Chapter IV: Part 4

And now the jolly frontiersman, who has been driven to so eccentric a form of Sabbath amusement, rises, and we see a man of middle height, with a humorous and gleeful countenance; in his eyes there lurks a mirthful twinkle, and every sun-tanned lineament bespeaks "a character." And he is a character. Always on the look-out for the whimsical side of events, he is light-hearted to childishness, and has a disastrous weakness for the perpetration of practical jokes--a vein of humour far more entertaining to its possessor than to its victims--and game to bet upon any and every contingency. He is about thirty, and his name is Jack Armitage.

"Well, Hicks, old man," said this worthy. "Taken pity on my lonely estate, eh? That's right; we'll make a day of it. Had breakfast?"

"No."

"More have I; we'll have it now. Er--Jafta!" he shouted, "Jafta! Wheel up those chops. Sharp's the word."

"Ya, Baas. Just now?" called out that menial, and from the kitchen sounds of hissing and sputtering betokened the preparation of a succulent fry.

"Just now! Only listen. Why, he'll be twenty minutes at least."

"Not he," said Hicks; "he's nearly ready, I can smell that much."

"Nearly ready! Give you a dollar to five bob he's twenty minutes from now. Is that on?" he inquired, putting out his watch to take the time. [Rix dollar, 1 shilling 6 pence.]

"No, it isn't. I'm not going to encourage your disgraceful and sporting proclivities," was the reply, as they entered the house. Three partitions boasted this domicile--a bedroom, a sitting-room, and the kitchen aforesaid. Of ceiling it was wholly guiltless, the sole canopy overhead being plain, unadulterated thatch; and the mud floor, plastered over with cow-dung, after the manner of the rougher frontier houses, gave forth a musty, uninviting odour, which it required all the ingress of the free air of Heaven to atone for. A large, roomy wooden press, and a row of shelves, with a green baize curtain in front, stood against the whitewashed wall, and in the middle of the room a coarse cloth was laid upon the wooden table, with a couple of plates and knives and forks. Armitage dived into the press and produced a great brown loaf, a tin of milk, and a mighty jar of quince jam.

"Hallo! the ants are in possession again," said he, surveying the jar, whence issued an irregular crowd of those industrious insects--too industrious sometimes. "Never mind, we can dodge them; besides, they are fattening. Ah, that's right, Jafta,"--as that worthy entered with a dish of fizzing chops in one hand and a pot of strong black coffee in the other. "Now we can fall to."

"By the way, I shall have to go back soon," said Hicks. "I only came to see if any of those sheep we lost had got in amongst Van Rooyen's, and thought I'd sponge on you for a feed whilst I was down this way."

"Oh, that can't be allowed; I thought you had come to help a fellow kill Sunday. Hang it, man, don't be in a hurry; stop and have some rifle practice, and then we can take out that bees' nest down by the river. Ah, but I forgot," he added, with a quizzical wink. "Never mind, my boy; I don't want to spoil fun, you'll be better employed at home."

Hicks was sorely puzzled. He was a good-natured fellow, and could see that the other had reckoned upon his company for the day. Yet he had his reasons for wanting to get back. "Look here, Jack," he said, at length, "I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll hold on here a little and help you to get out that bees' nest, then you can go back with me and we'll get to Seringa Vale just nicely in time for dinner. Will that do?"

"All right," assented the other, "that'll do me well enough. I've had nothing but my own blessed company for the last fortnight, except for a Dutchman or two now and again, and a little jaw with my fellow creatures will do me a world of good. By the way, is that chap Claverton still with you?"

"Yes. How d'you like him?"

"Oh, he seems good enough sort, but about the most casual bird I ever saw. He was down here one day; did he tell you about it? No! Well, then, a couple of Dutchmen came in--Swaart Pexter and his brother Marthinus--and Swaart, who is one of your bragging devils and `down on' a `raw Englishman' like a ton of bricks, after yarning a little while points to Claverton, who was sitting over there blowing a cloud in his calm way, and says rather cheekily: `Who's that?' I told him. `Can he talk Dutch?' was the next question. `Don't know,' says I. `How long has he been in this country?' says he. `Tell him a year,' says Claverton, quietly, without moving a muscle. I told him. `A year!' says Pexter, turning up his nose more cheekily than before. `A year and can't talk Dutch yet! He must be _domm_,' [stupid]. Thereupon Claverton looks the fellow bang in the eyes, and says in Dutch, `Can you talk English?' `No!' replies Pexter, with a stare of astonishment. `And how long have _you_ been here?' `Been here!' says the other, with a contemptuous laugh at this--to him--new proof of the other fellow's greenness. `Why, I was born here.' `How old are you?' goes on Claverton in a tone of friendly interest. `Forty-seven last May,' says the Dutchman, wondering what the deuce is coming next. `Forty-seven last May!' repeats our friend, calmly knocking the ash out of his pipe. `That is, you have been in this country forty-seven years, and can't talk English yet. Well, you must be _domm_!' I roared and so did Marthinus. `Got you there, old chap,' says I. Swaart Pexter looked rather shirty and tried to laugh it off, but Claverton had him. Had him, sir, fairly--lock, stock, and barrel. Well, after a while we went outside and stuck up a bottle at four hundred yards to have some rifle practice. The Dutchmen are first-rate shots, and I--well, a buck or a nigger would be anything but safe in front of me at that distance--but I give you my word that none of us could touch that bottle. When we had fired a dozen shots apiece and nearly covered the beastly thing with dust, and ploughed up the ground all round it as if a thunderbolt had fallen, out saunters Claverton with a yellow-backed novel in his fist. `Doesn't your friend shoot?' asks Marthinus. `Suppose so,' says I. `Have a shot, Claverton!' `Don't mind,' says he, taking over my gun. I could see a malicious grin on Swaart's ugly mug, and hugely was he preparing to chuckle over the `raw Englishman's' wide shooting. Claverton lay down, and without much aiming--bang--crash--we could hardly believe our eyes--the bottle had flown. By Jove it had. `Well done,' says I, `but do that again, old chap'; yes, it was mean of me, I allow, but I couldn't help it. `Don't want to do for all your bottles, Armitage,' says my joker as quietly as you please, as I sent the boy to stick up another, and I had just time to start a bet of five bob with Marthinus in his favour when--bang--and, by Jove, sir, would you believe it? that bottle shared the fate of the first. Well, we _were_ astonished. `Aren't you going to shoot any more?' says Marthinus, handing over the five bob with a very bad grace. `Too hot out here,' replies he, sloping into the shade of the house; and diving his nose into the yellow-back again, leaves us to our bottle-breaking or rather to our attempts at the same, for I'm dashed if we touched one after that. After the Pexters had gone I says, `Look here, old chap, we'll have a quiet match between ourselves, five bob on every dozen shots--you shall give me odds.' `My dear fellow,' says he, `odds should be the other way about. I shan't touch that bottle again three times if I blaze away at it the whole morning.' `The Lord, you won't,' says I; `never mind, let's try.' He did, and was as good as his word, and handed over fifteen bob at the close of the entertainment, having hit the mark twice to my seven times. `And how the deuce did you pink it before--twice running can't be a fluke, you know?' I asked, when we had done. `Well, you see, those louts were bent on seeing me shoot wide, so I held straight just to spite them,' was his cool answer. But didn't he tell you all about it?"

