fire question. Indeed, how to make sufficient fire to boil a kettle when you have no fuel to make it of is /the/ great question of South African travel. A ready-made fire is, therefore, peculiarly acceptable; and for the last half-hour of the trek was Ernest always in a great state of expectation as to whether the waggon before them had or had not been considerate enough to leave theirs burning.
Thus it came to pass that one morning, when they were about fifteen miles from Pretoria, which they expected to reach the same evening, and the waggon was slowly drawing up to the outspan-place, Ernest, accompanied by Mazooku, who lounged after him like a black shadow, ran forward to see if their predecessors had or had not been considerate. In this instance energy was rewarded, for the fire was still burning.
"Hoorah!" said Ernest. "Get the sticks, Mazooku, and go and fill the kettle. By Jove! there's a knife."
There was a knife, a many-bladed knife, with a buckhorn handle and a corkscrew in it, left by the dying fire. Ernest took it up and looked at it; somehow it seemed familiar to him. He turned it round, examined the silver plate upon it, and suddenly started.
"What is the matter, Ernest?" said Mr. Alston, who had joined them.
"Look here," he answered, pointing to two initials on the knife.
"Well, I see some fellow has left his knife; so much the better for the finder."
"You have heard me speak of my friend Jeremy. That is his knife; I gave it to him years ago. Look--J. J."
"Nonsense! it is some knife like it; I have seen hundreds of that make."
"I believe that it is the same. He must be here."
Mr. Alston shrugged his shoulders.
"Not probable," he said.
Ernest made no answer. He stood staring at the knife.
"Have you written to your people lately, Ernest?"
"No; the last letter I wrote was down there in Secocoeni's country; you remember I sent it by the Basuto who was going to Lydenburg, just before Jeffries died."
"Like enough he never got to Lydenburg. He would not have dared to go to Lydenburg after the war broke out. You should write."
"I mean to, from Pretoria; but somehow I have had no heart for writing."
Nothing more was said about the matter, and Ernest put the knife into his pocket.
That evening they trekked down through the "Poort" that commands the most charming view of the South African towns, and, on the plain below, Pretoria, bathed in the bright glow of the evening sunshine, smiled its welcome to them. Mr. Alston, who knew the town, determined to trek straight through it and outspan the waggon on the farther side, where he thought there would be better grazing for the cattle. Accordingly, they rumbled on past the gaol, past the pleasant white building which was at that moment occupied by the English Special Commissioner and his staff, about whose doings all sorts of rumours had reached them during their journey, and on to the market-square. This area was at the moment crowded with Boer waggons, whose owners had trekked in to celebrate their "nachtmaal" (communion), of which it is their habit, in company with their wives and children, to partake four times a year. The "Volksraad," or local Parliament, was also in special session to consider the proposals made to it on behalf of the Imperial Government, so that the little town was positively choked with visitors. The road down which they were passing ran past the buildings used as Government offices, and between this and the Dutch church a considerable crowd was gathered, which, to judge from the shouts and volleys of oaths--Dutch and English--that proceeded from it, was working itself up into a state of excitement.
"Hold on," shouted Ernest to the voorlooper; and then, turning to Mr. Alston, "There is a jolly row going on there; let us go and see what it is."
"All right, my boy; where the fighting is, there will the Englishmen be gathered together;" and they climbed down off the waggon and made for the crowd.
The row was this. Among the Boers assembled for the "nachtmaal" festival was a well-known giant of the name of Van Zyl. This man's strength was a matter of public notoriety all over the country, and many were the feats which were told of him. Among others it was said that he could bear the weight of the after-part of an African buck waggon on his shoulders, with a load of three thousand pounds of corn upon it, while the wheels were greased. He stood about six feet seven high, weighed eighteen stone and a half, and had a double row of teeth. On the evening in question this remarkable specimen of humanity was sitting on his waggon-box with a pipe, of which the size was proportionate to his own, clinched firmly between his double row of teeth. About ten paces of him stood a young Englishman, also of large size, though he looked quite small beside the giant, who was contemplating the phenomenon on the waggon-box, and wondering how many inches he measured round the chest. That young Englishman had just descended from a newly-arrived waggon, and his name was Jeremy Jones.
To these advances a cringing Hottentot boy of small size. The Hottentot is evidently the servant or slave of the giant, and a man standing by Jeremy, who understands Dutch, informs him that he is telling his master than an ox has strayed. Slowly the giant rouses himself, and, descending from the waggon-box, seizes the trembling Tottie with one hand, and, taking a reim of buffalo-hide, lashes him to the waggon-wheel.
"Now," remarked Jeremy's acquaintance, "you will see how a Boer deals with a nigger."
"You don't mean to say that great brute is going to beat that poor little devil?"
Just then a small fat woman put her head out of a tent pitched by the waggon, and inquired what the matter was. She was the giant's wife. On being informed of the straying of the ox, her wrath knew no bounds.
"Slaat em! slaat de swartsel!" (Thrash him! thrash the black creature!) she cried out in a shrill voice, running to the waggon, and with her own fair hands drawing out a huge "sjambock," that is, a strip of prepared hippopotamus-hide used to drive the after-oxen with, and giving it to her spouse. "Cut the liver out of the black devil!" she went on, "but mind you don't hit his head, or he won't be able to go to work afterwards. Never mind about making the blood come; I have got lots of salt to rub in."
Her harangue, and the sight of the Hottentot tied to the wheel, had by this time attracted quite a crowd of Boers and Englishmen who were idling about the market-square.
"Softly, Vrouw, softly; I will thrash enough to satisfy even you, and we all know that must be very hard where a black creature is in question."
A roar of laughter from the Dutch people round greeted this sally of wit, and the giant, taking the sjambock with a good-humoured smile--for, like most giants, he was easy-tempered by nature--lifted it, whirled his great arm, as thick as the leg of an average man, round his head, and brought the whip down on the back of the miserable Hottentot. The poor wretch yelled with pain, and no wonder, for the greasy old shirt he wore was divided clean in two, together with the skin beneath it, and the blood was pouring from the gash.
"Allamachter! dat is een lecker slaat" (Almighty! that was a nice one), said the old woman; at which the crowd laughed again.
But there was one man who did not laugh, and that man was Jeremy. On the contrary, his clear eyes flashed and his brown cheek burned with indignation. Nor did he stop at that. Stepping forward he placed himself between the giant and the howling Hottentot, and said to the former, in the most nervous English:
"You are a damned coward!"
The Boer stared at
