By Veldt and Kopje Part 4

"Well, they say no Englishman can shoot, yet I hear you killed two bucks to-day."

"Yes," I replied, "I killed two bucks, and I almost wish I had not done so. It seemed to be a sin to shed blood in such a place and on such a day."

Old Sarei turned his mild, inquiring, blind eyes upon me, but made no reply. We sat and smoked in silence for a while.

"Can you tell me anything about an inscription I saw upon a rock to-day--'Here a sinner became converted'?"

"Yes," he replied, after a pause, "I am the sinner. My son cut the words upon the stone at my wish."

I held silence, so he shortly afterwards asked--"Would you like me to tell you of what happened?"

"Yes, I should be most grateful."

"I was born on this farm," he said; "my father was one of the first to take up land about here. When a young man, hunting was my pa.s.sion. I made friends with the wild Bushmen who then dwelt on the mountain, and they used to drive the game for me. I built a hut near the spring just below the summit, and there I sometimes stayed for weeks together.

"I was proud of my eyesight and my skill with the rifle. I did not care for the society of others; I neglected my wife and children; I neither feared G.o.d nor regarded man. The mountain I looked upon as my home.

Living so near the sky makes one different to others. The sins of the Flesh lose their breath and cannot climb so high, but those of the Spirit beset you sorely. You will remember that Satan tempted the Lord on the top of a high mountain.

"One day in summer, about forty years ago, I was riding across the head of the kloof where the stone stands whereon you read those words to-day.

A thunderstorm was sweeping down from the north-west, but I took no heed, for I had never known fear of lightning nor anything else. The Bushmen were driving on a troop of elands, and I expected them to cross the saddle at the head of the kloof; so I left the horse concealed in a hollow and took my stand, with the rifle on my arm, at the foot of the rock.

"Soon the elands appeared; they ran for a short distance down the kloof, then halted just opposite where I was standing. One great bull stood apart from the others. As I lifted my rifle to take aim a flash leaped out of the cloud and struck the ground close to where the bull was standing, igniting the gra.s.s. The animal sprang back in terror. I fired--and it rolled over, dead.

"Then I laughed aloud and shouted that my aim was more true than that of the Almighty. An instant afterwards the heavens opened and flame enveloped me like a sheet. I fell, senseless, to the ground.

"When I recovered I thought night had fallen. I could smell that my clothing was scorched, but I felt no hurt. The rain had ceased and I was conscious of a sensation of warmth. I still thought it was night, but night blacker than I had ever known. After a while I stood up and groped about in terror, for I now imagined that the end of the world had come and that the sun had been quenched. Then I heard a bird singing: I still wondered; but when I heard the Bushmen calling to me from the other side of the kloof, where the dead eland lay, the truth struck me in all its terror: I was blind.

"I shrieked and blasphemed as I staggered about. I found my gun and tried to shoot myself, but the lightning had twisted it as you might twist a handful of straw. The Bushmen led me down to the homestead.

"Afterwards, I spent many days and nights in h.e.l.l, but the day arrived when my pride lay broken in the dust, and I came to acknowledge that G.o.d's Angel was sitting on that thundercloud, charged to save my soul."

That night I lay long awake, thinking of old Sard's tale. I had a very clear recollection of the inscribed stone and its surroundings, so tried to picture the tremendous episode of forty years back. The sultry summer day; the white thundercloud curdling into shape upon the hot north-western horizon and towering into the ether, until its spreading tentacles seemed to seize the world in a mighty grip. Later, the low muttering of thunder, pulsing from the monster's baleful heart, and the thin streak of fire darting out far in advance of the rain and igniting the dry gra.s.s. Then the blasphemous jest of the strong man proud of his skill. Lastly, the thunderbolt winged to smite but not to slay, touching not so much as a hair of the head of the defiant human atom, but crushing the gun in his hand as though it were a reed, and filling his eyes with such excess of light that nothing less vivid could stir their sense for evermore.

CHAPTER THREE.

TOMMY'S EVIL GENIUS.

"Greater love hath no man than this."--S. John XV. 13.

