The Settler and the Savage Part 7

"Indeed, how was that?" asked Jerry.

"Why, just because his weapon was bell-mouthed an' loaded a'most to the muzzle. You see, the poor fellow was awoke out of a deep sleep and couldn't well see, so that instead o' firin' at the brute, he fired his blunderbuss about ten yards to one side of it, but the shot scattered so powerfully that one o' the outside bullets. .h.i.t a stone, glanced off, and caught the sarpint in the eye, and though it failed to kill the brute on the spot, the wound gave it such pain that it stood up on its tail and wriggled in agony for full five minutes, sending broken twigs and dry leaves flying about like a whirlwind, so Snip he jumped up, dropped his weapon, an' bolted. He never returned to the encampment, and never saw the big snake or his blunderbuss again."

"What a pity! then he lost it?" said Jerry, looking with some anxiety at a decayed branch, to which the flickering flame gave apparent motion.

"Yes, he lost the blunderbuss, but he saved his life," replied Dally, as he lay down near his little friend and drew his blanket over him.

"You'd better put the gun between us, my boy, to be handy to both--an'

if _anything_ comes, the one of us that wakes first can lay hold of it and fire."

There was, we need scarcely observe, a strong spice of wickedness in George. If he had suggested a lion, or even an elephant, there would have been something definite for poor Jerry's anxious mind to lay hold of and try to reason down and defy, but that dreadful "_anything_" that might come, gave him nothing to hold by. It threw the whole zoological ferocities of South Africa open to his unanch.o.r.ed imagination, and for a long time banished sleep from his eyes.

He allowed the blunderbuss to remain as his friend had placed it, and hugged the naked bowie-knife to his breast. In addition to these weapons he had provided himself with a heavy piece of wood, something like the exaggerated truncheon of a policeman, for the purpose of killing snakes, should any such venture near his couch.

The wild shrieks of laughter at the neighbouring Hottentot fire helped to increase Jerry's wakefulness, and when this at last lulled, the irritation was kept up by the squalling of Master Junkie, whose tent was about three feet distant from Jerry's pillow, and who kept up a vicious piping just in proportion to the earnestness of Mrs Scholtz's attempts to calm him.

At last, however, the child's lamentations ceased, and there broke upon the night air a sweet sound which stilled the merriment of the natives.

It was the mellow voice of Stephen Orpin singing a hymn of praise, with a number of like-minded emigrants, before retiring to rest. Doubtless some of those who had already retired, and lay, perchance, watching the stars and thinking dreamily of home, were led naturally by the sweet hymn to think of the home in the "better land," which might possibly be nearer to some of them than the old home they had left for ever--ay, even than the new "locations" to which they were bound.

But, whatever the thoughts suggested, the whole camp soon afterwards sank into repose. Tent-doors were drawn and curtains of waggon-tilts let down. The boers, sticking their big pipes in their hatbands, wrapped themselves in greatcoats, and, regardless of snake or scorpion, stretched their limbs on the bare ground, while Hottentots, negroes, and Bushmen, rolling themselves in sheepskin karosses, lay coiled up like b.a.l.l.s with their feet to the fire. Only once was the camp a little disturbed, during the early part of the night, by the mournful howl of a distant hyena. It was the first that the newcomers had heard, and most of those who were awake raised themselves on their elbows eagerly to listen.

Jerry was just dropping into slumber at the time. He sat bolt upright on hearing the cry, and when it was repeated he made a wild grasp at the blunderbuss, but Dally was beforehand. He caught up the weapon, and this probably saved an explosion.

"Come, lie down, you imp!" he said, somewhat sternly.

Jerry obeyed, and his nose soon told that he had reached the land of dreams.

Dally then quietly drew the charge of shot, but left the powder and laid the piece in its former position. Turning over with the sigh of one whose active duties for the day have been completed, he then went to sleep.

Gradually the fires burned low, and gave out such flickering uncertain light, when an occasional flame leaped up ever and anon, that to unaccustomed eyes it might have seemed as though snakes were crawling everywhere, and Jerry Goldboy, had he been awake, would have beheld a complete menagerie in imagination. But Jerry was now in blessed oblivion.

When things were in this condition, that incomprehensible subtlety, the brain of Junkie Brook--or something else--so acted as to cause the urchin to give vent to a stentorian yell. Strong though it was, it did not penetrate far through the canvas tent, but being, as we have said, within a few feet of Jerry's ear, it sounded to that unhappy man like the united, and as yet unknown, shriek of all the elephants and buffaloes in Kafirland.

Starting up with a sharp cry he stretched out his hand towards the blunderbuss, but drew it back with a thrill of horror. A huge black snake lay in its place!

To seize his truncheon was the act of a moment. The next, down it came with stunning violence on the snake. The reptile instantly exploded with a bellowing roar of smoke and flame, which roused the whole camp.

"Blockhead! what d'you mean by _that_?" growled George Dally, turning round sleepily, but without rising, for he was well aware of the cause of the confusion.

Jerry shrank within himself like a guilty thing caught in the act, and glanced uneasily round to ascertain how much of death and destruction had been dealt out. Relieved somewhat to see no one writhing in blood, he arose, and, in much confusion, replied to the numerous eager queries as to what he had fired at. When the true state of affairs became manifest, most of the Dutchmen, who had been active enough when aroused by supposed danger, sauntered back to their couches with a good-natured chuckle; the settlers who had "turned out" growled or chaffed, according to temperament, as they followed suit, and the natives spent half an hour in uproarious merriment over b.o.o.by's dramatic representation of the whole incident, which he performed with graphic power and much embellishment.

