“Come on!” shouted Orpin to his men, looking back over his shoulder; but his men were nowhere to be seen: they had deserted him at the first sight of the robbers, and scrambled away into the jungle like monkeys.
To resist some dozens of savages single-handed Stephen knew would be useless, and to shed blood unnecessarily was against his principles. He therefore made up his mind at once how to act. Rising and turning round, he discharged his gun at the precipice, to prevent the Bushmen from accidentally doing mischief with it; then, sitting down on a piece of fallen rock, he quietly took out his pipe and began to light it.
This was not meant as a piece of bravado, but Stephen was eccentric, and it occurred to him that there was a “touch of nature” in a pipe which might possibly induce the Bushmen to be less rude to him personally than if he were to stand by and look aggrieved while his waggons were being pillaged.
In this conjecture he was right. The robbers rushed towards the waggon without doing him any harm. One of them, however, picked up the gun in passing. Then the leader seized the long whip and drove the waggon away, leaving its late owner to his meditations.
Stephen would have been more than human if he could have stood the loss of all his earthly goods with perfect equanimity. He groaned when the oxen began to move, and then, feeling a desperate desire to relieve his feelings, and a strong tendency to fight, he suddenly shut his eyes, and began to pray that the robbers might be forgiven, and himself enabled to bear his trials in a becoming manner. Opening his eyes again, he beheld a sturdy Bushman gazing at him in open-mouthed surprise, with an uplifted assagai in his hand. Stephen judged that this was the chief of the band, who had remained behind to kill him. At all events, when he ceased to pray, and opened his eyes, the Bushman shut his mouth, and poised his assagai in a threatening manner.
Unarmed as he was, Stephen knew that he was at the man’s mercy. In this dilemma, and knowing nothing of the Bushman language, he put powerful constraint on himself, and looked placidly at his wallet, in which he searched earnestly for something, quite regardless, to all appearances, of the deadly spear, whose point was within ten feet of his breast.
The Bushman’s curiosity was awakened. He waited until Stephen had drawn a lump of tobacco from his pouch—which latter he took care to turn inside out to show there was nothing else in it. Rising quietly, the trader advanced with a peaceful air, holding the tobacco out to the Bushman, who looked suspicious—and distrustfully shook his assagai; but Stephen took no heed. Stopping within a couple of yards of him, he held out the tobacco at the full length of his arm. The Bushman hesitated, but finally lowered his assegai and accepted the gift. Stephen immediately resumed his pipe, and smiled pleasantly at his foe.
The Bushman appeared to be unable to resist this. He grinned hideously; then, turning about, made off in the direction of his comrades as fast as his naked legs could carry him.
It was Booby, the follower of Ruyter the Hottentot, who had thus robbed the unfortunate trader, and, not two hours afterwards, Ruyter himself fell in with Stephen, wending his way slowly and sadly down the glen.
Desiring his men to proceed in advance, the robber chief asked Orpin to sit down on a fallen tree beside him, and relate what had happened. When he had done so, Ruyter shook his head and said in his broken English—