Adams Henry Cadwallader
Perils in the Transvaal and Zululand

Chapter Sixteen

The dawn was only just beginning to dapple the skies, when the voice of Henryk Vander Heyden was heard rousing his Hottentots and superintending the inspanning of the oxen and the saddling of the horses. The sun was hardly above the horizon before the party had set out, Vander Heyden and Hardy riding two or three hundred yards in advance with their guns and revolvers loaded, keeping a keen lookout as they advanced, and two of the Hottentot servants following in the same manner in the rear. In this manner they advanced for three hours or so, through a country resembling in character that which they had passed yesterday, with the difference that the ground was harder and drier, so that the progress of the waggons was less interrupted. About nine o’clock they halted for the first meal of the day on the edge of a dense mass of shrubs and underwood, through which nothing but the woodman’s axe or a herd of elephants could have forced their way. Here occurred an incident which was remembered by one of the party, at all events, long afterwards. Redgy Margetts had alighted, and was about to take his place at the breakfast table, if the rough boards taken from the cart, on which the viands were spread, could be so designated, when he saw what he took to be the end of a long green plantain among the stems of the cacti. They are very delicious eating; and, thinking to add to the attractions of the meal, he took hold of one end to draw it out. To his surprise and alarm, he felt it move and writhe in his grasp, and the next moment a hideous green head made its appearance from the bushes, and would have sprung on him, if Matamo, who was calling out to Margetts to warn him, had not dexterously flung the large knife which he was holding in his hand, wounding the snake in the neck and disconcerting its aim. It missed Redgy’s face, at which it had darted, and fell on the ground close to him, and Haxo, who had caught up an axe, struck its head off.

“A lucky escape, Mr Margetts,” said Matamo. “A big mamba, that; he is seven or eight feet long. I never saw a bigger.”

“The brute?” exclaimed Redgy. “I took him for a big cucumber, or something of that kind. Is he poisonous, Matamo?”

“Yes, Mr Redgy, very poisonous. A man, if he was bit by him, would die in an hour, perhaps in less. I’ve known one die in three-quarters of an hour.”

“You must be careful, Mr Margetts,” said Annchen, who had witnessed what had passed with a shudder of horror. “I have been learning a good deal about the African snakes. They are the worst things in the country. We newcomers cannot be too careful.”

“You are right, miss,” said Matamo. “Some of them look like sticks or green stalks or stems of trees lying on the ground. Strangers sometimes don’t find out that they are snakes, till they are bitten.”

“But, as a rule, they won’t harm you unless you provoke them,” said Vander Heyden. “They have the cobra in India as well as here. In which country do you think it is the most venomous, Hardy?”

“It is bad enough anywhere,” answered Hardy; “but I think it is worst in India. Its venom is very rapid in its action there. I remember Captain Winter’s Hindoo cook being bitten by one. She used to keep her money in a hen’s nest near the kitchen door. One night she heard a noise in the nest, and thought some one was stealing her money. She crept down in the dark and put her hand into the nest to feel if the money was safe. The noise had been caused by a cobra which had crept in to eat the chickens. It bit her, and she was dead in less than half an hour.”

“Yes, no doubt it was in a state of great irritation, and the bite unusually venomous,” observed Vander Heyden; “but I consider both the puff-adder and the cerastes to be quite as dangerous as the cobra, and the mamba yonder is almost as bad as any. But with proper care there is not much danger. If they do bite you, as a rule, the only thing to be done is to cut or burn the flesh out.”

The meal was now eaten, and the waggons were soon once more in motion, the same precautions being observed during the remainder of the day. No enemies, however, were sighted, or, indeed, any living creatures at all, except some koodoos, which Haxo and George pursued and were fortunate enough to overtake, killing one and bringing the prime parts home for supper.

