Tales from the Veld Part 29

"Yes, he is explicit on that point."

"Seems to me it's difficult to judge that height at a distance of a mile," said Abe; "but, come to think of it, there was a magistrate at Mossel Bay who had the same luck about two years ago. He seed the serpent sporting around for a hour off the coast, and the crittur raised its head somewhere about ten feet. So I guess it's the same that's cruising off Port Nolloth."

"Ever been to Port Nolloth?" asked Long Jim. "Well, I have; and the country's that lonesome and sand-blown, and gen'rally lost to all sense of what's fittin' for human beings to admire, that I'm not surprised the magistrate thought he saw something."

"Don't you believe in sea-serpents, Jim?"

"What, me! Well onct I spent a whole hour trying to smash a sea-serpent with rocks, and at the end of that time I found the thing were sea-bamboo--round and smooth, and tapering away to a point like a moving tail. No, sir; give me something I can see and feel."

"'Cording to all accounts," said Abe, drily, "if you did feel the crittur, it would be when pa.s.sing down his throat."

"Of course you've seen one, Abe?" said Si Amos with a slight sneer.

"I have," said Abe, quietly, as he reached over for the demijohn of Cango.

"Did he lift his head ten feet from the sea?" asked Long Jim.

"I see what it is," said Abe; "you fellows been listening to my exper'ences so long that you think I'm lying; and I'm not gwine to sacrifice my self-respeck by telling you things you don't believe.

That's so!"

There was a long pause, as no one felt disposed to make the needed sacrifice to Abe's exacting honour.

"Was it a big snake?" asked Long Jim presently.

"Pretty big," said Abe, shortly.

"Twenty feet?" asked Jim, anxiously.

Mr Pike smiled.

"Not so much?" said Jim.

"About a quarter of a mile long," said Abe, rising. "Well, I guess I'll go. So long."

"Stay a moment," said Jim, firmly; "I can't let you go without saying that Abe Pike's word's as true as steel. A quarter of a mile, you said?"

"Might a been a yard shorter," said Abe, carelessly, as he paused at the door.

"Come back, old man," said Jim. "Take this chair--and there's more in the jug. So; that's good. A quarter of a mile," he muttered. "Well, that's good enough for a stretcher."

"If you come along with me, Jim," said Abe, "I'll tell you about it.

But I'm not laying myself open to words from them as is full of suspicion as a family of jackals."

"That's not fair to me," I said. "I've swallowed--I mean I've accepted--all your stories without question."

"And me, too," said Si, with a gulp. "Try some of this Transvaal tabak--it's first rate."

Abe permitted himself to be appeased. He filled his pipe, and as he leant back in the chair with his heels up on the chimney, and a gla.s.s in one hand, a reminiscent look overspread his rugged face.

"This yer exper'ence happened to me away back 'fore you younkers wore shoes--but I never told it, as I were afraid of skeering the wits outer you. That's so. The Little Kleinemonde over yonder were a blind river, same as now, with a stretch of beach about 200 yards wide 'tween its lip and the sea-foam hissing along the hard sands where the little tumble-crabs swarm in their sh.e.l.ls, and the air comes bubbling up outer the sea-worm's holes. It were more lonely than now--for there's town families as picnic there for weeks in their tents--and you can hear the little children laugh--and sometimes see a string of girls holding hands and jumping up in the foam. There was never a soul then on the wide, white beach, that stretched away miles east and west--with black rocks running out into the breakers--and back of the beach the high white sandhills, rimmed on the top with thick berry bushes. It were that lonely that sometimes I could have a run away, and the birds that flitted along, hunting for what the tide cast up--the oyster catcher and the curlew made it lonelier with their wild cries. And the river lay back, still and quiet, without a current--between the dark woods--quiet and still--crouching down behind the stretch of beach sand--as if it feared the roaring surf--always tossing and thundering jest across that narrow riband. And the waves came always rus.h.i.+ng in, as though they would like to wash away the sand strip and pour their waters over the silent river--and in the spring tides I seed the outermost fringe of foam sweep a'most up to the lip of the river--and go back and come up again--swinging to and fro--till sometimes a little trickle of the salt water would fall into the dead stream, where a many fishes gathered, hoping to get out at last into the great wild waters. I caught fish there at them times--going into ten pounds--springers and steinbra.s.se.

Well, one day there came a great storm of rain--like a cloudburst--and every cattle track and footpath were a running stream--and every river bed were filled to the brim. And in the night I yeard the thunder of the waves at the fall of the spring tide. My! How they roared through the night--and crashed as the big waves curled over and smote the water with the blow of a falling rock. The night were that wild that I could get no sleep--and went to the door to look out. The ground was wet and steaming, and the sound of running water came from every dip and hollow.

