The Outspan Part 4

can stand it."

Soltke complained excitedly, and as though he had suffered gross injustice, that no one had told him this interesting phase of life on the road; but Key snubbed him, telling him that men didn't speak much of such matters, as it gave the impression of bragging.

Soltke, who was above all things desirous of conforming with the etiquette of the road, asked no more questions; but Key, later on in the day, affecting to relent a little, got Soltke to sit straddle-legs on the pole of one of the waggons, and there, under his directions, practise kicking crocodiles.

The crossing was too difficult for one span of oxen, so we double-spanned, and put all hands on with whips and sjamboks along the thirty oxen, to whack and shout until we got through.

Key placed himself behind Soltke and, just when the excitement was greatest, with his long whip-stick and lash he made a loop, in which he managed to enclose Soltke's legs. One jerk took him clean off his feet, and down-stream he went, floundering and kicking for dear life, for he believed a crocodile had him. His kicking when he was head downwards and his legs were free of the water was remarkable. There were roars of laughter from everyone, as Key had pa.s.sed the word along; but presently there was a lull, and the n.i.g.g.e.rs stopped laughing and felt the joke fall flat, when Soltke, utterly unconscious of the real cause of his upset, waded deliberately back as soon as he recovered his feet, and, pale but undaunted, took his place, sjambok in hand, the same as before.

Among transport-riders the condition of the Berg--as the spurs of the long Drakensberg range of mountains are called colloquially--is always a fruitful topic of conversation. The Berg at Spitz Kop is worse than at any other point, I believe, and Soltke exhibited a growing interest in this much-discussed feature of the road. His enthusiastic nature led him here into all sorts of speculations about it, which were highly amusing to us; and the Judge egged poor Soltke on and crammed him so that he undertook in our interest to devise some method for ascending this awful Berg whereby the then terrible risks to life and property would be minimised, if not entirely removed. The position, as Key explained it, was this: There was a long, steep hill to be surmounted, the grade of which varied between 30 degrees and vertical, but the crowning difficulty lay in the "shoot." Here it was an open question whether the hill did not actually overhang; so steep was it, in fact, that it was not an uncommon occurrence for the front oxen to slip as they gained the summit, and fall back into the waggon, possibly killing both leader and driver, and doing infinite damage to the loads. Soltke faced this problem brimful of confidence in the subject and himself.

After hours of keen discussion and diligent experiments, Soltke produced his plan. It was a system of endless rope on guides and pulleys, so arranged that by a top anchorage on the summit of this hill both oxen and driver would be secure. Soltke was triumphant, but Key extricated himself temporarily by pointing out that, as we had not enough rope to try the scheme, we would have to take the old roundabout road and leave the "shoot" for the next trip.

The joking with Soltke; as I have said, at times degenerated into common horseplay, and this led to the only unpleasantness we had. The younger Mackay--Robbie--was a quiet, humorous, and most gentle-natured fellow, an immense favourite with everybody.

One night we were all standing round the fire, when something occurred which n.o.body ever seemed able to explain. Soltke had mislaid his pipe, and, thinking he had seen Robbie take it, asked him for it back. Robbie denied all knowledge, and Soltke, deeming it but another practical joke, said, "I saw you taking it, you--" using a term which he, poor chap, had picked up without knowing the meaning, a term which among white men never pa.s.ses unnoticed. Robbie's Scotch blood was aflame, and before one of us could stir, before he himself could think of the allowances to be made, before the word was well said, a heavy right-hander across the mouth dropped Soltke back against the waggon. Blank amazement and something like consternation marked every face, but none was so utterly taken aback as poor Soltke, who would have suffered anything rather than inflict pain upon a fellow-being. He only said, "Robbie, what haf I say? I do not understand," and, looking white and miserable, walked quietly off to his blankets and turned in. To us it was as though a girl, a child, had been struck, and no one felt this more than Robbie himself, as soon as he saw that the insult was not intentional. The look on Soltke's face was that of a stricken woman, a look of dull, unmerited pain. He was not cowed--just dazed and hurt, but inexpressibly hurt. You will see men blink and shuffle under that look in a woman's face. You will see a master quail before it in a servant.

You will see White go down before it in Black; for it is G.o.d's own weapon in the hands of helpless right. As long as I live I shall remember that look. I felt as though _I_ had done it!

We trekked as usual next morning at about three o'clock, and it must have been some time in the dark hours of the early trek that Bobbie spoke to Soltke. Whatever it was he said, it relieved the awkwardness, and restored Soltke to something of his old self; but he was never quite the same again, and for some days we did not get over the look in his eyes and the feeling of guiltiness it left in us.

