The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley Part 4

Gerard answered that they would rather walk; and, indeed, such locomotion was infinitely preferable to the slow rumbling roll of the waggon, crawling along at just under three miles per hour. And the night was fine indeed. The air was deliciously cool, the dim outline of the rolling downs was just visible in the light of the myriad shining stars which spangled the heavens in all the lavish brilliance of their tropical beauty. Here and there a gra.s.s fire glowed redly in the distance. Now and again the weird cry of some strange bird or beast arose from the surrounding _veldt_, and this, with the creaking ramble of the waggon, the deep ba.s.s of the native voices, chatting in their own tongue, made our two English lads realise that they were indeed in Africa at last. There was a glorious sense of freedom and exhilaration in the very novelty of the surroundings.

"Well, this is awfully jolly!" p.r.o.nounced Gerard, looking round.

"Eh! Think so, do you?" said John Dawes. "How would you like to be a transport-rider yourself?"

"I believe I'd like nothing better," came the prompt reply. "It must be the jolliest, healthiest life in the world."

"So?" said the other, with a dry chuckle. "Especially when it's been raining for three days, and the road is one big mudhole, when your waggon's stuck wheel-deep, and no sooner do you dig it out than in goes another wheel. Why, I've been stuck that way, coming over the Berg"-- the speaker meant the Drakensberg--"and haven't made a dozen miles in a fortnight. And cold, too! Why, for a week at a time I've not known what it was to have a dry st.i.tch on me, and the rain wouldn't allow you to light a fire. Jolly healthy life that, eh?"

"Cold!" broke from both the listeners, in astonishment. "Is it ever cold here?"

"Isn't it? You just wait till you get away from this steaming old sponge of a coast belt. Why, you get snow on the Berg, yards deep.

I've known fellows lose three full spans of oxen at a time, through an unexpected fall of snow. Well, that's one of the sides of transport-riding. Another is when there hasn't been rain for months, and the _veldt's_ as bare as the skull of a bald-headed man. Then you may crawl along, choking with dust, mile after mile, day after day, the road strewn like a paper-chase, with the bones of oxen which have dropped in the yoke or been turned adrift to die, too weak to go any further--and every water-hole you come to nothing but a beastly mess of pea-soup mud, lucky even if there isn't a dead dog in the middle of it.

My word for it, you get sick of the endless blue of the sky and the red-brown of the _veldt_, of the poor devils of oxen, staggering along with their tongues out--walking skeletons--creeping their six miles a day, and sometimes not that. You get sick of your own very life itself."

"That's another side to the picture with a vengeance," said Harry.

"Rather. Don't you jump away with the idea that the life of a transport-rider, or any other life in this blessed country, is all plum-jam; because, if so, you'll tumble into the most lively kind of mistake."

Thus chatting, they travelled on; and, at length, after the regulation four hours' _trek_, by which time it was nearly midnight, Dawes gave orders to outspan.

The waggon was drawn just off the road, and the oxen, released from their yokes, were turned loose for a short graze, preparatory to being tied to the trek-chain for the night. Then, while the "leader" was despatched to fill a bucket from the adjacent water-hole, Dawes produced from a locker some bread and cold meat.

"Dare say you'll be glad of some supper," he said. "It's roughish feed for you, maybe; but it's rougher still when there's none. Fall to."

They did so, with a will. Even Harry Maitland, who had started with an inclination to turn up his nose at such dry provender, was astonished to find how cold salt beef and rather stale bread could taste, when eaten with an appet.i.te born of four hours' night travel.

"Now, you'd better turn in," said the transport-rider, when they had finished. "You'll get about four hours' clear snooze. We inspan at daybreak, and trek on till about ten or eleven. Then we lie-by till three or four in the afternoon, or maybe longer, and trek the best part of the night. It depends a good deal on the sort of day it is."

A small portion of the back of the waggon was covered by a tilt; this const.i.tuted the cabin of this ship of the _veldt_. It contained lockers and bags to hold the larder supplies, and a _kartel_ or framework of raw-hide thongs, stretched from side to side, supported a mattress and blankets. This Dawes had given up to his two pa.s.sengers, he himself turning in upon the ground.

Hardly had the heads of our two friends touched the pillow than they were sound asleep, and hardly were they asleep--at least, so it seemed to them--than they were rudely awakened. Their first confused impression was that they were aboard the _Amatikulu_ again in a gale of wind. The heaving and swaying motion which seemed half to fling them from their bed, with every now and again a sickening jolt, the close, hot atmosphere, the harsh yells, and the ramble, exactly bore out this idea. Then Gerard sat upright with a start. It was broad daylight.

