinking more than a mere sip.  Nathan, being
+accustomed to travelling in the Desert, knew that this was good advice,
+however hard to follow; that one should never touch water if one can
+avoid it whilst exposed to the rays of a hot sun.  Nathan was extremely
+proud of the self-command which he evinced in following the advice, for
+he was very thirsty indeed and would have given a lot for a deep drink
+of something cool.
+
+But Koos did a very curious thing after he had laid the harness out; he
+scraped a hole in the red-hot sand with his foot, and into this he
+poured every drop of the contents of the little keg.  He need not have
+taken the trouble to scrape the hole, for the thirsty sand drank up the
+water as quickly as if it had been poured into space over the edge of
+the car of a balloon.  However, there is nothing like being systematic
+when one has important work in hand.  He stowed away the empty keg under
+the seat of the cart, and then went to fetch the horses.
+
+These poor animals were standing, only a few hundred yards away, perched
+like so many goats upon a low ledge of light-coloured stone.  This was
+more bearable to their feet than the red, scorching sand.  The docile,
+well-trained brutes stood still until Koos went up and caught them.  He
+laughed so heartily that the tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was
+hardly able to untie the hobble-knots from the forelegs of the youngest
+horse, which, being given to roaming, it was always necessary to secure.
+He led the horses back to the cart, and in a few minutes they stood in
+the traces uneasily shifting their feet from time to time, and looking
+round impatiently for the signal to start.  Koos called to Nathan, who
+came forward and took his place, with many groanings, upon the hard,
+unprotected seat of the vehicle.
+
+A start was made.  Nathan seemed to fry in the heat.  There was no
+longer a track, for whenever the wind blew the ever-shifting sand would
+have obliterated the trail of an army in an hour.  Koos, however, knew
+every turn and changing fold in the limbs of the dune-monster, and took
+advantage of each depression, enabling him to force through one after
+another of the interminable series of tentacle-like ridges at its most
+vulnerable point.
+
+The heat was indescribable.  The horses broke into a lather of sweat at
+every ascent.  This at once dried into adhesive flakes of white paste
+whenever the course led downhill.  Nathan suffered increasing agonies
+from thirst, but he still listened to the persuasions of his companion
+against drinking whilst in the hot sunlight, and thus relaxing his pores
+until every drop of moisture drained out of his body.  He accordingly,
+with increased admiration for his own powers of endurance, determined to
+hold out to the last extremity.  From his manner it might have been
+supposed that this exercise of obvious discretion for his own advantage
+was really a something which Koos ought to have been extremely grateful
+for.
+
+Twenty torrid miles of the dune-ground had to be travelled; on a day
+such as this, better fifty in the open Desert.  After they had covered
+about eight miles, Nathan found his thirst absolutely intolerable, so he
+made Koos stop the cart and get the keg out from under the seat.
+
+"Allemagtig!" exclaimed Koos, "the keg is empty!"
+
+"Empty!" shrieked Nathan in agony.  "Then I'll die of thirst.  Look
+here, you damned murdering hound; I'll make you swing for this."
+
+Koos replied to the effect that he was very sorry; he supposed the cork
+must have sprung out from the jolting.  Nathan's moods alternated
+between the whimperingly pathetic and the impotently furious; his words,
+between blasphemous revilings and minor-keyed entreaties.  Koos did his
+best to comfort him, promising water within two hours at the most.
+
+The course now led up a deep and narrow passage between two branches
+which were rooted in the main dune almost at the same point, and which
+ran parallel for several miles.  One of these had to be crossed close to
+its point of origin at a spot where it curved slightly, and where the
+winds had blown a shallow gap.  This locality was like the innermost
+circle of hell.  As the horses bravely struggled up to the gap through
+the scorching sand, into which they sank above their fetlocks, Koos
+leaped out of the cart so as to ease the strain, and asked Nathan to do
+the same.  Nathan, however, plaintively declined, saying that he could
+not walk ten yards in the sand.
+
+They reached the top of the ascent, and Koos stopped the horses for the
+purpose of giving them a blow.  Then he climbed into the cart and took
+his seat beside his suffering companion.  After they had rested for a
+couple of minutes, Nathan said, in tones of husky despair--
+
+"Go on, Koos, for God's sake!  I'm dying of thirst!"
+
+Koos gathered the reins up preparatory to making a start.  Then he asked
+Nathan to stand up for a moment so that he might adjust the seat.
+Nathan, groaning, leant forward and crouched with his hands on the
+splash-board.  Koos seized him between his huge hands, lifted him high
+with a wrench, and flung him down the side of the dune.
+
+The reins he had gripped between his knees, the whip stood ready at his
+hand.  In a moment the team, refreshed by the short pause, were dragging
+the cart down the side of the dune at a floundering gallop.
+
+After going for about two hundred yards Koos hauled the horses back
+almost upon their haunches, and the cart suddenly stopped.  He looked
+round; Nathan was stumbling slowly down the sandy slope, falling every
+few yards.  Koos allowed him to come to within about fifty yards of the
+cart, and then he urged the horses into a walk.  Nathan made a desperate
+effort and broke into a staggering run, which somewhat decreased the
+distance.  Koos then whipped the horses into a trot, and he heard behind
+him a hoarse and stifled cry as of a wild beast in agony.  After a few
+minutes he again pulled the team into a walk and looked back.  A
+motionless figure lay huddled with its face upon the sand.
+
+Koos uttered a wild laugh, frightful to hear, and urged the horses
+forward at a mad gallop.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+THE NACHTMAAL, AND AFTER.
+
+A few days after the departure of Nathan and Koos Bester the great
+annual event, the visit of the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church to
+Namies, took place.
+
+The Reverend Nicholas Joubert, who resided at Garies, two hundred miles
+as the crow flies, across the Desert, made a tour through Bushmanland
+every autumn.  He travelled in his own comfortably appointed
+spring-wagon, teams of horses for which were provided by the more
+well-to-do among the Trek-Boers, as relays along a prescribed course.
+
+The Trek-Boers congregated at the different water-places to meet the
+pastor.  Services would be held, catechisings instituted, confirmations,
+marriages, and christenings solemnised.
+
+Namies, if the summer rains happen to have been copious, is the great
+assembling-place for the Trek-Boers of Northern Bushmanland; in fact,
+several dozen camps may be seen grouped around the kopjes on these
+occasions, and the pastor has known what it is to preach there to
+several hundred souls.
+
+There is little that is distinctive about these meetings.  Enthusiasm is
+not an element in them, for the Boer, and more especially the Trek-Boer,
+takes his religion, like everything else, quietly and without passion or
+excitement.  The sermons are mainly theological, the prayers are
+extremely long, the Old Testament is more in evidence than the New, the
+singing of the psalms and hymns is nasal, and extremely trying to any
+one with a musical ear.
+
+This species of religious gathering is known as the "Nachtmaal," which
+is the Dutch equivalent for the Lord's Supper.  In the more civilised
+districts the Boers gather from far and near around the different
+church-buildings four times annually.  In Bushmanland, however, no
+church-buildings exist, so the pastor gathers his wandering sheep
+together once in every year, usually in autumn, but of course the time
+must be determined by the rains.  They are thus kept in touch with the
+formal observances of their professed religion.
+
+It is a strange and motley gathering which one sees under the awning of
+"buck-sails," as the canvas overalls of the wagons are called, stretched
+over poles.  Probably the assemblage contains a larger proportion of
+unattractive female countenances than one would find in any other
+collection of Caucasians.  Here and there, however, one may notice a
+strangely beautiful face shining like a fresh lily between withered
+cabbages.  Among the faces of the men one notices many diverse types.
+Some show a rugged nobility that would ensure their owners a fair
+livelihood in any city where art is followed.  The most salient
+characteristic of both men and women is the listlessness of attitude as
+well as of expression.
+
+All were wondering at Nathan's absence; for obvious reasons he always
+made a point of being present at the Nachtmaal.  This is the great time
+for squaring off accounts, for bartering piles of hides, jackal-skins,
+and karosses, the latter made by the deft fingers of the Boer women from
+the skins of the fat-tailed sheep, as well as from those of wild
+animals.  Nathan had left no instructions; he had even taken the keys of
+the little iron safe in which the promissory notes, "good-fors," and
+acknowledgments of debt which the Boers had signed from time to time to
+cover their accounts, were kept.  Such transactions involved a ruinous
+rate of interest for the accommodation granted, and were generally made
+payable at Nachtmaal-time.  Max knew that Nathan had an unusually large
+number of these on hand.  On several grounds Nathan's absence was
+absolutely unaccountable.
+
+As the Trek-Boers assembled from far and near Max had a busy time of it.
+It seemed to be a _sine qua non_ among the Boers that each individual
+should have at least one new article noticeable in his or her attire at
+the Nachtmaal.  It was customary for Max to nail down the flap of the
+counter at Nachtmaal-time, so as to prevent the women, many of whom are
+incorrigible pilferers, from crowding round beneath the shelves and
+"snapping up unconsidered trifles."
+
+Sunday passed with its almost interminable services, and on Monday Maria
+and Petronella were united in marriage to their respective swains.  The
+weddings were only two among some dozen or so.  These were, however, the
+most notable--one would hardly use the term "fashionable."
+
+The brides were attired in white muslin frocks and pale green sashes.  A
+single wreath of orange-blossoms was divided between them.  The
+bridegrooms levied contributions on several friends for the black
+broadcloth attire in which they were wed.  Black broadcloth, largely
+irrespective of fit, represents the Boer ideal of the perfection of male
+garb.
+
+In the evening something remotely approaching a jollification was held
+at the Hattingh camp.  Next to Old Schalk's wagon stood another, which
+had been borrowed for the occasion, and between the tent-frames of these
+vehicles some of the buck-sails, which had formed the roof of the
+extemporised church of the previous day, were stretched.  In the space
+thus covered in the company sat whilst innumerable cups of coffee were
+handed round.  Mynheer, the minister, came and remained for about half
+an hour.  After he had taken his departure for his wagon, which was
+outspanned on the other side of the kopjes, Oom Schulpad produced his
+violin and struck up a lively polka.
+
+Dancing was, of course, out of the question under the awning on account
+of the sand.  In the large mat-house and in the tent, however, the
+floors had been hardened by use.  The contents of these edifices were
+soon removed and piled outside, and a few couples forthwith began
+dancing.  Each respective bride and bridegroom danced exclusively one
+with the other, and the couples who stood up at first remained, as a
+rule, partners for the whole evening.
+
+At the conclusion of each dance the couples in possession of the limited
+spaces came outside and seated themselves under the awning, thus making
+room for another relay.  The only lights came from a few dip candles,
+and the dust kicked up from loose floors hung about in thick clouds.
+Dancing was carried on in a silent, business-like manner, each lady
+holding her partner with interlocked fingers behind his neck, whilst he
+passed his arms around her substantial body just below the armpits, and
+clasped his hands behind her back.
+
+Susannah refused to dance; she and Max sat together just outside the
+awning, listening to the music.  Oom Schulpad sat playing between the
+mat-house and the tent, so that the polkas could be heard equally well
+in both.
+
+Old Schalk sat in his chair under the awning and talked oracularly to an
+attentive circle.  His wife, fatigued from the exertions of the day, had
+collapsed on a stool in the scherm, from which she continually dispensed
+coffee, with the assistance of the Hottentot maids.
+
+"I wonder where Koos Bester is," said Oom Dantje van Rooyen; "I never
+knew him miss a Nachtmaal before."
+
+"I passed his camp on Thursday," said a Boer from the eastward, "and his
+wife told me that he was lying sick in the mat-house."
+
+"Did she say what was the matter with him?" asked Old Schalk.
