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Dead Man's Land: Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 12. In Mid-Veldt |
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_ CHAPTER TWELVE. IN MID-VELDT "I know what I shall do," said Dean, as they prepared for their morning start, during which he had been thoughtfully watching the helpful way in which their new attendant loaded the ponies, over which he seemed to have the most perfect command. "Well, what shall you do?" said his cousin. "Learn that whistle, and manage the ponies myself." "Humph!" grunted Mark. "That will be no good as long as that dreary fellow is near them." "I say," said Dean, as he and his cousin were tramping along in the rear, gazing eagerly about to the right and left of the track, thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the scenery, and looking out the while for something that might be a pleasant addition to their next meal. "Well, what do you say? That you don't see any game?" "No," said Dean. "I want you to look at black Mak." "Well, what of him? I think he's as dingy black a nigger as ever I saw. Not a bit like those flat-nosed woolly-headed fellows that we used to see at home." "I don't mean that." "What do you mean, then?" said Mark impatiently. "That he seems so sour and surly, as different as can be from what he was yesterday. We didn't do anything to give him offence. Let's see; what did we do yesterday and the day before to hurt his feelings?" "I don't know," said Mark. "I did nothing. What did you do?" "Nothing," replied Dean. "He was as jolly and smiling as could be till last night; and see how he helped about the scare. Now, I tell you what I think." "Oh, I wish you wouldn't think so much," cried Mark. "It makes you seem so slow and sleepy! Well, what do you think?" "I think he is jealous of the new man." "Right. He doesn't like the look of him--thinks he's a bad colour, neither black nor white. You are right, Dean. I saw him scowling at him, now you mention it. Well, we shall have to look out and tell Buck Denham that there must be no quarrelling. If they don't agree he must take them both by the scruff and knock their heads together." "Oh, but that will all blow over," said Dean, "I daresay. There's nothing for them to disagree over, because this Brown will have his own work to do." "And black Mak has nothing to do but look on," put in Mark, laughing. "You forget one thing," said Dean; "he has to carry his spear." "Yes, spear," said Mark eagerly; "and that sets one thinking. That spear is precious sharp." "How do you know?" "He showed it to me, and seemed as proud of it as could be." "Well, what then?" "Why, it would be very nasty if they quarrelled and came to a fight. What chance would Mr Staches have, only armed with a small pair of scissors?" The days wore on, one strongly resembling another, and though the black guide stalked about like a superintendent and was rather given to scowl at the forelopers, he every now and then unbent from his savage dignity, and was always the best of friends with the boys. In fact, upon occasions when he was marching along with them beside the bullocks, or by them when they were mounted on a couple of ponies, he would even unbend so far as to allow one of them to carry his spear, evidently as a great favour and a mark of honour. "Treats it," said Mark merrily, "as if it were his sceptre." But there was no suggestion of quarrelling, and the man was seen at his best and full of smiles when, as the bullocks plodded sluggishly along, hunting excursions were made off to the right or left of the trail--a trail which the party formed for themselves, for the old ones soon died out--the new one being formed as to direction by their guide himself. He selected the most open country, and pointed out with his spear some distant object for which Buck Denham was to make, and when it was reached in the evening it was invariably found to be a spot where there was a good supply of water and food for the cattle. So far from there being any quarrelling on the side of Brown--Dunn Brown, as to their great amusement he told the boys was his full name, Dunn from his mother, and Brown from his father--the long, thin, peculiar looking fellow settled down as calmly as if he had been in Sir James's service half his life. He was a kind and careful tender of the ponies, and after a few displays of awkwardness which Buck Denham corrected in the most friendly way, he was soon quite at home with the bullocks. "Why, the great lumbering, fat, stupid brutes are beginning quite to know him, gentlemen, and I should not be at all surprised if one of these days we find him whistling to them and making them come to him like the ponies." As the party journeyed on day after day farther and farther from civilisation, the expedition was all that could be desired. Game was plentiful and the two keepers were quite in their element, so that the larder was well stocked, and they took care that there was plenty of sport for the two lads whenever the waggons' course was marked down and the little party, trusting to the drivers to make their way to the given point, struck off in a different direction so as to make a _detour_ and meet at their appointed centre before night. The ponies enabled their riders to get many a shot at the several varieties of antelope--boks, as they were generally called--while as game was so abundantly plentiful, the boys were