Tales from the Veld

Young Piet looked after his father and feared, and urged his horse forward, and drew back as he saw dark figures crouching low along the hillside, and flitting swiftly from rock to rock. Up the hill his father went, menacing now one warrior, now another, with his rifle, getting at last above the cattle, then with a roar he turned and swept the herd before him down on to the rolling grass veld again.

All would have been well if the burghers had stood fast a moment longer, but seeing the cattle safe they galloped after, and the Zulus, fearing to be baulked of their prey, made their last effort.

“My Gott!” cried the Commandant, “why do you run? Hold them back!” But the men had got the madness of flight in their blood now, and nothing would hold them, though the Zulus were now out on the plain and without shelter. So once again he stood alone, checking the rush of the foe with his menacing rifle before he galloped on. Assegais whizzed by his head; then his horse reared with a shrill scream of pain, and he was hurled headlong.

When he presently sat up with a ringing in his head, he saw the Zulus standing away off with the assegais poised, and he attempted to rise.

“My leg is broken,” he muttered.

“Lay still, my father. Oom Jan will come for you.”

The big man looked round and saw his son standing behind, with his rifle ready, facing the warriors, alone. “Oh, Heer! Oh, Heer!” he groaned. “My son, why are you here?”

“Oom Jan will come,” muttered the boy, huskily.

“Anything but this,” cried the big man. Then he said sternly, “Give me your rifle, Piet, and run – run for your mother’s sake. Run, you are untired and the Kaffirs have come miles. Your rifle – quick!”

Young Piet shook his head. “Oom Jan will come,” he whispered.

The Zulus, silent with quivering nostrils and gleaming eyes, drew in closer.

The veld echoed the sound of rapid hoof-beats.

Old Piet Uys raised himself on his arm and looked over the veld. He saw his burghers coming; but they were far, and he faintly heard Oom Jim’s voice ring out in encouragement.

“Run, my little one,” he repeated; “run, I order you! Your father tells you,” and the man looked sternly at his son.

The boy shook his head, his lips parted, but the words never came. The next instant his rifle spoke its last message, and the Zulus rushed in.

They found them both; the boy lying across his father’s broad breast. And the little mother sat tearless through the night crying that “The Groot Heer was good, but he had taken all – all,” while Oom Jan wept like a child.

Chapter Thirty Five
Uncle Abe and the Snake

The day was wet, the ploughing was over, and as we had an idle spell, what more natural than that most of us should find business at the store? where we sat on bags and boxes, and smoked and talked, or sometimes sang beautifully to the wailing tunes from Long Jim’s concertina. This day old Abe Pike, humped up on the counter, with his heels drumming against the side of it, was holding forth on the iniquity of Parliament, when a stranger entered, wringing wet, and Abe stopped to investigate his appearance.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said the stranger – a townsman evidently, from his dress and assurance.

“Take a seat,” said Abe, pointing with his boot at a box of soap. “Not walking, are yer?” with a curious glance at the stranger’s knickerbockers. “Going far? Stopping here long? Stranger, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes,” said the newcomer with a laugh. “I’ve come thirty miles since breakfast.”

“Grub early?”

“I beg your pardon? Oh, no; had breakfast at eight, left at nine.”

“Phew!” said Abe, “thirty miles in four hours. Must be a good horse you’ve got.”

“It is rather,” said the stranger, with a curious smile.

“Hoss knocked up, I s’pose. Been riding too hard?”

“No, not at all. He’s good for another thirty miles before sunset,” and he gave us a wink.

Abe looked gravely at the stranger for some seconds, while one by one, on some excuse or other, we went outside to look at the stranger’s horse. We found a new pattern bicycle in the shed – new to us – and we returned to the room looking as much unconcerned as we could, but eager to get a rise out of Abe.

“That’s a fine animal,” said Long Jim; “clean in the limbs, with plenty of grit, and full of fire. Never turned a hair, too, what’s more!”

Abe looked at Long Jim, who was trying to suppress a smile; then he relit the pipe he had suffered to go out.

“Reminds me,” he said, “of that there hoss Topgallant, which carried me one hundred miles twixt sun-up and sun-down.” Fixing his eyes on – the stranger, he launched into a long yarn about some impossible incident. He was not, however, up to his usual form, being suspicious of our nods and winks, and the stranger was not astonished.

“It’s a curious thing,” he said, “that people are slow to believe in things which have not come under their own observation unless they read of them in print. Now this very morning I met with an experience which may seem to you incredible.”

“Go ahead,” said Long Jim. “If you’ve got a story, tell it, and we’d be thankful to you, after the stuff we’ve been obliged to swallow from Mr Pike there.”