His name was Danster. His age might have been anything between fifteen and forty-five. His cheekbones were high, and his eyes oblique like those of a Mongolian. Scattered unevenly over his bullet-shaped skull were thin tufts of wool, each culminating in a minute, solid pellet.

His only clothing was a noisome sheep-skin kaross which had formerly belonged to a great-grandfather--long since deceased.

Danster was a Hottentot--or rather what is called by that indefinite term at the Cape. In his much-mixed blood that of the Bushman evidently preponderated. An anthropologist would have valued his skull, which seemed to epitomise the results of a criminal ancestry extending through many generations.

Tommy, surnamed Winwood, was very different. He was a blonde, blue-eyed, yellow-haired lad of eight years of age, somewhat slight and undersized, but agile and capable of endurance when under the stimulus of excitement. Five children had nested in the Winwood nursery, but only Tommy survived. The others had all succ.u.mbed to congenital delicacy before reaching the age of seven. With Tommy the Winwoods had come to South Africa in the early eighties, and had taken a farm near the coast in one of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. Mr Winwood was a nervous, retiring man of literary tastes. Having enough money to live upon, his farming was hardly a serious pursuit. In fact he left the management of the place almost solely in the hands of a somewhat dour but conscientious Boer, who managed to run the concern at a profit.

Mrs Winwood suffered from extreme delicacy. She was an accomplished musician, but the climate had sapped her energy to such an extent that when the weather was warm she hardly ever touched the piano. When the days were cool, she often played for six or seven hours a day, and thus seriously overtaxed her strength. Both she and her husband were moody and morbid. Although much attached to each other, their life was a series of misunderstandings.

It may be imagined what a lonely life poor Tommy led. He received three hours' instruction every day--two from his father and one from his mother. His nursery was full of toys, but the very number and variety of these had rendered them valueless as a resource. The homestead stood on the steep south slope of a valley through which a stream ran between fringes of timber rooted in rich, fern-bearing soil, and commanded a grand view of interspersed forest and gra.s.sy slopes. But, unfortunately, snakes abounded, so poor Tommy was restricted to the cleared area immediately surrounding the house. So his face took on that expression of pathos which haunts the looks of children debarred from the companionship of their kind.

When the tempter appeared Tommy fell an easy prey. Danster was a calf-herd. He, too, felt lonely. His avocations kept him in the vicinity of the homestead, so he soon found an opportunity of making friends with the lonely child. The intimacy grew, unnoticed by Tommy's parents, and was for some time tacitly acquiesced in. However, one day Mrs Winwood came upon the two sitting behind the big water-tank, and found Danster engaged in extracting the eyes of a living bird with a mimosa thorn, while Tommy looked on, fascinated. Danster was thereupon severely flogged by the overseer, under Mr Winwood's supervision, and earnestly warned never to show his ill-favoured face near the homestead again.

Tommy was a thoroughly truthful child. When questioned he freely admitted that the removal of the bird's eyes was the last of a long series of hideous vivisectional experiments at which he had a.s.sisted, and which had been organised for his delectation. Like most highly-strung people, Mr and Mrs Winwood were morbidly sensitive to physical suffering, either in themselves or in other sentient beings.

The keenness of their distress may therefore be imagined. Horrible though the thing was, they took far too serious a view of it. In fact, they imagined that their child's character had been irreparably ruined.

Tommy had not realised how attached he was to the disreputable Danster until after the separation. One night, about a week after the dreadful discovery, Tommy confessed to his mother that he loved Danster very much indeed. Soon he began to mope visibly. His father and mother were horribly annoyed at the turn things had taken. They always referred to Danster as their son's evil genius.

Something had to be done, so it was decided to employ a governess. In due course a highly certificated lady came to undertake the regeneration of Tommy's morals as well as the development of his mind. She had much erudition, but little sympathy, so Tommy and she were antipathetic towards each other from the very start, and the starved heart of the lonely child went out more and more towards the banished Danster.