"Not a word," said Hicks. "He just said he had been down here, and a couple of slouching Dutchmen had looked in and tried to take a rise out of him, but didn't manage it."

"Well, he is a rum stick and no mistake. What's in the wind now?" and as the trampling of hoofs fell upon the speaker's ear, he got up hastily and made for the door, knocking over a wooden chair in his progress, and treading on the tail of a mongrel puppy which had sneaked in and was lying under the table, and which now fled, yelling disconsolately. "Here come two chaps," he went on, shading his eyes from the sun's glare and looking out into the _veldt_. "Dutchmen--no--one is--David Botha, I think; t'other's Allen--no mistaking him. Wheu-uw! Now for some fun, Hicks, my boy. We'll make him help us with the bees' nest, and if you don't kill yourself with almighty blue fits, call me a nigger."

The two drew near. The Boer with his stolid, wooden face, slouch hat (round which was twined a faded blue veil), and bob-tailed and ancient tail-coat, was an ordinary specimen of his class and nation. The Englishman, however, was not. He was rather a queer-looking fellow, tall and loosely-built, with a great mop of yellow hair and an absent expression of countenance. His age might have been five or six-and-twenty. He had not been long in the colony, and was theoretically supposed to be farming. On horseback Allen was quaint of aspect. His seat in the saddle would not have been a good advertisement to his riding-master, putting it mildly, and he invariably rode screws. Moreover, he was great on jack-boots and huge spurs.

"Good day, David," said Armitage, as the Boer extended a damp and uncleanly paw. "Hallo, Allen! you're just in the nick of time. We are just going to get out a bees' nest, and you must come and bear a hand."

"But--er--I'm not much use at that sort of thing. Botha will help you much better."

"Won't do, old chap--won't do," said Armitage, decisively. "In the words of the poet, `Not to-day, baker!' So come along."

Allen's jaw fell. If there was one thing on this earth he hated, it was depriving the little busy bee of the hard-earned fruits of his labours, not on humanitarian grounds--oh, no--but the despoiled insects had a knack of buzzing viciously around the noses and ears of the depredators and their accomplices in a way that was highly trying to weak nerves, to say nothing of the absolute certainty of two or three stings, if not half-a-dozen. He glanced instinctively towards David Botha as though mutely to ask: "Why the deuce won't _he_ do?" But that stolid Boer sat puffing away at his pipe, and showed no inclination to come to the rescue.

"Hicks, give Allen one of those big tins to put the honey in while I hunt up some brown paper to make a smoke with," said Armitage, as they went into the house. It had been arranged that Allen should hold the receptacle for the honey, otherwise he would inevitably have sloped off.

They went down to the river bank, Armitage leading the way. A keg fixed in the fork of a small tree constituted the hive, and the busy insects were winging in and out with a murmuring hum. Armitage divested himself of his coat so that the bees shouldn't get up the sleeves, as he said, and slouched his hat well over his face and neck; then with a chisel he removed the head of the keg, while Hicks ignited the brown paper and made the very deuce of a smoke.

"Not much in it--quite the wrong time of year to take it," said Armitage, as the waxen combs in the hive were disclosed to view. "Never mind, they'll make a lot more. Oh-h!" as one of the outraged insects playfully stung him on the ear. "Come a little nearer, Allen;" and he threw a couple of combs into the tin dish, while Hicks stood close at hand plying the smoke with all the energy of a Ritualistic thurifer.

"Oh-h--ah!" echoed Allen, in dismal staccato, as he received a sting on the hand, and another on the back of the neck.

"Hang it, man, don't drop the concern!" exclaimed Armitage, pitching another comb or two into the large tin; nor was the warning altogether ill-timed, for poor Allen was undergoing a _mauvais quart d'heure_ with a vengeance, ducking his head spasmodically as the angry insects "bizzed" savagely around his ears, and all the time looking intensely wretched under the infliction.