Robbie did not speak of that early morning scene, but later in the day remarked incontinently:

"By G.o.d! he is white, is Soltke--white all through."

Soltke kept a diary, and kept it with the most marvellous fidelity and unflagging industry, and he also learned to shoot, and shot c.o.c.kyolly birds occasionally, and was pleased to know their sporting and scientific names. There is a sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.d c.o.c.katoo in those parts which is commonly known as the "Go way" bird, on account of its cry, which closely resembles these words, and of a habit it is supposed to have of warning game of the approach of man. In Soltke's diary there should be an elaborate essay on the ancestry and personal habits of this bird, and the wonderful traditions of its family. He took these things down faithfully and laboriously from the Judge's own lips. The Judge had a copious mythology. Poor Soltke tried to stuff some of his d.i.c.ky-birds, labelling them with such names as Key could always supply at a moment's notice. The result was unpleasant, as Soltke took to bestowing these ill-preserved relics in the side-pockets of the tents, in the waggon-boxes, and in a dozen other unlikely spots. It was only now and then that we could actually find them; but there was a constant suggestion of their proximity, nevertheless.

We took to calling Soltke the Professor, as it was a t.i.tle which, we told him, seemed better to suggest an all-round efficiency than any other we could think of, and therefore suited him more than such purely departmental distinctions as Leather-stocking, the Engineer, or the Ornithologist.

I had forgotten to say that there was one thing on which we did not chaff poor Soltke. He played the zither. I do not know if he played it well or not, for he was the only one whom I have heard play that instrument. To us, lying round a bright thornwood fire, in which the big logs burnt into solid glowing coals--to us, who lay back smoking or gazing up into the infinite depths of silent, cloudless sky, watching millions and millions of stars twinkling busily and noiselessly down at us, the music was a kind of dream.

As Soltke sat in the glow of the fire, and the unsteady flicker of shooting and dying flames threw lights and shadows on his face, it sometimes looked as though he was not quite what we took him for. His was a bright, intelligent face, lit up by quick, eager blue eyes; in fact, though it was a thing that we took no stock in, Soltke was really a very good-looking boy, and one naturally thought of him as some "mother's hope and pride;" and the look of worry and grief that I sometimes fancied I saw was put down to home-sickness brought out by music. However good or bad his music was, he seemed to feel it, and we--well, we never talked much after he began to play; and when he stopped, we generally knocked our pipes out with a sort of half-sigh, and turned in for the night. It used to make me think of home as I remembered it when I was still externally respectable--before I took to flannel s.h.i.+rts and moleskins, and ways that were not home ways; and I expect the others felt that too.

We had pa.s.sed the Crocodile River and the belt of 'Tsetse Fly' country.

We had pa.s.sed Josikulus, where Hart was murdered by the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and we told Soltke the story of the dead man's sentry-go. We pa.s.sed s.h.i.+p Mountain, and pointed out the bush that hid the haunted cave, and told him the weird tradition of the old witch-doctor imprisoned by the rock slide, handling still as a skeleton the implements of magic he used in life.

All these things were noted in Soltke's voluminous diary; and a curious medley it must have contained, with the embroidered facings of Key and the solid square facts of Gowan intermingled with the author's own original remarks and reflections. Soltke, to do him justice, was clearly a person of some purpose. He had placed before himself an ideal, and he never lost sight of it. He was eternally qualifying for that pursuit which he called "de prospect." He would eat from choice the charred and blackened crust of an overbaked loaf or a steak that had slipped the gridiron and got well sanded; he also seemed to prefer the dregs of the coffee billy, which he swallowed black and unsweetened; he scorned to use a fork; and he always slept on the lumpiest ground; and all this was to fit him for the hards.h.i.+ps and emergencies he promised himself as a full-blown prospector. His eagerness for knowledge of the flora and fauna was equally remarkable: he had compiled a sort of dictionary of plants and animals, describing their virtues, medicinal or culinary, and I am sure that towards the end of our trip Soltke would have set out into the Bush with a light heart, armed only with his book, and fortified by a confidence which was absolutely phenomenal.

Looking back on it all, it seems a mean shame ever to have played on his credulity; and, indeed, most of us were, even at this time, keenly alive to this; but there were times when his eager questioning and intense earnestness about commonplace trifles made temptation irresistible, and seemed even to inspire one with ridiculous notions suited to Soltke's undiscriminating appet.i.te.

