Tales from the Veld Part 22

"No sir! But this yer dog'll eat your goat, and I give you fair warning!" said Si, stirring the big mongrel with his toe.

Abe looked round, gave me a wink, and went out.

When he reappeared he was leading one of the biggest goats--a great blue "Kapater," with a long beard, ma.s.sive horns, and a boss of leather and bra.s.s over his forehead.

"Well I'm jiggered!" said one member, getting behind the table.

Someone--I don't know who the rash individual was--said "psa," and the big mongrel stood up, showing his teeth and growling in his throat.

Abe smiled sadly, let go his hold of the goat, pinched his ear, and then the great rout of the Poison Club began. The goat walked briskly up to the dog, reared up, brought his head down, and sent the mongrel smash under the table, where he remained whimpering; then in a brace, at a whistle from his master, the unnatural billy cleared the shed with the effectiveness of a battering ram. At the outset the strong man of the country tried to seize him by the horns, but he evaded the grasp and shot his ma.s.sive enemy over a form; and when the others fled, he b.u.t.ted them from behind so that each man flew out headlong, helping to swell the struggling pile at the doorway. After this feat he amused himself by reducing the table and chairs to splinters, then he came to the door and stood scratching his ear with his left hind foot, while chewing the remains of the minute book.

"Fetch me a gun," yelled Si Amos, with his hand pressed to his waistcoat.

"What will you take for that thunderstorm, Abe?" asked Mr Hockey, tenderly feeling his elbow.

"You don't want to buy him so's you can shoot him?"

"No; I want him as a watch dog."

"Well, seeing's how it's you, you can have him for a pair of blankets and a bag of meal."

"It's a swap, Abe. What do you call him?"

"I calls him 'Peaceful William.' I s'pose the club admits it's lost the bet; 'cos, if not, William will purceed to further business."

"The bet's yours, Abe. Take the money, for Heaven's sake!"

"All right, then; I'll kraal the goat for you."

The goat was penned up, and Abe loaded his meal on to his horse and went off.

The club watched the old man out of sight, each member absently rubbing himself, and all of them remarkably silent.

"Oh!--'ell," said someone, in a tone of unmistakable dismay.

We all, as one man, faced round to the kraal, and then we simultaneously skurried up to the barn roof. From this position of safety we saw Peaceful William, in a shower of dust, carefully demolish the walls of the pen and the poles that supported the thatched roof, and we fearfully gazed down upon him as he walked steadily round and round the barn, stopping at intervals to rear against the wall, to eye us threateningly.

I don't know when he left, but he was not there next morning, when, at the break of day, Abe's voice greeted us.

"I thought I'd tell you Peaceful Billy is at my place; and he's there when you care to fetch him. Fine sunrise, ain't it? Nice place to see it from. Nature's better than pizen if you take her early."

There was a strange gurgling sound of suppressed laughter.

"I say!" It was Abe again.

"Well?"

"Goat fat 's mighty good for bruises! So long!"

"Darn you and your goat!" growled the chairman. "Boys, I vote we descend to business."

We descended, and while we ate our breakfast the women of the house giggled till they almost choked.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

A KAFFIR'S PLAY.

The red Kaffir is a man with a good deal of character, which he does his best to destroy. The pure kraal Kaffir, who lounges negligently in his red blanket or squats on his loins by the fire at night, telling interminable stories about nothing in particular, has many points which mark him from the "town boy"--the spoiled child of civilisation, who treads tenderly in his hard "Blucher" boots, and covers his corduroy trousers with bright patches of other material; who has to support his weary frame against every pillar and post and corner he comes across, and who is generally shiftless, saucy, and squalid.

The kraal Kaffir is lean, long, and tough, dignified in his movements, courteous to his friends, given over to long spells of silence broken by fits of noisy eloquence, his sullen, solemn face seldom lit up by a smile, and his black smoke-stained eyes smouldering always with an unquenchable fire, that flames out when he meets a Fingo on the highway, or when the fire-water runs through his veins at the beer-drinking.

