“Why! it was about two hours away from here, or might have been rather more—this afternoon just after I’d boned that reebok—a nice clear shot he gave me—a longish one too. Well, away beyond the second line of krantzes over that side, we stumbled suddenly upon a small kraal, where they were none too civil—didn’t seem the least glad to see us, to put it mildly. Well, we didn’t stop, but as we moved on they objected to us going the way we wanted, and in fact the way we eventually came. I rather lost my temper, for they became beastly bumptious, you know, and at one time made as if they’d try to prevent us.”
“You didn’t get punching any of their heads, I hope,” I interrupted, rather sharply.
“No, no. But upon my soul I felt inclined to. First of all they began lying about there being no road there, and so forth, but I knew they were lying, so made up my mind to go that way. Jan Boom didn’t want to either—and those two boys who started with us wouldn’t go any further, said we shouldn’t want them any more, and that we could find our own way back now. Well, I was of the same opinion, so on we came. But at one time I began to think they had been right. It was awful the scramble we had over the rocks and boulders. Jan Boom had turned beastly sulky too, and kept wanting to go back himself, but I’m an obstinate beggar, you know, Glanton, and when once I’ve made up my mind to do a thing I’ll do it—What are you grinning at?”
“Only, if you don’t mind me saying so, you ought to have remained in the service of your country. You’d have made a model leader of a forlorn hope, and, in the fulness of time, a model general.”
“Here, hang your chaff,” he growled, not knowing whether to be pleased or not. “I never quite know whether you mean what you say or are only pulling a fellow’s leg.”
“Well, go on.”
“Jan Boom, I was saying, had got so sulky that I more than threw out a hint I was likely to hammer him if he didn’t think better of it. We at last struck a gully which was rather an improvement on our way so far, but even it was beastly bad. It was a sort of dry watercourse, although if the rain kept on at this rate it would soon be a devilish wet one. Well, there was a path of sorts, though not easy to distinguish; now over the rocks now between them, a gloomy hole, I tell you, and most infernally depressing.”
“How depressing?” I interrupted, for I had never given Falkner Sewin credit for sufficient imagination to feel depressed by such a mere accident as surroundings.
“Well, it was. The cliffs seemed to meet overhead as if they were going to topple down on you, don’t you know, and there wasn’t a sound, except the wind howling round the rocks every now and then like a jolly spook. Then, all of a sudden my horse rucked back at his bridle—we were leading the horses, you know—so suddenly as nearly to pull me on my back—as it was I dropped my pipe on the stones and broke it—and before I had time even to cuss, by George, I saw a sight.
“We had got into a sort of caldron-shaped hollow, something like our waterhole at home would look like, if it was empty, and—by the Lord, Glanton, there, against the rock where the water should have fallen over if there had been any to fall, was the body of a wretched devil of a nigger—spread-eagled upright, and staring at us; in fact literally crucified—for we found that the poor beast was triced up to pegs driven firmly into cracks in the rock. Good Lord! it gave me a turn. In some places the flesh had all fallen away, showing the bones, and what remained was bleached almost white. Here, send the bottle along again. The very recollection turns me sick.”