"Hallo!" quoth Dawes, putting his head into the waggon-tent. "Had a good sleep? We've been on trek about half an hour. I didn't see the use in waking you, but there's a roughish bit of road just here. I expect the stones shook you awake--eh?"

"Rather. Oh-h!" groaned Harry, whom at that moment a violent jerk banged against the side of the waggon. "Let's get out of this, though.

It's awful!"

"Hold on a minute. We are just going through a drift."

They looked out. The road sloped steeply down to the edge of a small river which swept purling between reed-fringed banks. The foremost oxen were already in the water. There was a little extra yelling and whip-cracking, and the great vehicle rolled ponderously through, and began toilsomely to mount the steep ascent on the other side. Gerard's glance looked longingly at the water.

"Better wait till we outspan," said Dawes, reading this. "We can't stop now, and by the time you overtook us you'd be so f.a.gged and hot you'd get no good at all out of your swim."

The sun was hardly an hour high, and already it was more than warm. The sky was an unbroken and dazzling blue, and on every side lay the roll of the open _veldt_ in a shimmer of heat, with here and there a farmhouse standing amid a cl.u.s.ter of blue gum-trees. The road seemed to be making a gradual ascent. Our two friends felt little inclined for walking now, for the beat of the morning, combined with short allowance of sleep during the past two nights, was beginning to tell.

"Jump up here, now," said Dawes, flinging a couple of rugs on top of the load of goods. "Sun or no sun, you'll be better off than in the tent.

Canvas, with the sun on it, is almost as baking as corrugated iron.

Hold hard. Wait till she stops," he warned, having given orders to that effect. "Old stagers, like me, can jump on and off while trekking along, but you'd get under the wheels--sure--and then what'd Kingsland say?"

"You see," he went on, when they were safely and comfortably on their perch, "in getting up and down by the disselboom you have to be fairly smart. You just get inside the fore wheel and walk along with the machine, and jump quietly up. Getting down's the worst, because, if you hit the disselboom or slip on it, ten to one you get shot off bang in front of the wheel, and then nothing on earth'll save you, for you can't stop one of these waggons under fifty yards, sometimes not even then."

"By Jove! Do many fellows come to grief that way?" asked Gerard.

"Heaps. You can hardly take up a paper anywhere without seeing a paragraph headed 'The Disselboom again.' But generally it's when fellows are rather full up--taken a drop too much--you understand. Not always, of course. And when you think of the weight these waggons carry--this one's loaded close on eleven thousand pounds, now--No, you've no show at all."

Then at the morning's outspan Gerard, always observant, and now keenly thirsting for experience, noted every detail--how there was a regular routine even in this apparently happy-go-lucky species of travel; how when the oxen were turned out to graze, the "driver" set to work to build the fire, while the "leader" took the bucket and went away to fetch water from the nearest stream or water-hole; how the natives received their daily ration of Indian corn meal, subsequently to be made into a thick stir-about and eaten piping hot from the three-legged pot in which it was cooked. He noted, too, with considerable satisfaction, how Dawes produced from a locker a goodly supply of raw mutton-chops, which were set to frizzle on the fire against the time they should have returned from their swim, which with the remainder of last night's loaf and a steaming kettle of strong black coffee, made up the most succulent breakfast he thought he had ever eaten in his life, so thorough an appetiser is open air, and novelty, and travel. And then, after a long lie-by and a nap in the heat of the day, he begged to be allowed to bear a hand in the process of inspanning, and felt as proud as Punch when he found himself holding a couple of _reims_, at the end of which were as many big black oxen, even though he had but a confused idea as to what he should do with them. Still, he was doing something, and that was what he wanted to realise.

And then, again, when they were on the move, he induced Dawes to initiate him into the mysteries of waggon-driving. These, as that worthy explained, did not consist, as many stupid Kafirs and some stupider white men seemed to think, in running alongside of the span and flourishing the whip, and frantically yelling and slashing away indiscriminately. A good driver, with an average well-broken span, need hardly yell inordinately, or use the whip at all. Each ox would instinctively start forward at the sound of its own name, and if it grew slack or negligent a touch with the _voerslag_ [the cutting, tapering end of the lash.] was sufficient. A clever driver could put his _voerslag_ as deftly and surely as a trout-fisher could his fly--at least, as to the latter, so he had heard, added Dawes; for he had never been in England himself--and, of course, had never seen trout fishing.

But Gerard, who was a very fair fly-fisher, saw the point at once, and soon came to handle the whip in such fashion as to show promise of eventually becoming as proficient as Dawes himself. True, he managed to clip himself over the ear two or three times; but then every beginner is bound to do this, so he didn't mind. On Harry, however, such reverses produced a different effect. He gave up the whole thing in disgust, and voted waggon-driving a beastly difficult thing and not at all in his line. Wherein, again, the diversity of their respective characters came out.

