Between Sun and Sand Part 13

"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 b.u.t.t 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 G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstance. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gra.s.s. 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage through which an ordinary-sized man may just manage to force himself. A small chamber is then reached, and from this another pa.s.sage leads. Into this one can only pa.s.s 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 a.s.sisted 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.