From Veldt Camp Fires Part 18

Meanwhile the two hunters rode steadily upon the spoor of the hartebeest. It was a good troop, and although the chase might be a long one the Boers were so accustomed to bagging the game they followed that they looked confidently to a dead buck or two before afternoon. Surely, they thought, as half-hour after half-hour they followed steadily upon the footprints, now clear in the firm sand, now amid the long gra.s.s, hardly to be distinguished, even by the wonderful instinct of these sons of the veldt, the hartebeest will presently stand and rest, or feed again. But no. The antelopes had secured a good start and had long since cantered at that deceptive pace of theirs clean out of sight; and the tell-tale spoor indicated, as mile after mile was reeled off, that they were still moving briskly and that their point was some far distant one.

The two ponies, rough and unkempt, and angular as they were, were perhaps in better condition than the rest of the camp--whether human beings or stock--put together. Their well-being was absolutely necessary to the safety of the party; without them game would be desperately hard to come at; they had, therefore, been fed pretty regularly on Kaffir corn, and still retained condition. Moreover, they came of that hardy Cape breed which produces some of the toughest, most courageous, and most serviceable horseflesh in the world. The nags were all right, and hour after hour they cantered steadily on.

It was now twelve o'clock, the sun was desperately hot, they had ridden nearly five hours, with but one short off-saddle, and it was absolutely necessary to give the horses another rest. Father and son, therefore, off-saddled at a patch of thin bush, knee-haltered the nags, which at once rolled and began to feed, and themselves rested under the scant shadow of the brush. For nearly an hour Arend smoked in silence.

Meanwhile the lad lay p.r.o.ne upon his stomach, gazing straight in front of him in the direction in which the game still headed. Out there now rose before the two hunters, swelling solidly from the plain of yellowish-green gra.s.s, the low chain of hill, which, as they viewed it from the waggon-box that morning, had seemed so far away. But they had ridden eighteen good miles since breakfast; the hill stood now but four miles away, and each cleft, krantz, and precipice of its scarred and weather-worn sides, each dark patch of bush and undergrowth, now showed plain and naked before their eyes.

"That's where the hartebeest have made for, father," said the lad, at last; "shall we catch them there, think you?"

"Yes," answered the big Boer, c.o.c.king his tattered, broad-brimmed hat yet more over his eyes, and looking very hard at the line of hill.

"They've gone in there, right enough, Hermannus; in by that dark kloof yonder. But whether the kloof leads right through the hill to the country beyond I can't tell. If it does, we shall have a long hunt and be out all night on the spoor; if it doesn't we shall catch them in a trap, I hope. Maghte! But my stomach aches for a bit of good flesh, and your mother and the children want soup and meat badly, poor souls.

Fetch in the horses, lad. They've had rest, and we must push on again."

Hermannus rose, walked out on to the veldt, drove up the nags, and once more they saddled up and mounted. They went very warily now, looking keenly along the base of the little range of kopjes, to see that the hartebeests were not feeding quietly among the scattered bush that grew about the lower slopes. But no; the spoor still held straight ahead, and in half an hour they were at the entrance of the kloof. It was a narrow ravine, which appeared to have been violently rent by nature right into the heart of the hills, but which, doubtless, the action of water, erosion, and ages of time had worn slowly and with infinite quiet, century after century, deep into the hard rocks. After two hundred yards of this narrow ravine, the kloof suddenly turned at a right angle and then broadened out into an open valley about half a mile long. The spoor had told the hunters very plainly that the antelopes had entered the kloof. But it was not yet evident why they had travelled all that way thither. Father and son now settled upon a plan of action. It was clear, upon looking up the valley, that no exit was to be found at the far end. If, however, they rode straight up the kloof they would probably drive the game right over the hills, where to follow would be difficult and shooting not easy.

"I cannot make out why the buck have come in here," whispered Van Driel, meditatively, as they stood beside their horses, and, well screened by bushes, gazed up the valley. "It's not like hartebeest ground at all.

There must be water or new gra.s.s, or some such attraction at the head of the kloof. We will leave the nags here fastened to the bush." He took up a handful of sand and let it fall lightly through his fingers. "The wind is right enough, it blows fair down the kloof. There is plenty of cover along the bottom here. If we leave the nags and creep very quietly among the bush we shall probably get a fair shot or two each.