About five o’clock they reached Elandsberg; which had never been more than a tolerable-sized village, and had been sacked and burned by the Zulus some months before in one of their incursions. It was now deserted; and it was fortunate that the koodoo had been killed, or the party might have had but a slender supper to partake of. But as it was, they soon made themselves comfortable. All the cottages had been wrecked, and the furniture broken to pieces or carried off; but the walls of some were still standing, and one of the largest – a farmhouse apparently – had suffered less than the others. The roof, of corrugated iron, over two of the rooms was still almost whole, and even the windows of one, the principal bedroom, had escaped. This room was got ready for Annchen and her Hottentot. Her bed and box were brought in, and a rug spread on the floor for the servant. In the other room, which had been the kitchen, the men of the party took up their quarters. A fire was lighted on the hearth, at which the koodoo’s flesh was roasted; a half shattered table was rescued from the débris outside and propped up with boxes, and the party presently sat down to an appetising supper. Two of the servants were left to keep guard outside, their places being taken by others at midnight. Then the rest of the company wrapped themselves in their rugs and lay down round the fire.

The night was undisturbed, and the route resumed with the first glimmer of daylight, Vander Heyden being particularly anxious to reach Standerton that night; where, he believed, his anxieties would be at an end. It was a most delicious day, and everything went smoothly until after the halt for the mid-day meal. Then it was arranged that Margetts and Haxo should form the advanced guard, while Matamo and Hardy followed in the rear.

Redgy rode on, thoroughly enjoying the delicious afternoon. The sky was beautifully blue, and for a long time not flecked by a single cloud.

“How lovely the afternoon is!” he exclaimed half to himself, as they paced leisurely along. “I wish our halting-place was farther off. I shall be quite sorry when this comes to an end.”

“It is quite far enough off, sir,” replied Haxo, to whom this remark appeared to be addressed. “It is about half a mile on, and I wish it wasn’t a quarter.”

“Why do you wish that, Haxo?” asked Redgy, turning in surprise to his companion, whose presence he had almost forgotten.

“Because the river is between us and Dolly’s Kop, sir,” answered Haxo; “and I am not sure whether the waggon will get across.”

“Get across! Why not? I suppose it is like the other rivers we have passed to-day, – so I understand at least. We have had no difficulty about crossing them.”

“Just so, Mr Margetts. The rivers about here are nearly all sand, with just a little water. But after an hour’s rain they look different.”

“Rain! Yes, but we’ve had no rain.”

“We are going to have it, though, and that pretty soon. Do you see those clouds?” He pointed as he spoke to a thick bank of black vapour which was creeping over the sky. “See, they’re hurrying on the oxen as fast as they can. They may get across, but I don’t think it.”

They turned round and rode up to the waggon, where, indeed, the giraffe-hide whips were in full requisition, and the waggons proceeded at a pace which would soon have brought them up to the river-side had it continued. But they were presently obliged to moderate their pace, and before long it became difficult to proceed. The sky grew so dark as almost to obscure the track – indeed, but for the lightning, which repeatedly burst forth with a vividness which illuminated the whole scene, they would not have been able to distinguish their way at all. Then there came a cold, biting rush of wind, and suddenly the rain burst forth in torrents, which soon drenched every one to the skin, while the animals became almost unmanageable. It was well they had experienced drivers, or some serious disaster must have ensued.

At length, after a fierce struggle with the elements, the banks of the river were reached. But it became evident at a glance that all hope of crossing it must for a long time to come be abandoned. The narrow streamlet had risen to a roaring torrent, not only filling its sandy bed, but expanding into wide lagoons on either side, and filling up hollows which in some places were fifteen or twenty feet deep. Fortunately for the belated wanderers, the ground at the point which they had reached was high and rocky; and they were glad to avail themselves of Matamo’s local knowledge, who ordered the oxen to be turned aside from the track, and presently drew the waggons into a cavern, running far enough back into the rock to afford a shelter from both wind and rain. The horses were now stabled in an adjoining cavern, and the oxen turned out to find what food they could. The condition of the party was in some degree improved. But they were sufficiently miserable nevertheless. The deluge of rain had not only soaked the men to the skin, but had forced its way into the waggons, and Annchen and her maid, and the beds and wraps and every other article inside, except the solid chests, were as completely drenched as though they had been plunged into the river. Some wood, with which the floor of the cave had been strewn, was heaped together and a fire lighted, but it would evidently be hours before anything like warmth or comfort could be restored. Our travellers were greatly relieved when they saw a horseman, wearing a heavily flapped hat and leggings and boots of untanned leather, together with a thick cloak wrapped round his person, suddenly draw up at the mouth of the cave and ask in intelligible English who they were, and whether they required any help.