And in truth the fun began to wax warm. Armitage's hat was invisible beneath the clusters of bees which swarmed over it, while others were crawling about on his clothes. Now and then he would give vent to an ejaculation, as a sting, inflicted more viciously than usual, told through even his hardened skin; but he kept on manfully at his task, cutting out the combs and depositing them in the tin, while the air was filled with buzzing angry bees and suffocating smoke.

"Think we've got enough now," he said at last, drawing his face out of the cask, and quickly heading up the latter. Allen, to whom this dictum was like a reprieve to a condemned criminal, gave a sigh of relief, and began to breathe freely again. But his self-gratulation was somewhat premature, for at that moment a bee insinuated itself into his thick, frizzly-hair just above the neck, and began stinging like mad. Crash! Down went the tin containing the honey-combs, while the victim danced and capered and executed the most grotesque contortions for a moment; then, in a perfect frenzy, away he rushed to the nearest point of the river--a long, deep reach--where he plunged his head into the water, and losing his centre of gravity, ended by incontinently tumbling in, while the spectators were obliged to lie down and indulge their paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth to the very uttermost.

"Oh, oh, oh-h-h!" roared Armitage. "P-pick him out, some one; I'm n-not equal to it." And he lay back on the sward and howled again.

And in good sooth the warning came none too soon, for at that point the current flowed swift and deep, and poor Allen, what with his exertions and the weight of his jack-boots, was in a state of dire exhaustion, and a few moments more would have put an end to his hopes and fears. Hicks and the Dutchman, who had managed to recover themselves, ran down to the water's edge, and shouted to him to seize a branch which swept the surface, and at length the involuntary swimmer was fished out and stood dripping and shivering, and looking inexpressibly foolish, on the bank.

"Oh-h, Lord! oh, Lord!" roared Armitage, bursting out afresh as he picked up the fallen tin, and gathered up the fragments that remained. "I never saw anything to beat that, by the holy poker I never did! Come along, old man. We'll tog you out while I get out some of these stings. The brutes must have been under the impression that I was a jolly pincushion, and have used me accordingly."

"Dud--dud--don't think I'll go up to Seringa Vale to-day," stuttered Allen, as soon as he recovered breath. He feared the chaff which he knew full well awaited him on the strength of this latest escapade.

"Nonsense, man! We'll tog you out in no time, and then we'll all ride over together and have a jolly day of it," said Armitage.

Allen yielded, and was speedily arrayed in various garments which didn't fit him. The jack-boots were inevitably left behind, to the great concern of their owner, for there was no possibility of their being dry before sundown at the earliest. Towards noon the horses were brought round and saddled, and having locked up the house the three started, while the Dutchman took his leave and rode off home to regale his _vrouw_ and _hinders_, and his cousins and his aunts, with the story-- highly coloured--of the "raw Englishman's" discomfiture.

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Note 1. "Stump tail." Taillessness is frequent among colonial cattle-- the result of inoculation.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINE.

IN WHICH THE READER BECOMES A PARTY TO MORE CHAFF.

They rode merrily along, or rather two of them did, for ever and anon Allen's steed would drop behind, and its sorry pace wax slower and slower, till at length, taking advantage of its rider's abstraction, it would stop and snatch up a tuft of grass here and there by the way-side.

"What the deuce has become of that fellow again?" exclaimed Armitage for the fifth time since their start, as he rose in his stirrups and turned to look back. "Hi--Allen. Come on, man, we shan't get there to-night!" he bawled.

"All right," echoed feebly from afar; and the white top of a pith helmet, which had escaped its owner's immersion, hove in sight over the scrub like a peripatetic mushroom, as the laggard came trotting up.

"Come on! We thought you had got another bee in your bonnet," was Armitage's salutation. "Hi--Bles you _schelm_--hold up!" This to his horse, which started violently as something sprang up at its very feet; something lithe and red, with curious pointed ears, which darted away over the ground with lightning speed. "A _rooi-cat_ [lynx], by Moses!" he went on, "after some of the late lambs. Hicks, _where is_ that old shooting-iron of yours?" and thinking that though powerless to hurt the objectionable feline, at any rate he could frighten it, Armitage opened his mouth and gave vent to a true Kafir war yell, which certainly had the desired effect.

"Didn't bring it. Sunday, you know; must respect people's prejudices," replies Hicks.

"Oh, Lord! and I would have liked to have peppered that chap's hide," groaned Armitage.

They rode on over hill and dale. Suddenly the rasping cry of the wild guinea-fowl brought Hicks' heart into his mouth, and he certainly did not bless the good old-world prejudice in deference to which he had left his beloved gun at home on the first day of the week, and as a cloud of those splendid game birds rose from a grassy bottom within a few yards of them and winged away with their chattering note, poor Hicks fairly groaned.

"Look at that. Only look at that!" he exclaimed in tones of wrathful disgust. "Such a chance; did you ever see them rise like that! When a fellow has his gun and is all ready for them, blest if they won't run hundreds of yards before they'll get up, whereas--"

"I suppose they know it's Sunday," put in Allen, with a feeble attempt at chaff.

The other turned from him impatiently, without replying. Good-natured as he was habitually, there were moments when even Hicks felt justifiably cantankerous. This was one of them.

They continued their way without event, and, cresting the last ridge, descended into the long valley, at whose head stood the old farmhouse.

"Hallo! some one's turned up," said Armitage, indicating the white tent of a Cape cart, which stood outspanned before the stable-door, with the harness lying beside the swingle bars.

"Looks like Naylor's trap," said Hicks.

