The Fire Trumpet Part 15

"Now then, Jolwane," said Jim, addressing one of them, who, from his age and standing, had const.i.tuted himself, or been const.i.tuted, head of his countrymen there a.s.sembled, "we'll sweep down this bush first,"

indicating the long deep kloof which sloped away in front of them.

"Send half your fellows on the other side and I'll take my dogs and beat this. We'll take it straight down."

"Ewa 'nkos," (yes, chief), replied the Kafir, and he straightway issued directions to his followers, involving much discussion and voluminous explanation.

"Now then--confound it all, are you fellows going to stand jawing all day?" said Jim, testily. "Off you go," and the Kafirs gathering up their kerries--a few of them carried a.s.segais as well--moved off in twos and threes, still chattering volubly. "Jeffreys," he went on, "take Arthur where he'll get a shot; better go on to that open place yonder, that'll be exactly where I shall be driving down, and a buck always runs out there. Naylor, you put Allen up somewhere, better go the other side. The rest of you can _voerlay_ [lie in wait] anywhere down in the bottom. Thorman, you know the place as well as I do, so can go where you like."

"Ik zal mit you ryd, ou kerel," (I shall ride with you, old fellow), said Isaac van Rooyen. "The younger ones want all the shots."

"All right, Oom Isaac," replied Jim. "Now then, look sharp and get to your places, and we'll begin."

All move off as directed, making a detour to get well round the tract to be driven, so as not to alarm the quarry; and at length, now cantering, now scrambling down some awfully steep and stony bit of ground, they reach a tolerably open s.p.a.ce about one thousand yards from where they started. Here they leave the horses, and, descending the steep hillside, they separate. A cordon of shooters is thus formed across the valley, each man ensconcing himself in some snug ambush, where he lies in wait with piece c.o.c.ked and ready, silent and alert, waiting for the quarry to break cover.

And now the whole ravine echoes with loud and discordant voices, the yelling of the native curs in full cry mingles with the deeper bay of the larger dogs; and the shouts of the Kafirs and the crashing of the underwood as they force their way through it, beating to right and to left with their sticks, draw nearer and nearer. Bang! The report of a gun in the thick of the scrub is answered by a terrific yell from the dogs, who rush to the spot. A buck has got up in front of Jim, who, with the Dutchman, is riding through the bush, hounding on his pack.

The path here is fairly open, consequently the animal has not gone many yards before it falls in a heap, for an unerring eye is behind the barrels that covered it.

"Got him," says Jim, putting a fresh cartridge into his smoking barrel.

"Bring him on, some of you fellows, I must go on driving;" and the Kafirs, beating the dogs off the fallen animal, perform in a trice the necessary preliminaries, while a loud exultant whoop, from one to the other of them, tells that blood has been drawn.

"Look out, Allen," says Naylor, in a quick warning whisper, "there's something coming out by you." They were about a dozen yards apart, Allen being of the two far the better placed, as his range commanded a large open s.p.a.ce, a clear sixty yards beneath him, across which something was almost sure to run, while Naylor's only covered a higher bit of ground where a snap shot was all he could hope for; but like a good-natured fellow he had placed the other in the better position.

Allen starts, rigidly grips his gun in his excitement, and eyes the brake in front of him. The crashing of the underwood draws nearer and nearer, and a large bushbuck ram breaks cover. As it does so it catches sight of Naylor half hidden behind a tree, shears off at a tangent, and comes charging down nearly on the top of Allen, whose heart is in his mouth, and he wildly bangs away with both barrels point-blank, as the animal bounds past him within a yard, missing it clean. In a moment it will have reached covert, the dread open safely crossed, when--Crack!

the buck rolls over and over with three or four loopers from Naylor's shot barrel fairly in his carcase. But "many a slip"--he recovers himself, leaps up and bounds away into the bush.

"He's hard hit," says his slayer, running to the spot; "it was a devil of a long shot, though. Look what a lot of blood he's dropped! We'll put the dogs on him directly. He's a gone c.o.o.n, anyhow."

"I can't make out how I managed to miss him," is Allen's doleful remark.

He is terribly mortified, poor fellow.

