Between Sun and Sand Part 4

"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 doc.u.ment is adorned with the Signs of the Zodiac, and is heavily garnished with Scripture texts.

It is believed by certain cla.s.ses 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 peac.o.c.k'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 coa.r.s.e, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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.