"Good. The more the merrier," rejoined Armitage, as they cantered up and dismounted.

An air of perfect rest and peace seemed to enshroud the place, as though nature would supply the absence of all outward signs of the Sabbath. The gates of the empty kraals stood open, and save for a sickly sheep or two feeding about near the homestead, there was not a sign of animal life. Here and there a long rakish-looking hornet flitted beneath the leaves of a trellised vine, or sought the entrance of his pendulous paper-like nest in the verandah. In the garden a few butterflies disported, vying with the flowers in their bright colours; and big bumble-bees boomed in the burning glow of the noonday sun. There was that about the sultry stillness which warned of thunder in the air, a presage not unlikely to be borne out towards evening, judging from the great solid bank of clouds which loomed up blackly from behind the distant mountains.

Hicks was right as to the identity of the visitors, whose conveyance they had descried. Edward Naylor, Mr Brathwaite's son-in-law, a jolly bluff frontiersman, whose weather-tanned face heavily bearded, was the soul of geniality, was seated on the disselboom of a waggon, discoursing on the state of the country with his host. His wife, a pretty, fair-haired woman of about thirty, was sitting with Ethel and Laura in the verandah, and was at that moment arbitrating, amid much laughter, in an argument which the former had started with Claverton, by way of passing the time.

"Hallo, Armitage," said that worthy, as the new arrivals drew nigh. "I was expecting to be summoned to your funeral."

"My funeral! What the dev--er--what d'you mean?"

"Well, you see, it's such a time since I beheld the light of your countenance that I began to think you must be dead."

"Wheuw! That's what I call a cheerful greeting," replied Armitage, shaking hands with the rest of the party.

The two who had been talking shop now appeared on the scene.

"How do, Armitage? Hallo, Allen, who's your outrigger?" said Naylor, eyeing the unwonted garb of that luckless youth, which garb bore unmistakable appearance of makeshift from head to foot.

"Er--I stumbled into the river, and--"

"What; boots and all?" There was a joke about Allen's jack-boots, which he was seldom seen without.

"`What is good for a bootless bene?'" quoted Claverton. "Never mind, Allen, don't you let them chaff you."

Naylor was an inveterate joker. When he and Armitage got together the same room would hardly hold them, and when the two got Allen between them, then, Heaven help Allen. Now this is precisely what happened, for at that moment the dinner-bell rang, and all adjourned to the festive board, when, as luck would have it, the unfortunate youth found himself--partly owing to that curious practice which is, or was, so often found in frontier houses, of all the men hanging together on one side of the table, leaving the other to the fair sex--in the neighbourhood of his tormentors; but he was a good-natured fellow, and took chaff very equably.

"I say," began Armitage, "here's a riddle--a regular Sunday one."

"Is there? Roll it up this way," said Claverton, from the other end of the table, where he was seated between Mrs Naylor and Ethel, for he resolutely defied the dividing custom above mentioned.

"Here you are, then. Why is Allen like Moses?" asked Armitage.

"Oh, villainous!" laughed Claverton. "Don't anybody attempt it. I really think you might trot out something a little more original, Armitage."

Of course, every one then and there tried hard to solve the conundrum, and, of course, half of them gave it up, and, of course, the reply came even as was to be expected: "Because he was drawn out of the water."

"Oh-h!" groaned the whole party; while the object of the aqueous jest sat and grinned placidly, and made play with his knife and fork as though he were the perpetrator of it instead of its butt.

"I say, Allen," put in Naylor, on the other side, "has that shooting match between you and Hicks come off yet?"

"What are the conditions?" asked Armitage.

"Dollar a side--Target, the shearing-house door--Distance, five yards-- Hicks to be allowed four yards on account of his want of practice. I'll bet on Hicks;" and the speaker roared at his own sorry wit.

"Eh! what's that about me?" called out Hicks from the other end of the table, which was longer than usual, by reason of the advent of the Naylors with their five olive-branches. He had just caught his name.

"Nothing, old man, nothing; we were only talking of those three guinea-fowl you shot this morning, coming up," replied Armitage, grinning mischievously.

"But bother it, I had no gun," said Hicks, thrown off his guard for the moment by this bare-faced accusation of Sabbath-breaking, and fairly losing his head as he caught a reproachful glance from Laura, which seemed to say: "Didn't you promise me you'd leave your gun at home when you went out this morning?" For he had confidentially imparted to her his intention to take the trusty shooting-iron, as he was starting so early that there would be no one about to be scandalised; and Laura, who had her own ideas of right and wrong, had peremptorily forbidden his doing anything of the kind.

"I say!" exclaimed Armitage, with admirably-feigned amazement. He had taken in the other's look of confusion, and, incorrigible joker as he was, resolved to turn it to his own mischief-loving account.

"But, confound it!" began Hicks, wrathfully; for that mute upbraiding glance made him really savage with his tormentor, who he thought was carrying the joke too far. Chaff was all very well, but this kind of thing went beyond chaff, and he would give him a piece of his mind by-and-by.

"Er--n-no--of course--you hadn't a gun--I forgot--er--I--was thinking of yesterday," rejoined Armitage, with the well-simulated air of a man who has "put his foot in it," and is endeavouring to withdraw that unlucky member--and endeavouring deucedly badly, too.

"I say, Jack, what about the scorpion fight, eh?" and Hicks proceeded to narrate how he had found that unscrupulous joker in the thick of the useful and intellectual little amusement at which we saw him in the last chapter, thus drawing upon him the laughter and sallies of the assemblage, under cover of which he said quietly to Laura: "I didn't really take the gun this morning, 'pon my word of honour I didn't; it's only that fellow's lies. He might draw the line somewhere; chaff's all very well, you know, but hang it, that's beyond a joke."

