The Gold Kloof Page 5

  *Chapter V.*

  *THE TREK BEGINS.*

  Karl Engelbrecht gathered himself up after a short pause, but there wasno further fight left in him. He turned to go.

  "All right, my fine Englishman," he said, shaking his fist at hisconqueror. "I don't know who you are or what you are, but no one doesKarl Engelbrecht an injury without paying for it. I shall be even withyou, and that before very long. Meanwhile I shall go straight to themagistrate's office, and get that scoundrel arrested for running awayfrom my service."

  As he spoke he pointed to Poeskop, who was smiling all over his yellowface at his former master's discomfiture.

  "And I'll follow you to the magistrate's office directly," said Mr.Blakeney, "and have you summoned for assaulting this native."

  Accompanied by the two lads, who were overjoyed, if a little awed, atthe result of the contest, Mr. Blakeney went into the hotel to wash hishands and get rid of all traces of the encounter. He himself hadscarcely suffered at all. He had a lump on his forehead and a red patchon his cheek-bone, and one of his knuckles was badly cut; beyond theseslight injuries he has untouched.

  "My word, uncle," said Guy, as Mr. Blakeney took his coat off and pouredout some water, "you did punish that ruffian. I had no idea you weresuch a fighting man. It was splendid!"

  "Well, boys," returned Mr. Blakeney, "I don't like fighting, and I havealways made it a point to avoid a scuffle if it can possibly be done.But sometimes there comes an occasion when a man must take his own part.This was one of them. I couldn't stand by and see that hulking bullyknocking Poeskop about. My idea is that every decent Englishman, orEnglish boy, should be able to defend himself when compelled to, and forthat reason I believe in every lad being taught to box. My old boxinglessons stood me in good stead just now. I suppose the Boer was atleast a couple of stone heavier than myself; but he knew no more aboutfighting than a baby, and he paid the penalty."

  He soused his face in cold water, washed his hands, and with the twolads and Poeskop went off to the magistrate's office. The upshot of theaffair was that Karl Engelbrecht was proved to be entirely in the wrong.It was shown that he had persistently maltreated Poeskop, and that hehad seldom if ever paid him his rightful wages. Other natives in thetown, who were under Portuguese rule, but who had served withEngelbrecht, could speak to these facts. In the end the Boer was finedfor assaulting the Bushman, and ordered to pay him a further sum ofmoney due for unpaid wages. The Dutchman paid the money with a wryface, and it was clear that he was yet more inflamed with hatred againstPoeskop and his English supporters than he had been before.

  But for the most part the people of Mossamedes, including the governorof the town and other officials, were delighted at the punishmentinflicted on the big Boer. He was known and feared as a quarrelsomebully, and now some one had been found to check his blustering careerand cut his comb. Mr. Blakeney was advised privately, after theseoccurrences, to keep his eyes open. Karl Engelbrecht was a man of evilreputation, who would not be likely to stop at trifles in theachievement of revenge, and revenge he was known to have vowed. In thetown nothing would be attempted, but in the veldt such a ruffian mightvery well try to do mischief. However, Mr. Blakeney treated the mattervery coolly. He was well able to take care of himself, he said; andhaving wide experience of the veldt and veldt ways, he felt perfectlycompetent to set at naught the blusterings of Karl Engelbrecht and hisfollowers. The big Dutchman, having got over the effects of the fight,was having a good time in Mossamedes. For some time past the PortugueseGovernment had been employing the Trek Boers settled in their territoryas mercenaries in their warfare against any tribes that happened to givetrouble. The Boers took their payment chiefly in cattle, raided fromthe defeated tribesfolk; and Engelbrecht, who had been lately leading acommando against some unfortunate natives, had returned with muchplunder in oxen and goats. These he had sold for good prices; hispockets were full of money, and he and his freebooting associates werebent on having a high time at the various bars and canteens of theplace.

