Lodges in the Wilderness Part 2

Soon the east grew suddenly splendid; shafts of faint gold and delicate rose spread from the horizon half-way to the zenith. These were the wheel-spokes of the still-hidden chariot of the sun-G.o.d. The flanks of Typhon, the huddled shoulders between which his head was sunk, took on the hue of glowing bronze. The Belted Mountain shone like a bale-fire.

The sun arose; his first beams smote like the lash of a whip. In the twinkling of an eye the glamour of morning had shrunk and shrivelled,-- fallen to the dust and left no more trace than would a broken bubble.

The world was now a tortured plain on which the redoubled wrath of the sky was poured forth. Typhon seemed to stir in his sleep,--to expand and palpitate. The reason of his baleful and unbridled power was at hand. That day he would be omnipotent and unquestioned Lord of the Desert.

A faint, hushing breath, less felt than heard, touched us and pa.s.sed on over the shuddering plain. Its course was from the north; it left increasing heat on its track. Another, not so faint, but definitely audible,--tangible as flame. It was indeed the breath of Typhon,--the suspiration of his awakening fury. A fringe as of erect russet hair plumed his hunched shoulders. Here and there immense tufts, like those of a waving, quivering mane, were hurled aloft; they fell back in the form of cataracts. Then--like the sudden smoke of a volcano, his loosened locks streamed forth on the tempest. Typhon was awake and had arisen in his blighting wrath.

His breath had not yet reached us, but it was very near. His voice was a penetrating, sibillant hiss, with a moaning undertone--the utterance of fury rendered inarticulate by its own intensity. Now the sand-spouts which had been flung upwards, rained on us in fine, almost impalpable dust, that scorched where it fell. It filled the air we strove to breathe; it blinded and baffled us as we vainly sought for shelter.

Then darkness settled down and the moaning undertone swelled to a roar.

We crouched within the wagon, the tilt of which rocked and strained.

The air we gaspingly breathed had a horrible, acrid taste.

Now and then a compensating current of air streamed back under the wing of the tempest that overwhelmed us, and afforded relief for a s.p.a.ce. It was only during such intervals that we could venture to lift our eyes; it was then we saw that the red-maned tentacles around us were alive and writhing, and we knew that on the morrow their location and contours would be different from what they were that morning.

It was late in the afternoon when Typhon's rage subsided and we emerged from our ravaged wagon, which stood half-buried in sand. The tentacle near us had stretched out a feeler and grasped it to the axles. It took several hours of hard digging before we were able to liberate the wheels enough to admit of the wagon being drawn out and taken to a spot which was free from drifted sand.

Yes, the monster had moved; his shoulders were hunched at a different curve; his long flank had taken on strange bends and bulges. But he was once more p.r.o.ne after his terrific but impotent uprising. Typhon slept.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A WALK IN THE DARKNESS--DREAMS OF A MORNING--THE SCHERM--THE SLAYING OF THE OSTRICH.

Arched, sore, gritty and with overstrung nerves I sought my bed early, hoping that sleep would come soon and obliterate the effects of that day of turmoil. I meant to shoot an ostrich on the morrow. To make this practicable I should have to rise at 2 a.m., for it was essential that I should reach a locality at least six miles away before daybreak.

But the fiery breath,--the tawny, tossing mane of Typhon seemed still to envelop me; his moaning hiss yet filled my ears. I felt as if I had stood face to face with one of the Lords of h.e.l.l. The reek of Tophet was still in my nostrils. Midnight had pa.s.sed before sleep came.

When Hendrick wakened me I felt as though I had hardly lost consciousness. It was the specified hour. Hendrick could no more read the face of a clock than he could decipher a logarithm, but he knew what it was we were going to attempt, and that if our adventure were to have any chance of success, we should set about it without delay.

Before waking me, Hendrick had brewed the coffee, so after hurriedly emptying a pannikin and adding a few rusks to the contents of my haversack, I seized a rifle and made a start. My course lay due south, my objective being the vicinity in which the troops of ostriches had been visible on the previous morning. It had been arranged that Hendrick was to start an hour later and make a wide detour to the right, for the purpose of stampeding any birds he could manage to get to the westward of. It was trusted that such birds might run towards the spot where I intended to lie concealed.

