Chapter Ten.
Nathan the Tempter.
One evening just after sunset Nathan arrived, driving a team of six smart mules before a brand-new cart. He had bought the turn-out at Clanwilliam on his return journey from Cape Town. He was accompanied by Koos Bester, at whose camp he had called in passing.
Nathan had entered into a contract to supply a firm of butchers in Cape Town with slaughter oxen; Bester, who owned a lot of cattle which were running, half-wild, in Bushmanland, agreed to sell him a certain number upon terms very advantageous to the purchaser.
Nathan was as unlike Max as it is possible for one brother to be unlike another. He was a low-sized, knock-kneed man of a fair complexion which burnt to a fiery red on the least exposure. His features were of the lowest Hebrew type—his lips were full and shapeless, his nose large and prominent, his eyes small and colourless, but exceedingly bright and glittering.
Since Max had awakened from boyhood to manhood he had come to hate this brother of his, to whom money was the only god worth worshipping, and who sneered at every impulse or aspiration that did not have gain for its object.
Next morning poor Max had a bad time of it. The books were examined, and when the debit entry against the Hattinghs came to light and Max was unable to give any satisfactory explanation as to why he had disregarded his instructions in allowing this account to be increased, Nathan treated him to the grossest abuse. However, things were found to be in a satisfactory condition on the whole; in fact Nathan could find nothing but this one item to find fault with. All day long he kept recurring to this one blot upon a good record, until at length Max became extremely angry and said that if Nathan would only stop talking about it he would pay the value of the articles sold out of his own salary. At this Nathan looked at him with a searching glint in his eye, but said nothing further on the subject.
In the afternoon Nathan went for a stroll among the camps, in the course of which he learned two things, namely, Max’s relations with Susannah, and the fact that old Gert Gemsbok, the Hottentot, who had been placed under the ban for giving evidence against a Boer, was in his service. Nathan returned to the shop, filled with sardonic fury. Max at once saw that the hour he had been dreading for months had come.
“Well,” said Nathan, after he had regarded his brother for a few seconds with an evil smile, “going to get married, eh?”
“Yes—what of that?” Max felt his courage rising; he no longer dreaded the thing before him.
“You, a Jew, and the child of Jews, to talk of marrying a Christian slut who was born under a bush and reared by stinking Boers in a mat-house?”
“If I am a Jew it is more than you are; you often said that you didn’t believe in God.”
“What has God got to do with it? A Jew is a Jew, God or no God, and a Christian is of no use except to make money out of. Nice idea, a chap like you thinking of getting married. Going to reside in this fashionable suburban villa, or do you mean to build a mansion for yourself?”
“Well, I sha’n’t live here or anywhere else near you!”
Nathan blinked in astonishment; it was something quite unheard of, Max taking such a tone. The fear that inevitably strikes at the heart of the bully whenever even the weakest resists him, bridled his tongue for a minute; then he resumed—
“Well, you can take your Boer slut and breed babies under a koekerboom whenever you feel inclined, so far as I care; but if you want to stay on with me you will have to give up this rot.”
“I do not want to stay another day with you,” replied Max, in a quiet voice. “I want to have done with you as soon as I can, and then I shall not care if I never see you again.”
Nathan, for the first time in his life, began to feel a glimmering of respect for his brother. However, it would not do to let Max see that this was the case. He began to expound upon the text of his other grievance—
“That old nigger you have hired; you must clear him out at once.”
“You are master; if you want to get rid of him you had better give him notice. He is hired by the month.”
“Yes, as soon as I can get another herd I will give your old pal notice with a sjambok. I’m not going to have my trade with the Boers spoilt by keeping on a damned old nigger-informer like that.”
“I’ve got something belonging to him here,” said Max, producing the diamond. “He picked it up on the bank of the river. He wants you to sell it and give him half the price.”
Nathan took the stone and glanced at it. Then he gave a short whistle expressive of surprise and walked over to the window, in the light from which he examined the stone carefully. This done he slipped it into his trouser pocket and turned again to Max—
“No, my boy; that’s a little too thin. Stones like this are not picked up in Bushmanland. This here diamond has been stolen from Kimberley, and I mean to keep it until I can restore it to its rightful owner. See?”
Here he winked. Max looked at him with deep scorn. Nathan left the shop and walked to a short distance, whistling a lively tune. Then he stood and critically regarded the sunset, with his hands in his pockets.
Soon afterwards old Gemsbok drove up the flock of sheep to where they always lay at night, on the side of the kopje behind the shop. Nathan called to him, and he came.
