“Got him just above the krantz in the Zwaart Kloof, did you?” commented her father. “That’s the place where you’ll nearly always get a chance. I suppose this is your first experience of this kind of sport; but I can tell you there’s many a man, not a bad shot either, who doesn’t fall into it just so soon. George, take the horses round—let’s see, keep Bles up though, I may want him later. And now we’ll go in to dinner.”
Throughout that welcome repast I was plying my host eagerly with questions as to the conditions of colonial life, and the vagaries of stock-farming in general; and wondering what a long while ago it seemed since I started for that fateful row at Whiddlecombe Regis, an unconscious voyage of discovery which should terminate in this.
“There are a sight too many Kafirs near us,” he said, in answer to one of my questions. “That’s the great drawback. They take too much toll of our stock, and besides, they have been getting restless lately. Some people set up a periodical scare, but I don’t believe in that sort of thing. As they are here we must rub along with them as best we can, and I must say they bother me less than they do—or seem to do—some others. But you never know what to expect with savages.”
“I suppose not,” I answered, thinking of the tussle I had witnessed that morning, and remembering the malignant and vengeful looks of the defeated barbarian as he slunk out by the cattle kraal. “But couldn’t they render the position—well, rather impossible for you, here, for instance, if they were to combine.”
“That’s just it—they can’t combine. But if you know how to take them, and not expect to find angels under a red blanket and a daub of root klip, you can pull with them as well as with anybody else. Only you must never for a moment let them imagine you’re afraid of them.”
I little thought then how near was the time when I should witness Septimus Matterson’s theory tested—and that severely. Yet that was to come, and it was only the beginning of a series of stirring events calling for readiness of resource and cool judgment and iron courage. The sun was shining now, the sky unclouded. Yet was the storm behind, gathering afar.