The Young Yagers Part 12

Swartboy had resolved to pluck the plumes out of the old c.o.c.k that had been seen, and whose dwelling had been so rudely approached and plundered in the morning.

But how was Swartboy to capture the c.o.c.k?

It was not his intention to take him alive. That is a difficult matter, and can only be managed by men mounted upon fleet horses, and then after a very long and troublesome chase.

Swartboy had no wish to take the ostrich alive. The bird would be of no use to him in that way, as the skin and plume-feathers were the spoils upon which the Bushman's thoughts were bent, or rather the rix-dollars which these would yield on Swartboy's return to Graaf Reinet. Therefore he did not intend to _catch_ the old c.o.c.k, but _kill_ him, if he could.

But how was the Bushman to accomplish this? Would he borrow the rifle from Hendrik, or the great elephant-gun--the "roer"--from Groot Willem, and shoot the ostrich? Not likely. Swartboy was no shot, that is, with fire-arms. He knew nothing about them; and with either rifle or roer he could scarcely have hit an elephant, much less an ostrich!

But if Swartboy knew not how to manage a gun, he had a weapon of his own that he did know how to manage,--his bow. With that tiny bow,--scarce a yard in length,--and those small slender arrows, the Bushman could send a missile as deadly as the leaden bullet of either rifle or roer.

Looking at the light reed, with its little barbed head and feathered shaft, you would scarcely believe it possible that such a weapon could bring down the big strong ostrich; and yet with a similar shaft had Swartboy often levelled the great camelopard in the dust. A deadly and dangerous weapon was the Bushman's arrow.

But what rendered it so? Not its size, and surely not the force with which it could be projected from that tiny bow? Neither. There was something besides the strength of the bow and the weight of the arrow to make it a "deadly and dangerous weapon." There was _poison_.

Swartboy's arrows were true Bushman weapons,--they were poisoned. No wonder they were deadly.

The use of the bow among savage nations all over the earth, and the great similarity of its form and construction everywhere, may be regarded as one of the most curious facts in the history of our race.

Tribes and nations that appear to have been isolated beyond all possible communication with the rest of the world, are found in possession of this universal weapon, constructed on the same principle, and only differing slightly in details--these details usually having reference to surrounding circ.u.mstances. When all else between two tribes or nations of savages may differ, both will be found carrying a common instrument of destruction,--the bow and arrows.

Can it be mere coincidence, like necessities in different parts of the world producing like results, or is this possession of a similar weapon among distant and remote peoples a proof of unity or communication between them in early times?

These inquiries would lead to a long train of reflections, which, however interesting, would here be out of place.

But an equally or still more curious fact is that of _poisoned_ arrows.

We find here and there, in almost every quarter of the globe, tribes of savages who poison their arrows; and the mode of preparing and using this poison is almost exactly the same among all of them. Where there is a difference, it arises from the different circ.u.mstances by which the tribe may be surrounded.

Now the knowledge of arrow-poison, as well as the mode of preparing it and the habit of using it, belong to tribes of savages so completely isolated, that it is not probable--hardly possible, in fact--that either they or their ancestors could ever have communicated it to one another.

We cannot believe that there ever existed intercourse between the Bushman of Africa and the Chuncho of the Amazon, much less between the former and the forest tribes of North America; yet all these use the arrow-poison and prepare it in a similar manner! All make it by a mixture of vegetable poison with the subtle fluid extracted from the fang-glands of venomous serpents. In North America, the rattlesnake and moccason, with several species of roots, furnish the material; in South America, the "wourali," or "curare," as it is indifferently called, is a mixture of a vegetable juice with the poison extracted from the glands of the coral-snake, (_Echidna ocellata_), the "boiquira" or "diamond rattlesnake," (_Crotalus horridus_), the lance-headed "viper,"

(_Trigonocephalus lanceolate_) the formidable "bushmaster," (_Lachesis rhombeata_), and several other species. In South Africa, a similar result is obtained by mixing the fluid from the poison-glands of the puff-adder, or that of various species of _naja_, the "cobras" of that country, with the juice from the root of an Amaryllis, called _gift-bol_ (poison-bulb) in the phraseology of the colonial Dutch. It is out of such elements that the Bushman mixes his dangerous compound.

