Hair-Breadth Escapes Part 19

"A long draught, I am afraid," said Ernest. "I was not present, but he said so."

"How long ago?"

"I should think two hours."

"There is no time to be lost, if his life is to be saved," observed the unknown. "Happily, the antidote is easily found in these parts. When, indeed, are G.o.d's mercies ever wanting in the hour of need!"

He spoke the last sentence to himself, rather than to his companion.

Drawing forth his flint and steel, he struck a light, by which he kindled a small lantern, which was one of the articles appended to his belt. By the help of these, he began searching among the herbage which grew thickly on either side of the path. Presently he lighted on the plant of which he was in quest. It was shaped something like an egg, which it also nearly resembled in size. He pulled up two or three specimens of this, and shook the dirt from the roots. Then he again addressed Warley.

"Where is your friend?" he said. "At the kloof, where he drank the water, I suppose? You had better take me to him as quickly as possible."

Warley complied in silence. Lost in wonder at the strangeness of the adventure, he led the way down the glen, up which he had mounted an hour or so before.

The elder man seemed as little inclined for conversation as himself.

They proceeded in almost unbroken silence until they had arrived within a quarter of a mile of their destination. Warley stepped on a little in advance as they approached the kloof, and Charles came out to meet him.

"How is Frank?" asked Warley in a low tone.

Lavie shook his head. "Nick has found water, but we cannot get any quant.i.ty down his throat I have tried everything I can think of, but in vain."

"I have fallen in with a man who seems to understand the matter, and thinks he can save him."

"A man--what, here in the Kalahari? What do you mean?"

Warley hurriedly related what had occurred. "Of course, Charles," he said, "I can't answer for his knowledge and skill But hadn't we better let him try what he can do?"

"Yes, I suppose we had," said Lavie, after a pause. "I can do nothing for him; and though it is true that the poison is slow in its action, yet it is fatal unless its effects are checked. I'll go and speak to the man."

He stepped up to the stranger, and in a few hurried words described the condition of his patient. The newcomer nodded his head.

"Euphorbia poison," he said; "but I trust we shall be in time. Have you any means of heating water?"

"I have some water nearly boiling in the iron pot here."

"That is well. Be so good as to put some into this cup; rather more than half full, if you please."

He took one of the egg-shaped fruits, and pounded it in the hot water.

When it had been reduced to a fluid state, he signed to Lavie to lift Frank's head, and then poured the mixture down the lad's throat. Then covering him up as warmly as he could, he sat down by his side, and took his hand.

He sat there, without speaking, for nearly three-quarters of an hour; then he looked up and said--

"Let us give thanks to G.o.d. The boy's life will be spared. He is beginning to sweat profusely. We have now only to keep him warmly covered up, and the effects of the poison will pa.s.s off."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE STRANGER'S STORY--GEORGE SCHMIDT--IMPORTANT NEWS--THE COMMANDO SYSTEM--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER--A BAND OF MARAUDERS.

"Have you practised your profession in this country for very long?"

asked Nick of their visitor, as they sat over their supper an hour or two later in the evening.

The latter smiled. "Yes," he answered, "for nearly fifteen years. But are you sure you know what my profession is?"

"Are you not a doctor?" rejoined his questioner.

"Well, I suppose I may call myself a doctor," was the reply, "but a physician of the soul, not of the body--though, as you have seen, I have picked up a little knowledge of body-curing too, in the course of my travels."

"A missionary!" exclaimed Warley. "I am so glad. I have been so hoping that we might fall in with one. But we were told that there had never been more than a very few in Southern Africa, and even they had now left it."

"I am sorry to say you heard no more than the truth," said the stranger.

"But I trust there is a better prospect now."

"I am glad to hear it," observed Lavie. "I guessed what your employment was, and was afraid you might be in trouble, if not in danger. When I left Cape Town two years ago--"

"Ah, you have resided in Cape Town. Then you will know something of what our trials and discouragements have been. But no one but the missionaries themselves can really enter into them."

"I wish you would give us your experiences," said Lavie. "As you say, in the colony there is a very confused and imperfect knowledge of your proceedings: and there is, besides, so large an amount of prejudice on the subject, that even those most favourably inclined towards you, have heard, I doubt not, a most unfair version of it."