Drought had lain heavily on the land for many months. The season was autumn. During early spring copious rains had fallen, but throughout sultry January and blistering February the heavens had been as bra.s.s and the wind as the blast from a furnace. The gra.s.s which had sprung up rank and luxuriant withered again, and now the farm, which was much under-stocked, lay like a clay potsherd covered with tinder.

One afternoon the sun smote the earth with more than usual fury. Away to the westward irregular fragments of thundercloud, which seemed incapable of cohering sufficiently to produce a storm, coquetted with the quivering mountain-tops. Ever and anon irregular gusts from the eastward would trail over glowing hill and gasping vale with a sound as though the tortured earth were sobbing an appeal to the skies for the withheld mercy of rain. It was one of those days on which the beast seeks, gasping, for a cool lair, and the bird pants with half outstretched wings, deep in the densest foliage.

Mr and Mrs Winwood had collapsed completely; the governess retired to her darkened room; the servants had disappeared. Tommy only was awake.

He tried all sorts of devices for pa.s.sing the time, but the walls of his comparatively cool room became an irksome prison as the afternoon wore on; so he opened the gla.s.s door quietly, to avoid wakening his father in the next room, and stepped quietly on to the back stoep. Here he was in the shade. The air had taken on that suspicion of coolness which, in seasons of drought, nearly always tempers the afternoon.

Tommy leant upon the verandah rail, and the wind, as it stirred his yellow locks, seemed to be charged with some odour that stimulated his languid pulses. He sniffed at it wonderingly; what did it remind him of? Then he suddenly knew, and his cheek crimsoned with a guilty flush: it was the smell of Danster's kaross, its grosser elements subdued by distance, which a.s.sailed his nostrils.

Tommy cast his eyes around, and they fell upon an object which sent the blood coursing wildly through his veins. There, emerging from a bush only a few yards away, was the bullet-shaped head and Mongolian face of the Hottentot, his eyes filled with appeal and his wide mouth distended into a white-toothed smile. Tommy gazed spellbound, and the evil genius cautiously held out at arm's length a stick from which a small water-tortoise hung by one tortured leg. After this had been dangled for a few seconds it was withdrawn and then the nest of a loxia was held forth. The loxia suspends its nest from boughs overhanging dark, forest-nurtured pools, and the nest has a long, woven tube, cunningly devised for the purpose of keeping out snakes, lizards and other enemies that prey upon the eggs and young of wild birds. Tommy had often gazed at these works of woven art as they hung from the whip-like acacia boughs, and had longed to possess one. A vision of the cool forest grot where he had seen them swaying in the wind arose in his mind. Duty was forgotten in an instant; Nature, like a long-banished king, came back and claimed his own. An old hat belonging to his father hung upon a nail close at hand. Hurriedly placing this upon his head he tripped down the steps into the garden and followed the beckoning tempter.

Tommy hurried after his evil genius along the pathway which led through the orchard down to the bottom of the valley. In pa.s.sing, Danster skilfully s.n.a.t.c.hed a supply of half-ripe peaches from the laden trees, and hid the loot in a fold of his odoriferous kaross. This grated on Tommy's sense of honour; his conscience lifted his head. To salve it, he mentally resolved not to eat any of the fruit.

They climbed over the orchard fence and pressed through the rustling Tambookie gra.s.s, which filled the air with its sharp, sweet scent. Then they reached the strip of forest at the bottom of the valley. From the heart of its charmed mystery stole the delightful murmur of falling water.

Just where the pathway crossed the stream was a rocky ledge over which a thin gush of crystal water trembled down through the air and, smiting a boulder, resolved itself into fine spray. A vagrant sunbeam pierced this, and the miracle of a tiny rainbow hung over the pool. This is a phenomenon only seen in severe droughts, and when the sunlight smites through a gap in the greenery at a certain angle. The impressionable Tommy become intoxicated with delight; the smell of Danster's kaross, which had always offended his sensitive nose, was forgotten. The evil genius became a wood-G.o.d and Tommy his humble votary.

