Chapter Twenty.

The End of the Feud.

One morning Kanu and his men, who had shortly before left their place of abode on a hunting expedition, were astonished at seeing the white tent of a wagon slowing moving through the sand dunes at a short distance from them. They at once dropped in their tracks and then crept into concealment for the purpose of discussing the situation. The Bushmen, although the different clans often quarrelled among themselves, had one sentiment in common,—hatred of the European. After they returned to the cave there was a general furbishing-up of the best arrows, a testing and a tightening of the bow-strings and a performance of the war sacrifice. This last consisted in drawing a small quantity of blood from the right knee of each warrior, mixing it in an earthen bowl with a small quantity of arrow-poison and pouring the mixture out upon the ashes of the previous night’s fire. Then, with arrows erect around their heads, they looked impatiently towards their leader for the signal to attack.

The wagon was only about a couple of miles away; the white tent intermittently gleaming between the driving clouds of sand. Among the broken hillocks the strangers were quite at the mercy of an attacking force, no matter how small. Thus, the pygmies might have crept right up to the wagon without being noticed, and discharged their deadly shafts from within point-blank range, settling the business with one noiseless volley. But Kanu did not give the signal; he sat with his head bowed in thought, and his braves looked at him and at each other in astonishment.

Kanu reflected. He was aware of many things beyond the cognisance of his followers. One thing had specially impressed him during his captivity,—the implacable vengeance with which the Boers pursued the marauders who murdered their friends and stole their cattle. This wagon had certainly come much farther than any wagon had ever come before, and it was not likely to be followed by others. Better not interfere with it. The cave had not been discovered; it was impossible that any white men would come and settle in the waterless neighbourhood. Tempting as was the opportunity of wreaking vengeance for many wrongs, policy demanded that they should forego it, so Kanu threw down his bow, plucked the arrows from his head and said that he had been told by the spirits not to attack these people.

It was a critical moment and, had Kanu’s authority not been far more strong than that which the Bushman leader usually held over his followers, his orders would have been disregarded. However, no attack was made and the wagon was permitted to proceed upon its laboured course unmolested,—the people with it little deeming of their narrow escape.

Two days afterwards another wagon was reported to be proceeding along the same course, and Kanu saw by the demeanour of his followers that he would probably be unable to restrain them from attacking, so he led them forth, and the little band took up its position in a patch of scrub which crowned a small sand-hill overlooking the two-days-old track.

The travellers were evidently in terrible straits, and before they reached the ambush the oxen collapsed. Leaving his braves with strict injunctions not to move before his return, Kanu went towards the wagon for the purpose of reconnoitring. Creeping sinuously among the hollows between the hillocks over which the streaming sand was being swept like spray from the crests of waves, he crept up to within a few yards of the wagon and lay, concealed by a bush, watching it intently.

Just then Elsie came out of the tent and stood, protecting her face from the stinging sand with her hands, and with her hair streaming in the wind.

Kanu started. The figure and the hair suggested Elsie, but he could not see the face, and the girl had grown almost beyond recognition. Then Stephanus arose from where he had been kneeling at the other side of the wagon and stood at his daughter’s side. Kanu recognised his former master in an instant, and now had no doubt as to Elsie’s identity. Throwing down his bow and arrows, he strode forward and called out:—

“Baas Stephanus—Miss Elsie—here is Kanu.”

Stephanus turned and gazed at the Bushman with astonishment. Elsie stepped forward with hands outstretched to greet her old guide and preserver.

“Kanu,” she cried, “can you get us water?”

“Yes,—the water is close at hand.”

“God, who has sent this creature to succour us, I thank thee,” said Stephanus, solemnly.

“Baas must give me a small present of tobacco, so that I may soothe the hearth of my people,” said Kanu.