"Yes, I think it's really too bad of him. I oughtn't to have thought you did what you told me you wouldn't do," she replied, with an almost imperceptible stress on "me," and a glance which Hicks thought fully compensated for the former doubt. Leave we them beneath the friendly shelter of the noise at the other end of the table, and turn to the rest.

"Don't care, I won my bet," Armitage was saying.

"What! And so you were betting on it, too--and on Sunday! I think it's disgraceful of you," said Ethel.

"He's come up here to be reformed," put in Allen.

"Oh, you needn't talk," said Armitage, turning off the attack on to the last speaker. "Miss Brathwaite, what do you think of a fellow who comes down to my place on a Sunday, and bothers me to take out a bees' nest; on a Sunday, too!"

There was a great laugh at this. The notion of Allen bothering any one to take out a bees' nest, Sunday or any other day, struck them all as ineffably rich. He would rather travel twenty miles than embark knowingly in that lively enterprise. And then the joke about the stings, and the plunge into the river came out, and poor Allen was roasted unmercifully on the strength of it, and the fun grew apace, when a vivid flash darting in upon them, and playing upon the knives and glasses with a blue steely gleam, brought the conversation up with a round turn.

"We shall have a storm," said Mr Brathwaite, glancing at the window. The deep azure of the heavens had become dark and overcast, and even as he spoke there pealed forth a long, angry roll of thunder.

A general move from the table now took place, and every one adjourned to the verandah, which looked out on the wide sweep of country constituting the great charm of the situation of the house. But now the joyous sunlight had disappeared, and the earth slept in a dread and boding stillness. Tall pillars of cloud, black as night, moved steadily on, their jagged edges taking the forms and faces of hideous and open-mouthed monsters. All nature seemed waiting for the battle of the forces of the air, the discharge of the pent-up cloud artillery which was to strike the awed surface of earth with its blasting fire. Then, athwart the hot, listening deadness of the atmosphere comes a dazzling flash, bathing the valley in a sea of flame; and a roll of thunder, long, loud, and close at hand, makes the expectant group, which is standing on the verandah to watch the storm, involuntarily start, and the silence is more intense than before. And now a great chain of fire shoots from the blackness immediately overhead, and before you could count one, an appalling crash shakes the solid old house to its very foundations, while the windows rattle like castanets.

"Let's go inside," suggested Ethel; "I don't like this."

"It's getting wicked," said Armitage. "It was just such a shot as this that killed old Simmonds. That was up in Kaffraria, where the storms are about as bad as anywhere. He and I were standing in the doorway watching the fun; I went in to light my pipe, and while I was fumbling about for the matches something knocked me clean over, and I heard a bang and a crash enough to wake the dead. At first I thought I had upset the crockery shelf on top of me; but no, there it stood; then my head felt queer, and there was a smell of burning about the place. Then I remembered, and got up and went to the door. There lay poor Simmonds, half in and half out, as dead as a log. The lightning had caught him bang on the head, burnt his coat and waistcoat to rags, and mauled him about horribly. I can tell you it wasn't a nice thing for a fellow to see, having just narrowly escaped the same luck himself--Ah!"

Again a sheet of flame darts down, and a roar and a crash as of the discharge of a dozen eighty-one-ton guns follows upon it. This time they beat a retreat indoors; and when they had a little recovered from the momentary shock, Armitage goes on.

"Well, as I was saying, poor Simmonds was so knocked about, that his early sepulture became a matter of necessity; besides, the first thing to do was to get him into the house. He was enormously heavy, and I couldn't get a Kafir on the place to give me a hand. Not for the cattle upon a thousand hills will they so much as touch anything that has been killed by lightning with the end of their little fingers, and the nearest neighbour was twenty miles off. However, I managed to lug the poor fellow in, and the next day we buried him."

"That's a cheerful old yarn of yours, Jack, and well calculated to reassure Miss Brathwaite," struck in Claverton.

"I believe he's only trying to frighten us," said Ethel.

"'Pon my word of honour, every word of what I told you's true," protested Armitage; and with that love for the horrific implanted in the human breast, one story led to another, and the storm raved and flashed without, and a few preliminary hailstones rattled at intervals upon the roof.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN.

CAVEANT!

"Well, you'll have a fine day for your ride. Hicks, leave a buck or two up at Jim's in case I should be coming over. I suppose you'll all be back the day after to-morrow. Good-bye."

The speaker was Mr Brathwaite; the spoken to, an equestrian group of four, consisting of Claverton, Hicks, and the two girls, who were starting on a long-promised visit to Jim Brathwaite's place, where a bushbuck hunt was to be organised on the following day. It was the morning after the narrow escape of the luckless Allen from a watery demise--he and Armitage had returned home to fetch their guns, and were to rejoin the others at the farm of a certain Dutchman who abode half-way. The Naylors had gone on ahead in their trap, and the four equestrians were the last to start. And such a morning! The rain had cleared away, and the great deep vault overhead was unflecked by a single feathery cloud. The sun shot his golden darts from his amber wheel, and the outlines of the mountains slept in soft-toned relief beneath the liquid blue. A perfect day, with exhilaration in every breath of the fresh, healthy atmosphere, now cooled by the thunderstorm and rain of the previous evening. And the glorious freshness and radiant sunlight communicated itself to the spirits of the riders, as they cantered gaily along, chatting and laughing in thorough enjoyment of the unclouded present.

"Now, Mr Claverton," cried Ethel, as their horses bounded along over a smooth level stretch, "we'll have our race--I'm to have a hundred yards start, you know. Shall we begin?"

