A Vendetta of the Desert Part 1

A Vendetta of the Desert.

by William Charles Scully.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE POWER OF THE DOG.

Old Tyardt van der Walt, head of the family of that name, came of good Netherlands stock. His grandfather had emigrated from Holland with his family in the middle of the Eighteenth Century and settled at the Cape.

He bought a farm in the Stellenbosch district and there commenced life anew as a wine farmer. The family consisted of his wife, a son and several daughters--all of whom married early. At his death the farm descended to his son Cornelius from whom, in course of time, another Tyardt inherited it.

The last-mentioned Tyardt forsook the settled and fertile environs of Stellenbosch and trekked forward to seek his fortune in the unknown and perilous wilderness. A story is told as to the reason for this migration which, though it has no direct bearing on the story which is to be recorded in this volume, is interesting enough in itself to merit relation.

There was, it is said, a gruesome legend connected with the van der Walts. It dated from the times of William the Silent and was to the following effect:--The head of the van der Walt family of that period lived in the town of Maestricht. He was a man of solitary habits. In his youth his wife had deserted him for another. He had been pa.s.sionately attached to her, and he never recovered from the blow, but lived the rest of his days in solitude.

Years afterwards, when he was quite an old man, a son of the man who had wronged him--a young and zealous Lutheran preacher, came to live in his vicinity. This preacher was in the habit of visiting in disguise families of his co-religionists in the Provinces where the Spaniards held complete dominion. He had a dog that had been trained to convey cypher messages from place to place. Van der Walt betrayed this preacher to the authorities, with the result that he was captured and sentenced to be burnt alive. The betrayer was among those who crowded round the stake to gloat over the agonies of the victim. The dog had followed its master and, seeing his evil case, set up a piteous howling.

The Spaniards, judging the heretic to be a wizard, and the dog his familiar spirit, caught the unhappy animal and bound it among the f.a.ggots at its master's feet. Just as the pile was lit the preacher lifted up his voice and cried aloud:--

"Gerrit van der Walt,--for thy black treachery to a servant of the Lord, thou shalt die in misery within a year and a day. Thy soul shall wander homeless for ever and shall howl like a dog as the harbinger of misfortune whenever it is about to fall upon one of thy blood."

It has been declared on respectable authority that from and after the death of Gerrit, which took place under miserable circ.u.mstances within the period named by his victim, a dog which was never seen would howl around the dwelling of any van der Walt about to die, for the three nights previous to the pa.s.sing of his soul. Thus a new terror was added to the death-bed of any member of the family.

The following account of the last occasion when this warning howl was heard is firmly believed by the few surviving descendants in the direct line. It is taken from an old ma.n.u.script which purports to date from the year in which the incidents related are alleged to have taken place.

Towards the end of the last century, Tyardt's father, Cornelius van der Walt, lay ill in bed, but no one imagined that his illness was likely to be fatal, until one night after supper the dreaded howl was heard under his window. The sick man, filled with terror, arose to a sitting posture in his bed, and called Tyardt, who was his eldest son, before him.

"If that dog be not shot by you before the day after to-morrow," he said, "I will make my will anew and dispossess you of everything that the law will allow me to leave to others."

Next day Tyardt brooded long and deeply over the occurrence. He did not love his father, so the old man's death would have caused him no regret, but he knew that the threat would be carried out.

There was an old and tattered family Bible on the loft, with a strong and heavy metal clasp. This clasp Tyardt broke into fragments about the size of ordinary slugs, and with them he loaded his gun, using portions of the leaves as wadding.

As soon as night fell he stole quietly out and posted himself among the branches of a small tree which grew just in front of the window of the room in which his father lay.

The night was pitch dark; a damp fog had rolled in from the sea and covered everything. Tyardt had not long to wait before a long, low howl, which curdled his blood with dread, arose from just beneath him.

Terrified as he was, he thought of the property at stake, so he hardened his will to the purpose and carefully c.o.c.ked his gun.

There could be no mistaking the exact locality from which the howling came; it was almost at his feet. He fired, and a horrible, half-human yell followed the report of the gun. Then came a sound of scuffling upon the ground. Soon a light was brought from the house, and then Tyardt descended from the tree.

Beneath lay the huddled, bleeding figure of an old man of hideous aspect, clad in a garb unknown at the Cape but which, it was afterwards thought, suggested some wood-cuts in an old book brought out by the last-deceased van der Walt from Holland. A sheet was thrown over the horror, and the trembling family sat up, waiting for, but dreading, the light of day. It was not until after the sun had arisen that they ventured to go out and visit the scene of the tragedy,--but no trace of the body could be seen; nor was there any sign of the blood which had so much horrified the beholders on the previous night.