+
+"Yes; she said it was pains in his head, and that he could not sleep and
+would not eat or speak.  Did you hear that he killed two of his horses
+when going through the dunes after he left here?  They died just after
+he reached home."
+
+"No, I didn't hear that.  Was Nathan at the camp?"
+
+"No, I heard nothing of Nathan."
+
+"That is strange; he and Koos left here last Friday week."
+
+"How can that be, then?  My son Diedrik met Koos driving home from the
+dunes on Friday evening, and he was alone."
+
+Old Schalk smoked in silence for a few moments; then he called to Max,
+who came in immediately.
+
+"Max, have you heard when Nathan is coming back?"
+
+"No, Oom, I have heard nothing of him since he left here with Koos
+Bester."
+
+"That was on Friday week, eh?"
+
+"Ja, Oom."
+
+Old Schalk smoked for a long time in silence; Max rejoined Susannah
+outside.  One by one the male guests arose from their seats and left the
+awning.  Outside they collected in two or three groups and conversed in
+whispers.  Diederik, the young Boer who had been referred to in the
+conversation with Oom Dantje van Rooyen, was called from the mat-house,
+where he was dancing.
+
+Diederik repeated his story.  He had, undoubtedly, seen Koos Bester
+driving alone from the direction of the dunes on the evening of the day
+upon which Koos and Nathan left Namies.  Although not spoken of, it was
+well known that Koos Bester had killed Gert Gemsbok, and every one had
+noticed the strangeness of Koos' manner ever since.
+
+A shadow of apprehension seemed to have fallen on the company.  Men
+glanced up in silence and read in each other's eyes their own ominous
+thoughts.  Max noticed the change which had come over the others, and
+inquired as to the reason.  Old Schalk sent again for him, and quietly
+told him the facts as they stood, and left him to draw his own
+deductions.
+
+At midnight the newly married couples were escorted to their respective
+wagons, which were standing within a short distance of each other, by a
+party of young men and maidens.  After some uncouth romping and
+unrefined jokes the escort returned to the Hattingh camp.  Contrary to
+usage the party broke up at once, the different families returning to
+their respective camps, silent, or whispering to each other the
+forebodings which they felt.
+
+Afterwards a few of the Boers met as a sort of informal council to
+discuss the situation and decide as to what was best to be done under
+the circumstances.  The meeting took place at the Hattingh camp, and Max
+was present.  It was settled that a party of six men should start at
+once for Inkruip.  After resting there until daylight they would take on
+the spoor of the cart through the dunes.  The dune route being the
+shortest cut to Koos Bester's camp, there was no necessity for sending a
+party round by the road.
+
+Of course the most urgently necessary thing to do was to interrogate
+Koos himself.  The wind had not blown with any degree of violence since
+the date of the departure of the missing man, so there would be no
+difficulty in finding and following the spoor.
+
+During the discussion several very suspicious circumstances came to
+light.  These were all more or less trifles, but, under the
+circumstances, they became significant.  One had noticed Koos walking by
+himself, muttering, and with hands convulsively clenched.  Another had
+seen him look at Nathan with a terrible expression.  Then the killing of
+the horses.  It was well known that Nathan had been in Koos' company
+when Gert Gemsbok had been killed.  Over and over again the young man
+who had passed Koos on his way from the dunes was interrogated and
+cross-examined, but his story could not be shaken.  Every one felt
+satisfied that a tragedy had taken place, and was eager to clear up the
+mystery.
+
+Within an hour the party, under the leadership of Oom Dantje van
+Rooyen--who rode the identical horse that was supposed to have killed
+Gert Gemsbok--had started.  Inkruip was reached shortly before dawn.
+Here a halt was made.  The most slender man was made to go down the
+inclined shaft for the purpose of filling the water-bottles.  At the
+first glimmer of dawn the saddles were again placed upon the horses.
+
+The spoor of the cart lay as clearly defined as if it had only been made
+on the previous day.  It is a peculiarity of the Desert sand that if the
+wind has not happened to blow hard it retains a spoor distinctly for
+weeks, or even months.
+
+Shortly after starting it was found that the ordinary course through the
+dunes had been departed from; the spoor trended away to the left,
+towards Bantom Berg, and led through a tract which, according to the
+patriarch of the party, had never been crossed by a vehicle before.
+
+"Allemachtig!" said Oom Dantje, as he ploughed through sand which nearly
+reached his horse's knees, "no wonder he killed two of his team!"
+
+More and more the spoor trended towards Bantom Berg.  The day was cool,
+a light breeze blowing from the south, so neither men nor horses were
+much distressed.  Suddenly the spoor curved towards a gap in the
+right-hand dune.  In climbing to this the men, with one accord,
+dismounted from their horses.  When they reached the middle of the gap
+they stood still to recover breath.
+
+"Look there," said Oom Dantje, pointing to a couple of jackals slinking
+off into a small patch of scrub about two hundred yards ahead.
+
+"Yes, and there are the ears of another sticking out over that tuft,"
+said one of the men.
+
+They moved slowly on.  As they did so they saw several more jackals.
+These trotted or slunk away to right and left.  Oom Dantje reined in his
+horse and raised his hand as a sign to the others to pause.  Then he
+pointed to what appeared to be fragments of torn clothing scattered
+about on the sand at each side of the track.  They rode a little nearer,
+but again paused--with one accord this time, for under the surrounding
+bushes, whither they had been dragged by the jackals, they saw the
+scattered bones of a human body.
+
+There was no doubt as to the identity of the remains.  The different
+articles of clothing were well known as having belonged to Nathan.
+Every fragment was carefully gathered up and placed in a sack which one
+of the men had been using as a saddlecloth.  A pocket-book containing
+papers, a bunch of keys and a silver watch, were also found.  These were
+carefully placed in a saddle-bag.
+
+The gruesome bundle was tied across the saddle upon one of the horses,
+and the cavalcade started back for Namies, the men dismounting by turns
+to give a lift to the man who had lent his horse for the purpose of
+carrying the remains.  It was nearly midnight when they reached Namies.
+
+Old Schalk at once woke to sense of his duty as Assistant Field Cornet.
+Within half an hour a mounted messenger was on his way to the Special
+Magistrate with a quaintly scrawled report of the case.
+
+Max was sent for.  He stood over the sack which contained the mortal
+remains of his brother with a very white, scared face.  He was filled
+with horror, but felt no grief.  The dead man had earned his brother's
+hatred and contempt.  Max did not pretend for a moment that he felt any
+sorrow.  He could not but feel that the fate which had befallen one whom
+he instinctively knew was responsible to a great extent for a foul
+murder committed on an innocent fellow-creature was largely deserved.
+
+Within a quarter of an hour almost every inhabitant of Namies was at the
+Hattingh camp.  Old Schalk sat on his chair and propounded oracularly
+his views upon the occurrence to all and sundry.  A fire was lit--
+kettles, pannikins, and other requisites were fetched from the
+surrounding camps, and a sort of coffee-parliament held session until
+long after sunrise.
+
+The sack containing the horror had not been opened, pending the arrival
+of the Special Magistrate; it was hung in the fork of a high koekerboom
+about fifty yards away.  Towards this tree which bore such terrible
+fruit furtive and frightened glances were shot from time to time.  The
+children, who had crept out and joined the elders, cowered in terror
+against the latter's legs whilst the darkness lasted.  After daylight
+had come, curiosity got the better of fright, and they crept out and
+took up positions in small groups around the koekerboom, but at a
+respectful distance.  For hours they silently gazed, wide-eyed and
+fascinated, at the Thing which hung in its fork, lifted thereto by its
+own act when a sentient being, even as Haman of old was hung upon the
+high gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+"WHOSO BREAKETH A FENCE..."
+
+The night had just fallen when Koos Bester arrived at his camp after
+leaving Nathan, his persecutor, to his dreadful fate in the burning
+dunes.  Koos arrived in the wildest state of excitement and the highest
+of spirits.  His team was in a miserable condition; the poor horses just
+staggered away for a few yards when outspanned and then sank exhausted
+on the ground.  The Hottentot servants attempted to make them get up and
+walk slowly about so as to cool gradually before drinking.  With some
+difficulty the leaders were got upon their legs.  The wheelers, however,
+could not be induced by either blows or persuasion to arise; about an
+hour afterwards it was found that they were dead.
+
+Mrs Bester was very uneasy; she felt that something was wrong.  Koos
+drank quantities of water but could not be induced to eat.  After a
+while he flung himself upon the bed and fell at once into a deep sleep
+which lasted until noon of the following day.  Then he became violently
+ill.  At his wife's earnest solicitation he had eaten a little food upon
+awakening, but this he was unable to keep upon his stomach.  Then he lay
+on the bed for a couple of days, during which he hardly spoke.
+
+All the other Boers had trekked away to the Nachtmaal at Namies, so,
+with the exception of her old and feeble father and the Hottentot
+servants, Mrs Bester had no one to turn to for assistance or advice.
+
+One night Koos began muttering to himself; from this time he seemed to
+be quite bereft of his understanding.  He sometimes ate food that was
+placed before him with avidity.  Six days and nights passed in this
+manner.  He appeared to suffer acute pain in his head and to be
+continually thirsty.  At length he again slept deeply.  Mrs Bester had
+taken the children out of the mat-house and was staying with them in the
+wagon for the purpose of keeping them quiet.  In the middle of the night
+she stole quietly out and went on tiptoe to the mat-house door.  She
+listened carefully, but there was no sound of breathing.  Then she
+softly struck a match and looked in under the door-flap.  The bed was
+empty.  She called up the servants and a search was made, but no trace
+of her husband could be found.
+
+Koos Bester awoke just before midnight and sat up in bed.  He could not
+remember where he was or what had happened.  He got up and groped about;
+then he realised that he was at home, in his own mat-house.  Then the
+past came back to him, bit by bit, and the wretched man realised that he
+had stained his soul with a double murder.  He would be hanged, that was
+now certain; he would give himself up and get the thing over as soon as
+possible.  To get it over quickly was all he was very anxious about.
+
+But where were his wife and children?  Some faint flickering memories of
+what had occurred during his delirium came back to him, and he arrived
+at a true inference regarding their absence.  He was glad.  It was
+terrible to be alone, but the dread of meeting his wife and telling
+her--as he felt he inevitably must when next he saw her--of what he had
+done, kept him from calling her.  He felt quite sure that she and the
+children were in the wagon, close at hand.
+
+The darkness was full of terrible and menacing shapes; huddled figures
+crouched all over the floor.  The far, faint yowl of a jackal sounded
+from the direction of the dunes; it reminded him of Nathan's hoarse,
+despairing scream when he realised that he was abandoned to die of
+thirst.  The mat-house, with its population of mysterious shadows and
+huddled shapes, became intolerable.  Better the sense of freedom outside
+under the accusing stars, where a man can get away from the thing that
+seems to crawl to his feet as though to clasp his knees.  He lifted the
+door-flap and stepped out into the night.
+
+The Hottentot servants had inhabited a scherm about fifty yards to the
+rear of the camp.  Hottentots often sit up more than half the night,
+chatting, laughing, and dancing.  Mrs Bester, for the sake of keeping
+the neighbourhood quiet, had told the servants to move their scherm
+farther away.  They had, accordingly, taken their belongings to the
+other side of a little knoll about two hundred yards away, on the
+right-hand side of the camp.  Here they might hold their nocturnal
+jollifications to their hearts' content without disturbing anybody or
+anything except the meerkats in the adjacent burrows.