The sky was clear as a crystal lens, for the copious dew had caught all dust particles which were left suspended in the atmosphere after yesterday's outburst, and carried them back to earth. The waning moon had just arisen; fantastic shadows were cast by every shrub and tussock.

The air was cool--almost cold; not a breath stirred. Every few yards I stumbled over irregular heaps of soft sand, varying in height, in size and in contour. These were fragments of the ravaged locks of Typhon-- locks torn out in his fury of yesterday and flung far and wide over the desert.

How still it was; how void my environment of the details of ordinary experience. It was like a ramble through dreamland. The whirring wheels of Time seemed to have become dislocated; each as it were turning reversed on its axis--no two moving at the same speed. It seemed as though the mill of which sequence is a product had fallen out of gear, for yesterday joined hands with a day of twenty years old, while the intervening myriads of days flew forth into the void like chaff from a winnower.

s.p.a.ce seemed to have taken on additional dimensions,--the impossible to have become actual without an effort. Faces glimmered up through the mists that hung over the dimming pathway of the past--through the steam of long-shed tears--through the ghastly coffin-lid and the horrible six feet of clay. They smiled for an instant, and vanished. Winds that had slept for years arose laden with the laughter from lips whose warm red faded with dawns long overblown. Surely I must have strayed into some pallid Hades such as the ancients fabled of,--some zone where shadows only were real and real things appeared as shadows.

Mechanically I strode on, avoiding without conscious volition the shrubs and tussocks. As the moon ascended the shadows shortened and became less grotesque. Fancied resemblances to and suggestions of things outside my own experience, but of which my mind had formed concepts that had become familiar, switched thought on to other tracks; the pendulum swung from the subjective to the objective. Imagination built up the tiny, lithe, agile forms of that race we exterminated and whose barren territory we annexed, but neither occupied nor made use of. I could almost hear the sandalled, pattering feet of the aboriginal dwellers of these plains,--those kings of the waste whose sceptre was the poisoned dart. The Bushmen were in many respects a wonderful people. They obeyed no chief; they had no political organisation whatsoever; each family governed itself independently. Yet they had their fixed customs,--their general traditional code of proprieties. They had knowledge of the properties of plants which no others possessed; they had a highly-developed dramatic art. As limners they excelled, and a keen sense of humour is evinced in many of their paintings. Not alone was this sense of humour keen, but it must have been very much akin to our own.

How many hot human hearts have searched for a clue to the nature of that Power which energises as much through evil as through good,--which could foster the development of a numerous people under painful and inexorable laws until it harmonised with its rigorous environment,--that could implant in its units the capacity for love, heroism and faithfulness-- and then ordain or sanction its obliteration,--an obliteration so absolute that, with the exception of one aged and senile pair, and a few delineations on sheltered rocks, of animals that shared its doom, this people has not left a trace behind. Literally, not a trace; hardly so much evidence that it ever existed as afforded in the case of an extinct sub-species of diatoms, the imprint of whose forms may be found on the fractured face of a chalk-cliff.

Musing thus, I suddenly became aware that day was at hand, for the pallid moonlight grew paler and the thrill of approaching dawn pulsated through the firmament. If all my trouble were not to be thrown away, I should at once select a spot suitable for my ambush. But first I had to look out for a certain shallow-rooted shrub of globular form which grew in patches here and there throughout the desert. A few such shrubs had to be pulled out of the ground and piled in the form of a low, circular fence enclosing a s.p.a.ce about six feet in diameter. This is the "scherm" or screen so often used by those who hunt in the desert.

Within it the hunter lies p.r.o.ne, fully concealed from any approaching quarry.

I was in luck, for I had reached an almost imperceptible rise; a long oval, the highest part of which was not more than thirty inches above the general level of the plain. But those inches were of incalculable value for my purpose, for they extended by miles the scope of my vision in every direction and, should game have been afoot, enabled me to prepare for the one and only shot. A single shot each day is the utmost that the hunter on foot in the desert ever expects.