“We are mostly English travellers,” replied George. “We have been caught in the storm, and are almost wet to the skin. The lady who is with us, in particular, may suffer from the effects of the exposure. We should be thankful to you to show us any place where we can obtain warmth and food and shelter.”

“English!” repeated the stranger; “my countrymen. I do not often come across them in these regions, and shall be pleased to offer them such hospitality as I can. You have horses, I think; you had better mount and ride with me. My house lies at the distance of about a mile from here, though the wood lies between it and us.”

All complied without hesitation; even Vander Heyden, though unwilling to be indebted for any services to an Englishman, felt that, for his sister’s sake, it would be impossible for him to refuse. The servants were left behind under Matamo’s and Haxo’s charge, there being plenty of food for their wants, as well as accommodation quite as good as they were used to.

The party rode off, following a path evidently well known to their conductor, though indistinguishable by them. The rain had now entirely ceased, though the sky was still clouded. After a quarter of an hour’s ride they reached the house; which stood, as well as they could discern, on the edge of a wide, deep hollow, which the floods had converted for the time into an inland lake. There was light enough to distinguish clearly the outlines of the building. It was externally like the houses of the Dutch; but the internal arrangements were different. The kitchen was at one end, and there was a sitting-room adjoining it, and two or three separate bedrooms at the other end. The furniture, too, was different, the articles being less massive and solid than is usually the case with the Boers. There was even a bookcase in the parlour, containing it might be thirty or forty books, articles rarely to be seen in the houses of the Dutch.

Annchen was immediately shown to one of the spare bedrooms, and some clothes brought her by one of the Hottentot women, while her own were taken out to be dried. The males of the party were similarly accommodated, and in an hour’s time all the travellers were assembled round the stranger’s board, with the exception of Vander Heyden, who, having seen his sister made comfortable, took a courteous farewell of his host, and expressed his intention of returning to the cavern, not considering it safe, he said, to leave the waggons and cattle entirely in charge of the natives.

“You may be right, sir,” said the Englishman. “Natives, unless you have had long experience of them, cannot safely be left in charge of valuable property. More particularly is that the case at the present time.”

“Indeed!” said Vander Heyden, delaying his departure as he heard his host’s words. “To what do you more particularly refer?”

“The whole country has been for a long time past overrun with ruffians and outlaws of every description,” was the answer. “Zulus and Kaffirs, whom the recent war has driven out of their own country; Hottentots, who will not work, and live by pillage and pilfering; rogues from the diamond fields, who have been expelled for their knavish tricks, as well as convicts, who have broken loose from their confinement, have for years past formed a sort of banditti, against which one has perpetually to be on one’s guard. After the annexation, our Government almost entirely put them down; but the events of the last half-year have renewed the mischief almost as bad as ever. I have no doubt, however, that now that the struggle has come to an end, quiet and security of life and property will be reestablished. But you need not be afraid, I think, for your waggons. You do not seem to be aware that a bridge over the river has been recently made, and there is a good road from it all the way to Standerton. I shall be pleased to show it to you to-morrow. It is one of the boons for which we have to thank the English Government.”

Vander Heyden made no reply, but once more bowed and took his leave.

Rivers and Hardy looked at one another and smiled.

“What a pity it is that he dislikes the English so!” said the latter. “He really is a fine fellow – brave and generous and honest, and full of kindness to every one, except an Englishman.”

“We ought to feel it all the more a compliment that he is so civil to us. I suppose there must have been some very great wrong done to his father by our countrymen,” said George.