+
+A wandering stranger from Great Namaqualand had arrived during the
+course of the evening.  This man had a ramkee upon which he performed
+with skill.  A few months previously he had visited Namies, and had one
+night listened to Gert Gemsbok playing his favourite tune.  Being struck
+with admiration of the melody, he had picked it up.  He was now
+popularising it among the dwellers of the Desert, for he played it at
+every scherm he visited.
+
+Coffee had been made of burnt rye, a sheep had died on the previous day;
+thus the scherm contained the materials for a feast.  The company had
+been dancing to a series of inspiriting reels, but were now resting a
+space from their laborious leapings and gruntings.  The stranger was
+playing Gert Gemsbok's tune as an interlude to the reels.  A bright fire
+of candle-bushes was burning.  All but the ramkee player were lying down
+resting behind the scherm fence.
+
+When Koos Bester stepped out of the mat-house he at once experienced a
+sense of relief.  His head was bare and the cool breeze which wandered
+over the Desert refreshed his brain.  The stars could, he found, pity as
+well as accuse; the night seemed to take compassion on his misery.  He
+looked round to the back of the camp in the direction of where the
+scherm of the servants had been, and was relieved to see no light.  He
+wanted to be free--even of the suggestion of the presence of another
+human being--until he had rearranged his distorted faculties.  The sandy
+road led past the camp; he turned to the right and paced slowly along
+it, with bent head.
+
+He stopped short, for a sound of horribly familiar music reached his
+ear; then he started and gasped, for the glow of a fire smote his eyes,
+coming from behind the little knoll.  Being to windward of the knoll, he
+could not exactly distinguish what tune was being played.  He knew that
+the instrument was a ramkee--that, in itself, was sufficiently horrible.
+A cold hand seemed to steal into his breast and gradually close upon
+his stricken heart.  He stood rigidly still and tried to catch the tune
+exactly.  He strained every nerve with this end, but the breeze
+freshened slightly, and only an indefinite tinkle reached him.  In the
+midst of his reeling consciousness only one idea stood firm--he must go
+closer and determine who the player was and what the tune that was being
+played.  He pressed his hands convulsively to his ears and stepped,
+crouching, towards the knoll.
+
+He reached the knoll and cautiously raised his head till he was able to
+see over its top.  The musician was sitting with his back towards the
+watcher, and just inside the scherm.  Against the diffused glow of the
+embers--for the flame had died down--the outline of his head and
+shoulders stood clear and black.  To the mind of Koos came the certain
+conviction that he was looking at the ghost of the man he had murdered.
+With a supreme effort of despairing will he tore his shielding hands
+away from his ears, and the unmistakable tones of the dead man's music
+crashed like thunder into his brain.
+
+Then Koos Bester's madness returned upon him, and he fled away
+noiselessly across the Desert sands in the direction of the dunes.
+
+It was long before he paused, for the fever in his brain prevented him
+from feeling fatigue.  At length, as he was running over the roofs of a
+city of Desert mice, the ground gave way beneath his foot and he fell.
+The shock rendered him almost senseless.  After a few minutes he sat up,
+pressed his hands to his temples, and began to grope in the haunted
+spaces of his darkened intellect for some clue to guide him.
+
+He looked around.  The dew-washed air of the Desert night was clear as
+crystal, the pulsing stars were domed over him sumptuously.  He dug his
+hot hands into the cooling sand and lifted his faced to meet the soft,
+refreshing breeze.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The Hottentots at the scherm had evidently thrown another armful of
+candle-bush upon the embers, for a bright flame shot up and momentarily
+increased in volume.  Koos gazed at it, fascinated.  As the fire grew
+brighter he thought it was rushing toward him with terrific speed.  The
+flames had been sent from hell to consume him quick.  Like Abiram, God
+had doomed him for his crimes to go down alive into the pit.  He sprang
+to his feet with a terrible cry, and again fled onwards in the direction
+of the dunes.
+
+When he again paused he was wading in the heavy sand on the flank of the
+main dune.  He had ascended slightly and thus could overlook a large
+area of the Desert.  The cold breath which circles around the world as
+the precursor of the dawn was stealing over the plains.  The rain had
+fallen recently upon this side of the Desert, and many of the Boers had
+sent their stock, in charge of herds, to graze on the track of the
+shower.  The scantily clad Hottentots awoke to the chill, so they began
+to light fires.  Here and there, at immense distances apart, he could
+see the sudden leapings of the flames from the easily kindled
+candle-bushes.  To the demented brain of the fugitive it appeared as if
+the whole Desert were full of fiends seeking him with torches, far and
+near.  Where the Milky Way dipped to the horizon the thronging stars
+seemed each a torch lit at the nether flame, and borne by a searching
+demon.  In among the sinuous dunes he might escape.  If he could but
+reach Inkruip he might creep down the water-shaft and hide.  They would
+never think of looking for him there.  In the icy water he might cool
+his scorched brain.
+
+He stumbled on, crossing dune after dune and ploughing through the sand
+as with the strength of a giant.  In one of the hollows he came to a
+clump of low bush.  Into this he crept for hiding.  He lay prone,
+completely covered, and looking out through a narrow opening.  The
+morning star tipped the back of the dune he had last crossed and
+thrilled through the clear atmosphere with almost super-stellar
+brilliance.  Koos took this for the torch of a tracking fiend, and again
+rushed forward with a scream of agonised dismay.  His only possible
+refuge now was under the ground at Inkruip.
+
+The sun arose and scorched his bare head.  He was now almost
+unconscious; he simply pressed forward in obedience to a blind, animal
+instinct--a sort of momentum generated by the terror which had passed
+away with the darkness.
+
+It was an awful day, not a breath of wind could be felt, but the sun
+smote down from a pitiless heaven in all the fulness of its torrid
+might.  Koos pressed blindly up the side of a steep, high dune--his
+breath coming in husky, choking gasps.  Then something seemed to explode
+in his head with the sound like that of a cannon, and he fell upon his
+face in the sand.
+
+He had one blinding flash of consciousness, during the continuance of
+which he seemed again to live through all his lifetime and see anew
+everything he had ever seen.  The minutest trifles of former experience
+became distinctly apparent, as the smallest details of a landscape show
+up when lightning flashes near and vividly on a dark night.  Then came
+the darkness which men call death.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+As soon as ever day broke the spoor of the missing man was found and
+followed.  Mrs Bester, assisted by her old father, inspanned four
+horses in the cart and drove on behind the trackers.  When she reached
+the dunes she found that the horses could take the cart no farther, so
+she outspanned the team and tied the legs of each animal together to
+prevent it from straying.
+
+She sat through weary hours in the broiling heat.  Early in the
+afternoon one of the Hottentots returned with word that her husband's
+dead body had been found.  The horses were at once inspanned, and the
+cart taken by a roundabout course to the vicinity of where it was lying.
+It was late at night when she arrived at the camp, with the corpse of
+her husband tied, stiff and stark, on the seat beside her.
+
+Next day two constables came with a warrant for Koos Bester's arrest,
+but he had gone before a higher tribunal than that of the Special
+Magistrate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+A CONVERSION, A WEDDING, AND SEVERAL OTHER THINGS.
+
+Max, being heir to his brother's estate, was now well off.  Old Schalk,
+mindful of his account as standing in the books at the shop, felt
+obliged to be civil.  Max was, and felt himself to be, master of the
+situation.
+
+No longer the shy, diffident dreamer of a few months back, Max developed
+a keenness and aptitude for business which came as an unpleasant
+revelation to those who tried to get on his blind side.  In fact Max had
+no blind side--he seemed to have eyes all round his head.
+
+He soon satisfied himself of one thing, namely, that a business such as
+his, unless the legitimate gains were supplemented by the profits of the
+illicit trade in wild ostrich feathers, would not pay at Namies.  Not
+seeing his way towards following Nathan's dangerous methods, he
+determined to wind up the business as it stood, and reopen in some spot
+in Southern Bushmanland were the farmers were in better circumstances,
+and where communication with more civilised parts was neither so
+difficult nor so uncertain.  However, he kept these conclusions strictly
+to himself.
+
+There was one drawer in the little iron safe of which Nathan had always
+kept the key.  Upon opening this he found, to his astonishment,
+documents which showed that there was a balance to his credit in one of
+the Cape Town banks of over a thousand pounds, and that the stock, which
+was worth several hundreds more, was fully paid for.  He was a rich man.
+The diamonds were worth a considerable amount--but these he would have
+to keep until he could go to Europe before he could realise them.
+
+Amid the flux and reformation of his character his love for Susannah
+never changed.  It was probably owing to this that he did not, under his
+recent experiences, lose all faith in human nature.  He now felt that he
+was in such a position that he could marry whenever he wanted to.  As a
+measure of policy he allowed, at this juncture, the Hattinghs to have a
+little more credit, and the quality of the coffee dispensed so lavishly
+by Mrs Hattingh from the scherm--to all comers--improved very much in
+consequence.  He made up his mind that as soon as Susannah became his
+wife he would write off the whole of the Hattingh account as a bad debt,
+and afterwards take care that no further credit was given in that
+quarter.
+
+"I will marry you as soon as ever you like," said Susannah to him one
+day; "but you must first become a Christian; then I know Uncle will not
+refuse."
+
+Max had not the slightest objection to doing this.  He had left his
+people when but a child, and had thus never acquired that pride of race
+which so distinguishes the average Jew, and which often causes him to
+cleave passionately to the observances of that religion which still
+keeps Israel a separate people, even after all faith in dogma may have
+perished.
+
+Max had come in contact with no Jews except Nathan and others of his
+class.  These had earned the young man's unmitigated contempt.  As to
+Christianity--he looked upon its profession as a mere matter of
+convenience.  The only Christians whom he knew were very sincere in
+their faith, and would have looked upon any one harbouring the slightest
+religious doubt as being worse than heathen Bushmen, yet their religion
+did not appear to have the slightest effect upon their conduct.  The
+case of poor old Gert Gemsbok had set Max thinking deeply upon these
+matters, and the conclusions he arrived at were only negative ones.
+
+The mind of Max, from utter want of culture, was probably not well
+fitted to deal with the higher problems.  Had it been so he might easily
+have seen that the so-called Christians who inhabited Bushmanland were
+really far more like Jews than the worshippers in any modern synagogue
+on Saturday, for they looked upon themselves as the Almighty's chosen
+people, and felt that the heathen had been given to them as their
+inheritance, even as the Hittites, the Hivites, and other unhappy tribes
+had been given for spoiling unto the followers of Moses.  In this
+essential of all Christianity worth the name the love of one's kind,
+irrespective of colour or class, the Boer certainly fails.  On the other
+hand, his attitude towards the inferior race is almost exactly that of
+the Old Testament Jew, with, however, one important reservation--he does
+not look upon it as a sacred duty to destroy them, nor does he do so
+unless he considers that they have provoked destruction by refusing to
+obey his behests.
+
+Max possessed a useful native faculty for arranging evidence, digesting
+it, and deciding impartially thereon.  He brought this faculty to bear
+upon the question of religion, with the result that he made up his mind
+that the two religions he had had some experience of were equally true
+and equally false.  Certainly he had very little evidence, one way or
+another, to go upon.  His surroundings, rather than he, were responsible
+for this.  Probably, moreover, the religious sense was absent from his
+organisation.  His natural impulses were good, he had no ideals or
+aspirations.  He looked upon most of the people with whom he came in
+contact with a kind of mild contempt.  He saw clearly in them weaknesses
+of which he himself was free.  Thus, without being in any way conceited,
+he felt instinctively that he was superior to the generality of those he
+met.
+
+Life with Susannah appeared good to him, and he would not let the faint
+and mainly instinctive scruples which he felt about professing a
+religion he did not believe in, stand in the way of the realisation of
+his happiness.  So he borrowed a Catechism of the Dutch Reformed Church
+from Old Schalk and began to read up towards his conversion.
