Then Ned looked up to see and remove the rag. It was gone. The one who had brought the gift had removed the signal.
Chapter Sixteen.
Breaking the Tronk.
He is not a gregarious animal the Boer. Except for expeditions of murder or rapine, when expediency forces him to congregate, he prefers to wallow in his own sty.
He does not enjoy night-work, either. The night to him is thronged with “spooks” and other nameless horrors which he does not care to face. He can murder a Kaffir in the most atrocious fashion, and think nothing about it as long as the sun shines, but he dreads that Kaffir’s “spook” after the sun sets. Even the uncertain light of the moon doesn’t seem to comfort him greatly.
He has no humour in its sprightly and harmless sense. He can appreciate rough horse-play and clumsy practical jokes, particularly if there be a strong leaven of cruelty about them, and he is the joker. As a nation, the Boers have not wit enough to be sarcastic, although they can be bitter enough at times, and harsh always. But they are possessed, in its most childish, morbid, and undeveloped state, of imagination. During the day they are hard-headed, callous-hearted, keen-eyed men, ever on the outlook to best their neighbours and grab what advantage they can. Generations of previous warfare have made them quick and sure with their aim, perfect horsemen, and the finest skulkers in the world. By day they are impervious and vulture-eyed, and, according to their own uncivilised mode of conducting warfare, dogged and resolute, if not brave. We cannot call a man brave who slinks behind kopjes and circumvents his enemy only by treachery; yet, when driven into a hard corner, they will turn and fight with the viciousness of desperate rats.
But at night they are a most timorous and superstitious set of shrinkers. Every strange sound makes their flesh creep and their hair bristle. The kloofs, and veldt, and karri are packed with evil spirits, whose weird revels they no more dare disturb, than would a jackal a lion while he is feeding. Their God is the Lord of vengeance, their religion a hotchpotch of rank superstition.
Our heroes did not fear greatly that the cell would be disturbed while they were out of it. The prisoners were deputed to do the cleaning once a week, and Saturday was the day ordained for this duty. On Sundays they were allowed to rest, as according to the Transvaal laws, no trekking, or work of any kind, was permitted on that day.