The game here is seldom hunted, and as far as we can judge the place is never visited by man. Come along!"

The two crept slowly up the valley, moving, from bush to bush, with infinite care and caution, their soft, home-made velschoons of water-buck hide making little or no noise as they pressed forward. Now and again they crossed the neat spoor of the antelopes, imprinted deep in the smooth, red, sandy soil. Then they looked at one another and their eyes gleamed responsively. It was clear that the game had fed slowly and carelessly towards the head of the kloof; their rifles were loaded and c.o.c.ked; the time of action was very near.

In a quarter of an hour, or a little more, they were drawing very close to the end of the valley; the bush grew thicker, which was all the better for their purpose. With extraordinary pains they picked their way, the spoor still guiding them. Suddenly Arend Van Driel, stretching back his hand in warning, dropped from his stooping walk down upon one knee. Hermannus instantly followed his example. Van Driel motioned his son very softly forward, and, creeping up, the lad saw through a small opening in the bush what had arrested his father's progress.

It was a glorious sight, truly. The end of the valley, bounded on three sides by the steep and rough hill, lay before them. The ground was nearly open, and in the centre of the rich, dark red soil flowed, over a rocky bed, a sparkling stream of the clearest water, which issued from the hillside to the right, and disappeared, apparently, beneath a litter of rocks on the left. Close to the stream, within sixty to eighty yards of where the hunters were concealed, were the hartebeests, most of them lying down; some few standing with heads down in sleepy fas.h.i.+on; others, again, plucking lazily at some green young gra.s.s, which here and there masked the good red soil. Only one of them, a knowing-looking old cow, was really on the alert. The long, black faces, corrugated horns, and bright bay coats of the big antelopes united, with the fair surrounding scenery, to form a striking picture of feral life.

Attracted by the pleasantness of this green, charming, and well-watered spot, numbers of birds, many of them of brilliant plumage, were flitting hither and thither, crying, some sweetly, some vociferously, one to another. Here were gorgeous emerald cuckoos on their way south, honey birds, kingfishers, and bee-eaters of the most resplendent plumage, and various finches and small birds. Seldom had the two Dutchmen set eyes on a more lovely scene.

But the aesthetic charm of the place was not for the Boers, gaunt with hunger and privations. A look and a nod from father to son; the rifles were levelled; the targets selected, and the loud reports rang out, terrifying the wild life of this gem-like oasis, and rattling from krantz to krantz along the rough hill sides. Two hartebeests instantly went down and lay struggling in their death agonies. One of these staggered to its feet again; but Hermannus had shoved another cartridge into his breech, and a second shot finally stretched the animal upon the earth again, this time for good. Meanwhile, as the terrified troop sprang to their feet and tore frantically past his right front, Arend Van Driel rose quickly, slewed half round, and fired another shot. The bullet sped home, raking obliquely the lungs of another antelope, which was later on found dead two or three hundred yards down the kloof.

The two Boers walked forward to the stream, surveyed for a minute or two their dead game, a fat cow and a young bull, both in high condition, and then kneeling at the water, drank long and deep, and laved their faces, arms, and hands. The lad was now despatched at once to the bend of the kloof for the horses, which could not only drink and feed here, but were to be freighted with as much meat as they could carry for the camp.

Before setting to work to skin the game. Van Driel walked along the margin of the stream to the spot whence it issued--a natural fountain among the rocks. Here, casting about, he came upon a discovery that electrified him--first the whitened bones of a man and a pair of spurs, afterwards an old weather-worn percussion gun, rotten and rusty, a powder-horn, and a good-sized and very heavy metal box. Opening this metal box with great difficulty, the Boer found it full of what he recognised instantly as gold nuggets, many of them of considerable size.

Searching yet further among the rocks, the Boer discovered, just as Hermannus rode up with the led horse, a carefully laid pile of much bigger nuggets, worth manifestly a large sum of money. Who was the man whose poor remains lay bleaching in the sand there? When had he entered the kloof? How had he died? These were questions impossible to answer.

Van Driel could only surmise, from the make and shape of the old percussion smooth-bore and powder-horn, that the owner must have died there thirty or forty years before. Looking again closely at the powder-horn, Hermannus discovered the initials "H.D.," carved neatly upon the side. But H.D.'s life and death and history lay hidden among these pathetic relics, mysteries impenetrable, insoluble. That sweet and secret valley alone knew the truth of them.

