Jess Part 21

"Sir,--The bearer of this has with him a pa.s.s which it is understood that you desire, giving you and Miss Jess Croft a safe-conduct to Mooifontein, in the Wakkerstroom district of the Republic. The only condition attached to the pa.s.s, which is signed by one of the honourable Triumvirate, is that you must carry no despatches out of Pretoria. Upon your giving your word of honour to the bearer that you will not do this he will hand you the pa.s.s."

This letter, which was fairly written and in good English, had no signature.

"Who wrote this?" asked John of the Boer.

"That is no affair of yours," was the curt reply. "Will you pa.s.s your word about the despatches?"

"Yes."

"Good. Here is the pa.s.s;" and he handed over that doc.u.ment to John.

It was in the same handwriting as the letter, but signed by the Boer general.

John examined it, and then called to Jess to come to translate it, who, having heard the voice of the Boer, was on her way round the corner of the house.

"It means, 'Pa.s.s the bearers unharmed,'" she said, "and the signature is genuine. I have seen Paul Kruger's signature before."

"When must we start?" asked John of the Boer.

"At once, or not at all."

"I must drive round by the headquarter camp to explain my departure.

They will think that I have run away."

To this the Boer demurred, but finally, after going to the gate to consult his companion, he consented and the two rode back to the headquarter camp, saying that they would wait for the cart there, whereupon the horses were inspanned.

In five minutes everything was ready, and the cart was standing on the roadway in front of the little gate. After he had looked to all the straps and buckles, and seen that the baggage was properly packed, John went to call Jess. He found her by the doorstep, looking out at her favourite view. Her hand was placed sideways against her forehead, as though to shade her eyes from the sun. But where she was standing there was no sun, and John could not help guessing why she was shading her eyes. She was crying at leaving the place in that quiet and harrowing way which some women indulge in; that is to say, a few big tears were rolling down her face. John felt a lump rise in his own throat at the sight, and not unnaturally relieved his feelings by rough language.

"What the deuce are you after?" he asked. "Are you going to keep the horses standing all day?"

Jess did not resent this. The probability is that she guessed its reason. Besides, it is a melancholy fact that women rather like being sworn at than otherwise, provided that the swearer is the man whom they are attached to. But he must only swear on state occasions. At this moment, too, Mrs. Neville plunged out of the house, licking an envelope as she ran.

"There," she said, "I hope you weren't waiting for me. I haven't told the old gentleman half the news; in fact, I've only taken him down to the time when the communications were cut, and I dare say he has seen all that in the papers. But he won't understand anything about it, and if he does he will guess the rest; besides, for all I know, he may be dead and buried by now. I shall have to owe you for the stamp. I think it's threepence. I'll pay you when we meet again--that is, if we ever do meet again. I'm beginning to think that this siege will go on for all eternity. There, good-bye, my dear! G.o.d bless you! When you get out of it, mind you write to the _Times_, in London, you know. There, don't cry. I am sure I should not cry if I were going to get out of this place;" for at this point Jess took the opportunity of Mrs. Neville's fervent embrace to burst out into a sob or two.

In another minute they were in the cart, and Mouti was scrambling up behind.

"Don't cry, old girl," said John, laying his hand upon her shoulder.

"What can't be cured must be endured."

"Yes, John," she answered, and dried her tears.

At the headquarter camp John went in and explained the circ.u.mstances of his departure. At first the officer who was temporarily in command--the Commandant having been wounded at the same time that John was. .h.i.t--rather demurred to his going, especially when he learned that he had pa.s.sed his word not to carry despatches. Presently, however, he thought better of it, and said he supposed that it was all right, as he could not see that their departure could do the garrison any harm: "rather the reverse, in fact, because you can tell people how we are getting on in this G.o.d-forsaken hole. I only wish that somebody would give me a pa.s.s, that's all." So John shook hands with him and left, to find an eager crowd gathered outside.

The news of their good luck had gone abroad, and everybody was running down to hear the truth of it. Such an event as a departure out of Pretoria had not happened for a couple of months and more, and the excitement was proportionate to its novelty.

"I say, Niel, is it true you are going?" halloed a burly farmer.

"How the deuce did you get a pa.s.s?" put in another man with a face like a weasel. He was what is known as a _Boer vernuker_ (literally a "Boer cheater"), that is, a travelling trader whose business it is to beguile the simple-minded Dutchman by selling him worthless goods at five times their value. "I have loads of friends among the Boers. There is hardly a Boer in the Transvaal who does not know me"--("To his cost," put in a bystander with a grunt)--"and yet I have tried all I know"--("And you know a good deal," said the same rude man)--"and _I_ can't get a pa.s.s."

"You don't suppose those poor Boers are going to let you out once they have got you in?" went on the tormentor. "Why, man, it's against human nature. You've got all their wool: now do you think they want you to have their skin too?"

Whereupon the weasel-faced individual uttered a howl of wrath, and pretended to make a rush at the author of these random gibes, waiting halfway for somebody to stop him and prevent a breach of the peace.

"Oh, Miss Croft!" cried out a woman in the crowd, who, like Jess, had been trapped in Pretoria while on a flying visit, "if you can, do send a line to my husband at Maritzburg, to tell him that I am well, except for the rheumatism from sleeping on the wet ground; and tell him to kiss the twins for me."

"I say, Niel, tell those Boers that we will give them a d--d good hiding yet, when Colley relieves us," sang out a jolly young Englishman in the uniform of the Pretoria Carbineers. He little knew that poor Colley--kind-hearted English gentleman that he was--lay sleeping peacefully under six feet of ground with a Boer bullet in his brain.

