Jack Compton had just come down from two years’ travel and sport in the far interior; you might tell that by his lean, sun-tanned face and deeply embrowned arms, and by the collection of curios—bird-skins, photographs, horns, heads, assegais, and other articles that littered the room—and, after a rough time of it, was now enjoying to the full the ease and relaxation of life at the Cape. It was a noble prospect that lay spread before him—none nobler in the world. Cape Town, with its white houses and dark-green foliage, contrasted strongly in the near foreground with the peerless blue and the sweeping contours of Table Bay. Out at the entrance to the bay, Robben Island swam dimly into the far Atlantic. Across the bay, the eye was first smitten by the blinding dazzle of the beach of white sand below Blaauwberg. Then rose chain upon chain of glorious mountain scenery, the jagged sierras of Stellenbosch and the far line of Hottentots Holland melting in blues and purples upon the horizon. Under the setting sun the crests of these distant sierras were rapidly becoming rose-tinted, and the warm browns and purples glorified a thousandfold. Never, thought Jack Compton, as he pulled contentedly at his pipe, had he beheld a more enchanting scene.
At that instant his door was flung open, and a tall, sunburnt, keen-eyed man of thirty entered the room.
“Hallo, Jack, you old buffer!” he exclaimed, “what are you up to, sitting here brooding like a pelican at a salt pan? I’ve been looking for you. I’ve been chatting for the last two hours with a most interesting Johnnie just come round from Walfisch Bay. He’s been trading and hunting in a new veldt far inland to the north-east, and he’s had some extraordinary times. The country he’s been in is, seemingly, quite unknown to Europeans; the game’s as thick as sheep in a fold; and he’s had the most wonderful shooting. But there’s one adventure, which he’ll tell us more about after dinner, which has hit my fancy amazingly. As far as I can make out, Cressey—that’s the name of the man—has discovered some extraordinary link with the past—a Kaffir woman, chief of some native tribe, with good white blood in her veins. Cressey has got some of her belongings, and has promised to show them to us later on.”
“But,” put in Jack Compton, “what sort of a man is this Cressey? Can you depend upon what he says? There are some champion liars in this country, and any amount of improbable yarns floating from one ear to another. The Afrikander is the most credulous person in the world, and there’s something in the climate which quickly infects the Britisher—witness yourself. I suppose gold and diamonds are primarily responsible for it all, and the old-fashioned Boer, who’s the most marvel-swallowing creature of the nineteenth century.”
“That’s all right, old chap,” laughingly replied Tim Bracewell. “I won’t say any more at present. You shall judge for yourself. In my opinion this man Cressey isn’t one of your natural-born Ananiases. He gives one the impression of being perfectly straightforward. He’s a quiet, unassuming sort of man, rather hard to draw than otherwise. By the bye, we mustn’t talk too loud—he’s got a bedroom somewhere in this building.”
Half an hour later the two friends were lounging about the stoep of the International, waiting the summons to dinner, when a quiet-looking man in blue serge came up the steps. Tim Bracewell stepped forward and met him, and introduced him to Compton. The new comer was a well-set-up man of middle height. He had fair brown hair, a short beard, and a pair of keen, steady, blue-grey eyes.
After dinner, which the three men partook of at a table together, they came out to the stoep again, and fixed themselves in a snug corner for coffee and cigars. They had exchanged a good deal of their experiences together at the dinner-table, and Tim Bracewell now called upon Cressey to give them the promised history of his main adventure.
“Well,” said Cressey, “it’s a queer yarn, and I don’t know what you’ll say to it. You’re the first I’ve told it to; and let me ask you not to talk about it outside. I don’t want to be bothered by papers and interviewers and all the rest of it. I shall report my story to the Colonial Secretary for what it’s worth, and then I’ve done all I intend to. I started from Walfisch Bay with two wagons, loaded up with trading-gear, just eighteen months ago. I intended to hunt a bit, and I had five good ponies with me. I had also in my outfit three very good native ‘boys’—one especially, ‘April,’ a most useful chap; he was a ’Mangwato, a capital fellow at languages, and understood Zulu and Dutch, and one or two Zambesi dialects. He was a good driver, cook, and hunter—one of the best all-round natives I ever came across.
“Well, I trekked through Damaraland and Ovampoland up to the Cunene River. I hadn’t much trouble with the Ovampo, as I knew their chiefs and headmen. But they’re a rum lot, and you’ve got to watch it in their country. I did pretty well, and sent down a decent troop of cattle taken in barter to a place I’ve got in Damaraland.