“Well, you’re a nice sort of a scarecrow to come here spinning yarns about picking up diamonds in Bushmanland. I’ve a good mind to send you to the magistrate for having a stolen diamond in your possession.”
“The diamond is not a stolen one, Baas.”
“A likely story. I suppose you’ll tell me next that you’ve never been to Kimberley, eh?”
“I have been to Kimberley, Baas.”
“I thought so. Perhaps you’ll tell me next that you’ve never been in the tronk, either, eh?”
“I have been in the tronk, Baas.”
“Well, well; if that ain’t wonderful guessing I’m a Dutchman. Beg your pardon, I’m sure”—here he grinned ironically at Max, who had just come out of the shop. “Let’s try again. It might also be possible that your back has been tickled by the ‘cat,’ and that you didn’t laugh, neither?”
“My back has felt the ‘cat,’ Baas.”
“Ex-tra-ordinary! Why, I’m as good at pulling out facts as a corkscrew at opening bottles”—here he turned and winked at Max, who felt himself tingling with disgust. “Now look here, Mister Nigger-informer—who has been to the diamond fields, also in the tronk, to say nothing of other places, and whose back has been tickled by the ‘cat’ until you didn’t laugh—I’m just going to stick to this here shining gem until I find the rightful owner. Of course, if you’re not satisfied you can go and complain to the magistrate next time he comes round. See?”
“I see, Baas.”
As Gert went to his scherm Nathan turned and winked to Max again. The latter walked away with rage and shame seething in him. Nathan went into the little back room and threw himself on the bed. He lay there and chuckled over the prize he had so easily acquired. “Why,” he thought, “it must be worth at least fifty pounds.” Well, at last his luck was properly booming. First, the big haul of feathers safely disposed of; next the cattle contract and the arrangement he had made with Koos Bester, under which Koos had to do all the work and he, Nathan, had only to pocket the profits; now this diamond. He began to calculate: at this rate he would be a rich man in a few years. Then he would go away and enjoy himself, would steep himself to the lips in vice, as he had often longed with the full strength of his weasel’s soul to be able to afford to do.
A knock on the iron front of the door startled him from his dream.
“Come round here, whoever you are—especially if you have petticoats on!” he shouted.
Then the tread of a heavy man drew near, and Koos Bester entered the room.
“Well, Koos, my son, how do you feel this fine evening?”
“Fresh, thank you.”
“Well, I don’t know when I ever felt so happy. I don’t know why I should” (here he thought he had been possibly injudicious in revealing his blissful condition to Koos) “after all the money I’ve been losing lately, and after the price I’m going to pay you for these cattle; but somehow I do.”
Koos lit his pipe and smoked in silence. The Trek-Boer is seldom lively; in fact he is usually silent whenever he can possibly avoid speaking.
“Koos, have you heard that the old nigger who got Willem into that mess is here working for me, hired by my brother?”
“Ja, I heard so.”
“Of course, I will give him the sack as soon as ever I can get another boy.”
“Ja, I am glad to hear that.”
“Koos, why don’t you get him on the quiet and give him a good licking?”
“Ja, I should like to do that if you will not mind.”
“Mind! No; I’ll be only jolly glad if you will do it. But take him on the quiet, give him his dressing when there’s no one about. Whatever you do, don’t trust my brother; he makes quite a pal of him.”
“Good, I’ll make a plan. But when are we to start?”
“Let’s see—this is Tuesday; supposing we get away on Friday. Say Friday morning at daylight.”
“It’ll be no use starting so early; we cannot get to my camp, round by Puffadder, in a day. It will be time enough to start after breakfast.”
“But why do you want to go all that way round? Can’t we go through the dunes?”
“No! you won’t catch me going through the dunes this weather with mules. I have four horses that could do it; I wouldn’t take them there now for five pounds.”
“All right, Koos; we’ll go round by Puffadder and start after breakfast on Friday.”
The vast group of sand-dunes beyond which Koos Bester lived lies like a red-hot spider across the north-eastern section of the Desert, with the legs extending principally towards the south and south-west.
Rather, perhaps, is it like a menacing hand stretched forth by the giant Kalihari—that waterless waste of loose sand which extends northward indefinitely from just across the Orange River—to seize the southern extremity of the African Continent in a fiery grip. The river gorge cut the hand off at the wrist, else the eternal dribble might, in course of time, have overwhelmed all the western districts of the Cape Colony.
The dunes are, as a rule, only from ten to twenty feet in height, except in the central area where they are piled high about an abrupt, strange-looking hill which has a stratum of red stone encircling it like a belt. This hill is called “Bantom Berg,” which means “belted mountain.” The many mile-long fingers straggle over the Desert, gradually encroaching.