+
+He found that without any further explanations he had come to be looked
+upon as Susannah's accepted lover.  It was, of course, assumed that he
+was to be baptised and received as a Church member as soon as possible.
+
+By collusion with Mrs Hattingh he managed so that some feminine
+habiliments of very superior quality, which came with his last
+consignment of goods from Cape Town, were purchased for Susannah.  Her
+lover had, accordingly, the pleasure of at length seeing Susannah
+dressed in a manner which did something like justice to her beauty.
+
+Max caused two commodious mat-houses to be put up at the back of the
+shop, on the site of poor old Gemsbok's scherm.  These he furnished
+simply but comfortably.
+
+In the course of a few months the Reverend Nicholas Joubert received a
+call at Garies from a young Jew, who stated that he had abjured the
+errors of Judaism and wished to embrace the Christian faith.  Although
+his face seemed familiar, Mr Joubert did not at first recognise the
+convert.  However, he eventually recalled--or said that he recalled--
+having seen him at Namies.  As the convert stated that the services held
+by Mr Joubert were the only Christian ones he had ever been present at,
+the minister naturally enough attributed this remarkable conversion to
+the efficacy of his own personal ministrations, and was favourably
+disposed to the neophyte accordingly--especially as the latter answered
+all questions put to him most discreetly and knew his Catechism so well.
+No obstacles intervening, the preliminary steps towards Church
+membership were at once taken, and Max returned without delay to Namies.
+
+He took back with him some books, with the contents of which he had to
+make himself familiar.  Before leaving he made an arrangement of terms
+in which the minister, for a consideration, agreed to make his next
+visit to Bushmanland at a much earlier date than usual, and to solemnise
+a certain confirmation and a wedding--the confirmed party being the
+bridegroom--on the same day.
+
+This programme was carried out.  Max and Susannah were married.  There
+were very few Boers in the vicinity of Namies just then, so the wedding
+was an extremely quiet affair.  The short honeymoon was spent in Old
+Schalk's wagon (lent for the occasion) at Agenhuis, a water-place about
+forty miles away.  In the midst of his raptures Max found time to effect
+a favourable deal in fat-tailed sheep, which were just then very much in
+demand by the travelling agents of the Cape Town butchers.
+
+Very soon after his marriage Max began to make arrangements for winding
+up his business.  He had heard of a spot on the southern margin of the
+Desert where rains fell with comparative regularity, and where a
+profitable trade might be done in salt from the neighbouring "pans."
+Here he determined to establish a business.  Old Schalk did not like the
+idea of his leaving Namies, but Susannah raised no objection whatever to
+his doing so.
+
+It is not many years since all this happened.  To-day, at a certain
+place where there is a well which affords a copious supply of very pure
+water, in the northern part of the Calvinia Division, there stands a
+small but comfortable house built of red brick.  Over the front door is
+a signboard bearing the legend: "Max Steinmetz, Allegemene Handelaar en
+Produkten Kooper."  ["General Dealer and Produce Buyer."]  Behind the
+counter you may see Max, and sometimes Susannah.  Playing about outside,
+whenever the weather is cool enough, may be noticed several small,
+dark-eyed children of remarkable beauty.  Max has changed in appearance
+more than Susannah.  The sedentary life and close application to
+business has made his shoulders stoop somewhat and given deepening lines
+to his face.  He is still handsome, but, somehow, one feels that Raphael
+would no longer have cared to paint his portrait.
+
+Susannah is as pretty as ever, and has acquired a touch of refinement
+which was wanting before.  On the other hand, her features have a
+suspicion of dawning sharpness which they lacked in the old days at
+Namies.
+
+Max has prospered.  The moral trade in salt gives smaller profits than
+did the immoral trade in wild ostrich feathers, but it is safe, and
+there is no heavy legal penalty hanging like a Damocles sword over the
+head of the trader.  The business now supports a clerk--a young
+Englishman of good education but indifferent lungs, and who was ordered
+a karoo climate by the doctors.
+
+It is the rule of the Steinmetz household that nothing but the English
+language shall be spoken--unless when there happen to be Dutch guests
+present.  Susannah is thus rapidly acquiring a knowledge of her
+husband's mother-tongue.  To this end Max encourages her to read English
+books, and he corrects, in private, the faults of her speech.
+
+Max still has the diamonds in his safe.  He means some day to take them
+to England.  If, however, his business continues to prosper at the same
+rate as during the past few years, there is at least a chance of his not
+disposing of them.  It may be--for Max has a sound instinctive knowledge
+of human nature--that he will have them cut and made into a necklace,
+and that he may attempt to bribe Susannah with this to reconsider her
+decision never to leave her beloved Bushmanland.  Max knows that
+Susannah has an extremely pretty neck; what is more, she knows it too--
+moreover, he knows that she knows it.
+
+If Susannah's command of the English language improves, it is quite
+possible that the effect of the necklet may be all that Max desires.
+
+_Bultong_.--Dried meat.
+
+_Cartel_.--A framework of wood, filled in with laced thongs.  It is
+usually slung in the tent of a wagon, but is occasionally fixed upon
+forked sticks driven into the ground, and used as a bedstead.
+
+_Kaross_.--A rug made of brayed skins.
+
+_Kloof_.--A valley with steep sides.
+
+_Koekerboom_.--A large arboreal aloe (_Aloe dichotoma_).
+
+_Kopje_.--An abrupt hillock.
+
+_Mat-house_.--A structure made of mats stretched over laths.
+
+_Meerkat_.--A weasel-like ichneumon.
+
+_Mens_.--A person.
+
+_Nachtmaal_.--The celebration of the Lord's Supper.
+
+_Oom_.--Uncle.
+
+_Ou' ma_.--Grandmother.
+
+_Pronk_.--The springbucks are said to "pronk" when they bound along with
+arched back and erected mane.
+
+_Ramkee_.--A musical instrument resembling a banjo, which is in use
+among the Hottentots.
+
+_Reim_.--A thong.
+
+_Sampau_.--A creature resembling a tick, which is extremely poisonous.
+
+_Schepsel_.--Creature, usually meant in a derogatory sense.
+
+_Scherm_.--A low screen of bushes.
+
+_Tanta_.--Aunt.
+
+_Trek_.--(verb) To pull.  The term is used to describe anything moving
+from place to place.
+
+_Tronk_.--A prison.
+
+_Veld_.--The open, uncultivated country.
+
+_Feld-kost_.--Tubers, bulbs, of wild plants, suitable as food.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+NOQUALA'S CATTLE--A TRAGEDY OF THE RINDERPEST.
+
+A KAFFIR AT HOME.
+
+It was about eleven o'clock of a winter's morning in 1897 when Noquala
+stood before his hut and watched his cattle being driven in for milking.
+A noble, dun-coloured bull, in whose lowing the amatory and the defiant
+were about equally mingled, led the herd through the narrow gateway of
+the kraal, in which ample enclosure he stood, pawing the dusty manure
+over his shoulders and flanks.  From a smaller enclosure a few yards
+away to the right came a chorus of agonised appeals for milk from the
+waiting calves.  The herd of cattle numbered rather more than a hundred,
+and it could be seen by the most unprofessional eye that in quality its
+members were far superior to the usual run of cattle that one sees at
+the ordinary native kraal.  The majority were dun-coloured.
+
+Noquala was a jovial-looking Hlubi of about fifty years of age, stoutly
+built, and with a shrewd, lively eye.  His hair and beard were markedly
+tinged with grey.  His only clothing was a red blanket loosely drooped
+around his middle, leaving his trunk and his strong shoulders bare.  On
+his right arm, above the elbow, he wore a thick ring of ivory; otherwise
+he wore no ornament whatever.
+
+Makalipa, Noquala's wife, was sitting in the sun at the side of the hut,
+lazily engaged in making a mat out of rushes.  She addressed her husband
+by name once or twice, but he, being absorbed in the contemplation of
+his herd of cattle, which was the thing he most loved in the world--his
+children not excepted--took no notice whatever of her.
+
+"You, you--I wonder you do not sleep in the kraal; I wonder you do not
+eat grass," she said, in an audible soliloquy.  "If I loved cattle like
+you do I would tie a pair of horns on my head and go on all fours.  You
+are more of a bull than a man, and ought to be married to a cow."
+
+The cattle were all in by this time, and the youngest of the calves, a
+glossy-black little beast, was conducted to the kraal by a naked lad,
+about ten years of age.  The little animal strained at the leash like a
+hound, and plunged forward with its tail twisting violently, roaring
+lustily the while.  Others followed, and then the milking began.
+Noquala turned to his wife--
+
+"What were you saying, old money-buryer?"
+
+Makalipa was a large, spare, angular woman, whose years were probably
+ten less in number than those of her husband.  She was dressed in a
+clean white skirt and a very short bodice.  As the garments did not
+meet, a zone of black skin was strongly visible between the respective
+upper and nether edges.  Over her head was folded, in the characteristic
+native fashion, a coiffure of red Turkey twill.  She paused in her
+occupation of mat-making, letting her hands rest upon her knees, and
+regarded her husband with a half-angry expression.
+
+"Have you forgotten that your son, your eldest son, Elijah, will arrive
+this evening, and that you promised to kill a goat so that he might have
+a bit of meat to eat after his long walk?"
+
+"If you did not love your mats more than I love my cattle you would know
+that the best goat of my flock is now hanging in the store-hut."
+
+"Hau!  You killed it secretly, so that I might not get the skin to sell
+at the shop, eh?"
+
+"Did you want the money to bury, or the meat for your son--your _eldest_
+son?"
+
+Noquala walked away without giving his wife time to reply.  She at once
+arose from her work and strode over to the store-hut, whence she emerged
+soon afterwards, carrying a quantity of meat, which she began to prepare
+for cooking.
+
+Noquala, although a heathen, was not a polygamist--a fact, for a man of
+his wealth, deserving of note.  Makalipa was a Christian.  When he
+married her, twenty-two years previously, Noquala promised never to take
+another wife.  To every one's (including, probably, Makalipa's)
+surprise, he never even suggested breaking his promise.
+
+Noquala was certainly the richest man in his district.  The herd of
+cattle which he kept at his own kraal only represented about half of his
+wealth.  Far and wide his stock was distributed--let out to be farmed on
+shares, under the custom called "ngqoma," in terms of which cattle are
+assigned by the owner to some one who looks after them, milks them, and
+receives as reward a small share of the increase.  Sometimes stock let
+out under this system is handed down from generation to generation.
+Even at the present day lawsuits are instituted for the recovery of
+cattle, the progenitors of which were assigned in the days of Tshaka.
+Native law recognises no prescription.
+
+Some there were who smiled meaningly when the persistent faithfulness of
+Noquala to Makalipa was spoken of, and it was hinted that the rigours of
+his monogamy were somewhat mitigated by certain relationships which he
+had contracted at kraals where the whole wealth was held under his
+"ngqoma."  Be this as it may, Makalipa seemed quite contented with her
+lot.  She was her husband's only "wife," and that was enough for her.
+
+Noquala was really a very liberal man, and was deservedly popular, so it
+was not by grasping and overreaching his fellows that he became wealthy.
+His success could only be attributed to sheer good fortune.  His kraal
+was situated in a warm, fertile nook of one of the foot-ranges to the
+Drakensberg, and cattle throve there passing well.  He inherited a fair
+amount of stock from his father, and this herd became a fountain of the
+only kind of wealth which the native values.  His principle for many
+years had been to weed out the inferior animals, and substitute for them
+any superior cattle obtainable.  If a young man paying "lobola" [The
+cattle given in payment for a wife] had a very good cow, he knew that by
+taking it to Noquala's kraal he could exchange it for two oxen of fair
+quality.  As "lobola" cattle are estimated by number and not by
+individual value, the gain to the young man is, of course, obvious.