  It is perhaps necessary to explain here, in a few words, how it cameabout that Boers were thus to be found in Portuguese territory, so faraway from the homes of the South African Dutch stock settled in theTransvaal. Nearly twenty years before, many families of Boers, disgustedwith the anarchy and bad government of the Transvaal Republic, andembittered yet more at the English taking over the country, as they haddone in 1877, had quitted the Transvaal and trekked north-westwardacross the desert in search of a new Promised Land, which they believedto exist somewhere in the far interior. These ignorant and misguidedfolk found in their long wanderings no land of Canaan, flowing, as theyhad fondly hoped, with milk and honey. Their trek extended over severalyears; they endured almost unexampled privations and troubles fromthirst, fevers, and the attacks of natives; scores of them died; theylost the greater portion of their stock, and abandoned many wagons; someturned back, and only a comparatively small remnant emerged from theperils of this unparalleled trek. After wandering about the westernregions of the Kalahari, the Okavango country, and Ovampoland, theycrossed the Cunene River and entered Portuguese territory.

  Here they were well treated. They were allotted farms and encouraged tocolonize the country, and many families did actually settle down atHumpata. Since that time--about the beginning of 1881--these Trek Boersand their descendants had accepted their lot in the new country andbecome Portuguese subjects. They tilled the ground, ranched cattle,sheep, and goats, rode transport (that is, carried goods) to and fromMossamedes and Benguela, hunted elephants for their ivory, and otherkinds of game for their skins and flesh. Latterly, as we have seen,they had been assisting the Portuguese in native wars. For this kind ofwarfare they were excellently well adapted, being good shots and riders,and well versed in every trick and circumstance of veldt fighting. ThePortuguese had, in fact, found them highly satisfactory auxiliaries, andthe unfortunate natives--too often treated with the grossest unfairnessand trickery by all parties--terrible enemies.

  Among the Trek Boers of Humpata and the neighbouring country were manydecent, deserving, and well-conducted people, who were only anxious tomake a fair and honest living out of the country. A leaven of them,however, were mere filibusters and adventurers, cruel, cunning, anddeceitful, ready to overreach and rob any man, especially if he had ablack skin, and always prepared to use their rifles on smallprovocation. Among these was to be reckoned Karl Engelbrecht, who, evenamong these lawless spirits, had acquired a sinister reputation. Mostof these Dutch settlers were fine, big, upstanding men, strong, bold,hardy, and athletic--as indeed they might well be; for they and theirfamilies represented the survival of the fittest, after one of the mosttrying and adventurous passages on record. Their seven years ofwandering had, in truth, weeded out all the weak ones, and left aliveonly the toughest and hardiest of a tough and hardy race.

  For the next few days Mr. Blakeney and his party were busied in pushingon their preparations for the trek. They filled the lower part of thewagon with various stores and provisions--meal, coffee, sugar, tinnedprovisions, jams, vegetables, and other small luxuries. They laid inalso dried onions, always useful on an expedition of this kind, wheregreen vegetables are unprocurable, as well as a bag or two of potatoes.They carried also sacks of mealies and Kaffir corn (the latter a kind ofmillet) with which to feed the horses. They anticipated a good deal ofhunting; and you cannot pursue game on horseback, and run down giraffe,eland, and other fleet creatures, unless your nags are well fed and ingood condition. This fact Guy had already become aware of during hisstay in British Bechuanaland. Their saddlery, ammunition, guns andrifles had come round with them from Cape Town. Juno, their invaluablepointer, was also of the party. Juno seemed to be getting keener andkeener as each day passed; she watched anxiously the loading of thewagon, and was evidently only too desirous to have the whole party outin the veldt. A good light tent had been procured, and Mr. Blakeney'skartel fixe
d up in the wagon. All was now ready for the trek, whichthey hoped to begin next day.

  During these preparations they necessarily, moving as they did freelyabout the small seaport of Mossamedes, passed Karl Engelbrecht and hisboon companions in close proximity. After his severe lesson the Boer,who was a coward at bottom, did not dare to attempt any furtherliberties with the Englishmen or their servants; but he scowled evillyas he passed, and had always some savage remark to make to hisfriends--delivered carefully in an undertone--as they went by. Mr.Blakeney and the two lads, for their part, took not the slightest noticeof the freebooters; even Poeskop, strong in his reliance upon hisEnglish protectors, held his head well in the air, and assumed an air ofsupercilious indifference, which perhaps in his secret heart he felt wasnot altogether justified. For Poeskop, undoubtedly, knowing his formermaster and his evil ways so well, still retained within his soul certainsecret quakings as he thought of or set eyes upon Karl Engelbrecht.