No one ever enters the dunes twice, except in case of the most urgent necessity. At every step the traveller sinks to below the ankles in the fine, light, scorching sand. It is sometimes practicable to cross the dune-tract in a light vehicle, if the weather happens to be cool and one’s horses are in good condition. But crossing them is, however, never safe, for there is no water to be had within their repulsive bounds. The bones of many a lost wanderer lie there, covered by the sand streaming over the flat dune-top, under the lea of which he may have crept in the vain hope of getting shelter from the flame-hot wind from the north. In such a case the body would be buried deep, beyond the reach even of the jackals, in a very short time. If ever uncovered it would be found converted into a black, shrunken mummy, for the intense dryness of the sand is such that a body buried in it never decomposes; the moisture is rapidly drained out of it until nothing is left but a parchment bag of bones.
Max gave Nathan a month’s notice of leaving next day. As, however, he had drawn his salary by the quarter, Nathan insisted on three months’ notice being given. In this Max had to acquiesce, but he did so with a very bad grace.
Up to Friday morning Koos Bester had no opportunity of carrying out his intention of giving Gert Gemsbok a thrashing on the quiet. By Thursday night he had quite given up the idea. His slow mind had gradually come to recognise that he had better leave the old Hottentot alone—this in spite of Nathan’s daily promptings on the subject. The old man looked so frail and bent. Some unrecognised remnant of chivalry in the Boer’s nature made him dimly see that for a man of his strength to attack one who would be as a child in his hands would be base and cowardly. But Willem, whom he had loved as more than a brother, had been done to death by this baboon-like creature. Then for a few minutes the face of Koos would darken with the desire for revenge. He began to long for the time of departure, so as to be away from the temptation to do the deed that he loathed and longed for the doing of at the same time.
Friday morning came, and after breakfast Nathan and Koos departed from Namies in the cart drawn by the six smart mules. The road led around the kopjes to the westward, so the cart was out of sight of the camps a few minutes after the start.
The distance to Koos Bester’s camp would take two short days to accomplish, but could not possibly be accomplished in one. The dunes were avoided on this route by passing over the point where the red-hot hand had been amputated and the stump frayed away by the winds of centuries. After travelling a mile or so they passed over some ground where a lot of shallow gullies, which carried off the occasional thunderstorm drainage from the kopjes, intersected each other. A flock of sheep could be seen grazing a few hundred yards to the right of the road, amongst the gullies. Between them and the road could be seen the figure of a man sitting on a doubled-down tussock of “twa” grass.
Koos felt the blood rise to his brain, but he averted his eyes from the figure and sucked violently at his pipe. Nathan pulled at the reins, and the mules came to a standstill. Just then the man arose from the tussock and disappeared over the edge of one of the gullies.
“Koos, my son, there’s your chance.”
“Never mind; I’ll let the old vagabond alone to-day. I haven’t got a sjambok with me, and that whip of yours wouldn’t hurt him enough. Drive on.”
“Rot! man alive; let’s have some sport. Give him a taste of those pretty little feet of yours. Go on, I’ll see fair play.”
Koos alighted from the cart and began adjusting a part of the harness which had got out of gear. Then he walked back and put his foot on the step preparatory to climbing in.
“What! ain’t you going to give it to him? Well, you most likely won’t have another chance; I’ve told Max to give him the sack as soon as ever he can get another boy, so he’ll likely be gone by the time we return.”
Koos stood with his foot resting on the step, still undecided.
“Never mind,” he said, “I’ll let him alone to-day.”
“And poor Willem, who died in the tronk all through that chap. Koos, I’m ashamed of you; be a man and give him what for.”
Koos no longer hesitated. The reference to Willem turned the scale; his good angel soared away from his side for ever. The blood arose in his veins until his face and neck became purple. He uttered a curse and walked off, at first with hesitation still apparent in his movements. He was now eager to go, but his legs seemed reluctant to carry him. To harden his purpose he began to think of Willem’s case; of how he had sworn to be revenged; of how a Boer, a man of his own blood, had been sent to herd with blacks at a convict station, and had there died miserably, all through the “thing” before him. At length his very bile seemed to stir with black rage, and he strode on with his hands and feet tingling for vengeance.
Gert Gemsbok watched over the edge of the gully the approach of Koos, and guessed the purpose of the Boer. Then he dropped back into the hollow behind him and ran down it as hard as he could in the hope of reaching some ground which he might tread on without leaving a spoor. He had caught up the little dog so that it should not betray him by following.