They turned out the box of nuggets, counting up their treasure. At the very bottom, half hidden among sand and rubble, lay a sc.r.a.p of paper, yellow, faded, and discoloured. Hermannus, who could read, eagerly opened it. Inside, in a tottering hand, were a few lines scrawled in pencil. But the writing was not in Dutch, and, spell at the sentences as he might, Hermannus could make nothing of them.

Setting to work with a will, father and son rapidly skinned and cut up as much of the hartebeest meat as their nags could carry; the rest of the carcases they carefully covered up from the vultures and wild beasts. It was now dusk, darkness would be swiftly upon them. They determined to camp for the night and ride back to their waggon with the first streak of dawn. They made a roaring fire, tied up their horses to a tree close at hand, cooked some meat, enjoyed a hearty meal, and then smoked their pipes with stolid contentment. Then, making pillows of the inner parts of their saddles, and with their feet to the fire, they sank into profound sleep.

It must have been towards midnight that Arend Van Driel was awakened suddenly by the movement of his horse, which was tugging nervously at the branch to which its head-reim was fastened, as if startled by some prowling beast of prey. "Lions!" muttered the Boer to himself. He stirred the fire, threw on more wood, and, rising, patted and rea.s.sured his horse, which, with dilated nostrils, snuffed at the night air and stared with wild eyes out into the darkness.

Van Driel picked up his rifle, lit his pipe, and sat by the fire, watching and waiting. It was very eerie in this far and remote valley, but the Trek Boer is a man used to solitude and a wild life, and his nervous system is, happily for himself, not very highly developed. All the man troubled himself about was his horseflesh. Horses are scarce in the far recesses of the interior, and Arend had no intention of losing either of his nags by the attack of lion or leopard. Suddenly his horse snorted at the breeze again and pulled fiercely at his reim. Something approached--something that scared intensely the nervous animal. With ears and eyes strained, the Boer looked out into the darkness, beyond the ring of firelight. Hark! what was that? And then something--Van Driel could not make out what--moved past some twenty paces away on the other side of the fire. It looked about the height and size of a lion.

The Boer's rifle went to his shoulder, he took rapid aim, and fired.

The report of the Westley-Richards rattled out from the rocks behind them, and, mingled with the sound, rose a strange, wild, shuddering cry, half human, half b.e.s.t.i.a.l. It was no lion's or leopard's cry, as Van Driel knew instantly. What in G.o.d's name could it be? A baboon perhaps?

Hermannus, at the rattle of the fire arm, had sprung up from his deep slumber, and, rifle in hand, was now glaring about him. They listened.

Strange moaning wails came to them on the soft night air from the blackness beyond the fire there. They were terribly human. The men looked at one another with scared faces, but uttered no word.

The sounds grew fainter and fainter and presently ceased.

"What was it, father?" asked the lad at last.

"Naam van de drommel! I cannot say," returned the Boer. "I thought it was a lion. It is no lion, surely; it may be a baboon."

They sat waiting, listening intently, for another ten minutes. Then Hermannus sprang to his feet. "Whatever it was," he exclaimed, "the thing is dead. I shall see what it is."

He plucked a big brand from the fire, and, grasping his rifle, stepped forward. His father followed his example, and with great caution they moved out beyond the flickering circle of the firelight. Thirty paces away their torches showed them something. It rested on the veldt there, silent, completely motionless. Again they advanced and stood over the thing.

It lay there at their feet, naked, hairy, something on the figure of a man, yet surely not a man. Blood was oozing softly from a big wound in the back, where Van Driel's bullet had entered.

"An ape of some kind, father," queried Hermannus, "but not a baboon.

What do you make of it?"

"Alas, no ape, I fear," returned Van Driel, with a shudder. "This is a bad night's work. 'Tis a wild man. I have heard of such things, but never yet have I set eyes upon one. Pick it up by the legs there, we will carry it to the fire."

At the firelight they examined with repugnance and even fear the thing that had met its death. It was a man! Nay. It had once been a man; it was now but a travesty of mankind. Deeply tanned all over; with its shock of dark hair and beard, now going grey, and a s.h.a.ggy growth almost covering the loathsome body, it looked a mere beast of the field. The thing had gone mostly upon hands and knees--or upon hands and feet--and the parts that touched the soil were thickened and callous. How many years this poor terrible relic of humanity had lived here alone; how it had gained its living; how escaped the fierce carnivora of the desert, were mysteries that no man could answer. The silent rocks, the gra.s.s, the trees, the air--these were the only witnesses, and they were for ever unite.