  "My young baas," he would say to Guy, as they sighted the big, burlyruffian, "he is _slim_, and he is strong, and he is cruel. And he willtry to make us suffer for his black eyes, which he still carries, the_schelm!_ and his bleeding nose. _Maghte!_ but it was good as a sackfulof honey[#] to see Karl Engelbrecht floored by Baas Blackenny" (healways mispronounced the word), "and it does me good still to see hisbattered face."

  [#] Honey is often carried by the natives in skin bags.

  Then he would croon to himself in his croaking voice: "But we shallsuffer, we shall suffer; Karl Engelbrecht is planning something; Poeskopknows it, ay, he knows it. Well, Poeskop will look out. He sleepalways like the _muishond_ [a kind of weasel], with one eye open."

  On the last night before the trek Mr. Blakeney was with the two lads intheir bedroom, having a chat with them, and helping them to completetheir packings. They talked on many subjects, including the treasurehunt which lay before them. Then they bade one another good night, andMr. Blakeney retired to his own room.

  Next morning early Guy knocked at his door and aroused him. Guy wasalways the early bird of the party: earlier even than his uncle, who wasalways out and about before six.

  "Uncle," he said, "I want you to come and look at something in ourroom."

  "All right, Guy," was the reply. "What is it?"

  "Something rather odd, I think," returned Guy, as they went down thepassage. They entered the double-bedded room where the cousins slept,and Guy took his uncle across to the wall against which Guy's bed stood.

  "Look at this, uncle," he said, kneeling on his bed and pointing to thewall. "What do you make of it?"

  The wall was in fact nothing more than a fairly stout partition ofvarnished wood. Mr. Blakeney knelt beside Guy, and looked closely atthe spot where the lad's finger rested. He saw at once that a neat holehad been bored through the partition from the other side, and a hollowleft big enough to thrust the point of his little finger into.

  "Well, what do you think it means, Guy?" he asked, screwing up his mouthwith an odd expression.

  "I think, uncle, it means," returned Guy, "that that fellow in the nextroom has been spying on us for some reason or other."

  "Who has the next room?" queried Mr. Blakeney, manifestly with someanxiety.

  "Why, that Portuguese brute who is always about with KarlEngelbrecht--Minho, his name is."

  "Whew!" whistled Mr. Blakeney. "I wish I had known this earlier. Whattime does he leave his room?"

  "Not for another hour yet," broke in Tom; "and he always locks his doorand takes his key with him."

  "Well, Tom," said his father, "you stay behind while Guy and I go out tothe wagons and start the trek. Then we'll come back to breakfast, andafterwards ride out together and overtake the wagons by the mid-dayoutspan. Meanwhile if, by hook or crook, you can get into this fellowMinho's room, and see what this hole means, do so. Be careful, though,and don't get into any unpleasantness with the man. If you can't get inwithout trouble, leave it alone. I'll see the landlord about it."

  They returned in an hour and a half's time, and were met by Tom with asmiling face.

  "I've done the Sherlock Holmes business," he said quietly. "Minho wentout and locked his door. I tried his window, which like ours opens onto the veranda, and found that the artful beggar had fastened it in sucha way that, while the top sash is open, you can't pull up the lowerpart. It was impossible to climb in through the top without running therisk of breaking the glass. Well, I waited impatiently half an hour,and then Maria--the native woman who cleans the rooms up, and hasevidently a second key--went in and did up the room. While she was gonewith a bundle of clothes for the wash I nipped in, and had a good lookround at the partition on that side. I found that a hole had beenneatly bored with an auger, and the cavity filled up with a round pieceof wood, which had been painted to look just like a knot in thepinewood. This, with a little coaxing of the finger nail, comes out, andthen you have a view into our room, and I have no doubt can hear quitewell everything that is said in here. I put the bit of wood back, andslipped out again before old Maria had got back from her errand."

  "The brute!" ejaculated Mr. Blakeney. "He has evidently been spying onus. And when he bored that hole he must have got into this room andcleared away any traces of his work." He knelt on Guy's bed andexamined the aperture carefully again. "He has even taken the troubleto put on some dark paint round this side of the hole," he added, "sothat the place looks just like a pine knot from this side. I wonder youspotted it, Guy."