There appeared to have been no doubt as to the main facts having occurred; slaves, servants, and, in fact, every member of the household except the sick man, had seen the body. The mystery was never solved; no body was ever found; no one from the neighbourhood was missed, nor, so far as could be ascertained, had any man resembling the description of the body ever been seen in the neighbourhood.

Cornelius van der Walt died during the following night, but without altering his will. Tyardt, however, took the matter so much to heart that he became a changed man. He came to hate the neighbourhood, and, leaving the farm in the hands of his mother and a younger brother, he set his face to the northward. He purchased two wagons, packed them with his goods, and, with his young wife and three small children, plunged into the unknown wilderness. After having pa.s.sed some distance beyond the farthest outposts of civilisation, he at length halted high up near the head of a valley where the Tanqua River gorge cleaves the southern face of the Roggeveld mountain range. Here he built a homestead and took possession of the ground surrounding it for some miles. From the large numbers of elands which haunted the hills he named his new home "Elandsfontein."

For some time he was left to enjoy the solitude for which his nature craved; but he lived long enough to feel himself inconveniently crowded when neighbours established themselves at distances of from fifteen to twenty miles from him on each side. However, he still drew comfort from the thought that beyond the mountain chain which frowned down upon his homestead on the northward, the vast, unoccupied desert lay--and appeared likely to lie for ever unappropriated. Moreover, it was certainly convenient to have the a.s.sistance of the aforesaid neighbours in hunting Bushmen, with whom the surrounding mountains were infested.

The occurrence of the night before his father's death affected the character of Tyardt van der Walt permanently. For years he could never bear to be alone in the dark;--he suffered from the dread that the horrible creature he had shot would re-appear to him. This man, who did not know what fear of any material thing meant, was for long an abject slave to dread of the supernatural, and fell into a state of piteous terror if a dog howled within his hearing after dark.

It is said that his death was, after all, caused by the howling of a dog. During one of his periodical fits of nervous depression he felt unwell and, under his wife's persuasion, went to his bed one day a few hours before the usual time. That night a dog howled on the hill across the valley; the sick man, as soon as he heard it, turned his face to the wall, saying that his summons had come. He refused to take any nourishment, and died in the course of a few days.

Strange,--that the crime of over two centuries back should have sent its baleful influence across the ocean wastes and the desert sands to drag a man who was blameless in it to his doom.

No stouter-hearted men than those of the van der Walt stock ever took their lives into their hands and faced, with unflinching eye, the dangers of the desert which they helped so mightily to reclaim. It is, however, an extraordinary fact that no member of this family in the direct line could ever hear the howling of a dog after nightfall without being reduced to abject terror.

CHAPTER TWO.

HOW THE BROTHERS QUARRELLED.

Tyardt van der walt left a widow, two sons--Stepha.n.u.s and Gideon--who were twins, and three daughters. As is usual among the Boers, the daughters married early in life; they have nothing to do with this story.

The beginning of the quarrel between the twin-brothers dated from years back--from the time when they went down with a wagon load of game peltries and other produce to Stellenbosch and there fell in love, instantaneously and unanimously, with Marta Venter, their fair-haired cousin, whom they met in the street, coming from Confirmation cla.s.s.

Stepha.n.u.s, the elder twin, had a slightly looser and glibber tongue than Gideon; besides, he was probably not so much in earnest as the latter; so, other things being equal, his suit was practically bound to prosper.

When, after advantageously selling their load in Cape Town, the brothers inspanned their wagon and started for home, Stepha.n.u.s and fair-haired Marta were engaged to be married and the darkened heart of Gideon was filled with a love which, in spite of many shocks and changes, never wholly died out of it.

The wedding took place at the next _Nachtmaal_, Gideon managing, by means of some pretext, to avoid being present. Soon afterwards old Tyardt cut off a portion of the farm and handed it over to his married son, who thereupon built a homestead and began farming on his own account.

It was some time before Gideon could bring himself to meet his sister-in-law without embarra.s.sment; however, an accidental event cleared the way for what appeared to be a complete reconciliation. One day, when the brothers happened to be camped with their wagons on the southern bank of the swollen Tanqua River, waiting for the flood to subside, Stepha.n.u.s, against his brother's advice, ventured into the current and was swept away. Gideon dashed in to the rescue and saved his brother's life at the risk of his own. After this the old friendly relations were, to all appearances, firmly re-established.

These brothers strikingly resembled each other in both disposition and appearance. Both were large, handsome, keen-featured men, with flashing black eyes and choleric tempers. There was only one slight difference apparent: under strong excitement or deep feeling Gideon became morose and taciturn,--Stepha.n.u.s excited and talkative.