He might have escaped from Koos were it not that the cart stood on higher ground, and thus Nathan caught sight of his crouching form passing over an exposed spot. The Jew yelled to Koos that he was to trend to the left, and then indicated a small bush close to which he had caught sight of the fugitive. Koos, now thoroughly roused and thirsting madly for vengeance, started off at a run towards the bush Nathan had pointed out. In a few moments he nearly ran over the old Hottentot, who was hiding under an overhanging bank.
The sorry deed did not take long to accomplish. With his powerful hand Koos seized Gemsbok by the skinny arm and hurled him to the bottom of the gully. Not a word was spoken on either side. The old Hottentot was like a paper doll in the hands of the heavy, muscular Boer, and he fell with a thud upon the soft sand. Then Koos, beside himself with mad anger, leaped upon him like a tiger, stamped upon the shrunken body with his heavy feet, and kicked it until his toes, badly protected by the thin and supple-soled veldschoens, began to hurt him severely.
The pain brought Koos partly to himself. Casting one look upon the motionless, huddled body, he climbed out of the gully and began walking quickly back towards the cart. He found, however, that the great toe of his right foot caused him excruciating pain, so he could only limp slowly over the broken ground.
“Hello, Koos; did the old man show fight and knock you about? What’s up with your little hind paw? Why, you look as white as a blooming sheet.”
Koos climbed into the cart and Nathan drove on. There was something in the expression of the Boer’s face which taught the Jew that it would not be safe to take any liberties just then.
After a few minutes Nathan found that he could sustain his curiosity no longer—
“Come along, old man,” he said coaxingly; “tell us all about it.”
Koos did not reply. He was in great pain, and was wondering what the effect of the particular kick which hurt him so had been on the man whom he kicked. His toe began to press against the upper-leather, and he felt that it was dislocated.
The still, huddled figure lying in the sand at the bottom of the gully was as if photographed on the retina—it was literally so vividly before his mental vision that physical vision seemed to be suspended. And the pain in his toe! He longed to take off the veldschoen and ease the pressure, to examine the injury, regarding which he was consumed with a deadly curiosity, but he hated to attract Nathan’s attention.
He moved the foot slightly and the agony almost made him shriek aloud. A spasm of frantic terror gripped him by the heart-strings until he nearly swooned. Why, the man must be dead. He thought of his own bulk, of his strength, and of how passionately and recklessly he had leaped and stamped upon the nearly passive body. The details of what had happened had seemed lost to him for a time; in all but the merest and flimsiest general outline he had forgotten what had occurred between his gripping Gemsbok by the arm and his changing his walk into a hobble as he returned to the cart. Now, under some strange psychological sympathetic ink the smallest details appeared in pitiless distinctness, and stood out before his shuddering soul in lurid relief.
A wild rage against the man next to him, who had incited him to the deed—without whose fell, artful suggestion and encouragement his conscience would now have been clear—surged up in him. He felt, for a few minutes, as black an anger against Nathan as he had felt when he gripped the man he thought had wronged him, and dashed him down.
The day was hot and windless. He glanced up and saw the red-belted cone of Bantom Berg towering up amid the dunes. The cone was clear, and the waves of rarefied air quivered along the tops of the sand mounds like living flames, until they flashed into a lovely mirage away to the south, where the Desert line was unbroken.
He looked straight ahead and drew a deep sigh of relief, for red wisps of sand were tossing into the air, lashed by the fury of the first gusts of one of those fearful wind-storms from the north which were so common at that season. Soon the Desert would be tortured by moaning tempests, and then his footprints would be blotted out in the twinkling of an eye. A feeling of relief and subsequent elation swept through his mind. He was all right now; he had only been afraid of his spoor being found. He felt quite safe. They might, of course, suspect him; that did not matter, for Nathan, he knew, would never give information against him. Why, Nathan was almost an accomplice. The thought of his companion’s knowledge of what he had done seemed to bring vague suggestions of disquiet in its trail; nevertheless his mind was able to poise itself still for a while on the dizzy pinnacle of elation to which it had swung out of the depths, impelled by a strange momentum. The Hottentot was dead—that was certain to him now. He seemed to be able to weigh and measure the force of every individual one of the kicks he had given, and the result of this sum in mental arithmetic was—death.
Nathan stole another glance at his companion’s face and saw that it was now less terrible to look upon. His curiosity had become a positive pain. He felt he must venture to ask again for details.
“Come along, Koos,” he coaxed; “tell us all about it.”
“There’s not much to tell. I just gave him a few thumps and left him.”
“Why on earth didn’t you bring him to the top of the bank and operate there? I didn’t see any of the fun.”
Here the Jew touched his companion’s foot accidentally. Koos shrieked with anguish and uttered a horrible curse. Nathan seemed very much astonished. He riveted his gaze on the foot.