+
+Goats and sheep he also had, but these he did not much regard.  In fact,
+if it had not been for his wife he would not have had any small stock at
+all, except a few goats for slaughtering.
+
+Makalipa was intensely frugal, if not miserly, by nature--and was well
+known to have a considerable store of money put by.  She kept her wealth
+wrapped up in rags, and buried in various places.  She had thus been
+amassing money by little and little for over twenty years.  She claimed
+as her perquisite the proceeds of every skin of the respective beasts
+that were slaughtered or that died; and she earned a great deal by
+making and selling mats.  The first and only time she ever drew any of
+her savings was when she put her son Elijah to school at Blythswood.  It
+was her dream that Elijah should be a minister, and his own ambitions
+seconded hers.  He was now a man of twenty-one, and had made good
+progress with his studies.  At the point where this story opens he was
+expected back for his holidays.  The school had broken up two days
+previously, and he was due to arrive within a few hours.
+
+Noquala did not oppose actively his son's becoming educated.  He would
+have preferred him to have followed the calling of a peasant, such as he
+himself was.  The second son, an astute youth named Zingelagahle, was
+more after his father's heart.  He did not care about book-learning, and
+was quite content to look after the cattle, knowing that the largest
+share of them would eventually fall to him.
+
+The educated young native is almost invariably a prig, and cannot help
+showing his uncivilised relations that he feels himself to be far
+superior to them.  As a rule this superiority is assumed by both
+parties; thus not much friction results.
+
+Elijah, to do him bare justice, was perfectly sincere in his faith and
+in what he believed to be his vocation for the ministry.  He thus felt
+himself to be far superior to all the others at his paternal kraal.  His
+mother, of course, was a Christian--nominally, at least, but for years
+past she had taken little interest in anything but her son's education
+and her money-making.  She did not even belong to any church.  Once,
+when it was decided by the local Christians to erect a chapel, Noquala
+had been applied to for a subscription, and he had referred the
+applicant to his wife, stating that she had money whereas he had none.
+This was a literal fact.  One of his peculiarities was never to own any
+money.  Whenever taxes had to be paid or purchases had to be made,
+Noquala would sell to the nearest trader just sufficient sheep for the
+purpose, and immediately make a point of spending the last penny thus
+realised.
+
+When Makalipa was applied to she had just paid her son's half-yearly
+fees at the seminary, and she flatly refused to contribute a sixpence
+towards the new building.  This caused remonstrance, which was followed
+by recrimination.  The matter ended by Makalipa withdrawing from
+connection with local religious enterprise.  Representatives of the
+rival churches made advances towards this erring sheep with the heavy
+fleece, but without any result.  Religion meant spending money, and so
+long, at all events, as she was paying her son's fees at the seminary
+she felt she was doing enough and to spare for the Kingdom of Heaven.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+ELIJAH.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Elijah arrived, somewhat tired from
+his long walk.  He was a spare, loosely built youth with heavy features
+and a gloomy expression of countenance.  His mother greeted him with
+much tenderness, and his father tried to be genial.  But conversation
+between this father and son was extremely difficult.  The involuntary
+mutual foundation of feeling was contempt, and the superstructure of
+conventional tolerance which formed their plane of communication was not
+conducive to geniality.  They had thus got into the habit of having as
+little to say to each other as possible, and Noquala usually felt it
+necessary to start on one of his rounds of inspection of his "ngqoma"
+cattle within a few days of his son's return for the holidays.
+
+On the present occasion the cordiality which usually was maintained
+between the mother and son as soon as the father's back was turned was
+somewhat impaired.  There was a strong restraint on the son's side,
+which the mother found it hard to combat.  When, however, Elijah had
+been at home for a week the cause was made clear in the following
+conversation:--"Mother," said Elijah, after an awkward interval, "when
+were you at church last?"
+
+Makalipa flashed her keen eyes upon her son's gloomy face for an instant
+before she answered--
+
+"You know quite well how it is that I do not go to church."
+
+"Yes, mother, but I want you to go.  Think what people must say about
+me, a man who wants to be a minister, and who has a mother who, although
+she is a Christian, does not go to church."
+
+"Elijah, my son, I do not go to church, it is true, but I can read my
+Bible, and I don't remember the chapter in which it teaches that a son
+should instruct the mother who bore him.  Of course, when you are a
+minister it will be different.  Then I will go and hear you preach.  So
+you had better make haste and have a church of your own if you want to
+save my soul."
+
+Elijah walked away without replying.  The day was warm, so he went and
+threw himself down upon his mat in the big hut in which his father and
+mother also slept.  His mother, remorseful of having snubbed him,
+brought him some food a short time afterwards, but he refused to eat and
+said that he only wanted to sleep.  Makalipa put this down to the
+sulks--a complaint to which Elijah had been subject to from earliest
+childhood--so she set the food aside and went down to the fields to
+superintend the harvesting of the grain.
+
+When she returned the sun was down.  Elijah was still lying on his mat,
+apparently asleep.  His mother tried to arouse him, but he at once
+relapsed into a doze, after just murmuring that he had a bad headache.
+So Makalipa, after placing some food next to him, retired to bed and
+slept soundly until dawn.
+
+When Makalipa arose she noticed that Elijah was still asleep.
+Something, however, in his breathing struck her as being strange.
+Later, when she attempted to rouse him, she found that his mind was
+wandering and that he was in a burning fever.
+
+It was a severe attack of enteric fever that had struck Elijah down.  A
+week went by, but he became worse and worse.  Noquala was still away and
+Makalipa became more and more alarmed.  At length she made up her mind
+to call in a European doctor, so she dug up some money and sent
+Zingelagahle in with it to the Magistracy, with a message asking the
+District Surgeon to come and visit her son.
+
+The District Surgeon was one who had no sympathy with and therefore did
+not command the confidence of the natives.  Not making due allowance for
+the limitations of the native mind, and its consequent inability to
+grasp the importance of attention to detail in illness, he honestly
+thought that in serious cases his advice, as well as the medicines he
+supplied, were of little avail, and he usually said so when occasion
+offered.
+
+It was a long ride from the Magistracy to Noquala's kraal, and when the
+District Surgeon arrived the sun had nearly sunk.  He meant to obtain a
+night's lodging at a mission station a few miles away, but he was not
+sure of his road and was very much afraid of being benighted.  Thus he
+was in a great hurry to get his work over and then proceed on his
+journey.
+
+Elijah had just reached the crisis of his disease when the doctor
+arrived.  The patient was lying with nothing between him and the cold,
+hard floor of the hut but a rush-mat and a thin cotton blanket.  He
+appeared to be almost at the last gasp.  The doctor examined him, took
+his temperature, and asked as to what description of nourishment the
+patient had been getting.  The reply he received filled him with wrath
+and disgust.  He felt that he could do nothing, and he said so.
+Makalipa heard with a sinking heart that her son's hours were numbered,
+and that it was extremely unlikely that he would live until another sun
+arose.  Then the doctor mounted his horse and rode away without
+administering any medicine, and Makalipa sat on the ground next to her
+son, with her heart filled with darkness, awaiting the end.
+
+The doctor was hardly out of sight when Noquala, who had been sent for
+several days before, returned.  He was somewhat shocked at hearing what
+the doctor had said, but a native never gives up hope of recovery so
+long as there is life in the patient.  Touching Makalipa on the shoulder
+he beckoned to her to follow him and stepped out of the hut.
+
+"Your European doctor has said Elijah must die, but I have seen people
+get better even after they have looked like that.  Let us send for
+'Ndakana and see what he can do."
+
+Makalipa nodded; then she went back to the bedside of her son.
+
+Deep down in the mind of every human being is an elementary belief in
+the supernatural, and when brought face to face with some terrible,
+incalculable danger this is apt to rise to the surface.  If this be true
+of those who have centuries of civilisation behind them, how much more
+so is it in the case of those who are only struggling to emerge from
+barbarism?  The agitated mind of Makalipa grasped greedily at the
+possibility which her husband's words suggested.
+
+'Ndakana was a native "gqira," or doctor, who had made for himself a
+considerable reputation locally.  His kraal was not more than a couple
+of miles distant.  Thus, within an hour of being sent for, he was at the
+bedside of the sufferer.
+
+The first step in his treatment was the causing of an ox to be
+slaughtered.  The blood of this animal was sprinkled over the hut,
+inside and outside, the patient coming in for a share.  Then with a
+sharpened stick he made small incisions at different parts of Elijah's
+body and limbs, and into these he rubbed some powder which he took from
+the horn of an antelope.  After this he danced, violently but silently,
+around the hut, coming in every now and then, in a state of copious
+perspiration, to inquire as to how the patient was.
+
+Soon after this Elijah was reported to be a little better.  He had asked
+for and drunk a little sweet milk.  Then 'Ndakana went home, saying that
+he had driven away the evil spirits, and that if the patient were kept
+on a milk diet for a week he would surely recover.  The "gqira's" words
+came true.  Elijah improved rapidly, and before the week was over began
+to complain bitterly at being allowed nothing but milk to stay his
+biting hunger.  'Ndakana was made happy by a fee which took the form of
+two of Noquala's best cattle.
+
+Elijah was by no means grateful for the means which had been undertaken
+towards his recovery.  That he, a Christian and a candidate for the
+ministry, should have been practised upon by a magician--one of a class
+which formed the greatest obstacle to the spread, of Christianity among
+the people--was a bitter reflection.  Having been more or less
+unconscious throughout his illness, he did not know how bad he had been,
+and was thus firmly convinced that he would have recovered without
+'Ndakana's assistance.
+
+The mother, however, thought differently.  She remembered the sinking of
+the heart with which she had heard the European doctor condemn her son
+to death, and how the patient had immediately taken a change for the
+better when 'Ndakana's treatment once commenced.  Thus arose another
+cause of estrangement between mother and son.
+
+Elijah was still weak when he decided to return to the seminary, not
+wishing to lose the opening of the session.  His father lent him a horse
+for the occasion, and sent Zingelagahle on foot after him to bring the
+animal back.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+THE TEMPTER.
+
+An ominous whisper sounded over the land.  Far to the north, it was
+said, a new and terrible disease had broken out among cattle.  The herds
+of Khama, the Christian chief of the Bamangwato, had, so it was said,
+been swept utterly away.  Like a wayward wind, it was reported, the
+disease swept hither and thither, leaving nothing but bleaching
+skeletons to mark its track.  Even the wild game of the forest and the
+plain went down before the might of the plague.  When British
+Bechuanaland was swept and the pestilence reached the herds of the
+Basuto, it was felt that the danger was indeed at the door of every
+owner of cattle in South Africa.
+
+The Cape Government selected natives of reputed skill as cattle doctors,
+and sent them up to where the rinderpest was raging, so as to give them
+an opportunity of testing their remedies where the appliances of the
+profoundest science had failed.  Upon the return of these men to their
+homes meetings of natives were called, and addresses embodying an
+account of the observed ravages of the pest were made to them.  Thus the
+native mind became familiarised with the danger, and familiarity bred
+contempt.  Magistrates urged upon their people the extreme danger of
+keeping all their wealth locked up in such a dangerously threatened item
+as cattle, and tried to induce them to make use of the market which
+existed at Johannesburg for the purpose of realising at all events a
+portion of their stock; but all in vain.  "The `red-water' came," they
+said; "we have had war, drought, lung-sickness, and other misfortunes.
