Bertram Mitford - A Secret of the Lebombo

“Now, Sixpence,” he said, speaking in the taal , which in the Cape Colony is the usual means of communication between white men and natives, “stand up, and put your hands behind you. I’m going to tie them.”

But the fellow begged and prayed that he might be spared this. He would not try to run away, he protested. Where was the use, since his wife and children were at the huts, and besides, was he not well known? Farther he felt very ill, and hardly able to walk as it was, from the effects of the terrible blow the Baas had given him. Perhaps, too, on the strength of that the Baas might bring himself to forgive him. He would serve him so faithfully after that – and the Baas could take twice the value of the sheep out of his wages. Surely the Baas might bring himself to forgive him.

Wyvern, contemplating him, thought he might even be fool enough to do that; and as he put back into his pocket the lanyard of reimpje wherewith he had intended to tie the fellow’s hands, he feared that he might.

“I don’t know about that, Sixpence,” he said. “You have been a pretty schelm sort of a boy, you know. Besides, you would have killed me, you and that other. Who is he, by the way?”

“One of Baas Ferreira’s boys, Baas,” naming a Dutchman whose farm adjoined the river on the other side.

“Well, and which of you was it that planned this slaag ?”

The Kafir shrugged his shoulders.

“We did it between us, Baas,” he said, and the answer moved Wyvern the more to let him down easy, though fully alive to the bad policy of doing so, for he appreciated the fact that the fellow had not tried to save himself by throwing the blame on his accomplice.

They had reached the place where Wyvern had left his horse, and now as he mounted he said:

“Now walk on in front of me, Sixpence. I shall think seriously over what I shall do about you. You would get ever so many years in the tronk you know, for coming at me with the knife – and that apart from what you’d get for ‘slaag-ing’ the sheep. I expect the other fellow is dead by this time. The snake struck him again and again.”

“ Nkose !” murmured the Kafir deprecatorily, then relapsed into silence. Before they had gone far Wyvern said:

“Go back to your flock, Sixpence. I expect it has straggled a good bit by this time. But – ” impressively – “don’t attempt to run away. You are sure to be caught if you do, and then you will have thrown away your last chance.”

“ Nkose !” murmured the Kafir again, and bending down he kissed his master’s foot as it rested in the stirrup. Then he walked away.

“Poor devil,” said Wyvern to himself, gazing after him as he rode on. “Well, we are all poor devils – I the most of the lot. I believe I could almost bring myself to envy that ochre-smeared scion of Xosa. He doesn’t need much, and gets it all, while I – ?”

Riding slowly home Wyvern’s thoughts took on no more cheerful a vein as he looked round upon his farm, which would soon be his no longer. It never ought to have been his at all. He had started by paying far too much for it. He had been struck by the pleasant situation of the place, and was determined to have it at all costs. Further, it was bad veldt, being, in stock-farming parlance, “boer-ed out,” that is to say exhausted. It required years of rest what time he took it up, but Wyvern started about three thousand sheep upon it, and contentedly, though unconsciously, prepared to watch their decimation. It came. He had put his little all into the venture, and now his little all was fast approaching vanishing point.

He reached home, off-saddled his horse, and turned the animal loose into an enclosure. By the time he had done so, and entered the house, the episode of the sheep “slaag-ing” had almost faded from his mind. The excitement of the discovery and the struggle past now, in the light of more serious matter the incident seemed of small importance.

You might read something of Wyvern’s temperament in the state of his living room. Take the large table, for instance. It was littered with books and papers covering quite two thirds of its space, a careless heap, which gradually encroaching more and more had caused his old Hottentot cook, and general indoor factotum, to ask grumblingly and repeatedly how she was to find room to lay the cloth for the Baas’ dinner, with all that rubbish blocking up the whole table. There were letters lying there too, letters unopened, which might have so remained for a couple of days or a week. Wyvern knew or guessed what they were all about: nothing pleasant, that was certain. Why then, should he bother himself? He would wait till he was more in the vein. But somehow “the vein” would be long in coming, and even unpleasant letters, especially those of a business nature, do not improve – like cigars – by keeping. Still – that was Wyvern.

Even the pictures on the walls, mostly framed photographs, were more or less hung anyhow, while some were slipping out of their mounts. Of one, however, none of this held good, and this was hung so that it faced him where he sat at table.

It was the photograph of a girl – and a very handsome girl at that. The eyes, large and clear, seemed to follow the inmate’s every movement in all parts of the room, while a generously moulded figure was set forth in the three parts length of the portrait. In the firm, erect pose there was strength, decisiveness, even a suggestion of unconventionality perhaps. At this he gazed, with a murmured expression of ardent love, as he dropped into his seat, and the look of weariful dejection deepened upon his face.

“You, too, lost to me,” he murmured. “You, too, passing from me. What an utter, infernal mess I’ve made of things. I’ve a good mind to end it all. It might even come to that some day.”

His glance had gone round to an object in the further corner. It was a shot-gun standing upright against the wall. He eyed it, gloomily. Just then a door opened, and to the accompaniment of a clatter of plates and things his Hottentot cook entered, bearing a tray. At her Wyvern glanced resentfully.

“I don’t want that stuff,” he said. “Take it away again.”

“ Oh, goeije ! and it is the Baas’ dinner,” exclaimed the old woman.

“I don’t want any dinner,” was the weary answer. “I’ll have a smoke instead. Do you hear, Sanna. Get away with it.”

“Not want any dinner! Have a smoke instead!” echoed old Sanna. “And the Baas has eaten nothing since breakfast and very little then. Nouw ja ! it is wasting the gifts of the good God! And this is a guinea-fowl, too, and partridge – stewed guinea-fowl and partridge, the dish the Baas likes best. And now the Baas says take it away.”

“Yes. Take it away, old Sanna. I can’t eat.”

Muttering, she turned and withdrew. Wyvern, suddenly realising that he might have hurt the poor old creature’s feelings, was about to recall her, when a sound struck upon his ear. It was that of the hoof-strokes of a ridden horse. The dogs outside greeted it with frenzied clamour.

Wyvern frowned. The sound was an unwelcome one, for it probably meant someone who was going to make use of his place for an hour’s off-saddle, and who, in his then vein, would most certainly bore the life out of him.

He went out on the stoep. The hoof-strokes had ceased, so had the canine clamour. He went down the steps and when about to turn the corner of the house an advancing figure did so at the same time, with such suddenness that both nearly collided. It was that of a girl. Both started – he with an exclamation of delighted astonishment. Then without more ado, the newcomer put both her hands upon his shoulders and kissed him, and, tall as he was, she had not to reach up over much in the process either. She was the original of the portrait which occupied the place of honour within.