Chapter Ten.
A Horse Chased by Wild Hounds.
That night there were sore hearts in the camp under the mowana, and eyes that closed not in sleep. A mother lay awake, thinking apprehensively about her son; sisters in like manner were in fear for the fate of a brother; while a young girl, not sister, but sweetheart, was no less uneasy about the absence of a lover.
Perhaps had Piet Van Dorn, the object of this concentrated solicitude, been only sure of its being shared by Katharina Rynwald—for she was the waking sweetheart—the long, unhappy hours he was constrained to pass upon the veldt would have seemed shorter, and been less irksome. As it was, he too slept little, in part kept awake by the pain of his wounds, and partly by torturing thoughts. Withal, he took steps for passing the night, in the best and safest way possible under the circumstances. Anticipating a heavy dew,—which indeed, had already begun to fall—with that raw chilliness, as much the accompaniment of a tropical night as of one in northern climes, he had need to take precautions against it. Thinly and lightly clad, just as when interrupted at target-practice, ever since hotly engaged, and all over perspiration, experience told him there was danger from this alone. So, warned by it, soon as he had made up his mind to remain there he dropped down from the ant-hill, and bethought himself of kindling a fire. But for this the luck was against him. There was no wood near, nor anywhere within sight; not a stick. All around the veldt was treeless, and alike bare of bushes; the only relief to its monotonous nakedness being some score or two ant-hills, like hayricks scattered over it.
Yes, there was something more, which after a time came under his eyes; some tall bunch grass growing at no great distance off, or rather had grown, for it was now withered and dead. True, it would not make a fire that could be kept up; but the young hunter saw it might be utilised in a way almost as good, by making a warm bed of it. Soon as thought of, he unsheathed his hunting-knife, and set to cutting the grass, as reaper with “hook and crook.” Nor stayed he his hand, till several large armfuls lay along the earth. These, one after another, he carried up to the ant-hill he had first stopped at, and which, as already ascertained by him, had been abandoned by its insect builders.
It was but the task of a few seconds to form the dry grass into a rough, but fairly comfortable couch; upon which he lay down, drawing the straggled selvedge over him, by way of blanket and coverlet. Thus snugly ensconced, he took out his pipe, with flint, steel, and tinder, struck a light, and commenced smoking.
One passing near, and seeing a red coal glowing in that heap of haylike grass, with smoke rising in curls over it, might have wondered at the grass not catching fire, and blazing up. But there was no one passing near, or likely to pass; and Piet Van Dorn continued puffing away in solitary silence.
After a time the tobacco in his pipe was burnt to the bottom; but finding it had given him some relief from the stinging of his sores, he refilled the pipe bowl, and went on smoking.
At length the narcotic property of the weed produced a soporific effect; Morpheus demanded his toll; and the wearied hunter, despite pain of wounds, and mental anxiety, sank into sleep, meerschaum in mouth. Luckily, he lay on his back, and the pipe from habit was held tight between his teeth, till the ashes in it became cold. Had it been otherwise, he might have soon and suddenly waked up, to find himself as a rat in the heart of a burning hayrick.