“Why, Koos, there’s blood on your veldschoen. Did you cut your foot?”
Koos could stand the pain no longer. He lifted his foot upon his left knee and began to untie the reimpje with which the veldschoen was tied. Nathan stopped the mules.
When the veldschoen was removed the great toe was found to be dislocated. It had turned from its usual direction and was pointing backward, owing to the strain on the tendon. The whole front part of the foot was turning purple.
“My eye!” said Nathan, “you must have given it to him precious hot. Why, you’ve unlatched your blooming big toe. That ain’t your blood, neither. My eye! And I didn’t see it happening. Just like my luck!”
Koos felt sick with pain. He wrapped his jacket around the injured foot and leant back. The sand-storm swept down in fury. Nathan relieved his feelings by fluent cursings. To Koos the fiery wind with its burthen of stinging sand was more grateful than the zephyrs of a springtime dawn.
“Ain’t it lucky we didn’t take the road through the dunes?” shouted Nathan during a slight comparative cessation of the wind.
Koos did not reply. He was wishing with the full strength of his tortured soul that they had taken the dune route, whatever its dangers might have been, in preference to the one which had led him to the scene of his crime.
They reached the water-place which is known by the name of “Puffadder,” and there saw the mat-houses of several Trek-Boer camps. By agreement it was stated that Koos had injured his foot by hitting it, when running, against a stone. An old woman who was skilled in herbal remedies and rough surgery made him lie down on his back upon the ground. Then she tied a thin reim around the dislocated toe and got two of her sons to haul at it. The toe slipped back into its socket, but Koos fainted from the pain. When he came to himself the evil face of Nathan was peering into his. He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of that which he had now come to hate as he had never hated anything before.
“Well, old man,” said Nathan, “it strikes me you must have smashed that blooming stone you ran your foot against into splinters.”
After the mules had been watered and had taken a roll in the sand another start was made. The old woman had boiled down some dried herbs in a tin pannikin and tied rags soaked in the decoction around the injured toe. This treatment relieved the pain considerably. When they inspanned and made another start the wind had completely ceased, the sunlight had lost its sting, and the stillness of infinite peace seemed to brood like a bright-plumaged dove over the Desert. There was no sound but the faint creak-creak of the harness as the mules trotted along over the soft sand. Nathan made several attempts to elicit further particulars as to what Koos had done to the old Hottentot, but his companion remained obstinately silent, and he felt instinctively that it would not be safe for him to pursue the subject farther just then.
The sun was nearly down when they reached Koos Bester’s camp on the following day. In the interval the mind of the unhappy Boer had perpetually oscillated between two poles—that of remorse, terror, and despair on the one hand, and that of unreasoning elation on the other. But he would not speak of the thing which had happened. Sometimes he persuaded himself that the old Hottentot was surely dead; anon he reasoned that the proverbial physical toughness of the race to which the man belonged would enable him to recover. But the limp, passive, huddled form, prone on the sand at the bottom of the gully, haunted him with deadly persistence, and his detestation of the Jew who had persuaded him against his will to do the deed grew in intensity.
The collecting of the cattle, which ranged over a couple of thousand square miles of Desert, occupied several days. Nathan made himself as agreeable as possible to Mrs Bester and the children, who, however, cordially and instinctively disliked him. Koos turned upon him from time to time a slow gaze in which smouldering hatred seemed to lurk. This was especially noticeable when the Jew, as he often did, began paying Mrs Bester extravagant compliments.
Koos’ foot became much better under the treatment recommended by the old woman who had assisted him at Puffadder. She had given him a supply of her medicinal herbs, and of these infusions were made, the application of which was followed by the best results.
Koos had repeated to his wife and her father the story as to his having injured his foot by hitting it against a stone. The father-in-law caused some embarrassment by questioning him closely as to the details of the accident. The answers were not very consistently given, and when the discrepancies were commented on Koos lost his temper. Nathan was present at this scene and keenly enjoyed it.
After the cattle had been collected and the number purchased by Nathan selected and marked, the latter took his departure. In returning to Namies he followed the course he had come by. When nearly home he glanced regretfully in the direction of the broken gullies, thinking of the piece of sport he had missed, on the details of which Koos Bester had been so strangely reticent.
Next morning Koos inspanned his cart just after daybreak. He could no longer endure the suspense of waiting for information as to the result of his violence. He drove a team of rough ponies, the equals of which for endurance could hardly have been found in Bushmanland. He travelled in a light cart which had no hood. As the day seemed to promise coolness he decided to venture on taking the road through the dunes.