By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

“After this the Bushmen lit fires and began to feast upon the game we had killed. They made merry around the carcases, eating such a quantity of meat that their bodies swelled until they looked like ticks on the dewlap of a cow in summer. In the early stages of the feasting they sang and danced, and then they played a curious game, in which some pretended to kill others, who, in their turn, pretended to be slain. We could hear from the noises around the other fires that similar feasting and dancing was going on at each carcase.

“Our throats felt as though filled with hot ashes, for we had sweated much in the chase, but though we begged for water they would not give us a drop. My heart seems even now to grow cold when I think of all that happened during that night. Our bonds were tightly drawn and galled us sorely, but our captors laughed at and taunted us when we prayed for relief.

“After they had feasted and danced through half the night, the Bushmen came and sat close to us, and some who happened to be able to speak our language began to converse with us. What they said made us lose all hope and wish for a speedy death to put us out of our pain. It appeared that their sending Goloza with the message was but a device for the purpose of getting cattle, and that they meant to kill us in any case. Their craft was such that they kept us alive in the event of Makomo sending messengers ahead for the purpose of ascertaining that we were still alive before delivering the ransom cattle. They intended to kill us as well as the messengers as soon as the cattle were in their possession. This was to be their revenge for the slaughter we had inflicted upon their friends and relatives.

“We begged hard for our lives, offering large herds of cattle if our captors would let us send one of our number to collect from our kraals. We wept and moaned as we begged for mercy, but the more pitifully we pleaded the more they laughed and jeered at us. After we had amused them sufficiently thus, they returned to their feasting. Then, after placing two of their number to watch us, they fell fast asleep.

“Now a Bushman, when really full of meat, must needs sleep, and then he is like a gorged vulture, for nothing will wake him until he has digested the food. If disturbed he will only sprawl about like a drunken man, and roll his eyes like a child a week old. Soon the two watchers slept too, and then the fire died down, and we lay suffering in the darkness. There was no sound except our own groans, the snoring of the Bushmen, who had sunk back, each at the place where he had been sitting, and lay huddled upon the ground, and the murmuring of the stream of water.

“We strove and struggled with our bonds, but they were too cunningly tied for this to be of any avail, so we only put ourselves to greater pain. The plashing of the cool water over the stones only a few yards off maddened us, and we tried to roll towards it, but a barrier of sharp rocks stood in the way, and this we found it impossible to cross. The jackals came up and began to gnaw the bones around the fireplace; they stepped fearlessly in among the sleepers, as though quite accustomed to so doing.

“We lay thus until it was nearly day. Then I heard a soft voice speak my name. I answered in a whisper, and in a moment Nongala was bending over me, cutting my bonds with a sharp knife.

“I was so stiff that for a while I could hardly move a limb. Nongala went to the others, one by one, and released them as well. After a few minutes our clogged blood began to move once more, and then, suddenly, we seemed to recover our strength. The first thing we did was to recover our weapons.

“Then we went softly to and fro among the sleepers and took possession of their bows and arrows. The reed shafts of the latter we broke, and then we flung them, like snakes with broken backs, in a heap upon the embers. In a short time the heap blazed brightly up, and then we went to work at our vengeance.

“The sleepers lay close together, and we made a ring about them, so that none might escape. But this was not necessary; they were so gorged that not one awakened, even when the spear was at his throat. One by one we slew them as they lay. Then, with one accord, we went to the stream we had been listening to throughout the long night of pain, and drank our fill. But our work was not yet done.