The Outspan Part 10

"But I have just come from Barberton, and I live in--in the Swazie country." And his voice dropped to nothing on the last words.

"Now, Mr Nairn, I know you are afraid of overcrowding us. You _have_ to come for your horse, so that excuse won't do; and since you compel me to tell the whole truth, Jack says you know the road best, and we want you to come because we are just a tiny little bit afraid of those horrid rivers. Now I've told you."

Nairn submitted; but as they drove along in the dark more than once the thought occurred that even the best of women will stoop to the most unfair means to gain their points.

After many years it was all fresh to him again.

They spun along the smooth soft road, slowing up in places for the dongas--those deeply-worn furrows in Nature's face, the result of many a heavy storm. They pa.s.sed the huge old fig-tree standing sentinel where the waters meet, and crossed the Fig-tree Creek, which, to the experienced ear of the men, had a fuller and angrier tone than was its wont. They pa.s.sed "Clothier's" in silence. To the girls the gra.s.s shanty leaking candle-light at every pore in its misshapen sides, the shouts of laughter, the half-heard songs, the glimpse of the interior as they pa.s.sed the door, showing the rough gin-case counter, backed by shelves laden with "square face," and the bare-armed, bearded man craning over to dodge the glare of guttering candles and see who or what was pa.s.sing by--all made a picture unique and indelible.

They wound slowly round the bend and over the big smooth rocks down to the Fourth Drift.

The water ran silently over the sandy bottom, and when the horses were in breast-high and their movements no longer caused a splash, the absolute stillness begat a feeling of awe and fear of the black-looking water that is so silent, so strong, and so treacherous.

To everyone there comes a sense of strain relieved and spirits reviving on coming through a bad river, and to the young girls, whose first experience it was, the splashing of the leaders' feet in shallow water, and the rising up the sandy bank, brought an ecstasy of relief.

Driving up the valley of the Lampogwana, Nairn and Heron cheered them with tales of the gold-fields and of the country, and ignored the river and the coming storm; but the steep rush into the Third Drift, and the tossing and jolting over the boulders, and the angry racing of the water and the more distinct roll of the thunder, were features in a first experience which were not to be talked away, and if Nairn felt his conversational powers disparaged by very evident non-attention, perhaps this was compensated for by occasional graspings of his arm--mute appeals for protection which men take as compliments.

Going slowly down the cutting to the Second Drift, the course of the river was shown up by the lightning, and one bluish gleam in particular lit up the scene with such unsurpa.s.sable vividness that long after all was black again the eye retained a view of dark water in swirls and curves of wonderful grace, of foam-crested breakers and jets of spray, of swaying shrubs and bent, quivering reeds.

Nairn recalled another such night when his horse, which had paused to sniff before facing the flood, jerked his head up with a snort as a blinding flash had shown him a white face for an instant above the water. The fixed stare that the dead eyes gave him lingered long after succeeding flashes had shown an unbroken surface of river again. But he did not speak of this.

They drove slowly over the little flat through which the river ran, and as that was barely covered by the flood they knew that the river was just pa.s.sable for the spider, but it meant getting a wetting as it was dangerously near flood mark.

Piet pulled up. The ladies and the baases, he said, could take the footpath along the mountains over the krantzes and avoid the two drifts.

It was only four miles to the next hotel. He would like to outspan and stay where he was--the river was too full, and the next drift would be worse still. The river was coming down.

But Heron was obstinate, and Nairn, who knew the footpath past the Golden Valley, knew it to be an impossible alternative for ladies, at night; so Heron called out: "Kate, you grip the rail, and Nairn will look after you! You hang on to me, Nell!" They went in, and the water washed on to the seats, and the spider swayed to the stream; but the horses headed up bravely, and buoying on the waters, or sousing underneath, half swimming and half wading, they pulled through.

"Hold up, Nell! hold up, little woman! Don't cry now, we're as safe as houses!" was what Nairn heard from the opposite seat.

What happened beside him was that his companion's grasp loosened on the rail, and as the spider rose up the soft, sandy bank, she slid back against him with her weight on the arm he had pa.s.sed behind her as protection, and her cheek against his shoulder.

When they pulled up on the level road again, while her sister was laughing off her tears, Kate pulled herself together with an effort, and said, with a half-sobbing laugh:

"I was very fri--frightened that time. I--I think I should have fallen out but for you."

Then the storm broke over them, and the rain came down in blinding torrents, and the horses, ducking and swaying before it, moved slowly on. Flash after flash lit up the hills above and the river below as they toiled along where the road was cut out of the precipitous hillside. Every furrow was a stream, every gutter a watercourse; the water seemed to gush from the very earth; the river itself was a seething mud-red torrent.

The First Drift, which, as they were coming up stream, was their last, is broader, and not as deep as the others; but in those days it was full of boulders, and the water raced down in three separate channels, although the surface showed but one broad stream. The drift is now higher up, where the bed is even, and the current is not so strong.

