It was noticed that soon after Gquma returned, as all the people believed, to the ocean that had given her birth, good fortune seemed to have departed from the tribe which had acknowledged her as its honoured and beloved chief, and the insignificant remnants of which venerate her memory even at the present unromantic day.
Chapter Four.
The Tramp’s Tragedy.
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”—Matthew VII, 6.
“From Durban, sir. Been a matter of three weeks on the road. Left my mate at Kokstad, where he ’listed in the Cape Mounted Rifles. Wouldn’t have me because I was half-an-inch too short, and a matter of fifteen years too old.
“Yes, looking for a job now, same as lots of others. You’re right, sir, times is mortal hard. I tramped all the way down to Durban from Johannesburg. No one, barring a black, can get taken on there now. Twenty years ago this was something of a white man’s country;—’tisn’t no more.
“Yes, it’s my own fault; ’most everything that happens to man is, barring good luck, and that’s often sent special by the devil for the sake of what comes afterwards. Drink? well, that of course. When a man has been tramping all day long in the hot sun, and then lies down so tired and blistered that he can’t sleep, but lies thinking of the chances he has lost and the things he has done, small blame to him if he buys threepenn’orth of forgetfulness, even if it is another nail in his coffin. Another nail! As if any more were wanted. I tell you, sir, most of us tramps are dead and damned long ago, and any parson will tell you that when a man’s damned there’s no hope for him.
“Drink? all sorts. ‘Cape Smoke’ is bad, and Natal rum is worse, but of all the brews to rot the inside out of a man, Transvaal brandy takes the cake. But I will say this for it: a bottle goes mortal far. I’ve seen more than one man killed by a single bottle, through drinking it too quick on an empty stomach. But I’m too tough; that sort of thing won’t finish me.