A Veldt Vendetta Part 3

I could hardly say anything in return, for I felt parting with these excellent fellows and good comrades, whose involuntary guest I had been during four weeks. Then I slid down the rope ladder on to the great surf boat which had been signalled alongside to take me off.

There were other vessels in the roadstead, sailing craft and a white-hulled, red-funnelled coasting steamer of the Castle line. It was a dull, sunless afternoon, which enhanced my depressed and forlorn feeling considerably. The surf boat was one of several that had been discharging cargo from the other shipping, which was stowed away in her hold, leaving room for me in the very small s.p.a.ce open at either end.

She was worked by a hawser and half a dozen black fellows, and a very rough specimen of a white man, with a great tangled beard, and a stock of profanity both original and extensive.

"Now, mister," sang out this worthy, as I was waving last farewells to those on board, "stow that--and yer bloomin' carcase too, unless yer want yer ruddy nut cracked with the blanked rope. Get down into the bottom of the boat."

The warning, though rough, was all needed, for hardly had I obeyed it, when bang--whigge! the great hawser flew taut like some huge bowstring, just where my head had been a moment before. For a little while I judged it expedient literally to lie low, but when I eventually looked up, it was to behold an immense green wall of water towering aft. It curled and hissed--then broke upon us with a thunderous crash, and for half a minute I didn't know whether we were in the boat or in the sea; and had hardly time to take breath when another followed.

"Hang on, mister, hang on," bellowed the captain, after the first storm of profanity which burst from him had spent itself. "Hang on for all you're worth. There's more coming."

I took his advice. There was a quick gliding movement, an upheave and a b.u.mp--and then--crash came one of the mighty rollers as before. Another and another followed, and at length, half drowned, I realised we were in smooth water again, and ventured cautiously to look up.

We were in the mouth of a fine river, banked by high bluffs covered with thick virgin forest. On the left bank lay a township of sorts, and the lighthouse I had seen. The darkies were warping along merrily now, their skins glistening with their recent wetting. Behind, lay such a very h.e.l.l of raging surf as to set me wondering whether we could really have come through it and lived.

"Blanked heavy bar on to-day, mister," said the skipper of the lighter, cramming a pipe from a rubber pouch. "My word, but you've got a ducking. Five bob please, for landing you."

I handed over the amount, and asked him about accommodation.

"Keightley's--up yonder," he said. "That's the only hotel on the West bank. There's a German shanty a mile or so higher up t'other bank, but you'll be better here. Going on to 'King,' I take it?"

"Where?"

"'King'--King Williamstown," he explained.

I was about to reply that I was a picked-up castaway, but thought better of it in time. Such would be presumed to be dest.i.tute, and thus might find initial difficulties as to accommodation. So I only answered that that would do me.

Now a most weird noise attracted my attention, and I found that it proceeded from a sight hardly less weird. Covering a ricketty jetty which we were slowly approaching, a crowd of strange beings were preparing for our reception after their own fashion. Some were clothed in brick red blankets and some were clothed in nothing, but all were smeared from head to foot with red ochre--and, as they swayed and contorted, a thunder of deep ba.s.s voices accompanying the high yelling recitative of him who led the chant, and beat time in measured stamping on the boards, I wondered that the structure did not collapse and strew the river with the lot of them. But their wild aspect and the grinning and contortions gave me the idea of a crowd of hugely exaggerated baboons in the last stage of drunken frenzy. But they were not drunk at all. It was only the raw savage, disporting himself after his own form of lightheadedness.

Up to this time my ideas as to the Kafir of South-Eastern Africa had been vague. If I had thought of him at all it had been as a meek, harmless kind of black, rather downtrodden than otherwise, and to whom a kick and a curse would const.i.tute a far more frequent form of reward than a sixpence. But now as I stepped upon the jetty at East London, my views on that head underwent a complete and lasting change. For these ochre-smeared beings were brawny savages, at once powerful and lithe of frame and with a bold independent look in their rolling eyes, which, although their countenances were in the main good-humoured, seemed to show that they were able and willing to hold their own if called upon to do so. More than one of the group towered above me, and I am not short.

They crowded around, vociferating in their own tongue, and tried to seize the bundle I carried--this, by the way, contained a change of clothing which Morrissey had insisted on my accepting--and I began to think of showing fight, when the surf-boat skipper came to my aid with the explanation that they merely wanted to carry it for me, for a consideration. But I was glad to get rid of the vociferous musky-smelling crowd--little thinking what strange and wild experiences awaited me yet at the hands of the savage inhabitants of this land, of whom these were fair representatives. And here I was, thrown up, as it were, upon this inhospitable coast, without a dry st.i.tch of clothing upon me.