"You didn't get a fair shot at him. I thought he was going clean over you. Never mind, you'll get a better chance soon," says good-natured Naylor. He thought the other rather a m.u.f.f, but was too good a fellow to say so.

Bang! Bang!

Who is in luck's way now? Bang, bang! again. A couple of bucks have dodged the ambushed shooters, and are making off along the high ground outside the line, making for the adjacent kloof, and Armitage and the younger Dutchman, who are nearest to them, are having rifle practice at long range. Four hundred yards--then the sights are altered to five.

Bang! bang! the animals still keep on, though the last shot has thrown up a cloud of dust perilously near the hinder one. Then the six hundred yards is reached. Another minute and they will be over the hill and safe, at any rate for the present, when a ball from young Van Booyen's rifle strikes the hindermost, which halts in mid course with a spring and a shudder, and rolls over, dead as a door-nail.

"Well done, Piet. By George, that was a good shot!" exclaimed the unsuccessful compet.i.tor.

"_Ja, kerel_," replied the Dutchman, with a complacent grin, as he fished out his tobacco-pouch.

Claverton is standing where he and Jeffreys had been directed to. He has refused to avail himself of his privilege of guest and to take the best place, so they have split the difference by standing near each other. It is a fine open bit which promises two or three shots at least, for whatever comes out on that side of the kloof is bound to break cover there. At last Jeffreys gets tired of waiting; he is of opinion that everything has run across, and all the fun is on the other side, so he makes for his horse and announces his intention of waiting up above for Jim. Claverton however, remains. He is standing under a mimosa tree and is partly sheltered from view by a large stone, and has a beautiful clear s.p.a.ce for at least eighty yards on either side of him.

Haow!--ow--ow! The shouts of the Kafirs come nearer and nearer, and the loud-mouthed chorus of the dogs in one incessant clamour which is never suffered to die, so quickly is it taken up by fresh throats, rings from the steep hillsides as the rout sweeps down the kloof. A gentle rustling approaches, and a graceful animal bounds into the open, and its ambushed foe can mark the glint of its soft eye and the shiny points of its straight horns. It is a young bushbuck ram, and as it crosses the open Claverton waits till it has just pa.s.sed him and fires. It is scarcely twenty-five yards from him, yet it is unharmed, and disappears in the opposite cover with a rush and a bound.

Claverton shakes his head and whistles softly. "_What_ a shot!" he says. Then he looks up and catches sight of Will Jeffreys watching him with a sneering smile upon his face, and the sight angers him for a moment.

"Look out--look out, Arthur," sounds Jim's voice close at hand.

"There's a buck coming out, right at you."

He starts, throws open the breech of his gun, but the cartridge jams half-way, and will neither come out nor go in again, and at that moment another antelope breaks cover and crosses the open, if anything rather nearer than the first. It is a female and hornless, and its dappled skin gleams in the sun like gold as it bounds along. Immediately afterwards Jim emerges from the bush.

"How is it you didn't shoot?" he asks, wonderingly, reining in his horse. "Why, the buck ran right over you."

"Look at that!" showing the state of the defaulting piece, in which the cartridge was yet jammed.

"Oh! What a nuisance! And didn't you get the first one?"

"No. Missed him clean. You see, Jim, you build all your bucks eighteen inches or so too short hereabouts."

Jim laughed. Jeffreys, who had also come up, did likewise, but sneeringly. "Well, you've had the two best shots of the day," said the former.

"My dear fellow, I'm aware of the fact. Spare my blushes," answered Claverton, nonchalantly.

And now dogs and beaters straggle out of the bash, the latter vehemently discussing the ins and outs of the recent undertaking. Kafirs are inveterate chatterboxes, and when a number of them get together the amount of promiscuous "jaw" that goes on is well-nigh incredible--and the shooters a.s.semble, preparatory to making a fresh start.

"How many came out?" says Jim. "Let's see--two went up above, one of them we got--two pa.s.sed Claverton--one I got inside, and one went out by Naylor--six. Not bad for the first draw. How is it Naylor didn't get his?"

"He did," said the voice of that maligned person at his elbow. "Just bring some of the dogs up--there's a blood spoor as wide as a footpath.

It's a thundering big old ram, too."