“If I may say so,” said the stranger, “his story was fair, but it lacked circumstance. There is an art in building up a story which perhaps my friend on the counter has missed.”

“Fire away,” said Abe, grimly. “I’m not too old to larn.”

“Thank you. Of course, you all know the long descent into Blaauw Krantz, and the sharp elbow bend in the wood near the bottom before the steep fall into the river. Of course. Well, I have been in the habit of riding out on Saturday evenings to visit a farmhouse on this side, and, as a precautionary measure, I ring the bell continuously while riding down the slope.”

Abe arrested the narrative by a gesture – “Whatjer carry a bell for?” he asked, suspiciously.

“To warn people ahead. You see,” with a slight movement of the eyelids, “I travel so fast that I am obliged to herald my approach.”

“Better carry a trumpet,” growled Abe. “Well, ring along.”

“You are doubtless aware,” continued the stranger, with a keen look at the old man, “that snakes are sensitive to the influence of music.”

“I’ve marked that circumstance,” said Abe, with a lingering on the word. “Why there’s a snake in our Chapel as beats time to the ‘Ole Hundred,’ and many a time I’ve – ”

“Oh! shut up,” said Long Jim. “You were saying, sir – ”

“My bell,” continued the stranger, speaking more rapidly and keeping his eye on Abe, “has a most melodious tinkle, and on the second occasion of my visit to the house I have mentioned I noticed just at the elbow bend what appeared to be the head and neck of a large snake thrust out from the bush. On my next visit I observed the same spot more carefully, and saw that I had not been mistaken. On three separate occasions that snake was there, evidently attracted by the music of the bell.”

“Why – ” began Abe.

“I understand what you mean,” exclaimed the stranger. “Why did I not stop? Because I was travelling too fast; and whenever I returned up the hill, going naturally slower, I could never see the slightest trace of the snake. To come to the climax, this morning I sounded the bell as usual, and on nearing the bend I saw that there were two snakes, and that one of them, in order probably to hear the music more distinctly, had glided partly into the road with his head raised about three feet. To take the bend I was obliged to keep on the outer edge, which brought me closer to the snake than I could wish – and evidently too close for his comfort – for as I whizzed by he lost his presence of mind, and, instead of retreating, advanced, with the result that his head and neck went through the spokes of the front wheel.”

“Front wheel!” said Abe with a snap.

“Certainly – the front wheel of the bicycle.”

“A bysticle!” ejaculated Abe, with a snort of disgust that would have sent us into an explosion of laughter if we had not been too much absorbed in the story.

“Of course, the revolution of the wheel swung the remainder of the body clear of the bush, and the tail whizzed by my head. To my fear and horror, the next instant my left wrist was seized as in a grasp of iron by the tail. The head, after one or two sickening thuds on the hard road, which must have temporarily stunned the creature, slipped out on the left side, when the momentum of the wheel immediately strung the entire body straight out behind me, where it streamed with all its twenty pounds weight acting as a brake.”

“A brake?” said Long Jim.

“Yes, sir. As the tail seized my wrist, the curve of it took a bend also round the handle bar. To that circumstance I owe my life. The slackening in the speed of the machine, over which I had lost control, owing to the dead weight of the serpent, prevented what would most certainly have been a fatal smash among the boulders in the river bed. As it was, the bicycle narrowly missed a large rock, and ran straight into deep water, where it was, of course, brought to a stop. You notice that my clothes are wringing wet still. I was, of course, thrown out of the saddle by the jerk of the sudden stoppage, but as my wrist was manacled to the handle bar I was in danger of suffocation by drowning.”

The stranger paused, and Abe observed him with an admiring glance.

“How did you escape?” asked Long Jim.

“Why, sir, owing to the gratitude of that serpent. The cold bath revived him, and when he realised the situation, he swam ashore and drew me out with the machine. Yes, gentlemen, I assure you that was the case. Then he unwound his tail and moved his wounded head, while regarding me with a bright, but rather disconcerting, stare. I realised in a flash what he was waiting for, and I rang the bell for five minutes, when he slowly moved off into the wood, looking very sick from the severe bashing. I do not ask you to believe the story, gentlemen, but I am convinced that if the next time you come down Blaauw Krantz on a bicycle you ring your bell you will credit me with keeping to the exact facts.”

“That beats your yarns, Abe Pike,” said Si Amos, who had often been the butt of the old man; “beats them to smithers.”

“Jest does, and no mistake,” said Long Jim.

“Why, Abe couldn’t tell a story like that, with ‘circumstance’ in it, to save his life,” said a third.