In the vicinity of the rise shrubs were fairly plentiful, so I plucked out a sufficient number of suitable size and drew them carefully to the spot I had selected for my lair. This was just to westward of an unusually high shrub, a "taaibosch" which, after the sun should have arisen, would afford temporary shade for my head. But day came on apace; no time was to be lost.

Within a few minutes my scherm was complete, and I extended p.r.o.ne within it. After consideration I ventured to light my pipe. There was no wind; even had there been the ostrich has no sense of smell,--and on that day I was not looking for buck. Even had an oryx approached and sniffed at me, I would have let him go scathless. An ostrich, and a super-excellent one at that, was what I wanted. No breeding bird with plumes discoloured through contact with the sand, but a young, l.u.s.ty, unmarried male with peerless adornment of foam-white plumes,--the crowning result of a long period of selection,--developed by unrestricted Nature for the all-wise end of making him comely in the eyes of the female of his species.

It was now day, although the sun was not yet visible. I was in my shirt-sleeves, having left my jacket at the camp. The faint wind of morning was chill, the dew-soaked ground dank and cold. I longed for the sun to rise, albeit well knowing that after it had risen my discomfort from heat would be intense, and that I would look back to the hour of the dew and the dawn with vain regret.

Cautiously and very slowly I lifted my head until my eyes could search the plain in the direction from which Hendrick was operating. But I hardly expected to see him yet. Void, cold, pa.s.sionless and austere the still-sleeping desert stretched to the sky-line. The dominant note of its colour-scheme was creamy yellow, with but a hint of sage-green,--for the plumy shocks of the "toa" far outnumbered the spa.r.s.ely-scattered shrubs. A glance at Bantom Berg and Typhon shewed them to be touched by the first sunbeams. The shoulder of the dune-monster shone as though a radiant hand were laid upon it. The hand stole tenderly down the side and flank, revealing unsuspected scars. It was as though the morning were caressing the loathly creature,--trying to heal with pitying touch his self-inflicted scars of yesterday. In the limitless expanse of desert Typhon and his granite prisoner stood isolated,--the only prominence, and the ungainly bulk of Typhon made manifest the immensity of the kingdom he had usurped and the illimitable extent, of the territory towards which his carking hands outstretched.

The sun was now up and the resulting warmth was a physical delight. But I could not avoid lugubrious antic.i.p.ation of what all too soon was coming,--that fierce ardour which would cause the sand to grow red-hot and make my couch, then so comfortable, a bed of torment. Why should this antic.i.p.ation have almost destroyed my physical pleasure? why should mind and body thus have been set at variance with each other as the sense of grateful warmth penetrated my shivering limbs? It is this kind of thing that places man at a disadvantage as compared with other animals, who live in the immediately existing time. No matter how fair the flowers or how rich the fruits of the present may be, a menacing hand stretches back from the future and touches these with blight. When the Apostle of the Gentiles wrote that he died daily, he merely cried out under the lash of that curse of foreknowledge which is at once man's glory and his doom. And the farther the eyes of man pierce into the future, the more terrible will be the things revealed.

A yelp; then many yelps,--faint, but clear as a tinkling bell. They came from the side opposite the one from which I expected the game to be driven. Cautiously I sank back, wormed myself round and looked over the edge of the scherm in the direction from which the sound came. A jackal, of course,--but why was he yelping? The reason was quickly apparent. About seven hundred yards away stood two ostrich hens.

Running hither and thither, in hot pursuit of the jackal, was the c.o.c.k bird. Autolycus was hard pressed; it was only by constant and cunning doubling and twisting that he was able to escape the sledgehammer kicks,--any one of which, had it got home, would have broken his back or ripped out his entrails. The chase trended in my direction; as the pursued and the pursuer approached I had an excellent view of it. At length the prowler reached his burrow and hurled himself incontinently in, his brush describing a frantic arc as he disappeared. The ostrich, fuming with disappointed wrath and flicking his wings alternately over his back, to work off his indignation, stalked with stately gait back to his wives.