Now our Bushman, Swartboy, understood the process as well as any of his race; and it was in watching him mixing the ingredients and poisoning his arrows that Klaas and Jan spent the early portion of that day.

All the ingredients he carried with him; for whenever a "geel coppel,"

(_Naja haje_), or a "spuugh-slang," (_Naja nigra_), or the "puff-adder,"

(_Vipera arretans_), or the horned viper, (_Cerastes caudalis_,)-- whenever any of these was killed on the route--and many were--Swartboy took care to open the poison-gland, situated behind their fangs, and take therefrom the drop of venom, which he carefully preserved in a small phial. He also carried another ingredient, a species of bitumen obtained from certain caverns, where it exudes from the rocks. The object of this is not, as supposed by some travellers, to render the charm "more potent," but simply to make it glutinous, so that it would stick securely to the barb of the arrow, and not brush off too easily.

A similar result is obtained by the South American Indians from a vegetable gum.

The gift-bol, or poison-bulb, was easily obtained, as the species of Amaryllis that yields it grew plentifully near. But Swartboy had not trusted to this chance, as during past days he had plucked several of the roots, and put them away in one of the side-chests of the wagon, where many other little knick-knacks of his lay snugly stowed.

Klaas and Jan, therefore, had the rare chance of witnessing the manufacture of the celebrated arrow-poison.

They saw Swartboy bruise the gift-bol, and simmer it over the fire in a small tin pan which he had; they saw him drop in the precious snake-venom; they saw him stir it round, until it became of a very dark colour, and then, to their great astonishment, they saw him try its strength _by tasting_!

This seemed odd to both, and so may it to you, boy reader,--that a drop of poison, the smallest portion of which would have killed Swartboy as dead as a herring, could be thus swallowed by him with impunity! But you are to remember that poisons, both vegetable and mineral, are very different in their nature. A small quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic taken into the stomach will produce death, and yet you might swallow the head of a rattlesnake, fangs, poison-gland, and all, without the slightest danger.

On the contrary, if a single grain of the latter were to enter your blood, even if it were only scratched in with a pin, its effects would be fatal, while other poisons may be introduced into the blood without any fatal result.

Swartboy knew there was no a.r.s.enic or any species of "stomach-poison,"

if I am allowed to use such a phrase, in his mixture. It was only "blood-poison," which he might _taste_ with impunity.

The bitumen was the last thing put into the pan; and when Swartboy had stirred it a while longer, and sufficiently thickened it, so that it would adhere to the barbs, he took down a quiver of arrows already made, and dipped each of them into the poison. As soon as the barbs had cooled, and the poison became well dried, the arrows were ready for use, and Swartboy intended that some of them should be used on that very day.

Before the sun should set, he designed sending one or more of them through the skin of an ostrich.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DECOYING THE OLD c.o.c.k.

It was not the process of mixing the arrow-poison, so much as the use to be made of it, that interested Klaas and Jan. They knew that the Bushman intended to try its effect on an ostrich that afternoon. More than that, Swartboy had promised they should actually see how he managed matters, and witness the death of the ostrich. With such a prospect before them, the boys were in high spirits all the fore-part of the day.

It was to be late in the afternoon, near sunset, in fact, before the sport should come off. Of course not till the return of the ostriches to their nest--for it was there the drama was to be enacted. The nest and its environs were to be the scene of the tragedy--the time a little before sunset. Such was Swartboy's "programme."

Of course Swartboy had leave from the older boys to go upon almost whatever expedition he pleased, but certainly upon this one, since Klaas and Jan were so interested about it. Indeed, some of the others would have liked to take part in the affair, but for certain reasons that could not be.

Some of the hunters had doubts as to the result. They knew the poisoned arrow would kill any ostrich. They did not doubt that. But how was Swartboy to get near enough to discharge one of his tiny shafts into the bird's body? That was the question that puzzled them. He proposed doing so in broad daylight. Indeed there was no other time for him.

