Between Sun and Sand Part 14

"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 hoa.r.s.ely.

"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 sc.r.a.ped 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 sc.r.a.pe the hole, for the thirsty sand drank up the water as quickly as if it had been poured into s.p.a.ce 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 d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sage 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 h.e.l.l. 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 G.o.d'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 hoa.r.s.e 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 inst.i.tuted, confirmations, marriages, and christenings solemnised.

Namies, if the summer rains happen to have been copious, is the great a.s.sembling-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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.semblage 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 n.o.bility 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sed 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.