By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

“I think we’ll stay and see what’s to be found about here,” he said.

Next morning the Reefer disappeared on his endless quest of the rainbow. Fourie and the boy went for a tramp after game. The somewhat vague and unpractical mien of the Boer disappeared when on the hunting spoor; he became cool, alert and capable. The lore of the wilderness was to him as an open book. The boy had somewhat prided himself on his skill as a hunter, but he soon saw that compared with Fourie he was the merest novice. Signs and tokens invisible to him before were pointed out and deduced from unerringly. Fourie was generous, giving his companion opportunity after opportunity to lay low koodoo, sable and tsessabi. The spoil was handed over to the “Baiala”—“the people who are dead”—wretched outlaws or waifs of annihilated clans, who wandered, weaponless and without clothing, over the veldt. As a rule they lived on roots, grubs, snakes and other unspeakable things. Like wine-flies when one opens a bottle of wine, the Baiala would suddenly materialise from the void whenever meat was in evidence. They would be given the bulk of the carcase for their own use, and told to convey the choicer portions, with the skin, to the camp. This they never failed honestly to do.

The abject submissiveness of these people was pathetic in the extreme; it must have been the result of a terrible course of hopeless suffering. They never spoke unless first addressed; then they answered in low-toned monosyllables. A weird deftness and intelligence characterised all they did. At the camp they would silently set down whatever had been given into their charge, and as silently vanish. As an instance of their honesty it may be mentioned that once, when the boy lost his hunting-knife, it was found by the Baiala and returned to him. It was sticking in the ground, close to his head, when he awoke one morning. And what a priceless possession the implement would have been to the finder!

Evidences of a once-teeming human population abounded over the whole countryside, which was covered with groups of low, circular stone walls, indicating where thousands of kraals once stood. But the exterminating raids of Tshaka had swept it bare. Now its only human dwellers were a few creatures so wretched and so reduced that the very beasts of prey were said to despise them.

Thus passed many halcyon days. The boy had now become almost a member of the little family to whose hearth in the wilderness he had drifted through so strange a chance. The Reefer was hardly in evidence; he had struck a small leader which bore gold, and was endeavouring, with infinite pains, to trace this to its connection with the parent reef. The spot where he was working was about half-an-hour’s walk distant. Thither he went every morning early; thence he returned at dusk every evening. When hot on the scent of gold the Reefer was not a man to be lightly interfered with. He had made it clear to the boy from the beginning that his help was not required, or even desired, except towards filling the pot with meat. Thus the two had little or no intercourse.

The boy was more and more struck by the individuality of his new friends; they were so utterly unlike any others of their class that he had foregathered with. As the intimacy grew, Fourie told more of the details of his history. It appeared he was not quite orthodox in his religious views, and had had in consequence a serious quarrel with the pastor of his church. This had happened years back. One result was that Fourie was under a kind of ban among his own people. His wife had shared his views. The children, or at all events the two elder ones, having natural strength of character, and being cut off from intercourse with other young humans, developed on lines of their own.

Fourie had strains of idealism and even of philosophy. He loved his violin, but his musical ambition never, alas! soared beyond reels. Like a child in everything appertaining to social mankind, this Boer was almost supernaturally wise in interpreting the laws governing forest, field and sky. He had a naturally kind heart and a deep love for nature. Thus he only killed ordinary game when meat was required. Solitude and the spiteful usage of his fellow-men had not soured his disposition. His only foe was the lion; and the lion, which he pursued constantly and implacably, he met and vanquished in fair, open encounter.

As time passed, the girl and the boy became more unconstrained towards each other. The girl had much innate refinement, and was very intelligent. Between her and the boy there was little articulate speech; the silence of the wilderness had invaded their souls. When the wilderness unveils the fulness of its beauty to a human being speech becomes largely superfluous. For although the wilderness is full of clear indications, it is mostly inarticulate, and those who dwell there must interpret its dumb alphabet or perish. Between these two human creatures signs gradually took the place of words; glances became eloquent; a gesture often conveyed more than a sentence.

The girl could hold a rifle straighter than most men; her frame was tireless; she could endure hunger and thirst without wilting. She had often been her father’s hunting companion. When Fourie now planned a more than usually extended expedition she decided to take part in it.

The Boer absolutely lusted after lions to slay, but no spoor was to be found anywhere within a day’s walk of the camp. However, away down near the junction of the Olifant and the Letaba was a locality which he had previously visited with satisfactory results. So thither it was decided to go. The Reefer remained behind, with him Fourie’s little son.