"Now, Captain Niel, if you are ready, we must trek," said one of the Boers in Dutch, suiting the action to the word by giving the near wheeler a sharp cut with his riding _sjambock_ that made him jump nearly out of the traces.

Away started the horses with a plunge, scattering the crowd to the right and left, and, amid a volley of farewells, they were off upon their homeward journey.

For more than an hour nothing particular happened. John drove at a fair pace, and the two Boers cantered along behind. At the end of this time, however, just as they were approaching the Red House, where Frank Muller had obtained the pa.s.s from the General on the previous day, one of the Boers rode up and told them, roughly enough, that they were to outspan at the house, where they would find some food. As it was past one o'clock, they were by no means sorry to hear this, and John drew up the cart about fifty yards from the place, where they outspanned the horses, and, having watched them roll and drink, they went up to the house.

The two Boers, who had also off-saddled, were already sitting on the verandah, and when Jess looked inquiringly towards them one of them pointed with his pipe towards the little room. Taking the hint, they entered, and found a Hottentot woman just setting some food upon the table.

"Here is dinner; let us eat it," said John; "goodness knows when we will get any more;" and accordingly he sat down.

As he did so the two Boers came in, and one of them made some sneering remark that caused the other to look at them and laugh insultingly.

John flushed, but took no notice. Indeed he thought it safest not, for, to tell the truth, he did not much like the appearance of these two worthies. One of them was a big, smooth, pasty-faced man, with a peculiarly villainous expression of countenance and a prominent tooth that projected in ghastly isolation over his lower lip. The other was a small man, with a sardonic smile, a profusion of black beard and whiskers on his face, and long hair hanging on to his shoulders. Indeed, when he smiled more vigorously than usual, his eyebrows came down and his whiskers advanced, and his moustache went up till there was scarcely any face left, and he looked more like a great bearded monkey than a human being. This man was a Boer of the wildest type from the far borders of Zoutpansberg, and did not understand a word of English.

Jess nicknamed him the Vilderbeeste, from his likeness to that ferocious-looking and hairy animal. His companion, on the other hand, understood English perfectly, for he had pa.s.sed many years of his life in Natal, having left that colony on account of some little indiscretion about thrashing Kafirs which had brought him into collision with the penal laws. Jess named him the Unicorn, on account of his one gleaming tusk.

The Unicorn was an unusually pious person, and on arriving at the table, to John's astonishment, gently but firmly he grasped the knife with which he was about to cut the meat.

"What's the matter?" said John.

The Boer shook his head sadly. "No wonder, you English are an accursed race, and have been given over into our hands as the great king Agag was given into the hands of the Israelites, so that we have hewed you to pieces. You sit down to meat and give no thanks to the dear Lord," and he threw back his head and sang out a portentously long Dutch grace through his nose. Not content with this, he set to work to translate it to English, which took a good time; nor was the rendering a very finished one in the result.

The Vilderbeeste grinned sardonically and put in a pious "Amen," and then at last they were allowed to proceed with their dinner, which, on the whole, was not a pleasant meal. But they could not expect much pleasure under the circ.u.mstances, so they ate their food and made the best of a bad business. After all, it might have been worse: they might have had no dinner to eat.

CHAPTER XXII

ON THE ROAD

John and Jess had finished their meal, and were about to leave the table, when suddenly the door opened, and who should appear at it but Frank Muller himself! Mistake was impossible; there he stood, stroking his long golden beard, as big, as handsome, and, to Jess's mind, as evil-looking as ever. The cold eyes fell upon John with a glance of recognition, and something like a smile began to play around the corners of the finely cut cruel mouth. Suddenly, however, his gaze lit upon the two Boers, one of whom was picking his teeth with a steel fork and the other lighting his pipe within a few inches of Jess's head, and instantly his face grew stern and angry.

"Did I not tell you two men," he said, "that you were not to eat with the prisoners?"--this word struck awkwardly on Jess's ear. "I told you that they were to be treated with all respect, and here I find you sprawling over the table and smoking in their faces. Be off with you!"

The smooth-faced man with the tusk rose at once with a sigh, put down the steel fork with which he had been operating, and departed, recognising that _Meinheer_ Muller was not a commanding officer to be trifled with, but his companion, the Vilderbeeste, demurred. "What,"

he said, tossing his head so as to throw the long black hair out of his eyes, "am I not fit to sit at meat with a couple of accursed English--a _rooibaatje_ and a woman? If I had my way he should clean my boots and she should cut up my tobacco;" and he grinned at the notion till eyebrows, whiskers, and moustache nearly met round his nose, causing him to look for all the world like a hairy-faced baboon.

Frank Muller made no answer in words. He simply took one step forward, pounced upon his insubordinate follower, and with a single swing of his athletic frame sent him flying headlong through the door, so that this free and independent burgher lit upon his head in the pa.s.sage, smashing his pipe and considerably damaging his best feature--his nose. "There,"

said Muller, shutting the door after him, "that is the only way to deal with such a fellow. And now let me bid you good-day, Miss Jess," and he extended his hand, which Jess took, rather coldly it must be owned.

"It has given me great pleasure to be able to do you this little service," he added politely. "I had considerable difficulty in obtaining the pa.s.s from the General--indeed I was obliged to urge my personal services before he would give it to me. But never mind that, I got it, as you know, and it will be my care to escort you safely to Mooifontein."