They have also a wire rope across, and a ferry-boat; but it was not so in '87. They have done a good deal to improve things, but still the river is king, and a.s.serts itself upon occasion; as when it took a thousand tons of solid masonry from the Cerro de Pasco dam a hundred yards below this drift, and carried samples of dressed stone and Portland cement to the barbel and crocodiles of Ingwenye Umkulu, thirty miles away; or when, later still, it rose in protest against the impudence of man, and swept battery houses off like corks, and flung the huge girders of the railway-bridge from its path, and tossed fifty-ton boulders like pebbles into the Oriental water-race, seventy feet above the river's bed.

They crossed the first channel safely; and they even got through the second and worst. The little Hottentot Piet sat tight, and handled his team with the most perfect skill. At times it seemed impossible that horses or trap could withstand the surging ma.s.s of water that piled up against them; but they did. A cheering word or a timely touch of the whip seemed once or twice to avert catastrophe.

Nairn's horse had made a perfect leader, and faced the water like a steamboat; but the other seemed to be losing heart, and but for Piet's whip would have headed down-stream in the second channel.

They were into the third channel, and were going slowly and steadily through, when one front wheel came block up against a boulder, and the near leader again headed down. Whip, voice and rein failed, and as Piet made one more determined effort, something gave, and he dropped back in his seat, calling out:

"Baas, baas, the rein's broken!"

Nairn jumped up instantly, but the frightened girl clung to him, crying out:

"Oh, don't leave me! Mr Nairn, for the love of G.o.d, don't leave us!"

Her one hand grasped the collar of his coat, the other held his right hand. He loosened her grasp, and holding both her hands tightly, forced her back into the seat.

"Hold _that_!" he said, placing her one hand on the rail, and stooping until his face almost touched hers. "Sit still, and wait for me. I won't desert you!"

Vaulting over into the driver's seat, he seized the sjambok and jumped into the river. The near leader, free of the check of the rein, was giving before the stream, and had turned fairly down the river. Nairn was swept off his feet in an instant, but, antic.i.p.ating this, he had grasped the wheeler's near trace, and was able to work his way forward until he was abreast of the swerving leader. Keeping with his right hand a firm grasp of the lower trace, he shouted to the quaking animal, and struck it sharply on the neck and jaw with the sjambok. The suddenness of the attack startled the horse, and he plunged up stream again. At the same moment Piet's whip whistled overhead, and his voice rang out; the other three horses strained together, and the spider rose over the stone, and, lurching and b.u.mping, came through the third channel.

The excited animals rushed the last narrow strip of water, and Nairn, stumbling over rocks as best he could, was dragged with them, until, losing his hold and his footing with the last plunge of the horses, he was hurled forward on his head as they reached the bank. One of the horses trampled him, and two of the wheels went over his chest. The little Hottentot saw it all, and before the others knew anything, he had jumped off, leaving the horses to pull up as they were accustomed to on the bank, and grabbed Nairn by the arm just as he began to swing into the current and float down-stream.

The Bungalow was perched on the hillside, and overlooked the camp. The thatched roof and wide veranda made it cool and pleasant, and the view across the great valley of De Kaap was grand.

Nairn's head was still bandaged, and he was propped up on a cushioned lounge, unable to stir.

The French window of the room opened out upon the stoep, and from the couch itself Nairn could overlook the camp and see the bold parapets of the Devil's Kantoor five-and-twenty miles across the valley.

Nairn moved his head slowly and painfully as he heard a light footstep upon the stoep. Miss Heron walked in with a cup of something in one hand, and with the other grasping the folds of her riding-habit.

"Well, how is the head?" she asked, putting down the cup and busying herself at once, fixing the cushions more comfortably, and moistening the lint and bandage over his temples. "Better, aren't you? See, I've brought you something cool and nice to drink. It will freshen you up again. Try some!"

Nairn closed his eyes, and half turned his head away, ignoring the offer.

"You are going out again, riding?" he queried, in an uncivil tone.

"Yes; as far as the river, to see how it looks in daylight, and in its better mood. They say it is beginning to fall; but it is banks over still. They say that the morning after we crossed, Welsh, whose house is on the rise above the drift, got out of bed into two feet of water.

He says he felt it in bed, but thought it was only the roof leaking again. I wish you could come with us--but you will soon, won't you?"

"No; I've stayed too long already," was the surly answer, and Nairn turned his face further towards the wall.

"To-morrow we shall be able to move you out on to the stoep, and perhaps you will let me read to you there? It won't seem so lonely and dismal then," said Miss Kate, gently ignoring Nairn's tone.

"Thank you!" he answered tartly; "I don't mind being alone. I like it!"

She had got to know his humours, and so, standing back a little where he could not watch her face, and keeping the laughter out of her voice, she said: "Oh!"

"Perhaps the others are ready," he remarked after a pause. "I am keeping you from your ride."

"I don't think so. They promised to call for me here."

"Don't wait on my account, please. I don't mind being alone."

"So you said before. If you _object_ to my sitting here, of course I can wait on the stoep. I thought perhaps you liked me to be here."

Miss Kate switched gently at her foot, but did not move from her seat, and Nairn played a tattoo upon the woodwork of the lounge. He broke the silence with an impatient sigh and, after another pause, his companion remarked airily to the opposite wall:

"I wonder why sick people are called _patients_?"