I sed to myself the dead river will be alive, and the tide and flood will cut a pa.s.sage deep and wide through the beach, and there will be a litter heaped along the tide mark all down the beach, with good pickings for the first man. So I put a sack over my head, and taking the old muzzle-loader, stepped out into the slushy dark, and squelched away over the sodden veld towards the Kleinemonde. I struck the ridge above the river jest about sunrise, and the light coming through the mist showed up the wildest sight of tossing waters and a beach all strewn with trees and litter of seaweed. As I thought, the dead river was alive and roaring into the seas through a broad channel cut deep into the sand. I went down to the beach and watched the flood pour out, while the spray from the waves druv stinging against my face. I tell you, it was a sight to stand and watch, not heeding the wind or the wet--and the savageness of it gripped hold of me. Bymby I crept along the beach, in and out the piled ma.s.ses o' rubbish--finding a many dead birds and sich things--then about noon I was back ag'in at the river--where the incoming tide, all red with the wash from the land, was rolling back the river water and damming up the channel ag'in with tons of sand and seaweed. I made a fire under the shelter of the wood and cooked a fat duck I picked up, and when I finished him off I dried myself by the fire while I watched the river. Jes' then I seed something in the river that made me jump behind a tree--the black fin of the biggest shark you ever seed, standing out maybe a yard high--and raking back maybe twelve feet--with spikes all along. 'Lord luv me!' thinks I; 'what in thunder's that?' And I let drive with both barrels, and the thing darted off with a rush that sent a wave up both sides of the banks among the trees--and far up the river I seed the sun s.h.i.+ne on the curve of his body as he turned to come down--and I cut my stick. When I got home I set to and bent a fish-hook outen a steel stable rake--las.h.i.+ng on a line of buffalo rheims. I went back, baited the hook with a sea-bird that I had picked up, and let it run out, taking a bend round the tree with the rheim. The crittur I reckoned was still there--for why, he couldn't get out by reason of the silting up of the channel--though I could see no sign of him--and he paid no heed to the bait. Well, I were getting tired, when I noticed some cattle at the bend on the other side, where there's a bit of the flat with a 'salt lick'--that's a favourite place for them, by reason of the salt in the soil. They were jest capering around with their tails up, then standing to stare at something in the river, with a ole black bull nearer than the rest, pawing at the ground.

I could tell there was some crittur there that they didn't like--maybe a tiger--but I could see nix beyond a rock or tree stump. As I watched, wondering what could ha' disturbed them, the ole bull shook his head, then fetched a deep beller and rolled on a few yards--while the cows and young stock behind came together in a bunch. Then the bull stood ag'in--pawing the wet ground--and Lord sakes!--jes' then that rock riz out of the river."

"What's that?"

"Yessir!" and Abe wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My sakes!

I jes' sunk inter the rushes in a tremble, and the ole bull, with a beller that rolled down the river, turned to run. He never got mor'n ten yards when he were caught by the neck, and I yeard his bones crunch."

"What caught him?"

"A mouth! It were a mouth that caught him, set in a head like a water barrel, with a neck behind thick as a blue-gum tree, blue along the top and white below. Shaped like a snake it were. It caught the bull by the neck, and lay outstretched, sucking his blood, while the four legs of the poor crittur beat the air, and the cows standing off rushed about lowing. Eighty yards he was distant, and for all I were in a lather from fear, I plunked a bullet jes' back of the opened jaws. Believe me, at the sound of the gun them cows, with their tails up, charged down on that sarpint. Yessirs, they went for him like a troop of hosses. Some of them took the neck flying, without attempting any mischief, but two old cows went slap at the body with their horns down, druving them in till the blood spurted high. Then he let go o' the bull, swept the cows off their feet, and with a snort slid into the river, and came charging down like a steam tug for the mouth--his head lifted high up, and the waves streaming as he went I let drive at him as he went by, clean into the head--and at the shot he towered up like a column--and, so lifting himself, flung half his length onto the sand bar. Then he wriggled and writhed till the bulk of his middle lay high and dry, and the tail of him, twenty yards up the river, lashed the water with blows that sounded like cannon--till the swell of the waves he raised floated him off, and I saw him cut through the waves out into the deep sea beyond."

"Is that all?"

"Yessir, that's all; and if you'd a been there 'sted of me, Si Amos, I guess you'd a said it was too much--a darn sight too much for your nerves. As for me, I niver went near the place for a year, and when there's a spring-tide I keep indoors. One thing I seed, and that was a growth of barnacles and seaweed on his back, which explains why it is that some folk say the sea-serpent has got a mane like a hoss."

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

THE YOUNG BURGHER.

The little Dutch village was astir, where almost hidden by the trees of the orchards and quince hedges grown high, it stood beneath the bare rock-bound hills beyond Kambula.

The Zulus had lifted the cattle when they grazed homewards at dusk amid the thin scattering of dark mimosas on the grey plain. The herdsman lay, with his face to the sky, unburied yet, with a terrible wound in his breast, and the long, ugly slit downwards through the abdomen that told of Zulu work.

And the Commando was turning out.

Ten men, sitting loosely in their saddles, were all there were--big, gaunt men with s.h.a.ggy beards and lined faces of the colour of smoked leather. Of untanned leather, too, were their trousers and veldschoens.

Each one carried his food in the small saddle-bag of "rattel" skin, food of the scantiest--a strip of biltong, a pound or two of "ash cookies"--and slung from each bent shoulder was the powder-flask and bullet-bag.

Ten men and a boy--and he alone showed excitement in the brightness of his brown eyes and the firm set of his mouth. A boy so brown that you would have said he was of coloured origin, and with clothes so worn that no street boy would have envied him. A sullen boy and dull of wit you would have thought from his narrow forehead and bent brows, but there was one who did not think so.

"Oh, my _kind_!" she said, standing by the gate in the quince hedge; "they do not want one so young. And there is the wood to be brought in."

"Ja!" said one burgher, taking his pipe from his mouth; "he is altogether too young for this work. Let him stay."

"Hear to Oom Jan," cried the woman, stepping across a tiny stream that gurgled pleasantly in its narrow bed beside the road; and she laid a restraining hand on the old rheim that did service for the boy's reins.

"Come, my son--my little one."

The boy looked steadily at his mother. "I am not little any more," he said.

"It is true," said the big man who led the little band, turning slowly in his saddle. "He is no longer little. He must come!"

The woman let go her hold and stood back humbly, while her tear-stained face was turned appealingly at the man--her own man; and the burghers, smoking, took advantage of the pause to look back at their own wives and children, who stood out in the solitary street, drawing comfort from each other.

"We must all give," he said.