After a poor supper of tough, tinned “bully beef”—they had had no time to shoot game—and a mere sip at the poisonous and well-nigh undrinkable coffee, brewed from the foul water of the pool, Hume Wheler lay by the fire smoking in moody contemplation. The day had been desperately hot, and the work very hard, and even now, as night with her train of stars stepped forth upon the heaven, the air was close and still. Joe Granton had climbed up to the wagon for more tobacco.
His cheerful nature was little downcast, even by the trials and worries of the past days; and now, as he filled his pipe, some pleasant remembrance passed through his brain, and in a mellow voice he sang:—
> “How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
> And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
> Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
> And dripping with coolness it rose from the well.
> The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
> The moss-covered bucket that
As the notes died slowly away upon the still air, Wheler looked up from the fire, and said in a sharp voice, “What in God’s name, Joe, possesses you to sing about moss-grown wells and cool English water, and that sort of thing? It’s bad enough to be enduring the tortures of the damned in this cursed desert, with a thirst on one big enough to drain Windermere, without being reminded of such things. Don’t, old man; don’t!”
“All right, old chap,” cheerily answered Granton.
“I thought we were about through the last of our troubles.”
“I’m afraid not, Hume,” replied Lane. “That infernal scoundrel Puff-adder Brown has been ahead of us. Somehow I half suspected some game of the kind. I got it all from a Bakalahari near the water in front. Brown, it seems, with his light wagon, trekked across from Kanya by way of Lubli Pits, and has just pipped us. To make matters secure, he has poisoned the water-pit I’ve just come from with euphorbia branches.
We were just going to drink last evening when we got there, when this Bushman here—a decent Masarwa he is, too—stopped me, and pointed out the euphorbia. Then I discovered the murderous trick this scoundrel has played us. If he had poisoned the lot of us, I suppose he would have cared not a tinker’s curse; and, in this desert, who would have been the wiser? The water-pit stands in a stony bit of country, and there happen to be a lot of euphorbia growing about, so his job was an easy one.
He’s not far in front, and we may spoil his little game, if we have luck and stick to the ship.”
By the camp-fire that evening the plan of operations was settled. Nearly six days of absolutely waterless travel, if the wagons could by any possibility be dragged, lay between the trekkers and Tapinyani’s kraal. No oxen could pull the wagon waterless over such a journey.
It was decided, therefore, after finally watering the animals next morning, to trek steadily for two days, unyoke the oxen, leave the wagon standing in the desert in charge of two of the native boys (to whom would be left a barrel of water, enough, with care, to last them nearly a week), and drive on the oxen as rapidly as possible to Tapinyani’s. Without the encumbrance of the wagon, the last part of the journey might be accomplished in two days, or rather less.
Watered, rested, and refreshed at Tapinyani’s kraal, the oxen could then be driven back to fetch in the wagon. This part of the undertaking was to be entrusted to Stephan, the Hottentot driver. Stephan had been picked for the expedition as a thoroughly reliable native, and having traversed the Kalahari before, he would be equal to the emergency.
Meanwhile, the three white men, riding their freshest horses, and leading their spare ones, were to push forward, after watering the nags at earliest dawn, in the confident hope of reaching Tapinyani’s kraal in a forced march of thirty-six hours.
At four o’clock upon the second afternoon following this camp-fire council, the three Englishmen rode and led their tired and battered horses into the outskirts of Tapinyani’s kraal, that singular native village, planted by the only considerable permanent water in the immense waste of the Central Kalahari.
Tom Lane knew the place, and they passed straight through the straggling collection of beehive-like, circular, grass-thatched huts, until they reached the large *kotla*, or enclosure, in the centre of the town, where Tapinyani’s own residence stood. Skirting the tall fence of posts and brushwood, they passed by an open entrance into the smooth enclosure of red sand, and then, as they reined in their nags, a curious, and to them intensely interesting scene met their gaze.
Just in front of the chief’s hut was gathered a collection of natives, some nearly naked—save for the middle patch of hide common to Kalahari folk—others clothed about the shoulders in cloaks or karosses of skin—pelts of the hartebeest, and other animals.
In the centre of his headmen and councillors—for such they were—seated on a low wagon-chair of rude make, the gift of some wandering trader, was Tapinyani himself, a spare, middle-aged native of Bechuana type, clad in a handsome kaross of the red African lynx. In his hands Tapinyani held a sheet of large foolscap paper, concerning which he seemed to be closely questioning the tall white man standing at his side.
They were quickly across the forty paces of red sand, and now stood before the astonished group.
“Greeting! Tapinyani,” said Lane, speaking in Sechuana to the chief, as he moved up near to him. “I hope all is well with you and your people. What do you do here with this man,” indicating Brown, “and what is the paper you have in your hands?”
The Chief explained that the paper was a grant of a piece of land which the trader wanted for the purpose of running cattle on.
“How much land?”
Why, they are after a concession of land themselves.”
“Tapinyani,” rejoined Lane, “let me tell you something more about this man. He is a liar and a scamp, and worse. He cheated your friend, the chief Secheli, years ago. He fought against Mankoroane, and stole a lot of his cattle, and would have stolen his country if the English had not interfered. Take the word of an old friend, and have nothing to do with that paper.”