  "Well, I noticed it from the bed this morning," said Guy, "just before Igot up. It was a mere chance. The place looked uneven, and when Iexamined it I found I could just get the tip of my little finger insidethe hole. Then I saw that the place wasn't natural."

  "Well, the mischief's done now," said Mr. Blakeney. "I have half a mindto tell the landlord--in fact, I think I will straight away."

  Senhor Jose Moseles, whom Mr. Blakeney at once interviewed, was nofriend of Antonio Minho. He knew the man to be a shady character, and afriend of the filibustering Boer, Engelbrecht. But in Mossamedes suchcharacters were not uncommon, and landlords had to put up with them, ifthey paid their bills. Minho was just now flush of money, and indeedwas usually well supplied with that commodity. But Senhor Moseles wouldlook after him. It was not Mr. Blakeney's plan to arouse the man'ssuspicions just then. Moseles therefore arranged to take measuresconcerning the peep-hole a week or two later; which, Minho having leftthe hotel, he did. The hole was plugged and varnished, and the matter,so far as he was concerned, ended.

  This little matter attended to, the three Englishmen breakfasted. Then,having put together their small kits, their horses were brought round,and they quitted Mossamedes. Their route lay along the main roadrunning from the seaport to Humpata, and there was no difficulty infinding their way. The road, if road it could be called, was rough anduneven, and the country parched, hilly, and uninteresting. Theyovertook the wagon at one o'clock, and found it outspanned till the heatof the day was past. At four they trekked, and made fair progress tillnine, when they outspanned again. For nearly a week the expeditionpushed on steadily eastward, through sterile and mountainous country,until they had reached the Trek Boer settlement at Humpata, by thePortuguese sometimes called San Januario. Here they halted for a coupleof days to rest the oxen and take in some further stores, includingpoultry, meal, and other produce grown by the Boers in thisneighbourhood.

  The Dutch people of this curious little settlement, so remote from theTransvaal, whence they had trekked years before, interested Mr. Blakeneyand the boys not a little. They knew the pathetic history of thesepeople: of their long wanderings, and of the terrible sufferings theyhad sustained before attaining this region. They found them, as a rule,kindly and hospitable folk, if rough and primitive. So soon as the TrekBoers discovered that the newcomers spoke Cape Dutch, and came fromBechuanaland, so near to the Transvaal border, they were only tooanxious to render them hospitality, and make inquiries about the countrythey themselves
had quitted years before. The English travellers, ontheir part, had many little returns to make for such kindnesses as werethus shown them. They had Cape and Transvaal papers to give away; aspare bag of excellent coffee to exchange; and they won the hearts ofseveral families by the gift of tins of Morton's jams, marmalade, andginger, which to the sweet-toothed Dutch, who seldom met with such rareluxuries, were as manna in the desert.

  "_Alle wereld!_" said Mevrouw Van der Merwe, a stout, good-natured oldBoer dame, living in one of the best houses in the little settlement."'Tis a pleasure to set eyes on fresh-looking folk again from SouthAfrica, with news of the Transvaal, and the Free State, and the OldColony. One gets tired of seeing nothing but these little yellow-facedPortuguese, who to my mind are, after all, no better than Griquas andBastards. I always say to our people here, 'There are English andEnglish, just as there are Boers and Boers. You get good and bad ofevery race of mankind.' For my part, I have met many good English, andhave received many kindnesses from them, just as I have from you,Menheer Blakeney, and your son and nephew. And so they are getting moregold than ever out of the Transvaal?"

  "Yes," answered Mr. Blakeney. "They are getting enormousquantities--something like thirteen millions of pounds sterling duringthe year."

  "Is it possible!" ejaculated the vrouw, pushing the tobacco canisterover to Mr. Blakeney, and pouring him out another cup of coffee. "Ah,well! I always say that gold will be the ruin of the Dutch in theTransvaal; and Paul Kruger is a great fool to allow so much mining. IfI were president I would close down every gold mine, and let the countrybe used only for farming. The Heer Gott never meant people to dig andclaw into the bowels of the earth after gold, like a lot of greedybaboons after ground nuts. But I knew Paul Kruger well in the old days.He was a greedy fellow always; greedy for power, greedy for money. Ihear he is rich as a Jew man, and spends L400 a year in coffee money,for which the burghers pay him--entertaining a pack of useless folk thatcome flattering and fawning about him. But it will be his downfall. Iknow it, I know it. I always told him so. Love of money, love ofpower. He had better have stuck to his farming, as his old father didbefore him.