The red Kaffir is a warrior. He is also a lawyer. I am not certain whether he most prefers to settle a dispute by argument or by the kerrie, but I think his idea of greatest happiness would be a long disputation extending over a week, to be rounded off with the clashing of kerries. Some people, who have seen the wide smile on the face of a West Coast negro, accept that all-pervading grin as the main feature of the entire black race, and argue from it that all blacks are good-tempered children, p.r.o.ne to every impulse. That is not true of the Kaffir. He is of the Bantu stock, which includes the Zulu and the Basuto, whose chief sentiment is stern pride of race, whose ruling expression is one of sullen reserve, and whose national impulse is to fight. They were cradled somewhere in the valley of the Nile, the hot nursery of fierce races; their remote ancestors swept South, destroying as they went, and the southernest fringe are Amaxosa of the Cape frontier, the men who have waged five separate wars with the red-coats of England and the sure-shooting border settlers. Pringle has, in these lines, given a vivid picture of the Kaffir:

"Lo! where the fierce Kaffir Crouches by the kloof's dark side, Watching the settlers' flocks afar-- Impatient waiting till the evening star Guides him to his prey."

Under the fierce ordeal of war the Kaffir thrived. His limbs were free and straight, his step springy, his eyes far-seeing, his nostrils could sniff the taint in the air, his deep melodious voice could boom the war-cry or the message across the wide valleys. As a man of peace he looks squalid in his broken clothes; he moves stiffly in his boots; he sings hymns in a queer, high note, with great melancholy but little meaning; goes reeling home from dirty canteens, and is a hopelessly casual labourer. He is the victim of civilisation, of strange laws, and in the confusion of many counsellors his only hope is the goal which has been offered to the already civilised labourer of a more favoured race-- three acres and several cows, with a t.i.tle of his own. There lies his salvation. If he could get his t.i.tle to a plot of land sufficient for his wants, he may retain some of those characteristics which made conquerors of his warrior ancestors, if not he will go under in the struggle in a pair of uncomfortable boots, with a bottle of brandy in his hands, and strange oaths of civilised man on his lips.

"Yes," said Abe; "the Kaffir can use two things better'n a white man, easy--his tongue and his stick. I seed a Kaffir onct get the better of a fencing master.

"I were sitting in the schoolyard, away up in town, where a sergeant from the barracks were showing the big boys how to use a singlestick.

There were a Kaffir, leaning his chin on the top of the gate, looking on, with no more life in his face than a chip of mahogany.

"Bymby the sergeant he spotted the Kaffir, and he sed, sed he, 'Now, you boys; I'll jes' show you what singlestick play is,' and he called to the Kaffir to come in.

"Well, the black feller, he came in--very slow, pulling his blanket up to his chin, and looking like a young horse all ready to bolt in a minnit. The end of his long kerrie peeped out below his blanket, and the sergeant touched it with his ash stick, then stood on guard.

"'You keep your eye on my wrist-play, boys,' sed the sergeant, swellin'

out his chest till the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons nearly popped off. 'You keep your eye on me,' he sed, 'and you'll see how I get over his guard every time.'

"The Kaffir he jes' stood there, looking solum, and the sergeant poked him in the stomjack.

"'Yinnie!' sed the Kaffir, backing off an' snappin' fire from his eyes.

You see he didn't know what the sergeant were about, and though he wern't fool enough to strike a _rooibaaitje_ in the town, his dander got up at that poke.

"'Do you want to fight this chap?' sed I.

"'I want to show these boys what real wrist-play is,' sed the sergeant, making an under-cut with his stick; 'and this Kaffir will do well as a block. Tell him to put up his kerrie.'

"I jes' tole the Kaffir, and had a quiet larf. To think of anyone bein'

sich a simple ijiot as to play at sticks with a Kaffir. I tole the 'boy,' and he said, 'Yoh!' in surprise. Then a sort of smile flickered about his mouth, and his black eyes began to shine. He let slip the blanket offen his shoulders, and caught it on his left arm. Then he took his kerrie by the end, and held it out the full length of his arm, with his head forrard and his toes apart, and back so that he leant forward. You know the fighting kerrie, about five feet long, and tough as steel.

"The sergeant--he smiled--threw forrard his right foot, balanced hisself on his left, crooked his elbow, and pointed his stick slanting.

"'You see, boys,' he sed; 'you must stand naturally, with your body nicely balanced, ready to advance or retreat. Look at me, and look at the Kaffir,' he said. 'He stands on his toes, and if he lost his balance he would fall on his face. Watch me get over his guard.'

"'Ready!' he sed, and they begun.

"Well the boys watched, I tell you. There were a grunting, a clatter and a whirlwind of sticks--outer which whizzed chips of ash and bits of the basket-hilt. They didn't see nuffing of the sergeant's wrist-play, I tell you. No, sir, all they seed was that whirling of sticks like the spokes of a wheel, and bymby outer the dust come the sergeant.