“To his grandfather first, and then to his father,” said Hardy. “His grandfather was one of those who rebelled when they found that the country had been permanently handed over to the English after the fall of Napoleon. He was taken prisoner with arms in his hands, and was hanged like any highwayman. His son migrated to Natal, and was again driven out by the English, when they annexed the colony. Proceedings were taken against him which were extremely harsh, and he died, as I have heard, of a broken heart. His son, our friend Henryk, got together all he could of his father’s property, and withdrew into the Transvaal; where he bought a farm, but left it in charge of an agent, while he himself served in the Dutch army for several years. The annexation of the country by the English, three or four years ago, was the last drop in the cup of his indignation. He had returned to the Transvaal, having become wealthy again, partly by his deputy’s successful farming, partly through money left him by his uncle, Van Courtlandt. He went again to Europe, to try if he could not procure the repeal of the Act of Annexation. He has come back now, bitterly disappointed at his failure. It is no wonder, I must say, that he cannot endure the English.”

The host now informed them that supper was ready, and they took their places at the table. After the meal Annchen withdrew for the night, and the rest of the party, gathering round the hearth, for the rain and wind had made the air chilly, smoked their pipes and drank their host’s Schiedam at their ease.

“If you would excuse my curiosity, sir,” said Hardy after a while, “I should like to know what brought you into these parts. You are, I think you said, an Englishman. But – ”

“But I don’t look as though I had lived in England, – that is what you mean, I think? Well, I’ll tell you my history. It illustrates what we were talking of at dinner, – as to what is the truth respecting the treatment of the natives by the Boers. My father and mother were English. They came out to the Cape Colony somewhere about 1830, and they settled on a farm in Namaqualand. It didn’t pay. Their cattle were continually driven off by the bushmen, and their fruit plundered and their guns and hoes and the like stolen by the Hottentots. Nothing they could do would prevent it. The native servants were often as not in league with the thieves. Every now and then they would run off and take anything of value with them.”

“As for the cattle-stealing,” remarked George, “that is an old story. A man must be a good deal wiser than I am who can say how it is to be prevented. But I wonder, I must say, if you treated the Hottentots well, as I have no doubt you did, that they didn’t stay with you.”

“Perhaps they might,” said Prestcott, which they afterwards found to be their host’s name, – “perhaps they might, if they had been left to themselves. But there were always a lot of Hottentots going loose about the country; and they threatened our servants with their vengeance if they didn’t give them food and drink. They didn’t dare refuse, and then they expected to be severely punished, and ran off. Anyhow, they couldn’t keep any servants, and their property was continually pillaged. They must have left the country if they had lived. But one day my father was speared by a party of bushmen, whom he had caught driving off a bull. My mother, who had seen the transaction, ran screaming out, and they speared her too. They then entered and pillaged the house. I was a child of eight years old, and they no doubt would have killed me along with my parents, if it hadn’t occurred to them that old Potgieter, a Boer farmer a few miles off, would give them something handsome for me. They took me to him, and he did buy me.”

“You don’t mean that he bought you of them, knowing how they had come by you?” exclaimed Redgy, horror-stricken.

“No, sir. They were too clever to tell him that, and he was too clever to ask. They merely said they had found me, and they believed my father and mother were dead.”

“And they had excellent reasons for believing so,” remarked Redgy.

“True, sir. Well, old Herman Potgieter took pity on me, as he was pleased to express it. He took me over to the field-cornet’s house, and apprenticed me, after their fashion, to himself, until I should be one-and-twenty years old.”

“Ay, I have heard of that before I left England,” remarked Margetts. “But I thought the age was five-and-twenty, and it was further remarked that it was astonishing how long these apprentices are in reaching their five-and-twentieth year.”

“Just so, sir. The natives seldom know how old they are; indeed, they are seldom able to keep any account of time; and they are obliged to prove that they are five-and-twenty before they can claim their freedom. I have known a native kept in service until he was nearly forty. But though I was not nine years old before I was taken before the field-cornet, I knew something of their ways, having heard my father talk about it. I produced a Prayer-Book he had given me on my eighth birthday, insisting upon it that in a little more than twelve years’ time I should be free. I suppose when they found out I was really an English boy, on my father’s side at all events, they were a little frightened, and thought it best to be cautious.”

“I have no doubt of it,” assented Hardy. “I suppose you took good care of your Prayer-Book?”

