“Hear the old boomer!” said Amos scornfully; “anyone would think he’d got a parcel o’ daughters to marry off fer cattle.”
“Go slow, Amos Topper, and maybe you won’t stumble. A good system, says I; and why? ’cos it’s lasted all these centuries—since and before Jacob he collected a heap o’ goats for his wife. See yer, when a white man marries a girl he don’t give nothin’ for her, but he asks her father how much he’s going to give the girl. That’s what a white man does, and lor’ lov’ yer, more often than not he swallows up all her money, and then beats her, the skunk. Now a black man is different. When he goes courtin’ he don’t ask the father how much the girl’s goin’ to bring to the hut—not he. What he does is to ask the father how much he wants for the girl. ‘Five cows,’ says the father ‘for the girl is nice an’ fat.’ Well, the young buck he’s got to get them five cows, and if he takes one outer a white man’s kraal that’s due to his impatience—it don’t prove the system is wrong. Well, the five cows is paid over, an’ the girl goes to the young buck. As usual, the pair has children—and the cows has calves. Maybe the husband beats his wife. What then; why, sir, the wife takes her children and goes back to her father. ‘I’ve come back,’ she says, ‘and I’m going to live on them cows and calves.’ The father he can’t say nothin’; ’cos why, ’cos he took those same cows in trust for his daughter ’gainst she should come, back to him on account of her husband’s bad treatment. That’s so. The Ukolobola is better’n a magistrate for keeping the peace ’twixt husband and wife. That’s why I say ’tis a good system, an’ a just system.”
“’Tis well known,” said Amos, “that Abe Pike’s got no cause to kick against Kaffir customs, because he keeps no cattle worth havin’—nor nothin’ else, for that matter.”
“By the way, Uncle Abe,” I said quickly, to prevent the coming storm; “you promised to tell us how it was you gave over searching for that diamond mine.”
“Meaning that bull elephant,” said Amos Topper, still aggressively; “and I do say this, of all the yarns I heard there’s none to beat that for downright contrariness to what is reasonable. Who ever heard of a bull elephant rampaging round with a red diamond stuck in his forehead?”
“Humph!” grunted Abe. “If we was to believe nothin’ you never yeard on we’d be a pack o’ blamed jackasses, and no mistake. Now, I tell you that same elephant is a-tramping around now over yonder in the Addo bush, with that same red diamond a-gleamin’ in his forehead, if so be the hide ain’t growed over it.”
“Why don’t you get a permit from Government and shoot him, then!”
“Not me: not Abe Pike. Oh, no! I tole you how he flattened out ole Harkins, an’ stove in my partner’s ribs, an’ laid out another chap what j’ined the company with a yeller horse, an’ skeered off that Port Elizabeth fellow what tried to ‘jump’ my claim. Well, that showed this yer walkin’ diamond mine were dangerous, but, lor’ bless yer, the schreik he gave me was somethin’ that sent the everlastin’ shivers up an’ down my backbone. I’ll tell you how ’twas. When the company was busted up I was the only chap what held shares, an’ as there was no market for ’em I calkerlated to do the prospectin’ myself. So I went on a reg’lar expedition into the bush with a new castin’ o’ bullets, a horn o’ powder, a tin box o’ caps—them being muzzle-loading days—an’ a kit o’ one sheepskin kaross, with a roll o’ tobacco, five pounds o’ coffee, an’ sugar, an’ as much Boer meal as I could buy, with a pot an’ cometje. I reckoned to shoot my own meat an’ pick up berries, besides gettin’ a square meal at a farmhouse now an’ ag’in. So I sot out into the Addo, an’ gettin’ to the middle of it, planted my kit in a holler tree. That was a Sunday. Then I scouted aroun’. Monday I seed nothin’. Tuesday I came on a family party o’ two tigers an’ their cubs. The ole woman, steppin’ on her toes, marched me off the premises, an’ I darsn’t shoot for fear o’ skeerin’ the elephant. I had to march back’ards, an’ the thorns they jest had a picnic with my shirt, I tell you; an’ I got sich a cramp in my stummick that I couldn’t hunt any more that day. Wednesday I came on elephant spoor—fresh spoor—and follered it for four hours without ever seein’ a patch o’ the animile. Thursday I came on spoor ag’in within twenty yards o’ where I camped. Yes, sirree; that crittur had come up as near as that, and he’d stood there for a long time, maybe watchin’ me. Well, I lit out on the tracks and follered ’em in an’ out an’ roun’ about all through the mornin’ into the afternoon, the tracks keeping so fresh that I kep’ on with the trigger at full cock. In the evenin’ the spoor led me right back to my holler tree, and blow me if that crittur hadn’t been overhauling my goods. Yes, that’s so. The kettle it were hung twenty feet from the ground. The kaross it were peppered all over with holes, where he’d drove his tusk through. The Boer meal were all eaten up, except for a sprinkle here and there; and the tobacco were chewed up and spat out. I dried it and smoked it, and it had a flavour of boots most terrible. Well, I tell you, this made me quei, but when I seed, arter looking more carefully, that this yer fool elephant were my diamon’ mine itself I jes’ picked up. ’Cos, what’s the loss of a few shillin’s worth of things when that diamon’ ’ud bring in enough to buy up a whole street full o’ grocers’ shops.”
“How did you know it was the elephant you wanted?”
“How did I know! ’Cos I seed, that’s how, by the size of his hoofs and the plain writin’ that he’d only one tusk, same as my bull. That’s how! Friday I up and follered ag’in afore sunrise, and I tell yer I hadn’t gone mor’n half-an-hour before I diskivered that he were follerin’ me. Yes. I were standin’ to listen, and I yeard the rumbling of his stummick. I yeard it plain—and jes’ crawled along so’s not to crush so much as a dry leaf. I yeard that rumble ag’in—but blow me if I could see him, an’ I crawled an’ crawled, poking the big gun afore till the sweat it run down my back. There was the spoor and there was the rumble, but—there was no elephant. I began to feel shivery, and looked over my shoulder like a man does in the dark, and—by gosh!—I seed that red diamon’ gleamin’ out of the leaves behind me. An’ jes’ below it and on each side were two other gleamin’ objects—the eyes of the bull hisself. Well, he giv’ a scream, I rolled over—an’ the next I yeard he were thundering by, smashing down the trees and yelling out most horrible. Abe Pike didn’t stop there, I tell you. He jest sneaked off, and when he yeard the bull stand—which was plain to hear from the stillness—Abe he stopped to. I did that.”