"On no account. I received strict injunctions from your aunt not to let you do anything rash, and I intend exerting my authority to the uttermost."

"Do you? Well now, why don't you say you're afraid of being beaten? You are, you know. I'll tell you what. _You_ shall have the hundred yards start. We shall easily walk in before that lazy old `Sticks,' shan't we, Springbok, my beauty?" she said, banteringly, patting the neck of her steed, a light, elastic-stepping animal with blood and mettle in him, who arched his neck and shook his mane in response to the caress. She sat him to perfection, the little hand bearing ever so lightly on the reins; and in a habit fitting her like a glove, and a coquettish straw hat surrounded by a sweeping ostrich plume, beneath which the blue eyes danced and sparkled in sheer light-heartedness, she made as pretty a picture as ever one could wish to look upon. At any rate, so thought her companion.

"Well, Sticks is lazy--at times--I grant you; but there's method in his laziness. Don't abuse Sticks."

"Never mind, I know you're afraid. Don't think any more about it. Now I suppose you're dying to. You men always want to do a thing directly you're told not to."

What will be the upshot, by-the-bye, of this standing arrangement of quartette? This is not the first ride by any means that those four have taken together. Together! It has been shown that one of the party, at any rate, had reached the "two's company, three's a crowd" stage--or for the present purpose four. Thus it followed that however often the group may have started together, it was bound to split up before going very far. Frequently Hicks would manage to drop behind with one, and that one was not Ethel. Frequently, also, Ethel would, manoeuvre to rush ahead in a swinging gallop, in which case she could not be suffered to ride alone, but whoever undertook to superintend her on these occasions, certainly it was not Hicks. Whether she was wont to execute these manoeuvres at Laura's previous instigation, or whether her motives were less disinterested, deponent sayeth not. As for Claverton, he accepted the situation with, characteristic indifference. Yet what could be more fraught with elements of possible combustion? As for the man, he was perfectly unsusceptible, and wholly devoid of vanity. He looked upon his beautiful companion as a spoilt, pretty child, fond of teasing and chaff, and who amused him, and if he thought anything about himself in the matter, he supposed that he managed to amuse her. This is how he looked at it--but how did Ethel herself?

"Hallo! There goes a buck!" cried Claverton, suddenly. "May as well have a shot," and he made a movement to dismount.

"No, don't--please don't! Springbok won't stand fire, you know, and he'll bolt with me."

"Oh, all right. Then that lazy old Sticks has his good points after all?"

"Yes; a steady old arm-chair has its good points too. You can shoot from it," she replied, scornfully.

"What a wooden comparison! Why not say a clothes-horse?"

Bang! The report of a gun behind them. "Hicks to the fore," remarked Claverton, shading his eyes to watch the effect of the shot. But the buck held on its way, caring not a straw for the bullet which buried itself in the earth with a vicious thud some ten or a dozen yards behind.

In this way they rode on in the pleasant sunshine, and eventually drew rein in front of a prettily situated though roughly built house of red brick, with thatched roof and high _stoep_. This was the abode of a Dutchman, Isaac Van Rooyen by name, and here they had arranged to stay and have dinner, for on the frontier a standing hospitality is the rule, and in travelling every one makes a convenience of his neighbour and is made a convenience of in turn. The Boer, a large corpulent man of about sixty, advanced to welcome them as the clamorous tongues of a yelping and mongrel pack gave warning of their approach, and consigning their horses to a dilapidated-looking Hottentot, they entered the house. A long, low room furnished with the characteristic plainness of such an abode; a substantial table, several chairs, on some of which none but a lunatic or an inebriate would venture to trust his proportions for a single instant. In one corner stood an ancient and battered harmonium, another contained a sewing-machine and a huge family Bible in ponderous Dutch lettering, while the walls were garnished with sundry grievous prints, high in colour and grisly in design, representing Moses destroying the Tables of the Law, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and so on. The _vrouw_ arose from her coffee-brewing as they entered--the absorption of coffee is a _sine qua non_ in a Boer domicile on the arrival of visitors--and greeted them with stolid and wooden greeting, and a brace of great shy and ungainly damsels--exact reproductions of their mother at twenty and twenty-one--looked scared as they limply shook hands with the new-comers. But others were there besides the regular inmates, for the Naylors had arrived, as also Armitage and Allen, and our friend Will Jeffreys, and these were keeping up a laborious conversation with the worthy Boer and his ponderous _vrouw_, whose daughters, aforesaid, eat together in speechless inanity, now and again venturing a "Ja" or a "Nay" if addressed, and straightway relapsing into a spasmodic giggle beneath their _kapjes_.

"Doesn't Miss Brathwaite play?" inquired the Boer, with a glance at Ethel and then at the harmonium.

"`England expects.' Go now and elicit wheezy strains from yon venerable and timeworn fire-engine," said Claverton, in a low tone.

She drew off her gloves in a resigned manner, and was about to sit down at the despised instrument, when some one putting a book on the music-stool in order to heighten the seat, that fabric underwent a total collapse and came to the ground with a crash. Another seat was found, and she began to play--but oh! what an instrument of torture it was-- more to the performer than to the audience. Every other note stuck fast, keeping up an earsplitting and discordant hum throughout; and the bellows being afflicted with innumerable leaks, were the cause of much labour and sorrow to the player.

"I can't play on this thing," she said. "Every other note sticks down, and the bellows are all in holes, and--I won't."

Naylor explained to the Dutchman that Ethel was a great pianist but was nothing at harmoniums, which excuse covered her somewhat petulant retreat from the abominable instrument, and just then dinner was brought in. Then it became a question of finding seats, many of the chairs being _hors de combat_.

