Many and many a time have I held out the hand of good-fellowship to the negro, but have never felt him clasp mine with the same heartfelt return. It has either been with a diffident pressure, as though something still concealed remained between us, or with a subtle slippery clasp, which gave one the idea of a snake wriggling in the hand, seeking when and where to bite.
Thus communing with myself, I followed hesitatingly the heels of the Kaffir children; when they suddenly stopped, and pointing to some faint glimmering lights that appeared, in the murky atmosphere of the valley, to be far off, but in reality were close at hand, asked for the blankets I had promised, for there stood the huts in which their parents slept whom they had brought me to shoot! I halted the men, and ordered them to lie down: and there we lay, stretched out on the ground, within sixty yards of the village, watching the Kaffirs come out to tend their fires, and endeavour to conceal the glare, as though afraid of attracting attention, then cautiously looking round, retire to rest again inside their little branch-covered huts.
While thus lying and watching to our front, some cautious footsteps from the rear were heard approaching, and several Kaffirs, finding out their mistake too late to fall back, threaded their way through our ranks as though the men were but so many logs of wood instead of the deadly foes they knew us to be. The last of these stragglers was leading a horse which obliged him to stop, as the brute stood snorting over one of the men—it refused to pass by. At length it made a plunge forward, and its heels coming disagreeably close to the man’s head as it landed on the other side, he rose, with a good hearty oath. The Kaffir, however, proceeded stolidly on his way.
These Kaffirs stopped at the huts and spoke to the people around them, but evidently did not communicate the knowledge of our presence to their friends, for they retired again quietly to rest. My horse, Charlie—a good, sensible animal as ever a man bestrode (it was the charger that General Cathcart had given me)—having winded the horse the Kaffir had lately led through our ranks, threw off the hood his head was usually covered with to prevent his attention being drawn to other cattle while we were lying in wait around villages, and began to neigh. Out swarmed the Kaffirs like bees aroused harshly from their hives. They evidently knew the loud neighing of my entire horse did not proceed from one of their small Kaffir ponies, who, in their turn, were now replying to Charlie. Before a minute had passed, our men had opened fire, and the Kaffirs in return were hurling back to us their assegais. This did not last long. With a loud cheer the huts were charged. Soon all was over; and after pulling out the dead and the wounded, we set fire to the village.
During the fight, a little Kaffir boy, who had been curled up in a kaross, had received a bullet in the sole of his foot, which, passing up the leg, had smashed several inches of the bone. As he was being rolled over and over whilst the men were dragging the kaross from under him, he explained to me, by signs, his impossibility to rise. He stretched out his little bronzed fingers towards me; and his childish, olive face, lit up by the glare of the fire from the burning hut, looked to me like the illuminated countenance of the infant St John which one often sees in medieval pictures, and I could not help taking up the little fellow in my arms and giving him a hearty kiss. I could not leave him in his helpless condition; yet how were we to get him back to the camp? His leg was quite smashed. The man whom I tipped with a sovereign to carry him, found it dangling about in the most sickening manner, and at last gave up the job. The only chance left was to have an amputation performed. To this the child submitted without a murmur; and Dix, my cook, took the limb off at the knee in a manner that would have astonished a London surgeon. This was not the first “case” on which Dix had tried his “’prentice hand;” for some time past his vocation had been that of head surgeon and barber in general to the corps.
The little patient arrived eventually at the camp all right; and it may perhaps interest my readers to hear that a wooden leg was made for him, on which he used to stump off extraordinary Kaffir reels that might have given a new idea to some of those bonnie Scotchmen who indulge in the Highland fling. But the most profitable feat for the little performer was the following:—In a small stream that flowed some two hundred yards in front of Blakeway’s Farm, the men had made a large pond for bathing, by sinking the bed of the river. Over it a small platform was erected from which one might take a plunge. To this spot the little Kaffir was led whenever visitors arrived at the camp (and this often occurred, now that the war was drawing to a close). There, one end of a string being tied to his wooden leg, and the other fastened to a fishing-rod, he popped into the water like a large frog, and went down to the bottom, while up rose his leg like a float. Then began the exciting struggle of landing this queer fish; and when this was achieved, amid roars of laughter, a shower of coppers was sure to make up for his ducking.
The country around Fort Beaufort had now become so free from Kaffirs, that the men would often, after roll-call, of an evening go in twos and threes, without their firelocks, into the town, and return again before next morning’s réveillé, laden with calibashes filled with Cape-smoke. I may mention that this is the name of an intoxicating liquor made from the prickly pear or Cape cactus.
To prevent these irregular proceedings, Sergeant Herridge used to patrol the road with a party of men; and one evening he brought back an old woman, two middle-aged ones, and a young girl, whom he had found in a kloof adjoining the before-mentioned road. The girl was called “Noziah.” We soon found out that she was no less important a personage than the sister of the Kaffir chief Sandilli, who, with “Macomo,” was the greatest opponent to British power at the Cape. The old lady was the principal attendant, the two others the “lady-helps,” of the party. The former was a most communicative personage. After relating the splendour of the young damsel’s origin, and the responsibilities under which she herself laboured, as being the duenna to whose care Sandilli had confided so incomparable a treasure, she asked to be allowed to go on her way, and report progress to her mighty chief. The ancient dame was quite a character, and I felt interested on her behalf; and explained, through Johnny Fingo, that she was at perfect liberty to go where she liked—adding that, during her absence, I would look after the welfare of her charge, and that Sandilli might expect to see his sister return as she had been confided to my care.
The old lady, after expressing, by profound salutations, her gratitude to me, was on the point of departing, when Sergeant Herridge remarked that she wore a wonderful necklace of lions’ and leopards’ teeth strung together, and that he would like to have it. On this being explained to the old woman, she stoutly refused to part with it, saying it was a charmed token, an heirloom in her family, and had belonged formerly to a great witch-doctor, of whom she was the lineal descendant. There, for the moment, ended the matter, and shortly afterwards she started on her journey alone. Sergeant Herridge was observed to follow her; and just after she had disappeared behind the brow of the hill that rose over Blakeway’s Farm towards the Water-kloof, a shot was heard, and the sergeant came back with his leather jacket spattered with blood.
The next day the old woman’s body was found; and as the men believed that she had been murdered by Herridge, he was in consequence shunned; for however brutally cruel many of them were, killing without mercy all that came in their way when engaged in fight, young as well as old, even braining little children—yet this was done against the supposed deadly enemies of their race, and not in cold blood for the sake of plunder.