Time after time he planted his blows with those ominous dull thuds upon the trader’s fleshy face; now and again he drove into the big man’s ribs with strokes that made him wince again. In the second bout, it is true, Joe was badly floored by a slinging round-arm drive; but he was quickly on his legs again, and, after a little sparring for wind, none the worse. Few of the Puff-adder’s infuriated hits, indeed, touched the mark. In seven minutes the big freebooter was a sight to behold.
Finally, at the close of a week, after the endless discussion and argument so dear to the native African, Tapinyani set his royal mark, duly attested and approved by the headmen and elders of his tribe, to a grant of 300,000 acres of pastoral land—part of that huge and unexplored tract of country over which he hunted and nominally held sway.
The considerations for this grant were a yearly payment of 100 pounds, a dozen Martini-Henry rifles with suitable ammunition, a “salted” horse worth 90 pounds, six bottles of French brandy, a suit of store clothes, a case of Eau de Cologne, and a quantity of beads and trinkets.
He had once possessed an old broken-down nag, bought from a swindling Namaqua Hottentot, and he knew a little of guns and gunnery. But he was unskilled in the use of either. His people badly wanted giraffe hides for making sandals and for barter; the animals were plentiful in the open forests a day or two north of the town; they must have a big hunt forthwith.
Accordingly, the horses having, meanwhile, under the influence of Kaffir corn, plenty of water, and a good rest, recovered some of their lost condition, a day or two later the hunting party sallied forth. Keen Masarwa Bushmen, half famished and dying for a gorge of flesh, trotted before the horsemen as spoorers; while well in the rear a cloud of Tapinyani’s people hovered in the like hope of meat and hides.
For a whole day the party rode northward into the desert; they found no giraffe, but spoor was plentiful, and they camped by a tiny limestone fountain with high hopes for the morrow. At earliest streak of dawn they were up and preparing for the chase. Tapinyani was stiff and sore from unaccustomed horse exercise, yet he had plenty of pluck, and, clad in his canary-yellow, brand-new, store suit of cords, climbed gaily to the saddle.
In an hour they were on fresh spoor of “camel”; a troop had fed quite recently through the giraffe-acacia groves; and the whispering Bushmen began to run hot upon the trail. Just as the great red disk of sun shot up clear above the rim of earth, they emerged upon a broad expanse of plain, yellow with long waving grass. Save for an odd camel-thorn tree here and there, it was open for some three miles, until checked again by a dark-green belt of forest.
Half a mile away in their front, slouching leisurely across the flat with giant strides, moved a troop of nine tall giraffe—a huge dark-coloured old bull, towering above the rest, four or five big cows, and some two-year-old calves. Well might the hearts of the two younger Englishmen beat faster, and their palates grow dry and parched.
Up and down their long necks flailed the air, in strange machine-like unison with their gait; quickly they were in full flight, going great guns for the shelter of the forest ahead of them. Now the three Englishmen rammed in spurs, set their teeth, and raced their nags at their hardest. To kill “camel” there is only one method. You must run up to them (if you can) at top speed in the first two or three miles of chase, else they will outstay you and escape.
Force the giraffe beyond his pace, and he is yours.
But in this instance the dappled giants had too long a start. The ponies were not at their best, and the forest sanctuary lay now only two miles beyond the quarry. Ride as they would, the hunters could not make up their lee-way in the distance. Once in the woodlands the giraffes would have much the best of it. The two clouds of dust raised by pursued and pursuers rose thick upon the clear morning air, and steadily neared the forest fringe.
Now the giraffe are only two hundred yards from their sanctuary, the lighter cows, running ahead, rather less. The horsemen are still nearly three hundred yards in rear of the nearest of the troop. “Jump off, lads, and shoot!” roars Tom Lane, as he reins up his nag suddenly, springs off, and puts up his rifle. The other two men instantly follow his example. Two barrels are fired by Lane, but the distance is great, that desperate gallop has made him shaky, and his bullets go wide.
Hume Wheler, quicker down from his horse than his friend, fires next at the old bull, lagging last; he, too, misses clean, and shoves another cartridge into his single sporting Martini. But now even the old bull is close upon the forest, into whose depths the rest of the troop are disappearing, and he, too, is within easy hail of safety.
Now Joe, it must be frankly admitted, was not a good shot; either of his friends could give him points in the ordinary way. Here was an extraordinary stroke of luck! Speechless with delight, flushed of face, and streaming with sweat, his eyes still fixed upon the piece of grass where the bull had gone down, he mounted his horse and galloped up. The others followed in more leisurely fashion. Joe was quickly by the side of the great dappled giraffe.
From the shock of that fall Joe Granton sustained heavy concussion of the brain, and had to be carried with much care and difficulty back to Tapinyani’s town. Hume Wheler, with infinite solicitude and care, superintended this operation, while Lane stayed out another two days in the veldt and shot three giraffe for the chief and his people. Hume Wheler himself had the satisfaction of bringing down his first and a good many more “camels” at a subsequent period.
Here they have made a very charming home of their own. The great black switch tail of the bull giraffe hangs on the dining-room wall, plain evidence of the curious romance in which it had been involved.
Hume Wheler, who, with Tom Lane, occasionally drops in upon them during his periodical trips from the interior, often chaffs his old friends upon that celebrated trophy. “Ah!
