The Golden Rock Part 30

"I like it well; there is a restfulness in the slow swing of the waggon, and in the stillness of the night, that soothes one. Will the journey be like this all the way?"

"Ah, no, we are in the beaten track now, in a quiet country. The dangers and the difficulties lie beyond the range of the ordinary traveller when we enter the wilderness. Then the loneliness of the slowly pa.s.sing days and the brooding silence of the nights, broken only by the sudden clamour of wild beasts, will try your patience and fill you with regrets that you should have ventured away from the crowded cities."

"Sometimes there is pleasure in melancholy, and the wilderness has no terrors for me, no more than it has for the stricken deer that seek the deepest solitudes."

She took out her violin and played, while the men smoked, and the two Kaffirs, letting the oxen keep on in their way undirected, fell behind, drinking in the music with delight.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

MISSING.

It seemed as though the suspicions about the designs of Groot Piet and Lieutenant Gobo were groundless, as for two weeks they trekked on without an obstacle, though Frank found it necessary to check the growing impertinence of the Kaffirs by knocking Klaas down out of hand one morning, and by flogging the leader with a doubled rheim--a hint which brought about the proper degree of respect due by a native to a white man. They reached the rolling bush country without further incident, and found greater objects of interest in the diversity of animal life.

One evening they drew up on a gentle rise above a river, and found themselves in the neighbourhood of a Boer trek. About thirty tent waggons, gleaming white in the dark, were drawn up in ranks of ten, their desselbooms all pointing to the north, and the s.p.a.ce around thronged with troops of cattle and herds of goats and sheep. This was a party of "Doppers," s.h.i.+fting ground to get away from the vain delights and irritating chatter of the uitlanders, who had invaded the South in the wake of the gold miners. Their austere piety had risen in arms, and they were now in search of a remote spot where their eyes would not be offended by the spectacle of unG.o.dly merriment. Their thin nasal notes as they chanted an evening hymn cut through the air fraught with a spirit of hopeless despondency at the wickedness of all things human; but when the singing was over they allowed their morbid curiosity to draw them to the solitary waggon where one lovely woman, in outlandish costume, sat laughing with two of the despised uitlanders. The men, with their dark sombre faces, drew near to offer the accustomed hand-shake, but the women stood aloof, the younger ones giggling under their linen kapjes, and the elder standing stolidly, their hands folded in their ap.r.o.ns.

"Who are you, and whence do you come, if I may be bold enough to ask?"

was the first question of the male spokesman; and when Hume had courteously responded, there was one word spoken, and that was "tabak."

A roll of tobacco was produced, plugs cut off, and shaved against the b.a.l.l.s of big thumbs, all scarred with knife cuts and blackened with tobacco. The fragments were solemnly rolled between the broad palms, the pipes filled, and lit with coals from the fire; and the best flavour can only be drawn from tobacco by a wood coal.

Then they squatted down on their heels and stared solemnly, making observations enough to supply them with slow conversations for a week on the frivolous manners of the strangers.

Hume answered all the questions, and then asked for information himself, from which he learnt that they had arrived at a good place for a halt, gra.s.s being good and water plentiful, with game in fair numbers a few miles distant from the road. They were told of a vlei five miles off, where some of the large antelopes gathered at sunrise, and getting the direction from the stars, Frank and Webster determined to walk there that night, so as to lose no time.

After leaving a note with Klaas, now her humble slave, for Miss Anstrade, who had retired some time previously to her tent, and after seeing the oxen tied up to the trek-tow, they set off with their guns, guided by the stars. Frank, with his old hunter's instinct fully revived, walked along through the deepening gloom without a tumble, but Webster damaged his clothing and his skin by repeatedly running into thorn-bushes, whose long, white thorns, curved like the talons of an eagle, laid fast hold of him.

Now and then a startled antelope would bound away, or a porcupine or ant-bear roll grunting across their track, while the notes of plovers and ducks flying overhead broke complainingly on the quiet air, and the far-off barking of dogs at the "Doppers'" camp accentuated the silence.

Before morning they saw the faint, ghostly gleam of water below them, and lay down to wait for the first break of day, when they rose to take their bearings, so that they should not miss the route on their return, a catastrophe very likely to happen even to experienced hunters in the bush country. Separating, they each selected a hiding-place by the water, and before long the cracks of their rifles rang out sharply, Hume securing a fine sable antelope, while Webster, over-estimating the size of a buck, which loomed large in the mist, had no luck. After s.h.i.+fting ground, and walking for an hour, they each met with success. Some time was spent in gralloching the quarry, after which a fire was lit; they had a bathe, and then roasted a steak of venison on the glowing coals.

Then they covered the bodies with bushes, and picking up their course, returned to the outspan, which they reached at noon.