There was no more sleep for the Van Driels that night. They sat talking in low, subdued tones until dawn, and then, taking up the spoor of the wild man, ran the trail down to a cavern among the rocks, where the poor creature had made its lair. Here were bones; the remains of animals, of lizards, birds, locusts, even fish, upon which, with berries, bulbs, and wild roots, the thing had existed for all these years!

Returning to the fire, they picked up the now stiff form, more hideous and loathsome than ever by broad daylight, and carried it to its den.

This they sealed from the wild beasts with heavy rocks and stones.

Then they saddled up and rode off for the waggon, which was reached by mid-day. They and their bountiful supply of meat were received with a chorus of welcome from the starved and ailing family, and in that lone and distressful wilderness they presently enjoyed together a right hearty meal.

Next morning Arend Van Driel had settled upon a plan of action. He despatched his native "boys" on a month's journey, far back to one of the standing camps of the Trek Boers, upon the Okavango. So soon as they were out of the way, he trekked with his family for Hartebeest Fontein, as they now called the place of mystery. Arend had seen something of gold mining at Lydenburg, in the Eastern Transvaal, and, from the discoveries he had already made, he guessed that the valley was rich in alluvial gold. He was not mistaken. In less than a month's search in the rich alluvial soil at the head of the kloof and along the bed of the stream, he and his family picked up many a good nugget; so that, with the store already gathered by their dead predecessors, they trekked away, carrying with them enough gold to set themselves up in a fair way for the rest of their lives. They were not sorry to quit the valley, with its grim secrets, and presently, after much hard and toilsome travel, reached Transvaal soil again.

The Dutch Afrikanders are a secretive race and keep their own counsel.

Moreover, they are the last people in the world to trumpet forth gold discoveries for the benefit of the detested Britisher, who threatens in time to over-run the whole of South Africa. Arend Van Driel is now one of the wealthiest farmers in the Transvaal. His son, Hermannus, who is married and lives on an excellent farm near, is just as comfortably off.

Their Rustenburg neighbours have puzzled for years--and still puzzle-- over the return of this family from the Mossamedes trek and their great and inexplicable accession of wealth. But Van Driel and his good vrouw, who started on that terrible expedition strong and hearty people on the right side of six-and-thirty, without a grey hair between them, and came back lined and grey, and apparently far on into middle age, are never likely to yield up their secret. Nor is Hermannus, nor are the rest of the family. The quiet valley of Hartebeest Fontein, with its strange discoveries and uncanny inhabitant, remain mysteries locked safely within the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of each one of them.

Hermannus, by the way, soon after their arrival in the Transvaal, got, from an Englishman at a Klerks-dorp store, a translation of the writing upon that pathetic bit of paper found in the box of nuggets. The translation ran thus:

"I am camped here, with my little son, on my way prospecting from Namaqualand. My comrade, John Finch, died at Fish River. Waggon looted by Namaqua Hottentots. Found my way here, but horse dead of sickness and can go neither forward nor back. Plenty of gold, but no present chance of escape. What will become of my boy James, nine years old?

G.o.d help us, I am very ill and doubt how things may end. Henry Dursley.

August, 1847."

That poor stained letter, which contains the secret of Hartebeest Fontein, old Arend Van Driel, strangely enough, still cherishes in its battered metal box, locked up securely in the dark recesses of his ancient waggon-chest, which itself rests beside the big family bed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

CHARLIE THIRLMERE'S LION.

On a March morning Charlie Thirlmere and his wife were at breakfast in their pretty flat near Park Lane. A cloud sat on Charlie's fresh, good-looking face. He looked at his wife curiously, and then launched into the business that worried him.

"Sybil," he said, "we must pull up. I want to have a serious talk with you."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't begin business at this unearthly period,"

replied Sybil. "I am going out riding in less than an hour, and I haven't time."

"You can spare ten minutes, old girl," he said; "and things are getting into such a hobble that we must pull up and make an alteration. If we don't, another year or two will see us stony, so far as I am concerned."