Abe shook his head sadly, and left the store, the stranger bidding him good-bye very politely, then turning to join in the laugh. He was a very pleasant young fellow, and he received our open flattery with a quite affable air.

Old Abe, however, had not retired vanquished from the scene. When we trooped out of the store we saw him lost in solemn contemplation of the stranger’s bicycle.

“A good horse, is it not?” said the stranger slyly. “Like to mount?”

“Sir,” said Abe, “allow an old man to shake hands with you. I’m thankful for your offer, but I won’t mount now.” The boys laughed. “No, sir, not now; but, if you’re coming down Blaauw Krantz next Saturday week I’ll meet you at the top and ride down.”

“Can you manage a bicycle?”

“I can’t now; but I’ll larn. Is it a go?”

“Let him,” said Long Jim, “and we’ll all be at the bottom to pick him up.”

The stranger at last consented, very reluctantly; and it was agreed that on the day named we should be at the “drift”. Abe disappeared for several days, returning at the end of that time with several scratches on his hands and a decided stiffness in his legs. He would say nothing to satisfy our curiosity beyond the simple remark that he had been “Larning to steer a lightning wheel-barrer down a hill.”

On the appointed day, having satisfied ourselves that Abe Pike meant to stick to his contract, we all rode off to the “drift” to await the descent and pick up the pieces.

The stranger kept up his side of the agreement; and, as it turned out, he gave up his machine into the shaky control of Uncle Abe, after much advice upon the art of steering round a corner on a slope.

Precisely at noon we heard, far up the hill, coming out of the dense wood which hid the road and the curve from our view, the silver tinkle of a bell rung continuously. Clear and sharp the sound came to us as we waited in silence, for the space of a minute, growing louder, till suddenly it ceased. After waiting a minute we all mounted and galloped up. At the great elbow bend we saw the stranger tearing down on foot, but there was no sign of Abe or of the machine.

On the road, however, there was the track of the wheel in the dust – a track that faded away up the road, but stopped short at the bend.

“Where the blazes!” said Long Jim, looking around and up into the sky.

“What’s that in the trees?” said Si, pointing down into the forest below the bend.

“It’s my cycle!” gasped the stranger, as he came up. “What a mad fool I was to let him ride.”

“Damn your cycle!” said Jim; “where’s the old man?”

We peered over the edge, and saw him in a thicket blinking up at us.

We had him out and up in no time, while two men climbed the tree to recover the machine, the stranger dancing about as if he were on hot bricks.

“Is it injured?” he kept on crying.

“Injured be blowed,” growled Si Amos; “it’ll be injured sharp enough if the old man’s hurt.”

“Who said I was hurt,” said Abe suddenly, sitting up and feeling his body. “I’m all right; but, boys, my sakes, you’ll never b’lieve me, never!”

“What’s happened? Are you all right? Sure?”

Abe slowly rose and felt himself. “Yes. You listen,” he said, solemnly. “The stranger’s right about them snakes – dead right.”

“It’s no time to joke,” said the stranger, looking ruefully at the bent spokes and twisted handle bar.

“You’re right there; no man would joke who’s jest escaped from death. No, sir; I tell you, jes’ as I came to this yer bend I looked out for the snake, but instead of the snake I seed – and my heart jumped into my throat at the sight – a thick rope stretched right across the road from the bank on this side to the tree on the other, raised about two feet from the level. The next instant I went smash into it.”

“Who could have done that trick?” said Long Jim, with a dangerous look.

“The snake,” said Abe, with a croak.

“The snake!”

“Yessir. I seed the glisten of his scales jes’ as I went flying into the bush.”

“The snake!” said the stranger. “Absurd! Rot!”

“It were the snake – the friend of the crittur you hurt,” said Abe with a groan. “You see as I allow he were determined to have revenge, and when he heard the bell he hitched his jaw to that root hanging down the bank, and he stretched his tail round the bough of that tree on the other side. A twenty-foot rock snake he were. I guess he’s got the stomach-ache from the hit I give him.”

For a moment there was intense silence as the boys grasped the situation, then they laughed till they sat down.

“Whatjer laughing at?” said Abe, solemnly, though his lips twitched either with fun or pain.

The stranger smiled sadly, then he laughed too. “Old man,” he said, “let us shake again. You have beaten me. I confess I was lying, and you have taken a strong measure to punish me.”

“You was lying!” said Abe, opening his eyes and looking the picture of astonishment. “Then why did that durned snake upset me?”

Then he fell back in a swoon, for he had been sore hurt – and we carried him to the nearest homestead, while Si Amos rode furiously for a Doctor, and Long Jim went about on tip-toe from the room to the door and back in a state of restless anxiety.

The End.