Soon I found myself the fortunate possessor of a small whitewashed room in the only "hotel" the place boasted--and its leading features were flies and various weird and unknown specimens of the beetle tribe, both small and great, which, attracted by the light, would come whizzing in, blundering against the greasy flare which had attracted them--to their discomfiture, or into my face--to mine; but at length I fell asleep, to the unintermittent thunder of the surf upon the bar. But the said sleep was troubled and fitful. The door, half glazed, was door and window combined, and the night being sultry, this must perforce be left open, and in the result I don't know how many frogs startled me out of my slumbers by a weird, searching croak right at my bedside, but I do know that at least three rats were playing hopscotch upon my counterpane at once. And these, and other unconsidered trifles, ensured that precious little sleep fell to my lot the first night I pa.s.sed upon the soil of Southern Africa, whither I had been thrown under so strange and unforeseen a combination of circ.u.mstances.

CHAPTER FIVE.

OF AN EARLY ADVENTURE.

I awoke in the morning feeling but poorly rested, and having a.s.similated an indifferent breakfast, which however was quite pa.s.sable after four weeks of ship fare, set out to interview the manager of the local branch of the Standard Bank. I was business man enough to feel misgivings as to any success attending the object of my interview, and so far was justified by results. The manager--a youngish man, and the usual Scotchman--listened to my story politely enough--sympathetically too.

But when it came to hard business, opening an account pending the time I could communicate with my own bankers, the difficulty began. He did not exactly disbelieve my story: my proposal to bring forward Captain Morrissey in corroboration went far against that. But then how could Captain Morrissey vouch as to my means? On my own showing he could by no possibility do so, and indeed to no one, in view of my business experience as aforesaid, did such an argument more fully appeal than to myself. As to reference home, why, England in those days was over three weeks distant, otherwise seven or eight before an answer could be had.

Didn't I know any one locally who could vouch for me? Of course I didn't--considering the circ.u.mstances under which I had found myself here. Well, he was exceedingly sorry he could not accommodate me--on his own responsibility. He would, however, refer the matter to the general manager, and would then be only too happy, etc., etc. And so I was very politely bowed out.

Well, I couldn't blame him. Business is business, and I might have been just the predatory adventurer he had no proof I was not. But for all that I went out feeling very disconsolate. My seven pounds nine and a halfpenny wouldn't last long, and I had already begun to bore into it.

What was I to do next--yes--what the devil was I to do next?

I thought I would cross the river for one thing, and take a walk along the sh.o.r.e on the other side. I believe I had a sort of foolish idea that the mere sight of the _Kittiwake_ lying close in at anchor, const.i.tuted a kind of link between other times and my homeless and friendless condition on this strange and far away sh.o.r.e; and some thoughts of shipping on board her as an able seaman, and so working my pa.s.sage round home, even entered my head. Anyway, I crossed over on the pontoon, and walking along the bush road which skirted the east bank, at length came out upon the green slope which stretches down to the sandy beach within the bight of the roadstead.

The vessels were riding to their anchorage, and the rattle of swinging out cargo, and the yells and chatter of Kafirs working the surf boats, was borne across the water. The bar had gone down considerably since the previous day, yet there was still some surf on, and it came thundering up the beach, all milky and blue in the radiance of the unclouded sun--which said sun began to wax uncommonly warm, by the same token. However, the voyage had inured me to tropical heat, which this wasn't; wherefore I sat down to take a rest, and smoke a pipe.

Now as I sat there, moodily gazing out to seaward, an object caught my eye. It was beyond the further line of surf, and it looked uncommonly like the head of something swimming. Yet, who would be fool enough to swim out beyond that line of rollers, with their powerful and dangerous undertow? Besides, I had heard that sharks were plentiful on that coast.

I stared at the thing as it rose on the summit of a long wave. Yes, it was a head, and--great heaven! it was the head of a child; the sunlight falling full upon a little white face, and just a glimpse of gold as it touched the head, revealed that much beyond a doubt. And, as though to add to the mystery of the situation, a cry rang out over the roar of the breakers, which sounded most startlingly like a cry for help.

I was on my feet in a moment. Not a soul was in sight along the sh.o.r.e.

In less than another moment I had thrown off my coat and kicked off my boots, and as I dashed into the surf another cry came pealing through the roar--this time more urgent, more piteous than before. I shouted in encouragement and then it required all my strength and experience in the water to get through that h.e.l.l of boiling breakers, and avoid being rolled and pounded and thrown ignominiously back half drowned. Were it not indeed that I am a strong swimmer, and, what is better still, thoroughly at home in the water, such is precisely what would have happened.

A horrible fear came upon me as I got beyond the broken line. Was I too late? Then the object of my search rose upon the wave within a few yards of me.