With his hands full of the much-coveted treasure Kanu sped back to his impatient band. No one knows how, when or where the Bushmen learnt the use of tobacco. When first the Europeans came in contact with them they were evidently accustomed to its use. In an instant the rancour of the warriors was turned into extravagant delight. With these children of the wilderness the transition from ferocity to amiability was instantaneous, and the one sentiment arose as unreasonably and inspired them as completely as the other.

Immediately they crowded around the wagon, ready to assist with all their power those who a few minutes previously they would have delighted to put to a cruel death.

Soon every keg and other utensil in the wagon capable of holding water was carried over to the spring and then the water was dealt out by willing hands as fast as circumstances would permit. Vessels were afterwards borne from one to the other of the famishing oxen and each animal was allowed to take a sup at a time. All through the afternoon this went on, until the cattle were once more able to arise.

Kanu told Stephanus of another spring which he had discovered among the mountains to the north-west, about half a day’s journey away, and thither the oxen were taken during the night, and allowed to drink their fill. Then, after a day’s rest they were driven back to the wagon.

The Bushmen and their womenkind were, in the meantime, made happy with liberal presents of tobacco, coffee and sugar. The tobacco had a most curious effect upon them. They smoked it through a rough kind of a hookah made out of a hartebeeste’s horn, a stone bowl and a piece of reed a few inches in length. There was no mouth-piece, so the smoker pressed his mouth into the natural aperture at the base of the horn, and inhaled the smoke. It was thus that they were accustomed to smoke the “dagga” or wild hemp. After each smoker had filled his lungs and again emptied them about a dozen times, he passed on the pipe to a companion, and then laid himself upon the ground where, after becoming slightly epileptic, he stiffened from head to feet and lay unconscious and scarcely breathing for some minutes.

The women enjoyed the coffee and sugar, which were delicacies they knew of only by report, with great zest. They were not satisfied with merely drinking the beverage, but insisted on eating the grounds also.

These artless, cruel, innocent and murderous savages made their guests royally welcome, when the latter visited the camp. They entertained the strangers with songs, dances and dramatic performances, and presented them with a supply of edible roots some of which proved exceedingly good eating.

Stephanus soon ascertained from Kanu that Gideon’s wagon had passed but a few days previously. It was evident that Gideon meant to cross the dune-tract at its junction with the mountain range that skirts the river gorge, and then make for the eastward.

Kanu accompanied them when they returned to the wagon, and then he and Elsie had a long talk, relating to each other their respective adventures since they had last met. Elsie was struck by an idea.

“Kanu,—will you do something for me?”

“Anything that young mistress asks of me.”

“Well,—I want you to go after the other wagon, steal all the oxen and horses and bring them to me.”

“Yes,—that can easily be done.”

“Mind,—you are not to kill or harm anyone, but just to bring the cattle and horses to me.”

“Yes, I understand.”

In the cool of the evening a start was made. The oxen, refreshed by their drink, stepped out briskly. Thus, long before daylight came again they had succeeded in passing through the heavy sand. The ground now immediately before them was easy to travel over.

When outspanned for breakfast they saw a lot of cattle and some horses being driven towards them. These were Gideon’s,—stolen by the Bushmen at Elsie’s instigation. Stephanus, who had not been told of the plot, laughed loud and long at Elsie’s stratagem for stopping Gideon’s flight.

Gideon’s journey across the desert had not been so difficult as was that of his pursuer. His team was composed of picked oxen that were well accustomed to such work, and the day on which fell the crisis of the journey,—the crossing of the dune-belt,—was comparatively cool. Nevertheless, the cattle were almost exhausted when he outspanned on the salt-impregnated ridge on which the Mission Station of Pella now stands—just opposite the head of the deep kloof which breaks through the otherwise impassable mountains, thus affording a way to the Orange River. This kloof is about eight miles long, and the cattle were hardly able to stagger down it to the drinking place. When the animals smelt the water from afar they uttered pitiful lowings, and those that were less exhausted broke into a stumbling run. It was found impossible to bring the span back to the wagon until they had rested for a couple of days.