They put the dogs on the track and followed as quickly as they could, for the bush was thick, but before they had gone far an awful clamour and a frenzied scream told that the quarry had been found. The bushbuck is the largest of the smaller antelopes, the male standing higher than a large goat. When wounded and brought to bay he is apt to prove dangerous, as his long, nearly straight horns, from twelve to fifteen inches in length, can inflict an ugly enough wound. This one was striking right and left with his horns as they came up, but being weakened by loss of blood was soon pulled down, though not before he had scored the sides of a couple of his canine foes with a nasty gash.

"By Jove, that is a fine fellow," said Jim, as he surveyed the brown-grey hide with its white specks, and measured the long, pointed horns. "Who hit him first?"

"I didn't hit him at all," said Allen, somewhat ruefully.

"Never mind. We've got him, anyhow. Let's get on again."

On the ridge, overlooking the next large kloof which is to be driven, Hicks joins them. He isn't best pleased, isn't Hicks, for the simple reason that he has seen nothing to empty his piece at, which to his destructive mind is a very real grievance indeed. It is quite likely that, had he seen anything, the animal or animals in question would have pa.s.sed him unscathed, albeit rather startled by a double detonation; but he has not had the chance, and meanwhile is dissatisfied, wherefore he makes up his mind to strike out a line for himself. Again the bush is alive with the sinuous red forms of the Kafirs, and the dogs thread through the underwood, giving tongue and rushing hither and thither as they strike upon a pa.s.sing scent, and the shooters ride off to _voerlay_ at their various posts, but Hicks quietly slips away from them all and makes for a point far below, where the kloof merges into a number of others. It is a narrow defile, overhung with _krantzes_ on either side; forest trees twined with monkey creepers rise apace, and beneath their shadow, in the gloom of the thick scrub, a tiny stream trickles along.

Whatever leaves the kloof will pa.s.s this way, and our friend knows that he is likely to get several shots in the ordinary course of things.

He conceals his horse, fastening him up among the bushes, then, with piece all ready, he takes up his position in a cunning ambush, and waits for whatever may appear. At present all is still as death, except where the whistle of a spreuw sounds from the overhanging cliffs; but the sunbeams are focussed into the hollow as through a burning-gla.s.s, and the distant shouting of the beaters, and an occasional shot, now and again breaks the silence. Nothing moves in gra.s.s or brake, and at last Hicks begins to wax impatient.

"Whew! how hot it is!" he exclaims, taking off his hat to wipe his forehead. "They'll be a long while yet. I'll have a drink so long."

He finds out a place where the stream runs through a deep, limpid basin, and lying flat on the ground, takes a long and refreshing pull at the cool water. Then he rises, and something on the ground catches his eye.

"By Jove! Wild pig, I do believe;" and he examines the furrows and ruts in the gra.s.s, which has been rooted up by the tusks of something, and not long ago either. "Wild pig or baboons? No, it's pig all right; there are two distinct spoors. If only I could get quietly among them."

By this time he has worked his way through the bush about a dozen yards, following up the spoors, and finding fresh "sign" at every step. "If only I could get in among them," he repeats, bending over the traces.

His wish is gratified. A fierce grunt right at his elbow makes him look up, startled by its unexpected proximity; and within six paces, half out of a bush, are the head and shoulders of a huge old boar, who, with every hair of his dirty red-brown hide erect and bristling, and his wicked little eyes scintillating, stands fearlessly confronting the intruder, while on each side of his hideous snout his great white tusks are champing and churning in an unpleasantly suggestive manner.

Hicks just has time to bring his gun to his shoulder; but the suddenness of the encounter has a trifle thrown him off his equilibrium, and as he discharges his piece, point-blank, instead of rolling the animal over, the ball--for he has fired with his rifled barrel--merely scores its flank, and with a scream of fury it comes at him. Dropping his gun he swings himself into the branches of a small tree under which he is standing, as the ferocious brute rushes by, snapping viciously at empty air, which within a fraction of a second ago was occupied by our friend's legs.

Hicks draws a long breath of relief. "Sold again, old _Baas_," he says, derisively, contemplating the infuriated boar, who is running backwards and forwards beneath the tree, the blood flowing freely from his wounded flank. "Only stay there a little longer, and I'll use your tusks for a hat-peg yet."