It was, as I had thought, the face of a child--of a pretty little girl of twelve or thirteen. She wore a blue bathing dress, which allowed plenty of freedom for swimming, and her golden-brown hair was gathered in a thick plait. But in the large blue eyes was a look of terror, a kind of haunted look.

"Here, you're all right now," I shouted as I reached her. "Don't be scared. Lean on me, and rest. Then we'll swim in together. Hold on to my shoulder now. That's right."

The little one seemed exhausted, for she could hardly gasp out--

"We must go in quick. Sharks--two of them--after me," and again she stared wildly over her shoulder with that terrified and haunted look.

And indeed a very uncomfortable feeling came over myself, for there I was, over a hundred yards from sh.o.r.e, treading water, with a badly frightened child hanging on to my shoulder, the breakers in front and this other peril behind.

Peril indeed! Seldom, if ever, have I known such a chilling of the blood as that which now went through my frame. A black glistening object was sliding through the water, five-and-twenty yards away, perhaps less--a rakish triangular object, with which I was familiar enough by that time to identify as the dorsal fin of a shark, and a large one too. And, great heaven! even nearer still on the other side was another of those dreadful glistening fins.

"We'll scare them effectually," I said, with a hollow and ghastly grin of a.s.sumed levity. And springing half out of the water I emitted a most fiendish yell, while falling back again with a mighty splash. It was effective, for the two hateful objects sheered off, gliding away a short distance--but only a short distance.

"Come now," I said, making a most prodigious splashing. "We must get in. Swim with me. Hold my hand if you are tired."

"No, I'm all right now," said the plucky little thing, beginning to strike out quite easily and naturally. Then I saw her face pale, and she stole a quick, terrified look over her shoulder, and I felt mine do ditto. For there--keeping pace with us, one on each side, and about the same distance at which we had first sighted them, moved the two horrors.

They were trying to get ahead of us, to cut us off before we could reach the broken water, wherein they dare not venture.

I once knew a man who had escaped from the foundering of the ill-fated _Birkenhead_, and he attributed his exemption to the fact that time had lacked wherein to divest himself of his clothing before starting to swim ash.o.r.e--for two sailors, who had been able to strip, were pulled under, one on each side of him. And now this idea flashed a wonderful hope into my mind, for I was almost fully clothed and my little companion wore a bathing dress. But her strokes were quick and spasmodic, and she panted. Terror was sapping her natural confidence in the water.

"This won't do," I cried in a loud hectoring voice. "Keep cool, can't you, and don't be a little idiot."

The bullying tone told, as I intended it should. The look she gave me was amusingly resentful and contemptuous. But she ceased to swim wildly. At the same time our slimy enemies increased their distance, doubtless alarmed at the sound of my voice, which I also intended. To my unspeakable and heartfelt relief we were now on the upheave of the curling combers, and those horrible fins were still behind.

But we were not out of the wood yet--no, not by any means; for here before us lay a peril almost as formidable in itself. My little companion swam gracefully and with ease, but when we came within the breakers I kept tight hold of her, and indeed such precaution was needed, for she began to regain her terrors as the huge combers whirled us high in the air, to throw us, half smothered into a hissing cauldron of milky foam. However, they threw us forward, and by using my judgment I managed so that we should ride more and more in on the crest of each roller. And the undertow at the very last proved the most difficult of all to withstand, and twice we were dragged irresistibly backward, to be pounded by the breaking thunder of the next onrushing comber. At last we were through, and I believe but for the incentive afforded by the very act of saving life, I should have collapsed--anyway, the child could never have gained that beach unaided.

We stood, panting and dripping, and looking at each other for some moments. Then I said, as I pulled on my boots--

"Well, young lady, you seem to have had something of a swim. Where did you go into the water, and what on earth made you venture out so far, may I ask?"

She explained that she was staying at a seaside camp whose tents were pitched just beyond a few rocks a little way further on. The water was sheltered there, and there was no difficulty in getting a smooth swim.

But she had somehow got too far to the right, and just as she was turning to come in again, she had seen the triangular fin of a shark cleaving the surface at no great distance, and coming towards her--then another, much nearer. This, together with the knowledge of the distance necessary to return, unless she could try to land through the surf, had unnerved and flurried her, resulting in exhaustion.

"Well, I believe it's jolly lucky for you I happened to be at hand," I said reprovingly. "Now, don't you go running any such silly risks again, or you may not get off so easily. You'd better cut back now, and get dressed, or you'll catch cold."

"No fear. The sun's much too hot for that," she answered, laughing up into my face.

She was, as I have said, a pretty child, with large blue eyes and a clear skin somewhat sun-tanned. She had a pretty voice too, and spoke with a peculiar intonation, not unpleasing, and a little way of dipping the letter "r" where it occurred to end a word--which I afterwards found was the prevailing method of speech among most of those born in the Cape Colony.