“Old Potgieter contrived to get hold of that,” said Prestcott; “but I was not to be beaten. The house where my father had lived stood only a few miles off, or rather had once stood, for no one had lived there since it had been wrecked by the Hottentots, and it was a mere ruin. But I knew my father had buried a box under the stone paving in one corner of the room, and that it contained among other articles my baptismal certificate. One day, when I wanted but a few weeks of becoming one-and-twenty, I took a pick-axe with me, went over to my old home, and dug up the box. There was my baptismal certificate, sure enough, and a good bit of money besides, as well as shares in an English company at Cape Town. I put these back into the box, which I buried again, but I took the certificate with me, and on my twenty-first birthday went over to the field-cornet’s again. Old Potgieter thought he had destroyed the evidence of my age, and was dumb-foundered when he saw the signatures to the papers, and durst say no more.

“I repossessed myself of my money and shares, and sold the latter at Cape Town, where they fetched a good price. Then I bought this land here and built this house, where I have lived ever since. I married, but never had any children. A few years ago my wife died, and I have never cared to marry again.”

“What became of old Potgieter, the old wretch?” inquired Redgy.

“Poor old Potgieter!” said Prestcott. “He wasn’t unkind to me after all; and when I heard how barbarously he had been murdered, I was as hot as any one to punish his slayers.”

“How was he murdered?” inquired Hardy.

“He was making a journey somewhere, I forget where. It was only for trading purposes, but I suppose the Kaffir chief, near whose kraal he halted for the night, thought otherwise. And it can’t be denied that there was some reason for his thinking so. Old Potgieter had been on a great many commandos, and had killed more natives than he would find easy to reckon up. Makapan, as the chief was called, attacked the camp by night and killed them all. I have been told that they flayed him alive, and the story was generally believed, though I have great doubts whether it was true. The Dutch, when they heard of it, ordered a general commando, which was joined by a large party of Potgieter’s relatives and friends, and I, as I told you, went with them. We were several hundreds in number, with waggons containing military stores, and a cannon or two. Makapan and his tribe were quite unable to resist. They retired into the broken country adjoining the kraal, and there assailed us with arrows and assegays from behind their rocky fastnesses. But we continually forced them back; and at last they retired into a cavern, which was some hundred yards in depth, and so dark that it was impossible to see anything, except close at hand.”

“It wouldn’t have done to have followed them there,” said George. “You would have been an easy mark for their poisoned arrows.”

“No doubt, and we might have fired as many rounds of ammunition as we pleased and hit nothing but the rocks. Praetorius and the others knew better than to try that.”

“What did they do?” asked George.

“They first tried to blast the rocks, but that had no effect but that of wasting powder. Then a sort of blockade was established. Guards were set at every opening, and nothing allowed to come out or go in. But either the Kaffirs had collected large stores of food, or they had some way of going out and getting in which we could not detect. At last the Dutchmen came to the conclusion that the only thing to be done was to build them in.”

“Build them in! What, build a wall in front of the cave, do you mean?”

“Build up the mouth of the cave itself. They had pretty clearly determined that there was but one mouth, – the fact that the cave ran deeper and deeper into the hillside seemed to prove that, – and if so, there could be no way out.”

“Why, that is very much what I remember reading in my history of Scotland,” said Margetts, “that a very barbarous Highland tribe did to another. It was in prehistoric times, so that there was only a legend about it.”

“As for barbarity, Redgy,” observed George, “I don’t fancy the Boers of the nineteenth century are much behind the McLeods of whom that story is told. And the French performed nearly the same feat in Algeria forty years or so ago. Only they, I believe, smoked the Arabs like bees in a hive.”

“That would have been much more merciful,” observed Prestcott. “These Kaffirs died of hunger, the most dreadful of all deaths, and no quarter was given them. Whenever any of them made their appearance at the mouth of the cave, they were shot down. More than a thousand were killed in that way. The blockade was maintained for nearly a month. After that no Kaffirs appeared, and there came so dreadful a stench from the cave that the Dutch could endure it no longer, and made their way in. I had gone away some time before that, not being able to endure the horror of it. But I am told that they found no living thing. The whole tribe had been destroyed.”

“Then, I suppose, they went home and celebrated their victory,” said George.

“Yes, and boast that peace has been maintained in that district ever since,” replied Mr Prestcott.

“Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant,” said George, who had not forgotten his classics. “I did not know the Boers were as bad as that!”