“Did I not tell you never to bring the sheep up here?”
“Ja, Baas.” (“Yes, Master.”)
“Did I not tell you that if ever you did, I would shoot you for the d—d Kafir dog that you are?”
“Ja, Baas.”
“Then,” uttered “Rooi Jan,” his face distorted with fury, and his voice coming in husky gasps, as he deliberately, one after the other, drew back the hammers of his double-barrelled gun, “to-day will I do it; to-day you are dead; to-day will your black carcase lie down among the rocks with the bones of the sheep that you—”
Nomfunda had all this time kept his eyes on the face of the enraged Boer, and when, blind and quivering, “Rooi Jan” lifted the gun to his shoulder, Nomfunda sprang to one side, whilst the charge of buck-shot passed so close to his head that he felt the wind of it. Then, as “Rooi Jan,” cursing his own clumsiness, was again raising the gun to his shoulder, Nomfunda lifted his knob-kerrie and flung it with all his force. The heavy knob caught “Rooi Jan” on the left temple, and he fell backwards, and lay on the ground motionless.
Nomfunda had no idea that “Rooi Jan” was seriously injured. The first thing he did was to seize the gun and pitch it down the kloof into a very thick patch of fern. Then he picked up his kerrie, returned to the seat he had occupied when “Rooi Jan” arrived, and sat down to await developments. He knew he had done wrong, and was prepared, as natives generally are, to take his punishment like a man. The dog became very uneasy; it began to whine and cowered against its master, with ears cocked, tail tucked under, and hair on end all along the back.
Nomfunda sat for a long time wondering why “Rooi Jan” did not move. Then he stood up and examined the injured man, who had fallen on his back across a flat stone. His head lay back and his mouth was wide open. A very small trickle of blood came from his left temple, and dabbled his hair. Nomfunda plucked a delicate frond of fern and held it in front of “Rooi Jan’s” gaping mouth and nostrils. It moved only to the trembling of the hand that held it.
For a long time Nomfunda could not realise what had happened; surely, he thought, a little wound like that could not cause death. Then the shadows began to fall the other way, the brown hawks came screaming out of their nests in the cliff, and the bees came up the kloof in a steady stream. Still “Rooi Jan” lay motionless, the ghastly pallor of his face and stretched throat contrasting forcibly with the vivid red of his hair and beard. Large, blue flies buzzed round in ever-increasing numbers, and eventually a few of them settled on the nostrils and lips of the corpse. Then Nomfunda realised that his master’s son was dead and that he had killed him.
The wretched man already felt the strangling rope around his neck. He was young and he loved his life. A flush of hope passed through him. No one saw the deed—he would hide the body down one of the clefts. No, that would not do; a search was sure to be made about here, and the smell would betray the hiding-place. The body must be hidden far away, high up on the mountain, in some secret place where it would never be discovered.