asked by the doctor what they would seek for that day when they would sometimes decide on devoting one barrel of their double guns to small shot, the other in case of danger being loaded with a bullet. Then they would make the Illaka understand what they required, and he would lead them to where there was abundance of a large kind of partridge, or francolin, which was delicious eating; or take them to some place at the edge of the forest where he knew from experience that the harsh, metallic-voiced, speckled guinea-fowl would be coming home to roost. This would always be when the supply of the larder was very low, and then, with the two keepers to load, a heavy bag would invariably be made, and a pretty good odour of burning feathers pervade the camp. Camp was formed one night with all the precautions made such as were customary in the part of the world through which they were travelling, so as to carefully secure the draught animals and the ponies, for however peaceful and free from danger the country might seem, the black always marched about shouldering his spear and watching that this was done, while after noting how careful the man was, the doctor gave him a few words of praise and left these precautions to him, while these safeguards always included the collecting of a supply of wood sufficient to keep up a good blazing fire till morning. "I suppose this is all right," said Mark, who was extra tired and had several times yawned widely after partaking of an ample supper, "but all these days we have been travelling farther and farther into the depth of the country we haven't seen a single big beast, let alone a lion." "Only the one you shot at, Mark," said his cousin. "You don't seem as if you could forget about my mistake, Dean," said Mark peevishly. "Here, I think I shall lie down and go to sleep." "And forget all about its being your turn to take first watch?" said the doctor, smiling. "What, again?" cried the boy peevishly, "Oh, how soon the nights do come round! Well, I don't have to go on duty for hours yet, so I shall have my nap first. But I say, doctor, I thought that we should always be seeing lions and elephants and giraffes, besides rhinoceroses, which would come charging at the waggons whenever they saw them." "I daresay you did," said the doctor quietly. "And here we haven't seen one--nothing but those little--well, some of them were big--bucks." "Why, we saw a drove of zebras the other day." "Yes, we did see them," replied Mark. "But I wanted to have a shot at an elephant or a giraffe." "Yes; I suppose you expected to find South Africa a sort of over-abundant Zoological Gardens." "No, I didn't," said Mark; "but I did expect that as soon as we began burning fires to keep off the wild beasts, there would be some to keep off." "Patience, my dear boy; patience. We have only come a little way into the country as yet." "A little way!" cried Mark. "Why, you forget, doctor, how many weary days we have been tramping since we left the soldiers' station." "Oh, no, I do not, my dear boy. It is a very little way compared with the vastness of this great solid continent. We have not seen a lion yet, but that does not show that we may not have been passing through open country where they are abundant; and very likely if we had omitted to start this blazing fire to-night we might have had a visit from several." "I vote, then," cried Mark, whose sleepy fit seemed to have passed over, "that we put the fire out with a few buckets of water and then sit up and watch." "No," said Sir James drowsily; "I forbid it. You are not going to allow that, doctor?" "Certainly not, sir; and even if I felt so disposed the black would not allow it. You must be patient, Mark. I dare say we shall meet with more wild beasts than we care for before long, and wild men too." "I am ready," said Mark, rather bumptiously; "but I am disappointed, all the same." "Yes," said the doctor, "no doubt you are; but you must curb your impatience till we reach the part of the country where the lions are. I thought you were going to have your nap." "No," said Mark; "Dean and I are going to have a chat with the men. Dance says he wouldn't have believed there could have been so many 'come backs' in all the world--I say, what's that?" he cried. "That wasn't a lion?" "No," said the doctor, for a long, low, dismal and penetrating howl had gone out upon the night. "What is it, then? There it goes again." "I form my own idea of what it is," said the doctor. "You two can go and tell the men to throw some more wood on the fire." He had hardly spoken when the low and doleful howl rang out again from the distance, and the fire blazed up under the influence of an armful of dead boughs which the Hottentot and the black foreloper had just thrown on, the clear, bright flame showing out the big, heavy figure of Buck Denham and lighting up his face as he turned round to tell the men to bring up more wood for the night supply. The boys sprang up from where they were seated, and hurried round to the other side of the blazing heap where their men had gathered together to sit and have their evening smoke. "Hear that howling?" cried Mark. "You, Pete--Bob--" "Yes, sir; we couldn't help it," said the latter. "I was asking Buck Denham what it was, thinking it was one of them great tom cats; but he says it's only a hy-he--something." "Hyhaena, my lad--hyhaena." "Yes, that's it. Well, it made noise enough for t'other, didn't