"Here you are, Allen; come and sit here," called out Armitage. In a confiding moment, and the table being full, the unsuspecting youth dropped into the seat indicated, and then--dropped on the floor, for the rickety concern forthwith "resigned," even as the music-stool had done before it. A roar of laughter went up from the incorrigible joker at the success of his impromptu trap, and Allen arose from the ruins of the chair, like Phoenix from the ashes.

"I say, though, that's better than the cruise down the river with the bee in your bonnet, isn't it, old chap?" said Armitage, exploding again. Allen looked rather glum, and another seat, not much less rickety than the other, was found for him.

When he was settled, the Boer stood up and with closed eyes began a long, rambling oration, presumably to the Creator, which was meant for grace, and having discoursed unctuously on everything, or nothing, for the space of several minutes, he set the example of falling to.

"Going up to Jim Brathwaite's for the hunt to-morrow, Oom Isaac?" asked Armitage of his host. [Note 1.]

"Ja," replied old Van Rooyen. "Can _he_ shoot?" designating Claverton-- the popular idea on the frontier being that an "imported" Briton must necessarily be an ass in all things pertaining to field pursuits.

"He just can. Didn't you hear how he licked the Pexters down at my place?"

"Yes, I did hear that; I remember now;" and the Dutchman looked at Claverton with increased respect.

"But that's the fellow to bring down a buck at five hundred yards," went on Armitage, indicating Allen, who, regardless of what went on around him, was making terrific play with his knife and fork, and who, although seated next the speaker, remained in blissful unconsciousness of being the subject of any chaff, by reason of his ignorance of the Dutch language.

"Is he now? I shouldn't have thought that," was the deliberating reply; the matter-of-fact Boer not dreaming for a moment that the other was gammoning him.

And the ball of conversation rolled on, and the unseasoned stew was succeeded by a ponderous jar of quince preserve, then another lengthy grace and the inevitable coffee.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Van Rooyen, with the freedom of his countrymen, was discussing "present company."

"What a pretty girl she is!" he was saying, referring to Ethel. "Is she another of Mr Brathwaite's daughters?"

"No, a niece," replied Naylor, to whom the remark was addressed. "Her father is George Brathwaite, the M.L.A."

"`Ja,' I know him," replied the Dutchman. "He isn't a good man (in the sense of `a good politician'). He voted against our interests in several things. But she's a pretty girl, a very pretty girl. And the Englishman's a good-looking fellow, too. Are they engaged?"

"Damned fool!" angrily muttered Claverton, who, while talking to Ethel, had overheard the above conversation and wondered whether Ethel had too.

"What's the matter now?" said she, and the frown left his brow as the question convinced him she had not heard. But he turned and suggested to Armitage that it was time to saddle up.

"Well, yes--I think it is," replied that worthy, who was busily debating in his own mind whether it would be carrying a joke too far if he inserted a burr or prickle of some sort beneath the saddle of Allen's steady-going old mare; and forthwith a general move was made for the horses, which were duly brought to the door.

"Now, Allen, old chap, keep those awful spurs of yours out of my horse's flank, or there'll be the deuce to pay," called out Armitage, as the absent-minded youth backed his steed violently into that of the speaker--whereupon a kicking match became imminent. Meanwhile Ethel was waiting to be put on her horse, and glanced half involuntarily and somewhat angrily in the direction of Claverton, who, whether by accident or of set purpose, was still on the _stoep_ beginning to fill his pipe from Van Rooyen's pouch, and apparently as ignorant of his actual ungallantry as though the fair sex formed no ingredient of the party. With concealed mortification she resigned herself to Will Jeffreys, who advanced to perform that necessary office, and eagerly seized the opportunity of riding by her side.

"Mr Armitage," she called out, speaking over her shoulder, "do tell me that story about Spoek Krantz."

Armitage ranged his horse on her unoccupied side and began his narrative, enlarging to an appalling extent as he went on.

"Don't take in all he says, Miss Brathwaite. He's cooking up a yarn for the occasion," said Jeffreys.

Armitage vehemently protested that nothing was further from his intention, but to the jocular recrimination which followed, Ethel hardly listened. She thought that Claverton should be punished for his neglect by being made to ride behind. A punishment to which, by the way, the delinquent seemed to submit with exemplary patience, for he puffed away at his pipe, discoursing placidly to Allen, whom he was just in time to prevent from inflicting himself on Laura, thereby rendering Hicks a substantial service. Nevertheless Ethel, before they had gone one-third of the way, began to wish that Armitage was less garrulously disposed, and would vacate the place to which she had summoned him, and once when he dropped behind a little to light his pipe, she half turned her head with a strange wistfulness, and her pulses beat quicker as she hoped that the hoof-strokes which she heard overtaking her were not those of _his_ steed. But they were, and as that light-hearted mortal ranged up beside her and launched out into a fresh stream of chaff and jocularity, and the end of the ride drew near, it seemed to her that the sunshine had gone out of the day, although there was not a cloud in the heavens and the whole beautiful landscape was bathed in that wondrous golden glow which precedes a South African sunset; and shall it be confessed, she felt sore and angry, and snubbed poor Jeffreys, and irritably checked the flow of Armitage's running fire of small wit, till at last they drew rein at Jim Brathwaite's house and were received by its jovial occupant in person.