+We will, no doubt, lose many cattle, but with what remains we will again
+get rich.  Of what use is money to us?"
+
+Nearer and nearer came the plague; closer and closer were drawn in the
+coils of that deadly chain, the links of which were flung over the
+desolated earth in white heaps.  The demand for meat became greater and
+greater at Johannesburg, and agents were sent down by the different
+butchering firms to endeavour to purchase slaughter stock.  A few sheep
+they managed to obtain, but no cattle.
+
+Makalipa tried hard to persuade her husband to sell at all events some
+of his "ngqoma" cattle, but not a single head would he dispose of.  A
+local trader persuaded him of what was partly true, namely--that his
+flock of sheep, which had increased considerably during the past few
+years, and of which Makalipa was joint owner, was damaging the pasturage
+which he required for his cattle.  It was, therefore, not difficult to
+persuade Noquala to dispose of the sheep, which he did, much to
+Makalipa's dissatisfaction.
+
+The money remained in the trader's hands, Noquala fearing to bring it
+home lest his wife should get hold of it.  He meant to give her her
+share of it, but the largest portion he intended to reinvest in cattle
+as soon as the rinderpest danger should be at an end.
+
+A few days later Noquala had occasion to visit the shop of another
+trader who lived some miles away.  This man had heard of the sheep
+transaction and had laid his plans accordingly.
+
+Soon after Noquala arrived a herd of cattle was driven up and shown to
+him.  Among this herd were several most beautiful dun-coloured cows--dun
+being a colour in cattle which Noquala was particularly partial to.
+After hesitating for a few minutes he asked the trader whether the
+cattle were for sale or not.  The trader, feigning reluctance, consented
+to discuss the matter.  Eventually a bargain was struck.  The trader,
+having ascertained how much of a balance lay to Noquala's credit at the
+other shop, drew out an order for it in his own favour, to which
+document Noquala affixed his mark in the presence of witnesses.  Then
+Noquala drove home to his kraal the dun-coloured cows which, with
+several other cattle slightly inferior, although of fairly good quality,
+had now become his property.
+
+Makalipa fell into a rage when she learnt what her husband had done.
+The rinderpest danger was very imminent to her, and she felt, rightly,
+that her husband had been guilty of stark madness in investing money in
+more cattle.  She felt this the more keenly as the sheep had been
+disposed of against her strongest wishes.
+
+"And you have even spent that portion of the money which belonged to me
+in buying beasts that will disappear like burning grass when the
+sickness comes!" she said, almost in tears.
+
+"Whatever is the good of money to you?" he replied.  "Cows have calves,
+but the money you bury in the earth brings nothing forth."
+
+"The money I bury in the earth will not get the rinderpest.  After the
+sickness has swept over the land and your kraal has been emptied, my
+money will still be there."
+
+"Sickness--you are always talking about this sickness!  Has not the
+sickness been here before, and is not my kraal still full?  What does a
+woman know about things?"
+
+"A woman knows more than you.  Wait; on the day when your kraal stands
+empty my kraal will be full, and I will see you making clay oxen like a
+little boy, and playing with them.  When your cattle all die you will go
+mad, if you don't die with them."
+
+The acquisition of the new lot brought more cattle to the kraal than the
+enclosure could conveniently hold, so a number of the less valuable
+animals were weeded out and given under "ngqoma" to a man in the Xalanga
+district, to whom Noquala had long promised stock.  This man took away
+five cows and five heifers to his kraal in one of the gloomy gorges of
+the Drakensberg.
+
+The rinderpest came closer and closer.  Its fell influence lay around
+the territory in which Noquala lived like a crescent, or rather like the
+Zulu battle-formation, which has been likened appropriately to the horns
+of a charging bull.  But beyond a passing feeling of uneasiness when
+some traveller related what he had witnessed of the ravages of the pest,
+Noquala felt no fear.  Other plagues, which had been preceded by
+alarming rumours, had come and gone.  He, like his fellows, had
+suffered, although not to the same degree.  He gradually made up his
+mind that he would, if the plague came, doubtless suffer again, but he
+trusted to his luck and felt sure that all would come out right in the
+end.
+
+However, as the shower of rumours thickened, even Noquala began to feel
+uneasy.  He had been told that the disease might suddenly appear,
+mysteriously and without apparent infection from outside.  Once or
+twice, when individuals of his herd fell sick of minor ailments, he
+became distinctly alarmed.  Still the rumours thickened, and his nerves
+began to suffer.  Nevertheless he scouted every suggestion towards
+selling any of his cattle.
+
+The younger children at the kraal were, as is usual with native
+children, in the habit of making miniature cattle out of clay.  This is
+the sole form of plastic decorative art which the Bantu practise, with
+the exception of the moulding of grotesque faces on their pottery, which
+the Hlubis and the Basuto sometimes indulge in.  The ox-moulding is of a
+distinctly conventional type, all the artist's attention being
+concentrated upon the head, horns and neck, which are often very well
+executed.  The legs and body are usually rough and shapeless.  This form
+of rudimentary art has probably been acquired from the Hottentots;
+Hottentot children who have never been in contact with the Bantu mould
+images of exactly the same type, and that type does not suggest the
+cattle kept by the Bantu at the present day, but rather those which the
+now nearly extinct Hottentots once owned in great numbers.
+
+Noquala's mind often dwelt upon his wife's prophecy, and whenever he
+noticed the clay toys he felt a twinge of guilty uneasiness.  He now
+knew that he had been distinctly foolish in purchasing more cattle with
+the proceeds of the sheep.  Nevertheless he still flatly refused to
+sell.
+
+Darker and ever darker grew the prospect.  What was it, this disease
+which came like a ghost from nowhere, and slew like spears in pursuit of
+a beaten and exhausted foe?  Lung-sickness and red-water men knew.
+These thinned the herds out cruelly, sometimes, but a few were always
+spared.  But this unknown scourge that swept through the land as a fire
+sweeps over mountain and valley in the autumn, leaving utter desolation
+behind it--what could it be?  Surely those who work spells of evil must
+be at work, or else the "imishologu" [Spirits] must be wroth on account
+of some great and grievous sin committed by the people.
+
+'Ndakana, the "gqira," came into Noquala's mind.  He had shown his power
+over evil spirits, and had driven death, vanquished, from the mat upon
+which his son lay.  'Ndakana professed--an unusual circumstance--to be
+able to heal cattle as well as men.  Noquala thought he would consult
+with the "gqira" next time the latter came to the kraal.  Pride, and a
+feeling that he could not bear to confess that the oft-vaunted faith in
+his luck had weakened, would not allow of a message being sent.
+
+Then it was reported that the Government had found out a cure for the
+disease--that by injecting some mysterious and magical medicine into the
+blood of beasts they were rendered proof against the pest.  All the same
+the reports of whole herds dying out like drones before the doorway of a
+bees' nest came over the Drakensberg from Basutoland.  The mind of
+Noquala swayed hither and thither between the poles of confidence and
+despair.
+
+One day 'Ndakana appeared at the kraal, where some beer had been brewed.
+The beer-drink did not degenerate into an orgie, as beer-drinks
+frequently do.  The guests were hospitably entertained, three goats
+having been slaughtered for their consumption.  Towards the end of the
+day the "gqira" drew Noquala into conversation.
+
+"Have you never thought of having your cattle doctored?" he asked.
+
+Noquala admitted that such an idea had occurred to him.
+
+"I suppose you have heard of this new medicine that the Government
+claims to have found out," continued 'Ndakana, "and of how it has
+sometimes cured and sometimes failed?"
+
+"Yes, I have heard of it."
+
+"Well, now, I will tell you the truth about the matter.  The Government
+found out about herds that had been treated by our doctors, and then
+they sent their own cattle doctors to administer medicine, so that they
+might claim the credit."
+
+Noquala looked incredulous.  He had had some experience of the frauds of
+the native doctors; when the red-water had attacked his own herd, years
+previously, the "gqira" he had called in promised certain cure, but the
+promise had miserably failed.  Still, he had seen this man 'Ndakana
+drive death away from the bedside of his son, and that after the
+European doctor had confessed himself vanquished.
+
+The sun was going down and 'Ndakana glanced keenly once or twice towards
+the glowing west.  He strolled a few paces forward, leading his
+companion by, as it were, a conversational leash.  When he stopped,
+still talking, he faced the sunset and his companion had his back to it.
+The "gqira's" glances, which had now become more rapid and frequent,
+were still directed to the pyre of the dying day.
+
+Suddenly he lifted his hand, and his voice became vehement.
+
+"Noquala, man of many cattle, I know the secret and I will save your
+herd from destruction if you will let me do so.  Do you demand a sign to
+prove my power?"
+
+"Show me a sign," replied Noquala, looking steadfastly into the
+"gqira's" eyes.
+
+"Behold it, then."
+
+'Ndakana took a pace forward and brushed past his companion's shoulder,
+at the same time flinging his hand forward with a sweep, and holding it,
+quivering and extended to its full length, in the direction of the
+sunset.
+
+Noquala turned and looked.  There, rimmed with fire, floated a cloud in
+the semblance of a bull stumbling forward upon one knee, in the attitude
+of a buffalo that has received its death wound.  As he looked the gold
+faded out and the cloud broke up into formless wreaths of mist.
+
+The portent struck Noquala to the heart; its short duration added to the
+illusion, for memory enhanced the value of every detail, and his
+startled imagination clothed the picture with an exactness of outline
+which it had never possessed.
+
+"Doctor my cattle," he said huskily, "and you shall have great reward."
+
+'Ndakana told his dupe that a necessary condition towards successful
+doctoring was that every beast possessed by the latter, whether under
+"ngqoma" or not, had to be brought down to the kraal by a certain date,
+when the state of the moon would be propitious.  Noquala was now in a
+condition of keen excitement, and was prepared to do whatever the
+"gqira" might tell him.  These two, the duper and the dupe, sat and
+talked over the matter far into the night.  Makalipa insisted upon being
+admitted to their counsels.  She, having been much impressed by the cure
+which she fully believed 'Ndakana to have effected in the case of her
+son, had no objection to offer, except upon one point.  She thought it
+ill-advised that the last lot of cattle--those given under "ngqoma" to
+the man who dwelt in the Drakensberg gorge--should be brought down from
+a spot so near the area in which the rinderpest was raging.
+
+But 'Ndakana insisted on the assembling of all the cattle, without any
+exception whatever, so she had to give in, although she did so with
+secret misgivings.  He would, of course, give no indication whatever of
+the form which his doctoring was to take; that would be quite contrary
+to professional etiquette, and was not to be expected for a moment.
+
+Next morning at day-dawn Noquala mounted a horse and rode around to the
+different kraals where his stock was to be found, warning the custodians
+that they were to produce every hoof and horn on the fifth day
+following, on pain of the "ngqoma" contract being forthwith rescinded.
+Zingelagahle was sent on a tough pony to the sun-forsaken gorge where
+the recipient of the last "ngqoma" dwelt, and which was rather a long
+day's ride distant, with a message to a similar effect.
+
+In the meantime the "gqira" was busy making his preparations.  A few
+miles away, in a shallow valley, were some extensive swamps which
+harboured myriads of frogs.  Of the latter he collected several
+hundreds, which he imprisoned in wicker baskets.  These he tightly
+secured at the openings and then sunk in the swampy water.
+
+It is customary with the natives to keep their stores of corn in large
+circular excavations in the floor of the cattle enclosure.  Each
+excavation has a narrow neck, just large enough to admit a boy of about
+twelve years of age who, when it is necessary to extract corn from the
+granary, is lowered down.  The narrow mouths of these pits are closed
+with flat stones, and are some distance below the surface of the
+enclosure.  Some such contain as many as half a dozen pits, the openings
+to which can only be located by probing through the thick dung-crust
+until the flat stones covering them are found.
