"'Bring a stick from the fire,' he ordered. 'I want to see this—this baboon.'
"As the man went, he ran a cartridge into the breach of his rifle, and when the burning stick was brought, he turned over the body with his foot.
"A yellow face mowed up at him, and pale yellow eyes sparkled dully.
"'Tck!' clicked the Zulu in surprise. 'It is the bushman, Naqua. No, baas,' as Shadrach cocked his rifle, 'do not shoot him. Keep him and chain him to a post. He will like that less.'
"'I shoot,' answered Shadrach, and shattered the evil grin that gleamed in the face on the ground with a quick shot.
"And, as I told you, my stepsister's first husband, Shadrach van Guelder, was afraid to be alone in the dark after that night," concluded the Vrouw Grobelaar. "It is ill shooting baboons, Frikkie."
"I'm not afraid," retorted Frikkie, and the baboon in the yard rattled his chain and cursed shrilly.
MORDER DRIFT
The business was something before my time, but I can remember several versions of it, which were commonly current when I first came into the Dopfontein district. It was not much of a tale as a general thing, except that, if you happened to have a strain of hot blood in you, it discovered a quality of very picturesque pathos. However, as you shall see, only the tail end of the story was generally known, and it was the Vrouw Grobelaar, the transmitter of chronicles, who divulged it to Katje and myself one evening in its proper proportions.
As I first heard it the tale was about thus. The drift across the Dolf Spruit, below the Zwaartkop, was a ragged gash in the earth, hidden from all approaches by dense bushes of wacht een beetje thorn. The spruit was here throttled between banks of worn stone, and the water roared over the drift at a depth that made it impassible to foot- farers. Its name Morder Drift (Murder Ford), was secured to it no less by its savage aspect than by the incident associated with it.