Gideon, chafing with impatience, remained with the wagon. The servants replenished the kegs with water and then returned to the river bank, where they remained with the cattle.

Gideon, in his loneliness, was the prey of the most miserable apprehensions. In estimating possibilities he had always endeavoured to place himself in his brother’s situation and by this means had driven from his mind the possibility of Stephanus being otherwise than absolutely implacable. He pictured the injured man hurrying, immediately after his release, to the farm, his whole mind bent on the wreaking of his long-panted-for revenge. Then, how he would have foamed with fury at finding that the one in whose blood he had so longed to imbue his fingers, had escaped. Of course a hot pursuit would be immediately undertaken, and it would be as keen and relentless as that of a blood-hound. The thought of this man, whose eyes he dreaded more than he dreaded the face of Death, pressing furiously after him across the blackened waste was ever before his vision, sleeping or waking.

He had not the slightest doubt that Stephanus was following him, for it was exactly what he felt he would have done himself to Stephanus under similar circumstances, but he drew a little comfort from the conclusion that his pursuer could not have crossed the scorched desert anything like as quickly as he himself had done. The raging heat of the past few days had been as balm to his suffering spirit. Others had died in Bushmanland—even when it had not been as arid as it now was; why not Stephanus? But, he reflected, he had never expected his hotheaded brother,—the restless, passionate man who could never brook restraint in any form, to survive his long term of imprisonment; his heart should have broken years ago.

Well,—here in the desert it was a case of man to man, and each was a law unto himself. One thing was sure: if his vengeful brother persisted in following him now,—if Stephanus would not even leave him the starved desert as his lonely portion,—then the wide earth was not spacious enough to hold them both. He was doing his best to put the miles between them; if Stephanus followed he did so at his own risk and must abide by the consequences.

But for the dread of Hell-fire Gideon would have ended it all years ago, by means of a bullet through his own brain. That would be nothing,—the bullet,—but Gideon imagined his soul standing, immediately afterwards, naked before the vestibule of the Pit, listening to the roaring of the flames and the shrieks of the damned, and awaiting its own summons to enter.

After the cattle and horses had been driven back to the wagon from the river, it was necessary for them to be allowed a night’s grazing on the edge of the plains, no grass having been found on the river bank. So the horses were hobbled and turned out to graze with the oxen. The leader was strictly enjoined to get up before daylight next morning and bring the animals back to the wagon in time to admit of an early start being made. There were tracks of lions visible here and there, but the risk of beasts of prey had to be taken. Gideon now meant to turn due east, cross the “neck” which connects the dune-tract with the river mountains, and plunge into the unknown country beyond.

Next morning, soon after daylight, the herd returned, terrified, and reported that both oxen and horses had been driven off by Bushmen. Gideon’s heart stood still. This appeared to be proof of what he had often suspected, that the Lord had singled him out for relentless persecution because he had done His work of vengeance. However, there was only one thing now to be done: to pursue the marauders and attack them at all hazards. Arming the leader and driver and taking his own gun, he left the wagon and its contents to their fate and started on the spoor.

To his surprise he found that the spoor, instead of leading into the rough ground, as was invariably the case when animals were stolen by Bushman marauders, led back along the track made by his own wagon. After walking for about an hour he reached the top of a low ridge from which the eye could range for an immense distance across the plains. Then Gideon saw what made the blood curdle in his veins with horror. A wagon which he knew must be that of Stephanus was approaching and behind it was being driven a mob of loose cattle and horses which he could not doubt were his own. The Hottentots raised a shout of joy; to their astonishment Gideon turned and fled back across the plains towards his wagon.

The miserable man now became insane in his terror. His only thought was to escape,—to hide from the face of the man he had so greatly wronged. Fear lent wings to his feet and, by the time Stephanus had reached the top of the ridge where the two Hottentots were waiting in their perplexity, Gideon had almost reached his wagon. Stephanus, overjoyed at hearing that his brother was so close at hand, at once mounted his horse and rode forward.

