By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

Something had to be done, so it was decided to employ a governess. In due course a highly certificated lady came to undertake the regeneration of Tommy’s morals as well as the development of his mind. She had much erudition, but little sympathy, so Tommy and she were antipathetic towards each other from the very start, and the starved heart of the lonely child went out more and more towards the banished Danster.

Drought had lain heavily on the land for many months. The season was autumn. During early spring copious rains had fallen, but throughout sultry January and blistering February the heavens had been as brass and the wind as the blast from a furnace. The grass which had sprung up rank and luxuriant withered again, and now the farm, which was much under-stocked, lay like a clay potsherd covered with tinder.

One afternoon the sun smote the earth with more than usual fury. Away to the westward irregular fragments of thundercloud, which seemed incapable of cohering sufficiently to produce a storm, coquetted with the quivering mountain-tops. Ever and anon irregular gusts from the eastward would trail over glowing hill and gasping vale with a sound as though the tortured earth were sobbing an appeal to the skies for the withheld mercy of rain. It was one of those days on which the beast seeks, gasping, for a cool lair, and the bird pants with half outstretched wings, deep in the densest foliage.

Mr and Mrs Winwood had collapsed completely; the governess retired to her darkened room; the servants had disappeared. Tommy only was awake. He tried all sorts of devices for passing the time, but the walls of his comparatively cool room became an irksome prison as the afternoon wore on; so he opened the glass door quietly, to avoid wakening his father in the next room, and stepped quietly on to the back stoep. Here he was in the shade. The air had taken on that suspicion of coolness which, in seasons of drought, nearly always tempers the afternoon.

Tommy leant upon the verandah rail, and the wind, as it stirred his yellow locks, seemed to be charged with some odour that stimulated his languid pulses. He sniffed at it wonderingly; what did it remind him of? Then he suddenly knew, and his cheek crimsoned with a guilty flush: it was the smell of Danster’s kaross, its grosser elements subdued by distance, which assailed his nostrils.

Tommy cast his eyes around, and they fell upon an object which sent the blood coursing wildly through his veins. There, emerging from a bush only a few yards away, was the bullet-shaped head and Mongolian face of the Hottentot, his eyes filled with appeal and his wide mouth distended into a white-toothed smile. Tommy gazed spellbound, and the evil genius cautiously held out at arm’s length a stick from which a small water-tortoise hung by one tortured leg. After this had been dangled for a few seconds it was withdrawn and then the nest of a loxia was held forth. The loxia suspends its nest from boughs overhanging dark, forest-nurtured pools, and the nest has a long, woven tube, cunningly devised for the purpose of keeping out snakes, lizards and other enemies that prey upon the eggs and young of wild birds. Tommy had often gazed at these works of woven art as they hung from the whip-like acacia boughs, and had longed to possess one. A vision of the cool forest grot where he had seen them swaying in the wind arose in his mind. Duty was forgotten in an instant; Nature, like a long-banished king, came back and claimed his own. An old hat belonging to his father hung upon a nail close at hand. Hurriedly placing this upon his head he tripped down the steps into the garden and followed the beckoning tempter.

Tommy hurried after his evil genius along the pathway which led through the orchard down to the bottom of the valley. In passing, Danster skilfully snatched a supply of half-ripe peaches from the laden trees, and hid the loot in a fold of his odoriferous kaross. This grated on Tommy’s sense of honour; his conscience lifted his head. To salve it, he mentally resolved not to eat any of the fruit.

They climbed over the orchard fence and pressed through the rustling Tambookie grass, which filled the air with its sharp, sweet scent. Then they reached the strip of forest at the bottom of the valley. From the heart of its charmed mystery stole the delightful murmur of falling water.

Just where the pathway crossed the stream was a rocky ledge over which a thin gush of crystal water trembled down through the air and, smiting a boulder, resolved itself into fine spray. A vagrant sunbeam pierced this, and the miracle of a tiny rainbow hung over the pool. This is a phenomenon only seen in severe droughts, and when the sunlight smites through a gap in the greenery at a certain angle. The impressionable Tommy become intoxicated with delight; the smell of Danster’s kaross, which had always offended his sensitive nose, was forgotten. The evil genius became a wood-god and Tommy his humble votary.

The wind, heated once more to furnace pitch, moaned threateningly along the hillside, but here all was cool, grateful and quiet. The unruffled water slept beneath the shadowing trees from which, ever and anon, sounded the peevish twitter of drowsy birds. A large iguana slowly dragged its scaly length over the stones, pausing now and then to snap at an insect, which it swallowed, gulping solemnly. A flash of vivid blue seemed to fill the gloom—a kingfisher skimmed out of the darkness across the surface of the pool and perched on a stone. Quick as thought Danster flung his short, knobbed stick with unerring aim, and the bird fell, mangled, its bright plumage scattered over the surface of the crystal pool. This broke the spell. Grasping the dead bird in his hand, Tommy followed his evil genius across the stream and through the fringe of woodland on the other side.