Tales of South Africa

by H. A. Bryden

“Well, it was all very horrible; although even now we hardly knew what to believe. But we brought her to, gave her some brandy, and put her into her wagon to rest. And later on I took her some soup and bread, and made her eat it. She was exhausted now, and told me in a low voice that she had lived on meal and water for weeks past. Presently we turned in, and all was quiet.

“It was, I suppose, some little time after midnight that Angus and I were roused by a loud voice beyond the camp-fire, which lay between the other wagon and our own. We listened; it was the vrouw herself. Hastily we got down from the kartel and went towards her. She was beyond the fire, and her figure was well-nigh lost in the gloom of night. We could just see her white kopje, and an arm waving frantically. It was a terrible and uncanny scene. There stood the woman, screaming in wild and excited tones at something beyond—what we could not see, and shivered even to imagine. ‘Yes,’ she cried, ‘you come here to frighten me, Dirk Starreberg. I feared you not in life; I fear you not in death. I slew you, and I would slay you again. But I know why you walk thus through the veldt, and come seeking to drive me mad, night after night. To-morrow—now that I can trek—I will come and bury your bones, and you may rest quiet if you can. Trouble me no more, I say—begone!’

“Angus and I could stand it no longer, sick with horror though we were.

“‘Come back to your wagon, Vrouw Starreberg,’ I called out ‘You are dreaming. Go to rest again!’

“Still glaring in front of her, the woman stepped back till she had met our advance. I am bound to say that I looked, and Angus looked, with terrified eyes, but saw nothing of what she saw or thought she saw. We took the poor mad creature’s arms. She was trembling and wet—literally bathed in perspiration. What the tension must have been if this sort of thing had been going on sight after night, I shuddered even to think of. We took her to her wagon and gave her a strong dose of brandy and water, and presently she fell into heavy sleep. Then Angus and I got down our karosses, rekindled a roaring fire, and sat smoking by the blaze for the rest of that sight. Scared as I was, I believe I dozed once or twice, and Angus always swears, to this day, that he once saw the figure of Dirk Starreberg pass within the firelight fifty yards away. He woke me, but it had gone. The cattle were uneasy and disturbed again, and our Kaffirs, who had heard the vrouw talking, as they said, at a spook, lay huddled together under our wagon. It was uncanny, devilish uncanny, I can tell you, that intangible horror about the camp.

“Well, the rest of my story is short. Vrouw Starreberg was moving before dawn, and insisted that we must trek back to the old camp and bury the skeleton. We—fearing more horrors—said it could not be done, and that we should at once quit the bush and strike directly for the road. She then utterly refused to leave her wagon unless we did as she asked. We seriously thought of taking her by force, but she was a strong, powerful woman, her mind was already unhinged, and we feared the consequences of a struggle. And so, very reluctantly, we agreed to humour her and give her her wish. It was a ghastly business; we only prayed to get it quickly over.

“At earliest streak of daylight we were in-spanned, and all day travelled steadily back towards the scene of Dirk’s tragical ending. That night, strange to say, nothing happened to disturb us; everything passed quietly. We trekked again all next day, and halted for the night some three miles short of ‘the skeleton outspan,’ as we called it. Our reason for this was that we hoped the burial might be quietly accomplished in the bright sunshine of next morning, and the woman got well away, before nightfall, on the homeward journey. Vrouw Starreberg, I noticed, was restless and excited, but she made no objection. Again, I noticed that she still carried her Bible tightly clasped under the left arm. The vrouw lay in our wagon; Angus and I sleeping by the fire again. We were dog-tired, and slept soundly until roused, just as daylight broke, by our wagon-driver, a Griqua named Albrecht. The man was looking very strangely. ‘Baas,’ he said, ‘the vrouw is not there,’ (pointing to the wagon); ‘she went in the night. I heard her whispering, and I looked from where I was lying, and there she was, beyond the firelight, following a man—a Dutchman, I think—or a spook, I don’t know which, towards the murderer’s outspan (de mordenaar’s outspan to). I was frightened, Baas, and I dared not move. There is her spoor; but the man’s spoor I cannot see.’

“We sprang to our feet and went straight to the wagon; the fore-clap was pulled aside; the kartel was empty. Yes, she had gone; and our hearts were sick with a nameless fear. Taking Albrecht with us, we saddled up at once, and spoored the vrouw along the track towards the old outspan. And there, surely enough, we found her, stone-dead by the side of the skeleton.

“There was no mark upon her, but in her face was the most awful look of horror and of fright that I ever saw upon the countenance of the dead. I believe she had died of sheer terror, and of nothing else. What had happened in those silent, terrible night hours—by what ghastly agency she had been dragged to the scene of the tragedy; how the end had actually come, God only knows.

“We were but too anxious to get away from this dreadful place after such events. We buried the body and skeleton together, and trekked out as fast as the oxen could travel, never stopping till we had struck the road and reached Scio Pans.