way.
As soon as they reached the boundaries of the Transvaal, Ernest bought a horse from a Boer, on which he used to ride after the herds of buck which swarmed upon the high veld. They had none with them, because in the country where they had been shooting no horse would live. One day as they were travelling slowly along a little before midday, a couple of bull-vilderbeeste galloped across the waggon-track about two hundred yards in front of the oxen. The voorlooper stopped the oxen in order to give Ernest, who was sitting on the waggon-box with a rifle by his side, a steady shot. Ernest fired at the last of the two galloping bulls. The line was good; but he did not make sufficient allowance for the pace at which the bull was travelling, with the result that instead of striking it forwards and killing it, the bullet shattered its flank, and did not stop its career.
"Dash it!" said Ernest, when he saw what he had done, "I can't leave the poor beast like that. Bring me my horse; I will go after him, and finish him."
The horse, which was tied already saddled behind the waggon, was quickly brought, and Ernest, mounting, told them not to keep the waggons for him, as he would strike across country and meet them at the outspan place, about a mile or so on. Then he started after his wounded bull, which could be plainly discerned standing with one leg up on the crest of a rise about a thousand yards away. But if ever a vilderbeeste was possessed by a fixed determination not to be finished off, it was that particular vilderbeeste. The pace at which a vilderbeeste can travel on three legs when he is not too fat is perfectly astonishing, and Ernest had traversed a couple of miles of great rolling plain before he even got within fair galloping distance of him.
He had a good horse, however, and at last he got within fifty yards, and then away they went at a merry pace, Ernest's object being to ride alongside and put a bullet through him. Their gallop lasted a good two miles or more. On the level, Ernest gained on the vilderbeeste, but whenever they came to a patch of ant-bear holes or a ridge of stones, the vilderbeeste had the pull, and drew away again. At last they came to a dry pan or lake about half a mile broad, crowded with hundreds of buck of all sorts, which scampered away as they came tearing along. Here Ernest at length drew up level with his quarry, and grasping the rifle with his right hand, tried to get it so that he could put a bullet through the beast, and drop him. But it was no easy matter, as any one who has ever tried it will know, and, while he was still making up his mind, the vilderbeeste slewed round, and came at him bravely. Had his horse been unused to the work, he must have had his inside ripped out by the crooked horns; but he was an old hunter, and equal to the occasion. To turn was impossible, the speed was too great, but he managed to slew, with the result that the charging animal brushed his head, instead of landing himself in his belly. At the same moment Ernest stretched out his rifle and pulled the trigger, and, as it chanced, put the bullet right through the vilderbeeste and dropped him dead.
Then he pulled up, and, dismounting, cut off some of the best of beef with his hunting-knife, stowed it away in a saddle-bag, and set off on his horse, now pretty well fagged, to find the waggons. But to find a waggon-track on the great veld, unless you have in the first instance taken the most careful bearings, is almost as difficult as it would be to return from a distance to any given spot on the ocean without a compass. There are no trees or hills to guide the travellers; nothing but a vast wilderness of land resembling a sea petrified in a heavy swell.
Ernest rode on for three or four miles, as he thought, retracing his steps over the line of country he had traversed, and at last, to his joy, struck the path. There were waggon-tracks on it; but he thought they did not look quite fresh. However, he followed them /faute de mieux/ for some five miles. Then he became convinced that they could not have been made by his waggons. He had overshot the mark, and must hark back. So he turned his weary horse's head, and made his way along the road to the spot where his spoor struck into it. The waggons must be out-spanned, waiting for him a little farther back. He went on, one mile, two, three--no waggons. A little to the left of the road was an eminence. He rode to it, and up and scanned the horizon. O joy! there far away, five or six miles off, was the white cap of a waggon. He rode to it straight across country. Once he got bogged in a vlei or swamp, and had to throw himself off, and drag his horse out by the bridle. He struggled on, and at last came to the dip in which he had seen the waggon-tent. It was a great white stone perched on a mound of brown ones.
By this time he had utterly lost his reckoning. Just then, to make matters worse, a thunder-shower came up with a bitter wind, and drenched him to the skin. The rain passed, but the wind did not. It blew like ice, and chilled his frame, enervated with the tropical heat in which he had been living through and through. He wandered on aimlessly, till suddenly his tired horse put his foot in a hole and fell heavily, throwing him on to his head and shoulder. For a few minutes his senses left him; but he recovered, and, mounting his worn-out horse, wandered on again. Luckily, he had broken no bones. Had he done so, he would probably have perished miserably in that lonely place.
The sun was sinking now, and he was faint for want of food, for he had eaten nothing that day but a biscuit. He had not even a pipe of tobacco with him. Just as the sun vanished he hit a little path, or what might once have been a path. He followed it till the pitchy darkness set in; then he got off his horse and took off the saddle, which he put down on the bare black veld, for a fire had recently swept off the dry grass, and wrapping the saddle-cloth round his feet, laid his aching head upon the saddle. The reins he hitched round his arm, lest the horse should stray away from him to look for food. The wind was bitterly cold, and he was wet through; the hyenas came and howled at him. He cut off a piece of the raw vilderbeeste-beef and chewed it, but it turned his stomach and he spat it out. Then he shivered and sank into a torpor from which there was a poor chance of his awakening.
How long he lay so he did not know--it seemed a few minutes; it was really an hour--when suddenly he was awakened by feeling something shaking him by the shoulder.
"What is it?" he said wearily.
"Wat is it? Ach Himmel! wat is it? dat is just wat I wants to know. Wat do you here? You shall die so."
The voice was the voice of a German, and Ernest knew German well.
"I have lost my way," he said, in that language; "I cannot find the waggons."
"Ah, you can speak the tongue of the Vaterland," said his visitor, still addressing him in English. "I will embrace you;" and he did so.
Ernest sighed. It is a bore to be embraced in the dark by an unknown male German when you feel that you are not far off dissolution.
"You are hungered?" said the German.
Ernest signified that he was.
"And athirsted?"
Again he signified assent.
"And perhaps you have no 'gui' (tobacco)?"
"No, none."
"Good! my little wife, my Wilhelmina, shall find you all these things."
"What the devil," thought Ernest to himself, "can a German be doing with his little wife in this place?"
By this time the stars had come out, and gave some light.
"Come, rouse yourself, and come and see my little wife. O, the pferd!" (horse)--"we will tie him to my wife. Ah, she is beautiful, though her leg shakes. O yes, you will love her."
"The deuce I shall!" ejaculated Ernest; and then, mindful of the good things the lady in question was to provide him with, he added solemnly, "Lead on, Macduff."
"Macduffer! my name is not so, my name is Hans; all ze great South Africa know me very well, and all South Africa love my wife."
"Really!"
