Between Sun and Sand: A Tale of an African Desert

by W. C. Scully

Jan took this for a sign of yielding. He bent over and passed his arm around the girl’s waist.

Susannah’s dreaming was over. She sprang up and, in the act of doing so, swung round and dealt Jan a swinging blow on the ear with her small, but firm and nervous fist. Jan felt as if the thunders of the Apocalypse had discharged themselves over his left shoulder. He put his hand up to the side of his head to ascertain whether his ear was still there or had been burnt off. Susannah had hurt her hand so much that the tears started in her eyes. However, she managed to escape from the mat-house without showing her distress.

Jan, very much crestfallen and with a bad singing in the left side of his head, strolled away among the other camps. He could see, far out on the plains, the two double dots which indicated the respective pairs of lovers, and the spectacle made him sigh with envy. As the violent pain in his ear calmed down to a sensation more like that of being gently roasted, he began to make excuses for Susannah. Perhaps, he thought, he had been too precipitate. At all events he would go back to tea, Mrs Hattingh having invited him to do so.

When Jan returned at dusk he found van Lell and Henrico sitting on the big cartel bed in the mat-house—the nuptial couch of Old Schalk—with their arms around the waists of their respective charmers. On each of the four faces was an expression of fatuous bliss. The lovers took not the least notice of Old Schalk or Mrs Hattingh, or, for the matter of that, of Jan himself.

At table the lovers did not allow their affections to prevent their all making excellent suppers. The expected proposals had been duly made that afternoon. During the meal each of the affianced maidens passed little tit-bits into her lover’s mouth with her own fair fingers from time to time. These were munched with expressions of rapture by the recipients. Susannah was still indignant, and glanced at Jan from time to time in a manner that made him lose his appetite. The pain in her hand had lasted longer than that in Jan’s ear; of course she blamed him exclusively for the hurt.

After supper another walk was proposed, but this was uncompromisingly vetoed by Mrs Hattingh. Max came in later, and, as usual, sat down as far from every one as possible. Jan wondered at the black looks which the visitor got from the old couple. By and by, however, Susannah brought her little stool close to where Max was sitting, and then a glimmering of the true state of affairs came to Jan. The pain seemed to come back to his ear with renewed intensity. Ere long he found he could stand the strain no longer, so he said, “Goodnight,” and rose to depart. In response to a question from Old Schalk, he said that he would hold a religious service on the following day.

Next morning at about ten o’clock there was a considerable gathering of Boers at the Hattingh camp. Stout, frowsy “tantas” and portly “ooms” strolled up with dignity or waddled laboriously through the sand. Gaudily arrayed maidens followed with their attendant swains. A general requisition for stools and benches, had been made, and these were arranged in a semicircle in front of the wagon. The children of the congregation sat on the ground where sheepskins had been stretched at the feet of the elders. Old Schalk’s chair was placed apart, immediately below the wagon-box, in a position from which he could note the effect of the exhortations on the faces of the others. The service began with a psalm sung after the fashion followed in the Scotch kirks of a century ago—very slowly, and much through the nose. Old Schalk followed with a prayer, which might be described as so much denunciation of people in general, clothed in the phraseology of the Prophet Jeremiah, when the utterer of the Lamentations was most exercised over the sins of Israel. There was a rumour afloat to the effect that the Government was about to tax the Trek-Boers to some slight extent, in proportion to the number of stock they depastured in Bushmanland, so Old Schalk was the mouthpiece of the general indignation.

The prayer over, Jan Roster mounted the wagon-box and began his sermon. His text was a wide one—it embraced the whole of the Ten Commandments. In an unctuous and impassioned manner he fulminated against all sorts and conditions of transgressors. Some of the Commandments he slurred over—others he expounded at great length. When he reached the fourth he glanced menacingly at Max, who stood outside the circle, opposite where Susannah was sitting. The breaking of the Sabbath was, according to Jan, the root of all evil. He called upon the legislators of the land to impose the heaviest penalties for all contraventions of the Divine ordinance on the subject. He spoke in the most opprobrious terms of the Jews, who, out of the wickedness of their unregenerate hearts, desecrated this most holy day, and kept Saturday as a day of devotion in its stead. He, Jan, was a sinner, but among all the faults which his conscience laid to his charge, Sabbath-breaking was not to be found. No, he had always kept holy the Lord’s day—never travelled on it—never attended to worldly concerns between midnight on Saturday and the morning of Monday.

Just then an interruption came. Piet Noona, Jan’s driver and confidential servant, forced his way along the side of the wagon until he reached the front wheel, just over which Jan was holding forth from the wagon-box.

“Baas, Baas!” said he, in an agitated whisper. Jan glanced down with displeasure in his eye, frowned, shook his head, and proceeded to the discussion of the fifth commandment Piet, however, was not to be put off. He caught hold of the leg of Jan’s trousers between his finger and thumb, and began to tug at it.