Near him, in the shade of the spreading acacia tree by which the waggon was outspanned, crawled on a couple of blankets little Jan, his two year old child. Now and then the big Boer would pause from his work to admire the strong, chubby limbs of his little son, or would stretch forth a big hand to tickle the restless little rascal, eliciting from him crows, gurgles and screams of childish laughter. Once Alida came from her cooking to look at the pair.
“Maghte!” said her husband, as he looked up at her from playing with the boy. “How the child grows. If he goes on like this, he will be strong enough to carry a rifle by the time he is ten years old.”
They retired early that night—before eight o’clock—and at the earliest streak of dawn Karel Van Zyl had drunk his coffee, eaten some meat and a rusk and said farewell to his wife and child. He kissed Alida’s broad, smooth cheek and, yet more tenderly, his sleeping child, lying there up in the waggon, on the kartel-bed, in the big hole which his sire had lately quitted. And then, taking with him Hans and his horse, he went down to the stream. The good grey had swum rivers before and understood the business; yet he paused for a moment on the brink, looking forth over the broad, swift stream, and snuffed the air once or twice.
“Crocodiles, oude kerel (old fellow)?” said his master, patting him on the neck. “They shall not harm you.”
The grey tossed his head, shook his bit, and Hans, looking at him, said to his master:
“He is all right, Baas. He trusts you. Witfoot will swim.”
So, unfastening the long raw-hide reim from the head stall, they lead Witfoot down, got into a couple of canoes and pushed off. Witfoot swam quietly and cleverly between the two canoes, and presently, passing below Ndala’s island, they reached the northern bank. Here Ndala was waiting for them with a number of his tribesmen. They exchanged greetings, and then the Cubangwe captain picked out a dozen of his best hunters to accompany Van Zyl and his Hottentot and show them where the elephants were. And so, bidding friendly farewells, they parted.
Hans marched just ahead of Van Zyl, carrying, as he always did, till game was known to be near, his master’s rifle and a bandolier full of spare cartridges. One of Ndala’s men carried the second rifle, with which Hans himself was usually intrusted. For three hours they marched north-west under the blazing sun, over heavy sand-belts, through bush and thin forest, until high noon, when Van Zyl reined up his horse, pulled off his broad-brimmed hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his big cotton print handkerchief.
“Hans,” he said, looking round for Ndala’s hunters, “those schepsels are surely spreading out very wide for the spoor. I haven’t seen one of them for half an hour past.” As he spoke he climbed leisurely from the saddle and loosened the girths. Hans, who alone knew why the men had vanished, answered him:
“I don’t think you will set eyes on them again, Baas. You may say your prayers, for your last hour is nigh and I am going to shoot you.”