Shortly after old Tyardt's death the quarrel broke out afresh. The portion of the farm a.s.signed to Stepha.n.u.s was secured to him by will; the remaining extent was bequeathed to Gideon. The shares of the daughters in the estate were paid out in stock. Elandsfontein was a large farm and was naturally divided into two nearly equal parts by a deep kloof running almost right through it. In dry seasons this kloof contained no water, but on the side which had been a.s.signed to Stepha.n.u.s there was a small spring situated in a rocky depression which was filled with scrubby bush. From this a pure, cool stream flowed. Immediately after issuing from the scrub this stream lost itself in a swamp; near its source, however, it had never been known to fail in the most severe drought.

Although the spring was about a hundred paces from the dividing line, a clause had been inserted in the will of old Tyardt, in terms of which the water was to be held as common property between the owners of the farm; thus stock from Gideon's land were to be allowed to drink at the spring whenever circ.u.mstances required.

Within a very few years after old Tyardt's death the land was smitten by a heavy drought and the Elandsfontein spring soon proved unequal to the demands made upon it from both sides. Then strife of the most embittered description resulted between the brothers. The dispute was the subject of a law suit before the Supreme Court at Cape Town, but no satisfactory settlement was arrived at. As a matter of fact--owing to the clumsiness with which the will was drawn--no settlement was possible without concessions on both sides, and neither brother would concede so much as a hair's breadth.

The feud between the brothers became a scandal to the neighbourhood; in fact they could hardly meet without insulting each other grossly. On several occasions they had come to blows. The climax was reached when, in response to a formal call, they appeared before the court of elders of the Dutch Reformed Church at Stellenbosch. After due enquiry had been made into the causes of the quarrel the brothers were called upon to tender hands to each other in token of reconciliation. This they both refused, in insulting terms, to do. Then the sacred and highly respectable precincts of the vestry became the scene of an unseemly brawl, and the brothers were formally excommunicated.

Some time before this, and shortly before matters became hopelessly embittered, Gideon had married Aletta du Val, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. There was little love on Gideon's side, for he had never got over his first pa.s.sion for his fair-haired cousin.

One fateful morning in early summer Gideon placed the saddle upon his horse, took down from the rack his long-barrelled "roer," his bandolier of greased bullets and his powder-horn, and started for a ride along the western boundary of his farm.

His flock of flat-tailed sheep were kraaled at an outpost which was in charge of a Hottentot herd, and he wished to count them. This flock was in the habit of drinking every morning at the stream which had caused so much strife, for the weather had been dry for some months, and the rivulet which sometimes ran in the dividing kloof had long since disappeared.

The day was hot, but not oppressively so. Every now and then a breeze sweet with suggestion of the distant western ocean would breathe refreshingly over the arid land, acting like a tonic on all who inhaled it.

The tulip-like cups of the sweet-scented gethyllis blossomed out in rich ma.s.ses from the hot sand on the wayside, the wild notes of the chanting falcon seemed to fill the sky as the birds circled round the highest points of the cliffs that flanked the valley; the hoa.r.s.e call of the sentinel baboons echoed from the black bluffs.

On reaching the kraal Gideon found that the sheep had been turned out earlier than usual. Then he rode to the spring and found it evidenced by the spoor, which lay thick about the water's edge, that the flock had already been watered. Wondering at the reason for this manifestation of activity on the part of the usually-lazy Hottentot herd, he lit his pipe and stood for a moment or two enjoying the cool shade which surrounded the spring, after the heat of the ride.

A slight sound caused him to turn his head and then he saw old Gert Dragoonder, the herd, step out from the cover behind him. Gert had been on the point of falling asleep when his master's arrival had startled him.

After ascertaining from the Hottentot that the flock of sheep were grazing safely behind the big bluff--well away from the dividing line-- Gideon handed over to him his horse and told him to take the animal up to the sheep kraal and fasten it to a bush. The sea-breeze was freshening and he meant, when the air became cooler, to take a turn on foot among the rocks high up on the mountain side, in the hope of getting a shot at a rhebok. Gideon lay back under a bush and finished his pipe; then he turned upon his side and fell asleep.

He awoke to the sound of a foot step and opened his eyes. Before him, on the other side of the spring, he could see Stepha.n.u.s, who had just dismounted from his horse. The animal began to graze, its bridle hung and trailed upon the ground as it wandered on, cropping the herbage, until it crossed the dividing kloof. When the animal had pa.s.sed well over the boundary Gideon arose stealthily, seized his gun and hurried towards the horse with the intention of seizing it. But Stepha.n.u.s, who now noticed his brother for the first time, rushed forward and grappled with him, and the two fell struggling to the ground.