All knew that before night the ostriches would return to their nest--as soon as the sun was low, and it became cooler,--but they knew also that the birds having found out what had happened in their absence would start off in alarm, and abandon the nest altogether.

Swartboy, therefore, would have no darkness to shelter him from their gaze. How was he to approach them within the range required for his small bow--that is, within less than fifty yards?

Did he intend to place himself in ambush and wait for their return? If he did, it must be near the nest, else he would have but a poor chance.

There was no knowing in what direction the birds might come back, or which way they would scamper off again.

Now for Swartboy to conceal himself near the nest, all believed to be an impossibility. There was not a bit of cover within five hundred yards of the spot--neither bush nor stone big enough to conceal the body of a man from creatures less wary than ostriches, but from these a cat could not have hidden her carca.s.s within a circle of a thousand yards diameter. As to Swartboy's sinking a "shooting-hole" and lying await in that, the boys never thought of such a thing. A shooting-hole surrounded by bushes might do for a lion, or a rhinoceros, or an elephant, but no ostrich could be bamboozled by any such _ruse_; for these birds--that on account of their appearance have been called stupid by some superficial observers--are in reality the very reverse. The slightest alteration in the form of the ground, either around their nests or near it, would be noted by them, and would prevent them from approaching it, except after such a reconnoissance as would defeat all Swartboy's plans. But he had no thought of a shooting-hole--nothing of the sort.

What plan, then, had he in his mind? The boys could not guess; and Swartboy, like all cunning hunters, did not care to tell his plans to everybody. He preferred letting them discover them by his acts; and as all of them were hunters themselves and boys of good breeding, they did not persecute him with idle questions, but watched his preparations in silence.

Now one of his preparations, made before starting, was to take the little fennec that had been killed in the morning, and "truss" it with a number of skewers, in such a way that it stood upright upon its legs, and at a short distance looked as if it was "alive and well!"

This was Swartboy's last act, before setting out for the ostriches'

nest.

When it was finished, Swartboy observed that the sun was low enough, and taking the fennec under his army and his bow in his hand, he struck off over the plain.

The boys were to be spectators of the affair, but that was rather in a figurative sense. There were two pocket telescopes, and when Swartboy promised that Klaas and Jan should be witnesses of the thing, he had these telescopes in his mind. For certain reasons he could not take any of the boys along with him, and from the wary character of the game they could not go near enough to observe it with the naked eye. To have done so would have driven the ostriches out of Swartboy's reach, for it has been already stated that these far-seeing birds can sight an enemy farther off than they can themselves be seen.

The telescopes, therefore, must be brought into play, and as Klaas and Jan begged to have the use of them, it was arranged that the two boys should climb into a tree, and describe what they saw to the rest, who stood below. That would be witnessing a spectacle by a sort of _second sight_, as Arend jocosely remarked.

Klaas and Jan were therefore hoisted up into a camel-thorn acacia; and, seating themselves on its branches, prepared their telescopes for use.

The elevation enabled them not only to see the nest, for that was visible from the ground, but the surface of the plain to a considerable distance beyond. They would thus be enabled to note every movement either Swartboy or the ostriches should make.

Now it has been stated that within a circle of five hundred yards radius from the nest, there was no cover that would have concealed a cat. With the exception of a stone here and there--none of them larger than a quartern loaf--the sandy surface was perfectly smooth and level as a table.

The boys had noticed this in the morning. Hendrik and Groot Willem had taken good notice of it, for they, as well as Swartboy, had thought of "waylaying" the ostriches on their return, but had given up the idea, from the fact of there being no cover to conceal them from the eyes of the wary birds.

But just outside the circ.u.mference mentioned, there was a chance of cover--a bush that by tight squeezing might have sheltered the body of a man. Both Hendrik and Groot Willem had seen this bush, but on account of its great distance from the nest they had never thought of its being used as a cover. Five hundred yards off,--it might as well have been five miles. Even had it been on the side by which the ostriches had gone off, and by which they, the hunters, conjectured they would return, the bush might have served. A shot might have been obtained as the birds came back to the nest. But it was not on that side,--on the very opposite--and in the direction of the camp. Neither Hendrik nor Groot Willem had entertained the idea of lying behind it.