+
+The native doctor always keeps himself acquainted with details, no
+matter how apparently unimportant, regarding his neighbours--their huts,
+kraals, cattle, family matters, and, in fact, everything.  In the case
+of rich and important men more attention is naturally bestowed.  When
+called in professionally the "gqira" never likes to have to ask for any
+information.  Divining is part of his trade, and it is thus very
+effective to be able to tell the dwellers of a kraal about things which
+they are firmly convinced nobody but themselves is aware of.
+
+Now, as a matter of fact, 'Ndakana knew as much about Noquala's kraal
+and everything in it as did the Germans, when they invaded France, of
+the country before them.  However, on the present occasion he only had
+occasion to use one of the many facts with which he was acquainted.  He
+knew that one of the corn-pits in Noquala's kraal was empty, and he
+decided to use that pit as the base of his magical operations.
+
+Early on the third day the troop of cattle from the Drakensberg arrived.
+They were in splendid condition and seemed to have improved under the
+change of pasturage.  The enclosure formerly used for the sheep had been
+well bushed up, and was now available as a supplementary cattle
+enclosure.  By the evening of the fourth day the last drove of cattle
+had arrived.
+
+How Noquala feasted his eyes upon the great lowing herd!  How the rival
+bulls, hearing each other lowing, dashed together with a shock as of
+mountain meeting mountain, whilst the mild-eyed cows looked on,
+supremely indifferent as to which should prove the victor.  The owner's
+heart swelled with pride.  All these were his--his very own, and to do
+what he liked with.  Surely none but the great chiefs of the past had
+ever owned such a noble assemblage of cattle.
+
+Many thoughts floated through the elated mind of Noquala on that June
+evening as he strolled through the valley with his crowd of dependents
+behind him at a respectful distance.  He tasted the sweets of amplified
+possession, and drained the cup of enjoyment to the very dregs.  He
+thought of how impossible it would have been for him, a common man, to
+have owned so much wealth in the old days, when the chiefs reigned
+supreme, and when a man who became too rich and powerful was smelt out
+and tortured to death.  Then he thought of how lucky it was that,
+through the agency of the potent 'Ndakana, he was enabled to ensure
+these creatures that he loved and took such pride in, from harm.
+
+At dusk the cattle were driven into the two ample enclosures, which they
+just comfortably filled.  Some trouble was experienced in securing the
+different bulls, of which there were five altogether.  However, these
+were eventually caught and tied up with strong thongs, and then Noquala
+and his guests retired to the big hut, where a feast of goat's flesh was
+laid ready.
+
+Not so 'Ndakana.  The "gqira" had more important work on hand than
+feasting.  When night fell he hurried to the swamp where lay the baskets
+with the imprisoned frogs.  These he now carried carefully in the
+direction of Noquala's kraal.
+
+After setting down the baskets in the bottom of a dried-up donga,
+'Ndakana went to a spot hard by where, behind a fringe of bushes, he had
+hidden away a large calabash full of water.  Lifting this carefully to
+his shoulder, and carrying the two baskets with one hand, he made his
+way to the cattle enclosure.  He did not want to be seen, but had he
+been it would not have particularly mattered, for it would only have
+been supposed that he was performing rites preliminary to the morrow's
+doctoring.  However, he managed to reach the kraal and to enter it
+without being seen by any one and without alarming the cattle.
+
+The "gqira" knew approximately the situation of the empty pit, so he had
+no difficulty in finding the flat covering stone by probing with the
+iron spike which he had brought with him for the purpose.  Then he
+carefully removed the dung and opened the pit.
+
+After making sure that the pit was really empty, and therefore the right
+one, 'Ndakana carefully poured into it the water from the calabash, and
+then emptied the frogs from the respective baskets into the narrow
+opening.  This done, he closed the pit again and replaced the flakes of
+dung over the stone.  The upper layer was dry and dusty, so he had no
+difficulty in obliterating the traces of his work.  Besides, he knew
+that the cattle would tramp restlessly about the enclosure when it
+became cold towards morning, and that their feet would leave no trace of
+his presence visible.  Then he stole away and hid in a patch of forest
+which grew at the head of the kloof in which Noquala's kraal is
+situated, and about a mile distant from the huts.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+HOW THE CATTLE WERE DOCTORED.
+
+Next morning the cattle were let out to graze, and again the enraptured
+eye of Noquala drank in delight from the contemplation of his wealth.
+About half an hour after sunrise the "gqira" was seen emerging with slow
+and stately steps from the patch of bush in which he had spent the
+night.  Pretending not to be aware of any one else's existence, he
+walked straight to the cattle kraal.  As soon as he entered the gate he
+began to stagger about wildly, and before he reached the middle he sank
+to the ground, apparently in a violent fit.
+
+The people crowded round and gazed at him with awe through the upright
+poles forming the palisade.  The fit over, he lay as though in a swoon
+for some considerable time, after which he sat up with a dazed
+expression and began groping about the enclosure on his hands and knees.
+When he reached the vicinity of the pit which he had opened during the
+previous night, he again fell over and lay quite still.  By this time he
+was completely naked, having thrown away his blanket in the course of
+his progress.  In his hand was the iron spike, and with this he began to
+dig wildly, scattering the flakes of dung far and wide.
+
+When the stone was nearly uncovered, 'Ndakana sank back as though
+exhausted, and feebly called for assistance.  Noquala and a number of
+other men at once hurried in, and he signed to them to remove the
+covering stone and thus open the pit.  This was soon done.
+
+'Ndakana then said that a boy must be let down into the pit, declaring
+that a great wonder would be revealed therein.  At this all the boys who
+had been looking through the palisade fled away in different directions.
+Two or three were soon caught and dragged back, howling, to the edge of
+the opening.  Selecting the one whose size appeared to be most suitable,
+the "gqira" ordered him to descend, but the boy yelled with redoubled
+vigour and struggled violently to escape.  Then Noquala called out to
+one of the women to bring a rod, and with this he thrashed the unhappy
+youth unmercifully until the latter consented to do what was required of
+him.  The boy, silent and wild-eyed with terror, was thereupon lowered
+into the dark pit through the narrow mouth.
+
+"What do you find there?" asked the "gqira."
+
+"I am standing in water," called the boy, his voice sounding hollow from
+the depths.
+
+"Feel if there be any living thing."
+
+"Au--there are snakes," yelled the boy, and his hands grasped the edges
+of the opening as he tried to draw himself up.
+
+"They are not snakes! they are frogs," replied 'Ndakana.
+
+At the same time Noquala cut the boy's fingers sharply with the rod.
+The wretched creature dropped back to the bottom of the pit with a
+screech of mingled pain and terror.
+
+A basket was passed down to him, and this he was directed to fill with
+frogs.  This, when handed up, was emptied into a larger basket, and then
+passed back.  After several basketfuls had been taken out, the unhappy
+boy was assisted to come out of his prison, and the pit was closed up at
+once.
+
+'Ndakana then addressed the assembled crowd.  He told them that the
+wonder he had revealed to them was a special grace vouchsafed by the
+"imishologu" in response to his incantations, and that the frogs were to
+be utilised in doctoring Noquala's cattle so as to render them proof
+against the ravages of the dreaded disease.
+
+A deep awe had fallen upon all.  They felt that they were in the
+presence of a master wonder-worker.  Noquala was now sure that his
+beloved cattle were safe, and his heart overflowed with gratitude to the
+"gqira" and to the "imishologu" who had shown such favour.
+
+The cattle were now driven up in lots of about fifty each.  When in the
+enclosure they were caught separately and skilfully thrown.  An incision
+was then made in the nose of each, as well as in a frog.  The reptile
+was then held so that its flowing blood mingled with that of the beast.
+As soon as this had been effected, the latter was loosened and turned
+out of the enclosure.  A fresh cut was made in the frog for each beast
+treated, but as soon as the reptile died or it was found that no more
+blood would flow from it another frog was brought, the worn-out one
+being carefully put away into a basket.  The frogs were thus believed to
+have absorbed the latent disease.
+
+By sundown all the cattle had been treated in this manner, and then the
+dead frogs were thrown into a deep pit.  Red-hot coals were then thrown
+upon them, and the pit was closed up, the earth being stamped firmly
+down.
+
+But the issues at stake were too great for the caprice of the
+"imishologu" to be risked.  More ritual must be performed on the third
+and fifth day, and in the meantime feasting had to take place.
+Otherwise the "imishologu" might, as they had often been known to do,
+change their shadowy, if powerful minds.
+
+Thus, as the "gqira" pronounced it to be unsafe to remove the cattle
+before the sixth day, the hearts of the company were lifted up with
+great joy, for they knew that the exigencies of the occasion demanded
+that unrestricted feasting should take place during the interval.
+
+It was here that the astute 'Ndakana made his great mistake.  He should
+have taken his reward, which would have been, under the circumstances, a
+most liberal one, and removed with it to a distance.  But the greatest
+men sometimes make mistakes, and 'Ndakana proved that he was no
+exception to this general rule.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+THE DISEASE APPEARS.
+
+The circumstance of 'Ndakana's having been so positive that the cattle
+would not take the rinderpest might easily puzzle those unacquainted
+with the methods of the native doctor, nevertheless it was quite
+characteristic.  Although a colossal humbug, the "gqira," to a certain
+extent, believes in his own powers.  As is the case in other walks of
+life, he gets so into the habit of deceiving others that he ends by
+deceiving himself.  Probably, however, in this case 'Ndakana may have
+believed the reports which just about that time were current as to the
+Cape Government having succeeded in staying the destroying course of the
+disease by erecting a fence across the continent and keeping all animals
+away from its vicinity.  Moreover the accidental resemblance to a bull
+which the cloud had taken may easily have been regarded by 'Ndakana's
+superstitious mind as a sign that the progress of the disease had been
+stayed.  Superstition and fraud have in all ages gone hand in hand.
+
+Again, it must be remembered that the reputation of a native doctor can
+only be made by taking risks.  One lucky guess, one confident prophecy
+which happens to be crowned with fulfilment by the capricious Fates, and
+a "gqira" may be sent spinning dizzily along the road of success with
+such a momentum that many subsequent minor failures are condoned.  Of
+course, the day comes at length when the luckiest "gqira" makes a
+mistake of such importance that he has to flee the neighbourhood and
+ever afterwards hide his diminished head.  It is a well-known fact that
+under the rule of the native chiefs the "gqira" seldom died a natural
+death.
+
+Three days of feasting took place at Noquala's kraal, the neighbours
+from far and near being bidden to it.  Noquala was so pleased at his
+cattle having been rendered safe from the threatened scourge that he did
+not mind several of his fattest oxen being slaughtered for the occasion.
+Just about sundown on the third day one of the herd-boys mentioned that
+a certain heifer did not appear to be quite well.  Noquala heard the
+news without uneasiness; it was seldom that one got such a large herd of
+cattle together without some of them becoming afflicted with one or
+other of the major or minor ills that bovine flesh is heir to.
+
+However, Noquala left the feasters and, directed by the boy, walked down
+the hillside to where the sick heifer was standing.  It turned out to be
+one of the dun-coloured stock he had recently purchased out of the
+proceeds of the sheep, and which had been brought down from the
+Drakensberg.
+
+The heifer certainly looked sick--very sick indeed.  Its coat was
+staring; it was breathing heavily and groaning at intervals.  From its
+nostrils was running a mass of thick, unclean, mucous discharge; water
+copiously ran out of its eyes; its ears hung, not downwards, as is
+usually the case with a sick beast, but backwards.