Now and again they would pa.s.s other waggons on the road, either in motion or outspanned, or would pa.s.s through a small township, where John Dawes would drop behind for half an hour for a gla.s.s of grog with a few of his fellow-craftsmen and a chat at the hotel bar. These would always extend a frank hand and a hearty greeting to the two young strangers; for, however rough externally it may occasionally be, the bearing of the South African colonist towards the newly arrived "Britisher," especially if the latter be young and inexperienced, is, as a rule, all that is kindly and good-natured. But it was the time of the evening outspan that these two would enjoy most heartily. Then it was that with the darkness, and the wide and to them still mysterious _veldt_ stretching around, with the stars burning bright and clear in the dusky vault above, and the red glow of the camp-fire shedding a circle of light which intensified the surrounding gloom--then it was that they realised that they were indeed "camping out," and no make-believe. And John Dawes, with his pipe in full blast, made a first-rate camp-fire companion, for his experiences in his own line had been large and chequered. He knew every inch of the country for hundreds of miles. He had been away to the north, past Swaziland, and had tried his luck on the new gold-fields in the Zoutpansberg. He had made a couple of trading trips in the Zulu country, and knew many of the Zulu chiefs and _indunas_. Many a tale and strange incident would he narrate in his own dry fashion--of flooded rivers and the perils of the road; of whole spans of oxen laid low in the yoke by one stroke of lightning, or of a comrade struck down at his side in the same way; of lively ructions with surly Boers and their retainers, when the latter strove to interfere with their right of outspan; of critical situations arising out of the craft and greed of native chieftains, while practically in the power of lawless and turbulent bands of savages during trading operations--and to these our two wayfarers listened with the most unfeigned delight.

But from Pinetown to Pietermaritzburg is no great distance even for a bullock-waggon, and on the afternoon of the second day they came in sight of the capital, an area of blue gums and straggling iron roofs, lying in a vast hollow. Both were unfeignedly sorry that the journey was over. They felt like being cast adrift again, and said as much to their new friend as they took a right cordial leave of him.

"Well, I've been very glad to have you," said the latter. "Been sort of company like. What do you think you're likely to be doing with yourselves now you are here, if I may ask?"

"I want first of all to find out a relative of mine," said Gerard.

"I've a letter to him. Anstey, his name is. Do you know him?"

A queer smile came into the transport-rider's face at the name.

"Anstey, is it?" he said. "So he's a relation of yours? Well, he's easily found. He runs a Kafir store out beyond Howick, near the Umgeni Fall. Does he know you're coming?"

"He knows I'm coming some time, but not to the day."

Again that queer expression in John Dawes's weather-beaten countenance.

Gerard thought nothing of it then; afterwards he had reason to remember it.

"Umjilo's the name of his place. You can't miss it. Well, good-bye, both of you. We may knock up against each other again or we may not; it's a ram world, and not a very big one either. I wish you good luck.

I'll send your traps down first thing in the morning."

With which adieu, cordial if practical, John Dawes turned away to greet a batch of old acquaintances who had just hailed him; while his late pa.s.sengers took their way townwards, both agreeing thoroughly upon one point, viz. that the transport-rider was "a downright real jolly good fellow."

CHAPTER FIVE.

ANSTEY'S STORE.

"Here! Hi! you two Johnny Raws! What the devil are you doing there, tramping down all my green mealies? Get out of that, will you?" And a volley of curses emphasised the injunction, as the speaker hurried up to the scene of the damage.

The latter was a good-sized mealie patch adjoining the roadside, through whose battered and broken-down fence had plunged a horse--a stubborn and refractory horse withal, whose shies and plunges sorely tried the equilibrium of his unskilled rider. That rider was no other than our friend Harry Maitland. Gerard, who was a better horseman, had kept his steed in the road, and was shouting encouragement to his comrade, who, hot and f.a.gged with a long ride on a somewhat rough animal, now found it all he could do to keep his seat.

The aggrieved proprietor's voice rose to a perfect yell of fury as he gained the spot and noted the havoc wrought. Mealie stalks were snapping off short, one after the other, and a broad, trampled, and broken patch, as if the place had been roughly mown, marked the pa.s.sage of the horse. Mad with rage, he picked up a stone.

"Here, drop that, will you?" cried Gerard, warningly.

Too late. The stone whizzed, and striking the horse on the hind quarters, caused that quadruped to kick out wildly. Harry was deposited in a face among the broken stalks, while his steed, thus relieved, tore away snorting and kicking--crashing through the standing crop with a diabolical indifference to the feelings of its owner which made the latter foam again.