Evidently this was a breeding trio, and the nest was not far from where the hens were standing. No doubt what happened was this: the birds arose from the nest for the purpose of allowing the eggs to cool. Then the jackal, who had made his burrow in the vicinity as soon as the nest had been established, attempted to play off his old, well known, but often effective trick. This consists in stealing up to the nest in an unguarded moment, pawing out one of the eggs to the top of the circular mound by which they are surrounded, and then b.u.t.ting it with his nose hard down oft the others. If the contents of an egg thus broken were fresh, the jackal would lap it up; if the chicken should already have been formed, so much the better for the thief.

These birds did not interest me that day; they and their nest formed a domestic menage which should not be interfered with,--except of course, by jackals and their confederates, the blackguardly white crows that carry small, heavy stones high into the air, and drop them on the eggs.

An ostrich nursery in the desert requires much careful management and must be a source of constant anxiety.

I will not say that I had begun to regret my adventure; nevertheless the sunshine had waxed fiercely hot. My head was still within the small and decreasing patch of shadow cast by the taaibosch, but my back--and more especially my shoulders--suffered badly. I wished Hendrick would hurry.

That game; was afoot was almost certain; otherwise he would long since have appeared. My trusty scout evidently had seen the advisability of making a detour wider than the one originally proposed. He was no doubt exercising every wile of his comprehensive veld-craft towards getting me a shot. His work was more arduous than mine; nevertheless I wished I could have changed places with him if only for a few minutes.

When I realised that my back was getting really overdone I turned over and exposed in turn each side, and eventually the front of my body, to the sun. Then I felt overdone all round. Moreover the vestige of shadow in which my head cowered--that cast by the spa.r.s.e top of the taaibosch, through which the sunlight leaked freely--grew more and more scanty. Oh! I breathed, for a return of that blessed coolness of morning which my frame, softened by years of a semi-sedentary life, had been unable to sustain without discomfort. Oh! for the gentle, healing hand of the dew, which I so ungratefully contemned. If these desert plants can feel and think, how they must long for the night,--for the miracle of cool moisture which, perhaps, a beneficent planet distils in some grove-garden of the asteroids and seals up in the crystal vats of some celestial tavern known only to its sister spheres and the moon.

Surely there is some hostel of mercy in whose cool cellars the precious vintage lies hidden from the rapacity of the cruel sun,--held in readiness to be poured out from the etherial beakers of the firmament on the tortured tongues of the leaves and gra.s.s-blades, when the tyrant of the skies departs for a season.

My physical condition had become acutely serious on account of the increasing heat and the more nearly vertical vantage of the sun's arrows. The actual, immediate pain was bad enough,--but how about consequences. Saint Lawrence no doubt ascended to Paradise from his gridiron, but I should have to toil on foot over miles of desert after arising from mine. Even if I thereafter soaked myself in olive oil, days of blistered misery might have been in store for me. Oh! for a cloud or for Hendrick. If he only had arrived within sight I might have vacated my couch of anguish without forfeiting his respect or my own.

The loss of expected sport became unimportant. Ostrich shooting in the desert from a scherm was far more than my fancy had painted it.

Hist! What was that? It was not a sound; hardly was it a tremor. It was rather a thrill not perceptible to any one sense; something apprehended by the nameless perceptions of the noumenon-area lying deep beneath the phenomena of sensation. I risked sunstroke by discarding my hat; then I slowly lifted my head until I could look over the edge of the scherm. At what I saw misery hid her face; mind once more a.s.sumed command of body.

The plain to the south-west was dotted with moving ostriches. Singly, in twos, in threes, in tens--they were speeding north-eastward over the desert; some on my right, some to the left. Ever and anon one or other of the groups halted and its members stood at gaze. The ostrich cannot keep on the move continuously for any length of time on a hot day. If forced to attempt doing so, death from heat-apoplexy would inevitably result. One troop, far in advance of all the others, seemed to be approaching me, but it swerved and pa.s.sed to the left. It contained eleven birds, most of them young and immature; a few were full-grown hens and one was a very large c.o.c.k bird. However, his plumes were sand-stained, so it is evident he had been dislodged from a nest.