Thereafter the camp sank once more into repose, and rested in peace till morning.

CHAPTER SIX.

SPREADING OVER THE LAND.

With the dawn next morning the emigrants were up and away. The interest of the journey increased with every novel experience and each new discovery, while preconceived notions and depressions were dissipated by the improved appearance of the country.

About the same time that the Scotch "party" left the Bay, several of the other parties set out, some large and some small, each under its appointed leader, to colonise the undulating plains of the Zuurveld.

Soon the pilgrims became accustomed to the nightly serenade of hyena and jackal--also to breakneck steeps, and crashing jolts, and ugly tumbles.

But they were all hopeful, and most of them were young, and all, or nearly all, were disposed to make light of difficulties.

The country they were about to colonise had been recently overrun by Kafir hordes. These had been cleared out, and driven across the Great Fish River by British and Colonial troops, leaving the land a wilderness, with none to dispute possession save the wild beasts. It extended fifty miles along the coast from the Bushman's River to the Great Fish River, and was backed by an irregular line of mountains at an average distance of sixty miles from the sea.

Leaving the Zwartkops River, not only the Scottish party, but all the other parties, filed successively away in long trains across the Sundays River, over the Addo Hill and the Quagga Flats and the Bushman's River heights, until the various points of divergence were reached, when the column broke into divisions, which turned off to their several locations and overspread the land.

There was "Baillie's party," which crossed Lower Albany to the mouth of the Great Fish River, and on the way were charmed with the aspect of the country, which was at that time enriched and rendered verdant by recent rains, and enlivened by the presence of hartebeests, quaggas, springboks, and an occasional ostrich. There was, however, a "wash" of shadow laid on part of the pleasant picture, to counteract the idea that the Elysian plains had been reached, in the shape of two or three blackened and ruined farms of the old Dutch colonists--sad remains of the recent Kafir war--solemn reminders of the uncertainties and possibilities of the future.

Then there was the "Nottingham party." They took possession of a lovely vale, which they named Clumber, in honour of the Duke of Newcastle, their patron. "Sefton's party" settled on the a.s.segai Bush River and founded the village of Salem, afterwards noted as the headquarters of the Reverend William Shaw, a Wesleyan, and one of the most able and useful of South Africa's missionary pioneers. Wilson's party settled between the Waay-plaats and the Kowie Bush, across the path of the elephants, which creatures some of the party, it is said, attempted to shoot with fowling-pieces. Of the smaller parties, those of c.o.c.k, Thornhill, Smith (what series of adventurous parties ever went forth without a "Smith's party"?), Osler, and Richardson, located themselves behind the thicket-clad sand hills of the Kowie and Green Fountain. But s.p.a.ce forbids us referring, even in brief detail, to the parties of James and Hyman and Dyson, and Holder, Mouncey, Hayhurst, Bradshaw, Southey; and of Scott, with the Irish party, and that of Mahony, which at the "Clay Pits," had afterwards to meet the first shock of every Kafir invasion of Lower Albany. Among these and other parties there were men of power, who left a lasting mark on the colony, and many of them left numerous descendants to perpetuate their names--such as Dobson, Bowker, Campbell, Ayliffe, Phillips, Piggott, Greathead, Roberts, Stanley, and others too numerous to mention.

But with all these we have nothing to do just now. Our present duty is to follow those sections of the great immigrant band with the fortunes of which our tale has more particularly to do.

At the points of separation, where the long column broke up, a halt was made, while many farewells and good wishes were said.

"So you're gaun to settle thereawa'?" said Sandy Black to John Skyd and his brothers as they stood on an eminence commanding a magnificent view of the rich plains and woodlands of the Zuurveld.

"Even so, friend Black," replied John, "and sorry am I that our lot is not to be cast together. However, let's hope that we may meet again ere long somewhere or other in our new land."

"It is quite romantic," observed James Skyd, "to look over this vast region and call it our own,--at least, with the right to pick and choose where we feel inclined. Isn't it, Bob?"

To this Bob replied that it was, and that he felt quite like the children of Israel when they first came in sight of the promised land.

"I hope we won't have to fight as hard for it as they did," remarked Frank Dobson.

"It's my opeenion," said Sandy Black, "that if we haena to fight _for it_, we'll hae to fight a bit to _keep_ it."

"Perhaps we may," returned John Skyd, "and if so, fighting will be more to my taste than farming--not that I'm const.i.tutionally pugnacious, but I fear that my brothers and I shall turn out to be rather ignorant cultivators of the soil."

Honest Sandy Black admitted that he held the same opinion.

"Well, we shall try our best," said the elder Skyd, with a laugh; "I've a great belief in that word `_try_'.--Goodbye, Sandy." He held out his hand.

The Scot shook it warmly, and the free-and-easy brothers, after bidding adieu to the rest of the Scotch party, who overtook them there, diverged to the right with their friend Frank Dobson, and walked smartly after their waggons, which had gone on in advance.

"Stoot chields they are, an' pleesant," muttered Sandy, leaning both hands on a thick cudgel which he had cut for himself out of the bush, "but wofu' ignorant o' farmin'."

"They'll make their mark on the colony for all that," said a quiet voice at Sandy's elbow.

Turning and looking up, as well as round, he encountered the hazel eyes and open countenance of Hans Marais.

"Nae doot, nae doot, they'll mak' their mark, but it'll no' be wi' the pleugh, or I'm sair mista'en. Wull mair o' the settlers be pairtin'

frae us here?"

Hans, although ignorant of the dialect in which he was addressed, understood enough to make out its drift.

"Yes," he replied, "several parties leave us at this point, and here comes one of them."