it?" "Made noise enough for t'other!" growled the driver. "You wait till you hear the real thing, and you won't ask questions again like that." Dance took his pipe out of his mouth and opened his eyes, for he too had grown drowsy in the warmth of the fire, after his long day's tramp. "I 'eerd it too, and thought it must be a big howl a-howling. You have got howls out here, haven't you, mate?" "Oh, yes; plenty. But that's what I said." The big driver having noted that the men had brought up a plentiful supply of wood sufficient to keep up the beast-scaring beacon, subsided heavily in the full light of the fire and began to fill his pipe. "Now you two," he said to the Hottentot and the foreloper, "just take a quiet walk round the bullocks, and then you can come back and smoke your pipe of peace." The Hottentot's voice sounded very unpleasant and very clicky as he replied sharply, and though it was almost unintelligible Mark made out from it and the driver's answers that Dunn Brown was already performing that duty. "Oh," said Buck, "then you needn't go. That will be all right. Well, Illaka, aren't you coming to sit down?" For the boys suddenly noticed the black shadowy figure of the guide glide into the firelight, his appearance being emphasised by a flash where the flame played upon the polished leaf-shaped blade of his spear. The man nodded, shook his head, and disappeared again. "What sort of fish do you think there are out in the river here?" asked Bob Bacon. "I don't know their names," said Buck Denham quietly, as he went on filling his pipe very slowly; and the two boys sat down one on either side, pricking up their ears at the words "river" and "fish." The big driver leaned forward, drew out an incandescent piece of wood and quite ceremoniously held it to the bowl of his pipe. "I don't think you will find any trout," he said, "like you have at home, but there's plenty of fish there, I should say, just as there is lower down near Illakaree, and up here I should reckon there's plenty to fish for." "Ah!" cried Mark eagerly, as he glanced round at the picturesque group seated in the full blaze of the fire, while the reflections played upon the dark edge of the forest, piercing the great overhanging branches from among which a few startled birds dashed out, winged their way round the circle of light and disappeared again. "Look, Dean; isn't it beautiful now!" "Thought you wanted to go to sleep," said his cousin. "Not I! I leave that to you." "Yes," continued the big driver, repeating his words, "and I should say there's plenty up here to fish for." "I say, Buck, are there so many blacks about here, then?" "Sometimes, sir." "And do they go fishing?" "No, sir; they may do, but I don't know as I ever saw a black go fishing. You've been to 'Stralia, Dan; do the black fellows out there fish much?" "Much?" said Dan, showing his white teeth. "Yes, and hunt and knock the big kangaroos over with their nulla-nullas and boomerangs. Wittles are precious scarce there, and they have had a hard time of it to get enough grub, and I suppose that's why they pick holes in the softy wood trees to get the big fat grubs out of them." "Ugh! Horrid!" said Dean. "No, sir," said Dean, smiling. "It don't sound nice, but I know a little about cooking, and when them 'Stralian grubs are nicely cooked over the fire they are not to be sneezed at. There's another thing too that's very nice eating, baked or roasted, and that's a locus', and I shouldn't wonder if you could find them out here, for they come in clouds up in the north and eat everything they find." "Well, don't cook any for us, Dan," said Mark. "There's no need, sir, with such a good supply of venison, as you gents call it, and game birds." "But I should like you to try your hand with the frying-pan and some fish." "You catch the fish, Mr Mark, sir, and leave it to me, and I'll promise to fry it to rights, egged and crumbed and all." "What!" cried Dean. "Well, no, that arn't right, sir. Allers speak the truth, Dan, my boy, my grandmother used to say; and I will if I can. I could clean and scale and egg the fish to rights. We can get plenty of them comebacks' eggs, but the crumbing of them would rather bother me, and I should have to do it with mealie flour." There was a short silence as the men sat smoking, and then Mark broke out with, "We will have a try for some fish; but who is it does the fishing up here, then, Buck?" The big driver chuckled, and his eyes twinkled in the firelight. "The whoppers, sir." "The whoppers!" "Yes, sir; the crocs. I daresay if you went down by the river and listened just at daybreak you would hear them at it, flapping the river with their tails to stun the fish." "But that wouldn't stun the fish," cried Dean. "Oh, come, I say, what a traveller's tale!" And Mark laughed as if agreeing with his cousin. "Well, it may be a traveller's tale, sir, but if you was there you'd see the fish come to the top upside down, I mean, white side up'ards, and the crocs shovelling them down as fast as you like. That's all I know about it." "But is that true, Buck?" "Yes, sir; true enough, for I have seen it. I wouldn't tell you a tale like that without letting you know it was a bam-bam afterwards." "Ah, well, I'll believe you, Buck. Ugh! Listen! What's that? Did you ever hear anything so horrible in your life! Somebody's being killed. There it is again! There!" _ |
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