The Gemsbok ménage was established in a cleft of the kopje-side about fifty yards behind the store. The habitation consisted of a movable screen of loose bushes about two feet high and shaped like a crescent. This was shifted from one side to another of the fireplace as the wind changed. A vagrant dog which Gert had found far out in the Desert, half-famished for want of water, was added to the strength of the establishment, and became the devoted slave of its rescuer.
The old couple now tasted happiness probably far greater than any they had previously experienced. Max was kind to them. Presents of old sacks and a few articles of cast-off clothing, fragments of food from his scanty table, an occasional pinch of tobacco,—such things filled the hearts of these belated creatures with deep joy and thankfulness. A pot of salve for the old woman’s legs was provided, and the result was satisfactory.
Max found Gert a most intelligent and entertaining companion, and mentally far in advance of any of the inhabitants of the Desert whom he had met. The old man’s experiences had been varied and his life full of the tragic, and he seemed not to have forgotten anything he had ever seen or heard in the course of his long struggles against adverse Fate.
The ramkee was much in evidence. Oom Schulpad, with a true artist’s generous appreciation of the art of a fellow craftsman, often brought his violin to the shop at night. There the two musicians would contend, like two troubadours, in a kind of tournament of song. Sometimes they would play duets, and it was then that Gemsbok proved his skill, for he accompanied without difficulty any air played upon the violin after he had heard it once. He would sit and listen attentively whilst Oom Schulpad played it slowly over. Then the notes of the ramkee would second the more civilised instrument as truly as if the music lay printed before the player and he could read it.
On the night when this occurred for the first time, after Gemsbok had returned to his scherm, Oom Schulpad sat silently on the counter for a few minutes. Then, as he took his departure he said, in a musing tone—
“Ja, he knows more music than I, that old Bushman.”
As Gemsbok’s poor old wife was entirely helpless, it was he who fetched, wood and water and attended to all the domestic duties. The old woman slept most of the day, but at night the cheerful firelight from the scherm lit up the kopjes long after the last of the Boers lay snoring. Then the old couple would sit, toasting themselves at the cheerful blaze, and chatting happily together, except when some lively tune from the ramkee startled the ancient silence of the Desert.
One of the Boers camped nearest the shop was a man named Koos Bester, cousin of the Willem Bester who had died in prison after being sentenced upon old Gemsbok’s evidence. Koos was a very big, sallow, dark-haired man with a scraggy fringe of coarse, black beard around his chin, and eyes of a very peculiar shade of light grey. His usual mien was melancholy, his strength was prodigious, his hands and feet were of enormous size and looked as if they belonged to some one else.
Koos Bester was a man who seldom either spoke or smiled; nevertheless he could hardly be called morose. He was by no means a bad fellow in his way, and was devotedly attached to his comely wife and his three small children. His father-in-law, a very old man, lived with him. The Besters usually camped at a water-place on the other side of the dunes. As, however, no rain had fallen in that vicinity for some time, they moved over to Namies, meaning to return to the spot they had come to regard as their home as soon as circumstances permitted.
Koos had been much attached to his cousin Willem and had felt the latter’s imprisonment and death very keenly. He hated the sight of Gert Gemsbok, who continually reminded him of Willem’s fate; the very fact of knowing that the old Hottentot was in the neighbourhood was sufficient to make him miserable. One day he asked Max to dismiss Gemsbok, but Max indignantly refused.