They stood at the border of the bush struck with dismay and surprise.

The open s.p.a.ce so crowded the night before was now deserted. A few thin streaks of smoke rose from a number of white ash-heaps, two or three ringed crows croaked and gabbled hoa.r.s.ely from a withered thorn, but there was no other sign of life.

"Why," said Webster, tilting his broad hat back, "you've made the wrong port."

Hume walked out into the open, and stood by a heap of ashes.

"This is the spot," he said; "here are the marks of our scherm poles; and there," pointing to the dent of a small heel, "is her spoor."

"Then, where is she?"

Hume pointed to the broad tracks of the waggon-wheels leading north.

"What the devil! then she has moved away. Those swabs of n.i.g.g.e.rs have mutinied and cleared. And we were fools enough to trust them. Thank G.o.d, they can't be far."

"No, they can't be far."

"Then come on, man; with a trail like those wheel-marks before us we can overtake them before dark;" and without more words, Webster strode rapidly on, soon to disappear into the waggon road, which struck into the bush beyond.

Hume, however, stood by the dead fire, resting on his gun as though stupefied, but his keen eyes, ranging over every inch of ground, belied this. So far from being dazed, his faculties were fully alert, and presently he began quartering the ground in widening circles until he reached the edge of the bush, when he stopped under a spreading mimosa and keenly examined the ground beneath. Stooping, he picked up a half-consumed cigarette, and then went at a trot after Webster, whom he met returning in a state of white fury.

"You take it very coolly," growled Webster, "lingering like this, when every minute is precious. The trail has been blotted out by a thousand hoof-marks, and there is no more sign than a s.h.i.+p makes on the water.

Why the devil don't you suggest something?"

"Look here," said Hume, holding out the fragment of cigarette.

"This is no time to trifle," said Webster, eyeing the thing impatiently.

"No Boer smokes cigarettes."

"Well?"

"Portuguese do."

"What! Good heavens! Has Gobo taken her off?"

Hume ground his teeth.

"I knew it," he said; "I knew when those fellows took the trouble to speak to our boys on the sly that there was some devilment afoot, but I thought they had missed their chance of playing some spiteful trick on us and had gone back. They must have had us in view all along until the opportunity offered. Last night their chance came, and they have gone off under cover of the 'Dopper' trail."

"If they are with the 'Doppers' we can easily overtake them."

"No; they would keep ahead of the trek for a mile or so to hide their spoor, then they would fall behind and make off by some side-path or through the veld. Now, you skirt along the left side of the road, keeping watch for any waggon-track turning aside, while I go along the right."

They went on rapidly, in complete silence, with bent brows, and a fierce eagerness at the thought of soon meting out punishment. The task was not difficult. For the greater part the road pa.s.sed through thickets of mimosas near enough together to prevent a lumbering waggon from pa.s.sing; at other parts there were small banks where the ground had been cut into by the heavy wheels, and these would at once have shown signs where a waggon turned off; and, at long intervals only, were stretches of hard, sun-baked ground, on which the track of wheels could only be faintly seen.

Mile after mile they went, kicking up the dust, which stained their clothing red and caked on their hands and faces, until their eyes glared as if from masks. Sometimes they would pause to straighten themselves and to rub their eyes because of the strain upon them, and once Webster gave a shout; but Hume, after one glance at wheel-tracks a week old, went swiftly on, and gradually their shadows lengthened out before them as the sun stood lower and the great heat was tempered by cool breezes.

At last Hume made a sign to Webster, and turned sharply off to the right, along the track of a solitary waggon, and just at dusk they saw the gleam of white, amid a cl.u.s.ter of thorns. Forgetting their weariness, they started off at a run, which did not slacken until they came within a hundred yards, when Hume, with a gasp, drew up.

The waggon was theirs truly; but there was an unusual silence about. No fire shed its welcome light, the sails were down, the oxen were away, and there were no signs of life.

Slowly they went up, with a nameless fear at their hearts, to find the tent empty, and the contents tumbled about and rifled.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE GAIKA.

The two friends stood a moment gazing blankly at the empty waggon; then Webster clambered in to see if by any chance Miss Anstrade had left a message, while Hume, in the fading light, hunted slowly around for spoor of hoof-marks. Darkness, however, soon closed, and they sat down with their faces in their hands.

"The infernal scoundrels!" muttered Webster, springing up in a moment; "the cowardly hounds! If they had a grudge against us, why could they not have wreaked their spite on us? Is it some mad freak, do you think, of that crack-brained Dutchman?"

Hume was silent.

"Come, Frank," said Webster, stepping up to his friend, "have you no idea? I am at a loss in the veld; but you, who have been here before, should have some confidence."