"Hallo, Ethel; so you've come to help us shoot a buck. But where's your gun?" chaffed he. "Keep quiet; get away you _schelms_," he went on, shying a couple of big stones into the midst of some half-dozen huge rough-haired dogs, which rushed open-mouthed towards the equestrians, baying furiously. The rude but serviceable pack, stopped in their career, thought better of it and turned back, one of their number howling piteously, and limping from the effects of another "rock" hurled by Jim's forcible and practised hand. "Well, Arthur," as the other two came up, "we'll show you some fun to-morrow. But come inside; I'll send Klaas round to off-saddle."

Note 1. "Uncle." Among the Boers, "Oom" and "Tanta," "Uncle" and "Aunt," are used as complimentary prefixes when addressing elderly people, though these stand in no relation whatever to the speaker.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

VENATORIAL.

It is early morning, and a party of mounted men, consisting of our friends of the previous day and their genial host, is riding along the high ground away from Jim Brathwaite's homestead. All carry guns, mostly of the latest and most improved pattern, though one or two still hold to the old-fashioned muzzle-loader, and a pack of great rough-haired dogs, the same which greeted our travellers with such hostile demonstration last evening, careers around and among the party, now and then getting a paw or a tail under the horses' hoofs, and yelping and snapping in consequence. The horses step out briskly in the fresh morning air--for the sun is not yet up--which briskness will, I trow, have undergone considerable abatement when they return at the close of the proceedings, laden with a buck apiece--perchance two--and their riders to boot. And the dogs break out afresh into a mighty clamour, leaping and curvetting, and each striving to outbay his fellow as he realises more and more fully the important part which is to be his in the coming destruction; and as the full-mouthed chorus rings over hill and valley, many a graceful spiral-horned antelope starts in his dewy lair far down in the tangled brake, where yet a white curtain of mist hangs, waiting till the rising beams shall disperse it into warmth and sunshine, and listens, it may be, apprehensively to the distant baying.

"Here. Spry! Tiger! Shut up that infernal row, you brutes. A fellow can't hear himself speak!" And loosening a strap from his saddle, Jim makes a sudden cut with the buckle-end at one of the chief contributors to the shindy, who, starting back hurriedly to avoid the infliction, unwarily places his tail beneath the descending hoof of Naylor's horse, and yells in frantic and heartrending fashion for the next five minutes.

"Noisy devils, they'll scare away all the bucks in the country-side before we get near them," remarks that worthy, shading a match with his hand and lighting his pipe without reining in.

"They haven't had a hunt for some time now, you see. I've been away a good deal, and now they're letting off steam a bit," says Jim. "Hallo, Allen! Look out! If you dig your heels into that horse like that, he'll have you off as sure as his name's Waschbank."

For Allen, whose weedy nag had gone lame, is now bestriding a mount which his host has provided for him--a youthful quadruped, given to occasional bucking. And at the time of the needed warning the playful animal is going along with his back stiffly and ominously arched.

"Then it'll be a case of Allen washing the bank with his tears--to say nothing of tears--for he is bound to _rend_ his `bags' if he falls among these stones," strikes in Armitage.

"Jack, Jack! I trust I may yet live to see you hanged," says Claverton. "Jim, I put it to you as a man and a brother. Can any success possibly attend the steps of a hunting-party in whose midst is the perpetrator of so outrageous a sally?"

"Name isn't Sally," promptly replies the joker; "I was christened Jack, not John, mind--Jack; and Jack I'll live and die."

A laugh is evoked by this repartee, and they break into a canter, while Allen's steed, the exuberance of whose spirits is in a measure let off in the increased exercise, ceases to cause his rider more than a dormant uneasiness. And now the sun is rising slowly and majestically over the eastern hills. Birds are twittering, and the dewy grass shines beneath and around. Then the great beams dart forth over the rolling plains, bathing them in first a red, then a golden light, and the firmament is blue above, and the earth glows in a warm rich effulgence, the glory of a new-born summer day.

Seated under a bush are three persons evidently awaiting the approach of our party. Their horses saddled, and with bridles trailing on the ground, are cropping the short grass hard by. The conversation is being carried on in Dutch for the benefit of half the group, which owns to that nationality, being in fact our portly friend, Isaac van Rooyen, and one of his sons. The other one is Thorman, a bearded, surly-looking fellow, little given to conversation, but greatly addicted to the use of strong language when he does speak. He is a neighbour of Jim Brathwaite's.

"Well, Jim," began Thorman, in response to the other's greeting. "At last! We've been waiting here a whole damned half-hour."

"Never mind, old fellow," laughed the other, "patience is a virtue, you know--especially in these piping times."

"And you've had an opportunity of seeing a most splendid sunrise," added the incorrigible Jack.

"Sunrise be damned," growled Thorman, surlily.

"I thought we were to begin by sunrise, and now we've wasted half the damned day. Better get to work at once," and he turned away to catch his horse.

The others took no notice of his ill-humour, and chatted among themselves. Then with its fresh addition the party moved on a quarter of a mile or so lower down, where, in an open space in the bush, about thirty Kafirs--boys and men--were assembled. These were the beaters, and many of them were accompanied by their dogs--slim greyhounds, rough-haired lurchers, and curs of all shapes and sizes, and of nondescript aspect. The natives stood up and saluted the new arrivals, and forthwith plans were laid for the operations.

"Now then, Jolwane," said Jim, addressing one of them, who, from his age and standing, had constituted himself, or been constituted, head of his countrymen there assembled, "we'll sweep down this bush first," indicating the long deep kloof which sloped away in front of them. "Send half your fellows on the other side and I'll take my dogs and beat this. We'll take it straight down."

"Ewa 'nkos," (yes, chief), replied the Kafir, and he straightway issued directions to his followers, involving much discussion and voluminous explanation.