The wind, heated once more to furnace pitch, moaned threateningly along the hillside, but here all was cool, grateful and quiet. The unruffled water slept beneath the shadowing trees from which, ever and anon, sounded the peevish twitter of drowsy birds. A large iguana slowly dragged its scaly length over the stones, pausing now and then to snap at an insect, which it swallowed, gulping solemnly. A flash of vivid blue seemed to fill the gloom--a kingfisher skimmed out of the darkness across the surface of the pool and perched on a stone. Quick as thought Danster flung his short, k.n.o.bbed stick with unerring aim, and the bird fell, mangled, its bright plumage scattered over the surface of the crystal pool. This broke the spell. Grasping the dead bird in his hand, Tommy followed his evil genius across the stream and through the fringe of woodland on the other side.

Now came the main effort of the enterprise; the steep, gra.s.sy hillside had to be climbed. Beyond, high up, stood the enchanted forest in the depth of which the red-winged, green-crested lories flitted with noiseless undulations from tree to tree or waked strident echoes with their hoa.r.s.e-throated calls. There the satyrs of the South--the black-faced, green-backed monkeys--tore swinging along from bough to bough, scattering leaves, flowers and berries from sheer love of mischief. There the great woodland b.u.t.terflies flitted like ghosts through the nether gloom or circled like fairies around the tree-tops.

From there the raucous barking of the rutting bushbucks sounded at midnight across the valley. There were hidden wonders--untold, transcendent--stinging imagination into ecstasy.

The hillside had once been covered with forest, but the timber had, on the lower slopes, disappeared under the blighting hand of man. Now the high, waving Tambookie gra.s.s lay thick upon it, and through this the path wound and zigzagged aimlessly, after the manner of South African footways. A stream had once flowed down the decline, but being no longer nurtured by the growth of timber, had shrunk to an underground trickle, the course of which was here and there marked by a funnel-shaped opening filled with bracken. Here a careful ear might discover the musical tinkle of semi-subterranean water.

Tommy became very tired, but pushed bravely on, following the lead of his evil genius. The air became hotter and hotter. A few belated cloudlets, very high up, sailed slowly against the wind. From some of these a few heavy gouts of rain occasionally fell, only to be immediately evaporated by the glowing earth. Now and then a remote metallic clashing of thunder could be heard. A sudden and furious succession of gusts sprang up and joined in a mad whirl from eastward.

This covered the hillside with dust, and sent leaves and twigs flying over the billows of the swaying gra.s.s.

Tommy looked longingly at the dense forest, which now lay but a couple of hundred yards ahead. The wind blew his hair bewilderingly into his eyes; the hot, acrid dust filled his throat. His legs trembled under him, but he still struggled bravely on. His evil genius stood between him and the worst of the gusts, and the unsavoury kaross proved an acceptable shield against the stinging missiles with which the air was filled.

At length a lull--but the wind was only pausing to gain strength for a burst of wilder fury. Then a dense cloud of dust and detritus arose to windward and advanced with a strident moan.

A small, solid-looking cloud hung above them, shaped like a pear. From this a thin blade of white lightning flickered down and ignited the gra.s.s to windward, just in front of the advancing tempest. Immediately the dustcloud closed down on the ignited spot; in an instant the hillside was a h.e.l.l of roaring, whirling, leaping flame.

Danster did not hesitate for an instant. Dropping the tortoise, the loxia's nest and the stolen fruit, he seized Tommy by the hand and dragged him swiftly back down the hillside towards the last of the subterranean openings they had pa.s.sed. It was a race for life with the springing, vaulting flame, which was hurled onward by the wind in immense flakes, pausing for the fraction of a minute here and there as though to gain strength for the next leap. Soon it became apparent that the fire must win. Then a hissing tongue of flame darted out and cut the fugitives off from their goal.

Without pausing for an instant Danster denuded himself of his kaross, wrapped Tommy in it, and, picking him up, dashed naked into the fire with a wild yell, hurling himself and his burthen into the gulf beyond.

They sank together into the burning ma.s.s of bracken, Tommy beneath and his evil genius above. Then the world went out for Tommy in a wild turmoil of heat, smoke, suffocation and crackling explosions.