+
+Noquala felt a shaft of sick dread transfix him.  He stood before the
+poor animal, which was evidently suffering acute pain.  Its muzzle
+retracted at each breath as one sees the nostrils of a human being
+retract in severe cases of asthma.  The creature turned an appealing eye
+upon him--a large, beautiful dark eye, to which agony had lent a strange
+and pathetic intelligence.  Noquala's eyes grew moist, and a spasm
+contracted his throat.  He suffered with the suffering of the thing that
+he loved.
+
+While he was regarding the sick heifer Noquala heard the sound of
+approaching footsteps, so after hastily getting rid of any signs of
+emotion, he turned to meet the comer.  This turned out to be a native
+policeman, who, executing some message from the magistrate of the
+district, had sniffed the feast from afar and turned aside to partake in
+it.  After he had carefully examined the heifer the policeman returned
+to where he had left his horse.  Then he informed the company that he
+had suddenly remembered something which made it impossible for him to
+spend the night, as he had already expressed his intention of doing,
+with the feasters.  After this he rode away in the direction of the
+Magistracy.
+
+Next morning the Magistrate was awakened out of his slumbers by word
+that a policeman wanted to see him upon important business.  The police
+had been carefully warned to examine into and report upon suspicious
+cases of bovine disease which might come under their notice.  At the
+same time the superficial symptoms of rinderpest were explained to the
+men so that they might better be able to diagnose cases of illness
+coming under their personal notice.
+
+In the present instance the symptoms reported by the constable suggested
+rinderpest so exactly that the Magistrate immediately mounted his horse
+and rode to Noquala's kraal so as personally to investigate matters.  He
+was accompanied by four mounted constables for use in the event of the
+worst contingency being realised.
+
+Noquala, after contemplating the sufferings of the sick heifer, had no
+stomach for the feast.  However, darkness had fallen, so nothing more
+could be done until the following day.  At earliest dawn he was among
+his cattle.  The dun-coloured heifer was evidently dying.  It was lying
+down where he had left it on the previous night, with its head turned
+back against its shoulder--an attitude which Noquala had never
+previously noticed in the case of a sick beast.  Its extremities were
+cold, its nostrils were inflamed.  The soft, suffering glance from the
+mild brown eye beamed out through a ring of foul, caked mucus, and
+struck a chill into the gazer's soul.
+
+He went with hurried steps to the large cattle-fold.  Three other
+animals struck him as looking seedy.  What he particularly noticed was
+the peculiar backward droop of the ears and the copious running from the
+eyes and nostrils.  He opened the gate and drove out the whole herd.
+Then he called the boys and also the man from the Drakensberg, and had
+the cattle which had come from there driven back into the enclosure.
+
+The examination did not diminish his uneasiness.  Seven animals appeared
+to be sick.  Every minute the symptoms appeared to increase with
+horrible rapidity.  'Ndakana was sent for, and arrived drowsy with
+repletion.  He made light of the affair, saying that the animals were
+probably seedy from a change of pasturage--a thing which often happened
+when cattle were brought down from the mountains to the low country.
+
+The Drakensberg cattle were herded together during the day, by afternoon
+they were all sick.  The heifer was still lingering in agony, but
+evidently its hours were numbered.  Noquala wandered from one suffering
+creature to another, his heart rent with their pangs and his soul
+quaking with fear.
+
+Just before sundown the Magistrate arrived and made an examination.
+There was, he said, no doubt that the disease was the dreaded
+rinderpest.  He drew a cordon around the valley in which Noquala's kraal
+was situated, and put a chain of guards to see that no animal left the
+infected area.
+
+Noquala and 'Ndakana had a long and serious conversation, the result of
+which was that the former's fears were somewhat stilled.  What did the
+Magistrate know of cattle? asked the "gqira."  The beasts were all
+right.  Those from the Drakensberg had apparently eaten of some
+poisonous herb on the way down.  A few might die, but the others would
+recover.  He--'Ndakana--would stake his reputation on the correctness of
+his view.  In the meantime he would go to the bush and dig out some
+roots which were an infallible remedy against the results of eating
+poisonous bushes.
+
+The infallible remedy was administered, but it had small, if any,
+effect.  Next day the heifer was dead, and every one of the Drakensberg
+cattle appeared to be doomed.  Then they began to die, one by one at
+first; afterwards by twos and threes.  Some appeared to take a turn
+towards recovery, only suddenly to succumb.  The "gqira" was voluble
+over the effects of the poison.  He remembered just such a similar case
+taking place in the Hlangweni country, where he had once lived.  None of
+the other cattle showed signs of sickness as yet, so Noquala fully
+accepted the poison-bush theory.
+
+But it could be seen that the "gqira" was uneasy.  Every morning he
+would turn out before any one else, and spend a long time among the
+cattle.  Then, when the others rose from their slumbers, he would
+triumphantly report that there was no sign of disease among any but the
+Drakensberg herd.  One morning, however, he failed to make his
+triumphant report; in fact, when the others arose, there was nothing of
+the "gqira" to be seen.  One of the boys said that he had been entrusted
+with a message from 'Ndakana to the effect that the latter had gone to a
+more distant forest to get some roots of greater potency than any
+obtainable close at hand.
+
+Noquala went down to the kraal, and noticed that a number of cattle,
+besides those of the Drakensberg herd, were showing signs of sickness.
+
+From that morning the kraal of Noquala knew the presence of 'Ndakana the
+"gqira" no more.
+
+When the sun went down that day every member of the Drakensberg herd was
+dead, and a number of other cattle were sick with symptoms similar to
+those they had suffered from.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+THE TRAGEDY.
+
+The agony of Noquala now entered into its acute stage.  The guards were
+posted around the vale of pestilence and mourning in a pitiless ring.
+Dozens of men were at work inside with pick and spade, digging pits for
+the interment of the carcases.  Soon, however, the deaths became so many
+that the diggers could not keep pace with them, so the carcases were
+allowed to lie and rot in the sunshine.  Later, as the animals fell
+sick, they were driven up towards the head of the valley, where the
+stench of the dead poisoned their dying breath, and thus added another
+pang to those the miserable creatures already suffered from.  This
+cruelty was rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case.  It
+was, above all, important to confine the infection within bounds, until
+the surrounding herds had been inoculated.
+
+Day by day, hour by hour, the mournful processions would wend, with the
+slowness of a funeral, to this ghastly spot, where the swollen carcases
+festered over the ground.  Sometimes a doomed brute being goaded along
+would suddenly take fright at the stench, and, gathering a flicker of
+strength from its dismay, rush frantically backwards, until it tumbled
+in a heap to the ground.  Foul carrion-birds roosted upon every stump
+and stone; others, gorged so that they could not fly, would hop ungainly
+away when disturbed, and fall into a sick sleep when they stopped at a
+few yards' distance.
+
+The effluvium became so bad that it was found impossible to approach
+this bovine Golgotha except when the wind was favourable.  When the
+breeze blew down the valley towards the kraal, the dwellers would be
+seized with violent sickness.
+
+Noquala, who had become quite prostrated when he found that the pest had
+attacked his main herd and that 'Ndakana had bolted, soon recovered his
+self-command, and bore himself with pathetic dignity.  His hair and
+beard became rapidly greyer; his face grew drawn and haggard; his eyes
+took on the look of agony which he read, all day long, in the eyes of
+the beasts he loved so well, and the sufferings of which seemed to be
+mirrored in his consciousness.  Some few--about a tenth of the herd--as
+yet showed no sign of infection.  The noble, dun-coloured bull still
+stalked about majestically, breathing love and defiance in his low.
+Well, thought Noquala, surely all his cattle would not die; he would be
+left with a few with which to begin again with.  Just the dun-coloured
+bull and a few cows.  It would be a joy once more to build up wealth.
+No one ever heard of such a thing as that a multitude of cattle, such as
+his, should die out of any disease.  Alas! no one with whom Noquala had
+foregathered had ever heard an adequate account of the fell effects of
+the rinderpest.
+
+But day by day the agony deepened, until at length the time came when
+the splendid herd of a couple of weeks back all had expired except a few
+sick and staggering creatures, the superior vitality of which had
+prolonged for them the agonies of inevitable death.  The dun-coloured
+bull was one of the last to succumb, but he too vailed his lordly crest
+and sank his deep voice to a pitch as pitiful as that of the
+two-year-old heifer, his dying daughter, that lay moaning close to him.
+The guards came to drive the last survivors to the dreadful spot at the
+head of the valley, but Noquala seized his sticks and rushed at them so
+fiercely that they fled from before his face.  Then Noquala mounted
+guard over the last dying remnants of his matchless herd, and none dared
+further to disturb their agonies.
+
+The sun went down and the pitiless stars gazed impassively on the valley
+of the shadow of death.  Noquala remained at his post.  Every now and
+then would he pass from one to the other of the suffering creatures,
+endeavouring distractedly to comfort them with words.  The night was
+bitterly cold; a white frost thickly covered the grass and struck to the
+marrow of the tortured limbs.  At the sharp pinch which came just before
+dawn, tardy Death finished his work.  One by one, within a few fatal
+minutes, the remainder of Noquala's cattle expired.  The dun-coloured
+bull was the last to die.  He lingered until a pallid flicker filled the
+east.  Then he started as if about to rise.  For an instant it seemed as
+though he would succeed, for he lifted his gaunt trunk upon his front
+legs, and swept a dazed and startled gaze from one to the other of the
+carcases of his dead companions which lay around him.  But he could get
+no farther; his hind quarters were paralysed.  He remained thus for a
+few seconds, then, with a roar that seemed to shake the hills, he sank
+back and died.
+
+Noquala was found at daybreak sitting on the ground close to the carcase
+of the bull.  His head lay forward upon his bent knees; his grey hair
+was whitened by the frost.  He was so stiff from the cold that he was
+unable to move, so had to be carried back to his hut, where they covered
+him with blankets and gave him a draught of hot broth, which he drank
+mechanically.  It was long before he regained normal warmth.
+
+When next Noquala emerged from the hut into the sunlight he was a
+cripple.  His lower limbs had become cramped and contracted, and it was
+found impossible to straighten them.  His memory was asleep, and it is
+not likely that it will ever waken.  One day, as he sat in the sunshine,
+a little boy came up and began to play with some clay oxen, close to
+him.  A bright smile at once lit up Noquala's face; he stretched forth
+his hand, seized a couple of the images, and began to fondle them.
+
+He is, apparently, quite happy.  Makalipa tends him devotedly, and helps
+him to hobble back to the hearth when the sun goes down or a cold wind
+springs up, first assisting him to gather up the clay oxen and place
+them carefully in a fold of his blanket.  She has not the least
+objection to digging up her hoards, as occasions arise, and spending the
+money freely upon her husband's comfort.  Elijah is still at the
+seminary, and has not yet heard of what has happened at his home.
+
+The children of the neighbourhood take a pleasure in making clay oxen
+for the one-time proud, masterful, and wealthy man who has become their
+playmate and companion; they even make expeditions to distant valleys
+for the purpose of obtaining various-hued ochres and earths, so as to
+manufacture cattle of different colours.  Noquala has now quite a large
+number of these toys.  His only trouble is when one breaks by accident,
+but as they are strongly made and afterwards baked in an old ant-heap
+which does duty for a kiln, this does not very often occur.  He seldom
+speaks, except when he sees a stranger approaching.  Then he says, in a
+high, thin voice, quite different to his former gruff, deep-chested
+tones--
+
+"Have you seen 'Ndakana?...  He is a great doctor...  He went to the
+bush for roots...  I wonder why he does not come."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Between Sun and Sand, by William Charles Scully
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