Chapter Thirty Seven.
From the Dark River’s Brink.
It was a weird picture. The grey rocks jutting forth into the evening stillness; the spotted, creeping beast, gathering itself together for its deadly spring; the man, weakened, helpless, lying there at its mercy. Even then, so strange are the fantasies that cross the human brain at the most critical moments—even then, with a kind of grim humour it flashed upon Renshaw Fanning how thoroughly the positions were reversed. Many a time had the spotted pard fallen a victim to his sure aim; now it had devolved upon one of the feline race to give him his death stroke.
With bared fangs and snarling throat, the brute once more gathered itself to spring. But instead of hurling itself upon the prey before it, it uttered a yell of pain and whisking half round seemed to be snapping at its own side. Its tail lashed convulsively, and a frightful roar escaped from its furry chest. There was a faint twanging sound beneath, and again something struck it, this time fair in the eye. Snarling hideously the great beast reared itself up against the cliff, beating the air wildly with its formidable paws. Then its mighty bulk swayed, toppled over, and fell crashing to the ground beneath.
Thoroughly roused now, Renshaw peered cautiously over the ledge. But what he saw opened his eyes to the fact that this opportune, this unlooked-for deliverance, was more apparent than real. In escaping from one peril he had only fallen into another.
The huge cat was rolling and writhing in the throes of death. Its slayer, an under-sized, shrivelled barbarian, was approaching it cautiously—a naked Koranna, armed with bow and arrows and spear. But cautiously as Renshaw had peeped forth the keen glance of the savage had seen him. Their eyes had met.
He lay still, thinking over this last, this desperate chance. He was unarmed—practically that is—for although he had a knife it was not likely the enemy would come to such close quarters as to admit of its use. The latter with his bow and arrows would have him at the most perfect disadvantage. He could climb up to the ledge and finish him off at his leisure.
For some minutes Renshaw lay still as death. Not a sound broke the silence, not a voice, not a footfall. Perhaps, after all, he had been mistaken, and the Koranna had not seen him. Or, more likely, the savage had started off to call up his companions, who probably were not far distant. Was it worth while utilising his chances so far as to make one more effort to save his life, to strive to gain some other place of concealment before the whole horde came up?
But just then a sound reached his ear—a faint, stealthy rasping. The Koranna was already climbing up to the ledge.
The mysterious shuffling continued. A stone, loosened by the climber, fell clattering down the rocks. Then there was silence once more—and—
A wrinkled, parchment-hued countenance reared itself up, peering round the elbow of the cliff. The yellow eyes stared with a wild beast-like gleam, the black wool and protruding ears looking fiend-like in the falling darkness. His hour had come. Momentarily he expected to receive the fatal shaft.
But it came not. After the head followed the squat, ungainly body, standing upright upon the ledge, the sinewy, ape-like hand grasping its primitive, but fatal, armament—the bow and arrows and the spear. But the bow was not bent, no arrow was fitted to the string.
“Allamaghtaag! Myn lieve Baas!” (“Almighty! My dear master!”)
Renshaw sat upright and stared at the speaker, and well he might. Was he dreaming? The old familiar Dutch colloquialism—the voice!
The squalid, forbidding-looking savage advanced, his puckered face transformed with concern. Renshaw stared, and stared again. And then he recognised the familiar, if unprepossessing lineaments of his defaulting retainer—old Dirk.
The old Koranna rushed forward and knelt down at his master’s side, pouring forth a voluble torrent of questions in the Boer dialect. How had he come there? Where was he wounded? Who had dared to attack him? Those schelm Bosjesmenschen (Rascally Bushmen)! He would declare war against the whole race of them. He would shoot them all. And so on, and so on. But amid all his chatter the faithful old fellow, having discovered where the wound was, had promptly ripped off Renshaw’s boot.
Yes, there it was—the poisoned puncture of the Bushman arrow—livid and swollen. For a moment Dirk contemplated it. Then he bent down and examined it more attentively, probing it gingerly with his finger. The result seemed to satisfy him.
“Nay, what, Baasje (Literally, ‘little master.’ A term of endearment), you will not die this time. The thick leather of the boot has taken off nearly all the poison, and all the running you have had since has done the rest. Still, it was a near thing—a near thing. ’Maghtaag!—if the arrow had pierced you anywhere but through the boot you would have been a dead man long since. Not this time—not this time.”
“And the tiger, Dirk?” said Renshaw, with a faint smile. “You are indeed a mighty hunter.” For he remembered how often he had chaffed the old Koranna on his much vaunted prowess as a hunter, little thinking in what stead it should eventually stand himself.
“The tiger? Ja Baas. I will just go down and take off his skin before it gets pitch dark. Lie you here and sleep. You are quite safe now, Baas—quite safe. You will not die this time—’Maghtaag, no!”
So poor Renshaw sank back in a profound slumber, for he was thoroughly exhausted. And all through the hours of darkness, while the wild denizens of the waste bayed and howled among the grim and lonely mountains, the little weazened old yellow man crouched there watching beside him on that rocky ledge, so faithfully, so lovingly. His comrade—the white man—his friend and equal—had deserted him—had left him alone in that desert waste to die, and this runaway servant of his—the degraded and heathen savage—clung to him in his extremity, watched by his side ready to defend him if necessary at the cost of his own life.