  "Your Jameson raid," she went on, "is a bad sign. It means that PaulKruger is successful a second time. But you English can never forgivethat or Majuba; and there will be a big row some day, and then Oom Paulwill have to go, and we Transvaalers shall lose our country. I know it,and my husband knows it, though every one else here declares that theBoers can always beat the English. But, you see, I remember as a girlZwart Kopjes and Boomplaats, when your folk beat ours; and I say thatyou have more men than we, and your turn will come some day."

  "Well," rejoined Mr. Blakeney, after the old lady had finished hertirade, "your people are very warlike now. I'm sorry the raid happened.It was an idiotic business, and has done a good deal of mischief. Idon't like the feeling that is rising between the two races in SouthAfrica. I fear, with you, that it will come to a big fight some day;and when it does, the English will never rest till they have made allSouth Africa theirs. The Free State Boers say openly now that they willtake part with the Transvaal if a struggle comes; and the gold-miningfolk at Johannesburg, and Rhodes and the rest of them, are bent onforcing on a war, which I am afraid now will have to come."

  "Yes," said the old lady. "It's just like a couple of boys who have badblood between them. They will go on growling and being unpleasant toone another, and then all at once the fight begins and the blood flows.Still even that is better than perpetual miscalling and swearing at oneanother, for all the world like a pair of tom-cats. Better, I say, havethe fight over and have done with it."

  They spent two very pleasant days at Humpata, and then trekked. Beforethey left, Mevrouw Van der Merwe sent for Guy and Tom, and presentedthem with a quantity of dried fruits, peaches, quinces, and apricots.She added some of her precious apricot komfit, by which the Boers setmuch store. She had taken a great fancy to the two lads; they remindedher, she said, of two of her own sons, whom she had lost of fever atDebra and Vogel Pan on the trek thither. Guy and his cousin wereperhaps not greatly flattered at being compared to Boer boys, for whomthey cherished, like most English lads, a secret disdain. But the oldlady was very kind, and they thanked her heartily for her gifts. Theyleft her sawing through a big koodoo marrow bone with a hand saw. Herhusband had lately come in from the veldt, and had brought her aquantity of _biltong_ (dried flesh) and this dainty, of which she wasinordinately fond.

  "Farewell," she said again, pausing from her task and puffing hard forbreath. "And, Tom, mind and tell your father once more to be on thelookout for Karl Engelbrecht. I am sorry they have had blows--thoughKarl was well served out, and your father was a right stark fellow togive him a thrashing. But Karl is a bitter bad enemy, and he will notforget. Be on the lookout, all of you, and if he comes troublingyou"--here she lowered her voice to a tragic whisper--"don't be afraidto shoot! Tell your father that, and say that is my last word--Karl isa _schepsel_ and a dangerous foe. Farewell."

  The various trophies lying about the Boer settlement and in theprimitive habitations had greatly fired the ambition of the two cousins,who were now longing to reach the game veldt and begin shooting. AtHumpata there had been indications of many kinds of wild animal: hornsof buffalo, koodoo, roan antelope, water-buck, eland, and many otherantelopes; and the hides of lions, giraffes, hippos, and other heavygame were abundant. Here, too, were tusks of elephant and hippopotamus,and the formidable horns of the black rhinoceros. It was manifest thatthey were on the outskirts of a wonderful game country. As the ladsapproached each day nearer to this land of wonder and of bliss, theirspirits became more and more high, their suppressed excitement moreuncontrollable. For three weeks Poeskop guided the expedition steadilytowards the north-east. Then, one evening, as they sat round the campfire, he came up to the group.

  "Baas," he said, pointing to the grim range of mountains which toweredin front of them in massy outline, dim beneath the starlit sky,"to-morrow we shall pass the berg. Beyond is the game country, and theyoung baases will then have shooting to their hearts' content."

  Already the lads had shot some few head of game, reedbuck and impala andspringbuck. They had heard the roar of lions and seen the spoor ofbuffalo. Their hearts leapt within them at Poeskop's news. That nighttheir dreams were chiefly of glorious adventures, in which elephants,giraffes, buffaloes, and lions played, with themselves, the leadingparts.