Far and near there must have been nearly a hundred birds in sight. No doubt some favourite food was plentiful in the vicinity from which they had been stampeded; possibly a swarm of locusts might have there hatched out. Now the birds were beginning to scud past between me and the camp, as though following a trail known to them. But they were too far off to fire at. Could it be that after all I was not to have a shot.

Another troop swerved to a course calculated to bring them fairly close to the scherm; there were eight birds in it. They paused and stood at gaze for a short interval, about a mile away. Then they resumed their flight along a course which would, if they held it, bring them to within less than three hundred yards of me, on my right.

On they pressed with even, steady stride. Two were young but full-grown c.o.c.ks with snow-white, sumptuous plumes. Cautiously I laid my rifle over the edge of the scherm and adjusted the sight to two hundred yards.

The steel barrel scorched my fingers. Would the birds stand,--that was the question of importance. A running shot is always uncertain.

They halted when some two hundred and fifty yards away. Of the two gallant c.o.c.ks one was manifestly superior; my bead was on him. I pulled the trigger; there was a tremendous report and the recoil nearly stunned me. My shot had missed. The birds sped away, at right angles to their original course. They became confused and ran hither and thither, for the near whiz of the bullet had alarmed them nearly as much as the distant detonation. But soon the bird I had fired at was speeding straight away from me. Within ten seconds I fired again, and he fell.

The explanation of my having missed the first and easier shot is simple: I had foolishly allowed the cartridge to lie for a long time in the sun-heated chamber of the rifle; consequently the powder (one of the then new, smokeless varieties) had become too energetic. There was no violent recoil from the second shot.

I sprang from the scherm and ran to my quarry. There he lay, breast downward, his long neck bent and his head concealed under the black, bulky body. The wings were expanded, with the snowy plumes outspread, fanlike, on each side. The bird was stone dead, for the bullet struck the base of the spinal column and shattered it throughout the whole length. No swifter death could have been devised.

Carefully, one by one, I plucked out the lovely plumes. They were surely the fairest and purest ornaments ever devised by that influence which men, when the world was young, personified and worshipped as the G.o.ddess of Love,--the n.o.blest concrete expression of that principle which strives to draw s.e.x relations to the higher planes of beauty. And here had I, a decadent human, typical of a neuropathic age, destroyed this exquisite embodied achievement for the purpose of reversing Nature's plan. For I should transfer to the female, to my own woman-kind, adornments developed naturally on the male for the enhancement of his own proper beauty. The female ostrich, in her robe of tender, greyish brown, is attractive enough to her prospective mate without artificial aid. Were she to hang a wisp of human hair about her graceful, undulating neck, she would rightly be regarded as a freak.

Schopenhauer was right,--among human beings as among other animals the male is essentially more beautiful than the female; it is the s.e.x-disturbance which confuses our canons. If it were otherwise women would not find it necessary to ransack mineral, vegetable and animal nature for the purpose of enhancing their attractiveness.

My plucking came to an end. The long, foamy whites,--the short, glossy blacks whose hue was deeper than that of the raven's wing,--were tied into bundles with twine from my compendious haversack. There lay the huddled, ruined, mangled body; there grinned the already dry and blackened blood-clot defacing the desert's visage. Rifled of its garment of harmonious and appropriate beauty, smitten and smashed into an object of grisly horror,--this piteous sacrifice to woman's callous vanity and the heartless cruelty of her mate seemed to make the wilderness as foul as the altar of Cain.

With an effort I pa.s.sed from the stand-point of a somewhat inconsequent and inconsistent Jekyll to that of a primeval Hyde. From my flask, the contents of which had been carefully preserved intact up to the present, I poured out a libation to the manes of the departed ostrich. Might his freed spirit find refuge in some Elysian wilderness unvexed of prowlers who call chemistry and machinery to the aid of their own physical deficiencies, and slay because slaughter stimulates their debilitated pulses.