Gideon took refuge in the wagon and laid himself down with his loaded gun in his hand. He had made up his mind as to what he would do in this last emergency:—he would allow his brother to approach and, when he arrived within point-blank distance, would cover him with the gun and bid him stand. Then he would solemnly warn Stephanus not to approach, holding him at parley where he stood. If the warning should be disregarded Gideon determined to shoot his brother dead, but he hoped not to be driven to do this. He would force Stephanus, under the muzzle of the gun, to swear to go back and trouble him no more. He would say:—“Your life is mine, here in this lawless land, to destroy by the mere slight pressure of my finger upon the trigger against which it rests.—It is mine,—forfeit because you have pursued me when I tried my best to avoid you, and driven me to bay.—I give it to you in exchange for the wrong I have done you. Take it and go in peace and I will never cross your path again,—but come one step nearer and you are a dead man with your blood upon your own revengeful soul.”

As the past is said to crowd upon the consciousness of a drowning man so these thoughts, wild and half-unformulated, hurtled against the distracted consciousness of Gideon van der Walt as he lay shaking in the wagon, holding his loaded gun with the muzzle projecting through the slit in the canvas which, he had made with his knife for the purpose. Every few seconds he lifted his head and glanced out with fevered eyes to see whether his enemy were approaching. At length he saw what his eyes had been seeking with expectant dread; riding down the long slope swiftly on a stout pony was a man with a long, snow-white beard, whom he recognised as Stephanus.—But what did this mean? his brother was unarmed.—But perhaps the gun was concealed—slung from the saddle behind as guns were sometimes carried in the hunting-field.—No,—the pony swerved to avoid a shrub,—Stephanus was certainly unarmed.

He was riding in his shirt-sleeves and not even a switch did he carry in his hand. Surely, Gideon thought, the man who was engaged in this implacable pursuit could not expect his enemy to allow him to approach to within gripping distance. No matter,—Gideon would challenge his brother when he came close, and bid him stand if he valued his life.—But would the man who had tenaciously held to a trail across Bushmanland in a black drought stand still when bidden? Gideon felt sure that he would not. Well,—he must shoot,—there was nothing else for it.

As Stephanus came nearer Gideon could see clearly the silvery whiteness of his beard. He thought of the last time his eyes had rested on his brother’s face, when the sentence was pronounced, and that then the beard was as black as the wing of a raven. Then a sudden horror struck him to the heart.—He could not—could not—stain his already guilty hands with this man’s blood, after having ruined his life. The threatened curse of Cain thundered in his ears. With a wild shriek he sprang from the wagon, and fled among the naked, piled-up rocks which formed the base of the hideous mountain at the foot of which his wagon stood.

Unheeding the shout of Stephanus, Gideon sped on, leaping from boulder to boulder in his mad endeavour to avoid the presence of the man against whom he had so terribly sinned. By some curious trick of thought his brother, thus unarmed, was more formidable to his maddened and guilty soul than had he come with a primed and loaded gun. A dread of some such fascination as the snake is said to exercise over his victim possessed him; he felt that once under his brother’s eyes he would be bound and helpless. It was a terrible illustration of the dread which the malefactor sometimes feels towards the one he has wronged.

Stephanus followed steadily, his heart full of its lofty purpose. He knew that his brother could not escape him now,—that the moment he had longed for through the slow years was at hand. Serene in his trust, confident in his faith that Providence was directing his and Gideon’s steps, and that neither could stumble until God’s purpose had been fulfilled, he breasted the steep, rugged incline with a careful and methodical expenditure of energy.

Soon the mountain narrowed to a wedge-shaped slope of an easier gradient, which culminated in a naked peak on each side of which a black gulf yawned. Under this, at a sheer depth which it made the senses dizzy to contemplate, the mighty river, now turbidly brimming from the heavy thunder-rains which had fallen upon its course, rolled down between fringes of tall green timber.