It was on a Sunday morning that we came in sight of Pretorius Kop--a solitary sugar-loaf hill--and we lay by as usual during the hours of daylight. We knew it was Sunday, because Soltke had said so, and because we saw him in the early morning kneeling in the shadow of a big tree a few yards from the waggons, Prayer-book in hand, absorbedly following the prayers of the Ma.s.s. He was a Roman Catholic, and was as uncompromisingly particular in observing the smallest detail of his Church's ritual and teaching as he was by nature tolerant of the shortcomings of others. In the course of the morning's short excursion Soltke had come across one of those crawling creatures known to children as "thousand-legs," the common, harmless millipede. It was the first he had ever seen, and words failed him in his quest for information. Key was the first he met on his return, and the Judge told him solemnly that the insect in question was "that well-known and most ferocious of reptiles, the viper." During breakfast Soltke absorbed whole volumes of information about this "wiper"--its habits and uses, and as soon as the meal was over he betook himself to the side-pocket of the tent waggon, where the beloved diary was kept, and commenced to write up the new discovery. We were all spread about enjoying the morning smoke, or taking it easy in other ways. We had forgotten Soltke, but presently his face popped out, wearing a most worried, earnest, and intense expression.

"Joodge!" he called, "Joodge, how vos dot wiper shpell?"

Key dictated calmly:

"W-h-y-p-e-r, whyper," and Soltke with infinite pains put it down. But we heard him a moment later from his place in the tent of the waggon murmuring:

"Lieber Himmel! dot vos un oogly name." He kept his diary in English, and many a perspiring hour did he spend in his struggles with our language; but he never quailed once, never even slackened, for he said it was "goot to make him friends mit der English, and he can talk him when he shall coom on der prospect."

Soltke could hardly have taken down the name of this new wonder, when the sight of a blue jay flying past--one marvellous blaze of gorgeous colour as its s.h.i.+ny feathers caught the sunlight--sent him into a perfect paroxysm of excitement. He had seen the honeysuckers, and knew them in the diary as "birds of Paradise;" he knew the ordinary or c.o.c.kyolly bird as the small "pheasant of Capricorn"; he had shot d.i.c.ky-birds by the dozen and stuffed them, and their noxious odours seemed to add zest to his ornithological pursuits; but he had never seen, never dreamed of, anything like this. For one spellbound moment Soltke watched the bird sail by, and then gasped out:

"Gott in Himmel! what woss dat? Christnacht, be shtill, und I shot him."

Diary, pen, ink and blotter were thrust aside, and Soltke scrambled for the gun. We turned our backs on him to watch the bird. Soltke jumped from the waggon. The report of the two barrels was so loud and close that it made us duck; but the blue jay sat unmoved.

There was a curious silence that made several of us look round together.

The gun had fallen, and Soltke was standing above it, rigid and ghastly white, with one hand gripping a burnt and blood-spattered tear in his right leg. As we sprang to him open-armed he seemed just to sway gently towards us with closed eyes and a soft murmur of words in his own tongue. It sounded like a prayer.

I think he fainted then; but we were never sure, as he was always so still with it all that one couldn't tell at times whether he was dead or alive. The medicines we had, and the remedies we knew, did not run to gunshot wounds and broken legs, but we made s.h.i.+ft to fix him up somehow with a rough ligament.

It was here that Key came in. Quiet and self-possessed, firm and kind, he cut away the burnt, torn clothing. He washed out the ragged, blackened wound; he tried the leg, and told us it was fractured-- shattered--and would have to come off. And Soltke lay there, under the big tree, on a blanket spread on a heap of gra.s.s, as white as alabaster and as still, while we watched silently beside him, fanning him with small green boughs, and keeping off the flies.

Donald Mackay had started off at once for a doctor; but we knew that, with the best luck in finding him, and riding day and night, it must be over two days before we could get him down there. Bobbie went with his brother to the nearest waggons a few miles on ahead, where Donald raised a horse and went on alone on his long ride for help. Robbie came back with a few things that we hoped would help a little, and then we settled down to watch in silence the awful race between ebbing life and coming help.

Through the hot, long, quiet day we watched and tended him, and so on into the cool of the evening. We could do nothing, really; but it seemed to please him and us to whisk away the flies, and say a word of cheer to him, or now and then to s.h.i.+ft the cotton sheet that covered him. When the stars came out, and the soft cool feel of night grew up around, and the ruddy flicker of the fire worked its magic on the encampment, changing and beautifying everything with sudden lights and weird shadows; when the cattle were tied up to the yokes, and one by one lay down to sleep with great restful, deep-drawn sighs; when there were no sounds but the steady chewing of the cud and the occasional distant howl of a hyena or the sharp, unreal laugh of the jackal--then did we really seem to settle down to the business of waiting.