Warley eagerly seconded this proposal, and the stranger, who seemed willing enough to comply with their wishes, began his recital.

"I should tell you first," he said, "what perhaps you have guessed--that I am, by descent, half English and half Dutch. Our family name was Blandford, and we were owners of large property in one of the southern counties; but it was forfeited in consequence of our determined adherence to the house of Stuart. After the unfortunate issue of the attempt in 1745, we were obliged to leave England, and took up our residence in Holland; where my father married the daughter of a Dutch merchant, named De Walden, whose name he thenceforth adopted.

"As the hopes of the restoration of the exiled family grew ever less and less, my father entered with more interest into his father-in-law's business. The latter carried on a brisk trade with the Cape of Good Hope, and thither I was sent, when barely twenty-one, as one of the junior partners in the house. I resided for many years at Stellenbosch, occasionally pa.s.sing months together at Klyberg, a large farm in the north of the colony, not far from the Gariep, or the Orange river, as it has since been named."

"Not very far from where we are now, in fact," observed Lavie.

"It was nearer to the west coast than this," said De Walden, "by some hundreds of miles, and the country was very fertile. Both at Stellenbosch and Klyberg we employed a great number of Hottentots as slaves. Our treatment of them I shall remember with shame and grief to the last day of my life!" He paused from emotion. And Lavie said--

"You were not different, I suppose, in your treatment of them from your neighbours?"

"Unhappily, no. But that is small comfort. It seems wonderful to me now, with my present feelings, how I could have accepted without questioning, as I did, the opinions of those about me on the subject.

We entertained the notion that the natives were an inferior race to ourselves, intended by Providence to be kept in a condition of servitude, as the sheep and oxen were; to be kindly treated if they were docile and industrious; to be subdued and punished if refractory."

"That is, of course, a perverted view," said the doctor, "but still no one, who has seen much of these races, can doubt their inferiority, or the necessity of their being instructed and kept in control by the whites."

"Granted," said the missionary. "The whites had, in fact, a mission of love and mercy entrusted to them. They ought to have taught the natives, and raised them gradually to a level with themselves. But we never taught or raised them. On the contrary, our persistent determination was to keep them down. We dreaded their acquiring knowledge; and looked with jealousy and dislike upon some earnest and devoted men, who had come from Europe for the purpose of enlightening them."

"Did you come across George Schmidt, sir?" inquired Warley, with an eagerness of manner which attracted De Walden's attention. "I have read about him, and have been anxious to meet some one who knew him."

"Yes," said De Walden, "to my shame, I did. One of the first things I remember, after my arrival at Klyberg, was an outburst of anger because the good and holy man you name had baptised one of his converts. You may well look surprised, but so it was. By the law of the Cape, no baptised person could be a slave; so that the baptism of a Hottentot had the effect of manumitting him. Of course the law was a mistake, and ought to have been altered. A slave, as Saint Paul has emphatically taught us, may be as true a Christian as his master. But the Dutch had no thought of altering the law, and were resolved rather to keep their slaves in heathen darkness than lose their services."

"That is much what I read," said Warley; "and Schmidt was obliged to leave the colony, was he not?"

"He was, and never returned to it, though he earnestly longed and prayed that he might. His prayer was heard after his death, and his spirit returned in the faithful band of servants, who were raised up to carry on his work. I never saw _George_ Schmidt while in Africa. I had no wish to do so. His name was a by-word of reproach on my lips. But afterwards, while I was in Holland, during a three years' absence from the colony, I did encounter him."

The speaker paused for a few minutes, and then resumed. "I shall never forget our meeting. I was pa.s.sing through one of the towns on the Rhine, when I saw a notice that George Schmidt would deliver a discourse about South African Missions, and endeavour to raise funds for carrying them on. I determined to go to the meeting, expose the falsehood and calumnies which I should be sure to hear, and raise such a tumult as would put a stop to him and his doings. I went and I heard him. What we read in the Bible of men forsaking all and following Christ--which had always seemed so difficult to be believed--came home to me in all its vividness. I was carried away by his simple eloquence. I was humbled, conscience-stricken, filled suddenly and for ever with a new purpose in life. I went to him as soon as the meeting was over, told him who I was, and asked his forgiveness for what I and mine had done to thwart and grieve him."