When Gideon saw that he was trapped,—that in front of him and on either hand were perpendicular cliffs, and behind him the brother whose face he dreaded more than the face of Death, such a mighty cry of agony and despair issued from his deep chest that the dead, black chasms seemed for the instant to become peopled with lost souls. Then, nerved with the courage of despair he turned and faced his pursuer.

“Keep back—keep back,” he shouted hoarsely, “or I will shoot you dead and follow you to Hell over the krantz.”

“You cannot do it, my brother,” called out Stephanus; “the shield of the Lord would turn the bullet aside and His hand would bear you up from the depths.”

“Stand, I tell you.—Stand.—Another step and you are a dead man.”

Stephanus continued to approach, so Gideon lifted his gun and pulled the trigger, but the powder flashed in the pan. Stephanus never faltered, but walked composedly to where the desperate man was hastily endeavouring to reprime the gun with loose powder from his pocket. Stephanus laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder and Gideon at once ceased in his attempt,—the gun slipped from his nervous fingers and crashed upon the stones, and he sank, swooning, to the ground.

When he regained consciousness Gideon found himself supported by the arms of his brother, whose eyes, deep with love and dimmed with pity, looked steadily into his own. Then his sin, his anguish and his terror slipped from him like a cast-off garment, and for the first time in his manhood he wept.

It did not need much to be said on either side for an understanding, full and complete, to be at once established. It was as though the unveiled souls looked at each other, revealing all and wholly revealed.

Before turning to retrace their steps the brothers stood for a short space and looked forth across the awful, Titanic chaos, in the convoluted depths of which the weary river hurried improvidently along with its wasted load of fertilising wealth. The sun had nearly sunk; already the dark chasms were full of almost opaque gloom, above which the rarefied air quivered around each sun-scorched mountain head, seeming to cap it with thin, colourless flame.

In the north-east a great crudded cloud lifted its soaring towers into the blue heart of the awful aether. Pure white on the side lit by the sun, on the other it was deep purple, and through it shafts of lightning were incessantly playing. Higher and higher it towered, sweeping past at a distance of a few miles. Now and then during the pauses of the thunder could be heard the low roar of the rain which fell like the fringe of a pall from the lower margin of the immense mass. Then they knew that the black, two-years’ drought was over,—that along the track over which they had so laboriously struggled a few short days since, the flowers would be bursting forth in a few hours and the rocky depressions brimming with silvern water.

Stephanus’ wagon had in the meantime arrived and was standing, outspanned, close to that of Gideon. Elsie stood near it, her face turned to the mighty thunder-chariot from which a refreshing wind, laden with the ichor of the fallen rain, stirred the richness of her hair. She turned as her quick ear caught the sound of their approaching footsteps, and it seemed to them as though the Spirit of Peace inhabited her and looked out from the unfathomable depths of her sightless eyes.

Glossary.

“Alle Wereld” “Whole world”: equivalent to “Good gracious.”

Baas: Master.

Baviaan: Baboon.

Benauwdheid: Indigestion.

Bultong: Dried meat.

Cappie: A sun bonnet.

Dassie: A rock-rabbit or coney.

Field Cornet: rural official with powers resembling those of a Justice of the Peace.

Karee Bush: A shrub; Rhus viminalis.

Kloof: A valley.

Krantz: A cliff.

Nachtmaal: The Lord’s Supper.

Onbeschafte: Unshorn; uncivilised.

Oom: Uncle.

Pan: A depression in the ground which sometimes contains water.

Rhebok: An antelope which frequents mountain heights.

Tanta: Aunt.

Schepsel: Creature; a term of tolerant contempt.

Stoep. The platform in front of or at the side of a house.

Sassatyes: Flakes of pickled meat cooked with skewers stuck through them.

Spoor: Trail.

Veldschoen: A heelless, home-made boot.

Voorhuis: The sitting-room in a Boer homestead.