Now and then, perhaps three or four times in the night, Soltke asked for water; once or twice towards morning he sighed a suppressed tired sigh; but not a word of complaint, not a sign of impatience, not one evidence of the torture he was enduring, escaped him. When morning came, cool and fragrant, and the blue smoke of the camp-fire curled up straight and clean into the pure air, he was as quiet and uncomplaining still, though not for one second had his eyes closed nor the deadly numbing pain ceased its ache.

Soltke seemed to me to look younger than ever, though terribly white and f.a.gged. His eyes looked blue and brave and trustful--childishly trustful--as ever, and he alone, of all the party, did not keep looking towards the west for the return of Donald Mackay and his charge.

All that day we watched and waited, and on through another slow and silent night; but we could see then that Soltke could not last out much longer without a doctor's help, and that his chance was becoming a poor one.

It must have been about three in the morning when, lying flat on my back, looking up into the wonderful maze of stars that spatters our southern sky, I heard or felt the tiniest tap, tap, tap under my head.

I shot up with the cry of, "There's Donald at last!"

We were all up and listening, but could hear nothing when standing, of course. However, there was no mistake, and after five minutes we could hear on the cool, clear, still air the footfall of a horse--_one_ horse, as we all remarked with an awful heart-sinking.

Two of us--Key and I--went on to meet the horseman, and in a few minutes came upon Donald leading a horse, upon which, by the aid of a propping arm, was balanced a man whom we all knew--only too well.

In a breath Donald told us that he had sent on from the first camp for the district surgeon, but, chancing on Doc Monroe, had packed him on the horse and come back with him as a makes.h.i.+ft. Munroe was a quack chemist of morose and brutal character, and a drunkard with it. His moral status might be gauged by the fact that no patient among those who knew him personally or by repute ever approached him professionally except upon the contract system--so much the job, payment on delivery, cured.

He had a certain repute for ability. G.o.d knows how it was earned, for he had killed more men than any other agency in the country; but I believe that his brutal and sardonic indifference to public opinion, his fiendish hints that there was no accident about the deaths of _his_ patients, and that "those who want Doc Munroe can pay for him, by G.o.d!"

inspired a weird dread which, irrationally, perhaps, yet not unnaturally, begot a sort of blind awed belief in the man's ability.

Men hardly stricken have been known to sit on the bar-step and wait while Doc, having drunk himself drunk, would drink himself sober, and then, with implicit faith, swallow down mixtures to which the bloodshot eyes and the trembling hands of the Doc added the interest of a blind gamble.

By the uncertain light of the stars I had not recognised him, until Key, who was a few paces in front, said softly:

"It's Doc Munroe--dead drunk!" Donald was utterly worn out, and wild with despair. Doc had been drunk when he found him, but (as Donald said) he was always that, and he had hoped that a forty-mile ride would sober him. However, it seems that twice on the road he had got liquor, and the second time, when Donald had caught him and taken it away, he had sat down by the roadside stolid and immovable until the liquor was returned to him.

There were reasons why we bottled up our rage and treated the Doc with a show of civility, and even conciliatory respect. We knew, firstly, that he had his instruments, and that only he could use them; and, secondly, that, however drunk he might be, he never lost his senses until delirium set in; and, moreover, that he was intensely suspicious of offence when in this state, and if once huffed, was indifferent to prayers and threats alike. The look on Gowan's face was positively murderous when he saw in what manner our waiting was rewarded. I am sure he would readily have killed Munroe at that moment.

Poor Soltke showed his first signs of anxiety then, and we had to make what excuses we could--the want of light, first of all, and then the long ride--to account for the doctor's not seeing him now that he had come. But the hours went by, the last chance was ebbing away, and we could do nothing--absolutely nothing--with the man.

We tried him with everything. We gave him black coffee--he wouldn't touch it; we tried soup--he kicked it over; food, sleep, a bath-- everything was rejected with a sullen and stolid shake of the head, and the one word "W'isky." That we would _not_ give. For four mortal hours the man lay sullenly by the waggon on a pile of blankets, and only the one word pa.s.sed his lips. We dared not give him more--it would have destroyed our only chance; and without liquor he would not budge.

Day was well advanced when Munroe stood up quietly, and walked over to where Gowan stood beside his waggon. I suspected that the Doc had noticed Gowan's look when he came into camp with us, and now it was clear that he had.

"You think I'm drunk," said Munroe, with a malignant sneer. "I saw you look at me when I got off that d.a.m.ned horse! You think I'm drunk, do you?"

Gowan looked him steadily in the eyes, but made no answer, and Doc resumed: