Tales from the Veld

The tales here set forth are, subject to a generous allowance for Uncle Abe’s gift of imagination, true to the animal life and the scenery of a district in the Cape occupied by the British Settlers of 1820 – a tract rich in incidents of border warfare, hallowed by the struggles of that early band of colonists, saturated with the superstitions and folk lore of the Kaffirs, and thoroughly familiar to the author – who passed his boyhood there.

E. Glanville.

Streatham: September 1897.

Chapter One

Abe Pike’s Poison Bark

Abe Pike – Old Abe Pike, or Uncle Abe as he was variously called – lived in a one-horse shanty in the division of Albany, Cape Colony. I won’t locate his farm, for various reasons, beyond saying that there is a solitary blue-gum on the south side of the house and the rudiments of a cowshed on the north. Uncle Abe was not ambitious; he was slow, but he was sure. So he said. One blue-gum satisfied him, and as for the cowshed he meant to complete it during the century. I don’t introduce him as a tree planter, but as a narrator of most extraordinary yarns. He called them facts – but of the truth of this the reader may judge.

Riding over one warm afternoon, I found him leaning over a water-butt examining the little lively and red worms therein, which would soon hatch out into livelier mosquitoes.

“Well, Uncle, how d’ye fare?”

“Porly, lad, porly; pumpkins is scarce.”

Uncle Abe took a very old pipe from his pocket, and showed the emptiness of it by placing a very gnarled little finger into the black bowl.

I held out my pouch.

“I’ll jest take a little dry to put on the top,” he said, as he deliberately filled the pipe. “We want a little ‘dry on the top’ to start us, but if there’s nothin’ deown below, why, it’s a puff and out it goes. Yo’ll never get a crop from that bottom land o’ yours until you put some dry on the top in the shape of manure. See!”

Now, of all the laziest, shiftless beings there was no one who could start level with old Abe Pike, and this advice from him was rasping, but still he had his points.

“I’ve heard say there’s a powerful heap o’ money in portents,” he ventured presently.

“It depends on how you interpret them.”

“Well, that’s so. I’ve got a portent here in this very coat; that’s some small pumpkins, I tell you. It’ll kill any sort o’ vermin, rats, skeeters, wild-cats, jackals, quicker’n winkin’. See! I found it out myself come next Friday fortnight.”

“You mean you interpreted the portent.”

“Well, now, is that so? I tole you I got it in my pocket, and ef I didn’t find it, how did it get there? That’s what I want to know.”

“All right, Uncle, what is it?”

“That’s my portent. I diskivered it, and I’m gwine to work it under my name – Abe Pike’s Sure Killer.”

“Is it a patent medicine you’re talking of?”

“Of course; that’s what I said. There it is,” and out of his pocket he produced a strip of bark.

“Sneeze-wood bark, isn’t it?”

“Looks like it, don’t it? But there’s bark and there’s bark. This is Abe Pike’s Bark, possessing properties which will alleviate the sufferings of the human race by putting a lightning end to the enemies of the human kind. That’s what I’ve studied out to put in the papers in big letters. There’s money in it, now; ain’t there?”

“I don’t see it, Uncle.”

“Ah! the limitations of knowledge, my boy, is accountable for a pot of ignorance. You think that’s plain ordinary bark, but that’s where your limitations run dry. I’ll jes’ tell you how I diskivered this great and marvellous killer of the centry. Come Friday fortnight I sot out with the axe to chop out a pole for the cowshed – t’other on’ been eaten thro’ by those plaguy ants. Well, I knew of a tree way down in the kloof that had been growin’ for that shed o’ mine ever since the seed dropped on the ’xact spot where nature had provided a bed for it. When you come to think of it, everything has got its purpose all smoothed out from the start, and that little seed spread itself out from the beginnin’ to build up a pole for ole Abe Pike’s cowshed. I sot down on a fallen tree and thought that all out, while the trees round about made a whisperin’ with their leaves over the head o’ that there sneeze ’ood that was doomed so to speak, by reason o’ my cows, and the necessity of keepin’ ’em out o’ the rain in the winter. Well, I sot there thinking all these thoughts until it was too dark, and I went away home ’thout having cut the tree. Next mornin’ I took up my axe and went down into the kloof and took off my coat. I gave two blows and stopped.”

“Too much work?”

“Jes’ you wait. I tole you there was a fallen tree; well, in that tree was a snake. The first blow of the axe woke him, and he popped his head out. The second blow sent a chip that hit him square between the eyes. Out he came biling with rage, and hissin’ like a kettle o’ water, and I just had time to dodge behind the tree when he let out. His fangs stuck right in the wood, and with a clip I cut his head off. I stood away back looking at his writhing body and at his wicked head sticking there in the tree jes’ where I had made the wedge. As I looked in, there came to pass a remarkable circumstance.”

“Yes?”

“Yes; that tree began to lose colour. It was a healthy tree, sound as a bell, with a heart o’ iron and a crown o’ green leaves; but as I stood there in the space o’ maybe one minit, or a minit and a half, it begun to turn pale and sickly.”

“Turn pale!”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I said. First the leaves shuddered and rustled, and grew moist; then they slowly turned yeller, curling up as if they’d been frost-bitten, only sadder. It s’prised me, that did, for there was somethin’ in the way the leaves went that struck a shudder through me, ’twas so human like in the manner o’ it. But that was nothing – the bark suddenly cracked and peeled off – then the white trunk itself standin’ there, exposed in its nakedness began to swell – until it split with a groan – ay, a groan, a moaning shivery gasp o’ pain. ’Twas so like life, I turned and ran, thinkin’ that dead snakes was after me – so that as I ran the fear grew upon me till I came out inter the open. After looking around keerfully I sat on a stone an’ steadied my thinking machine. When I got the fear out o’ me I went back and there was that tree dead as tho’ it had been struck by lightnin’ and bleached by the rain an’ sun.”

“Well?”

“That tree was pisened! It died o’ snakebite – its system chock full o’ pisen. I cut it down and took it home, where I planted it under the shed.”

“And your portent?”

“I’m comin’ to that, if you’ll give me time. That night I couldn’t sleep for a procession of ants. They came out of a hole in the floor, crept over my bed – which you may know is on the floor for convenience – and marched out thro’ the crack under the door. All the ants in the country were there – red ants, black ants, working ants, soldier ants, and the soldier ants nipped me whenever I moved. In the morning, when they had passed away, I went outside, and in the shed there was thousands an’ thousands o’ dead ants, not to speak o’ flies.”

“All dead?”

“They had been nipping that pisened pole, and those that didn’t bite got the news and moved off for other scenes. I tell you, you may speak o’ telegraph wires, but lor’ bless you, news travels faster among the creatures. Why I’ve knowed – ”

“Yes; but you’ve not told me about your discovery.”

“Well, now, the limitations of your knowledge is great. I’ve told you enough to put two and two together. If not, I’ll just make the plain plainer. Seeing what the tree had done, I though o’ the bark an’ the leaves left there behind in the kloof, and went for ’em. It was jus’ as I thought. They was deadly pisen, and when I laid some leaves about the house they killed all the flies, and a piece o’ bark laid in a rat-hole brought all the rats out corpses.

“Yes sir, that’s ole Abe Pike’s Vermin Destroyer, and if you’re setting pills for jackals, why, don’t you forget to come to my shop.”

“Are you opening a shop?”

“That’s what I said. Abe Pike’s vermin pisen poles, warrented to stand the ravages o’ time an’ insects, and Pike’s bark; no other genuine. So long!”

“Well, so long!”

Chapter Two

Uncle Abe’s Big Shoot

I had ridden out one day to the outpost, where a troop of young cattle were running, when the horse rode into a covey of red-wing partridges, a brace of which I accounted for by a right and left. Picking up the birds, and feeling rather proud of the shot, I continued on to Uncle Pike’s to crow over the matter.

The old man was seated outside the door ‘braiding’ a thong of forslag or whip-lash.

“Hitch the reins over the pole. Ef the shed was ready I’d ask yer to stable the hoss, but there’s a powerful heap o’ work yet to finish it off nice an’ shipshape – me being one o’ those who like to see a job well done. None o’ yer rough and ready sheds for me, with a hole in the roof after the fust rain. A plump brace o’ birds – you got ’em up by the Round Kopje.”

“Yes, Uncle; a right and left from the saddle. Good shooting, eh!”

“Fair to middling, sonny – fair to middling – but with a handful o’ shot an’ a light gun what can yer expect but to hit. Now, ef you’d bagged ’em with one ball outer an ole muzzle-loader, why I’d up an’ admit it was praisable.”

“Why Uncle, where’s the man who would knock over two birds with a ball? It couldn’t be done.”

“Is that so? Well, now yer s’prise me.”

“You’re not going to tell me you have seen that done!”

“Something better. That’s small potatoes.”

He rose up, went indoors, and returned with an ancient single muzzle-loader, the stock bound round with snake skin. “Jes’ yer handle that wepin.”

I handled it, and returned it without a word. It was ill-balanced, and came up awkwardly to the shoulder.

“That wepin saved my life.”

“In the war?”

“In the big drought. You remember the time. The country was that dry, you could hear the grass crackle like tinder when the wind moved, an’ every breath stirred up columns of sand which went cavorting over the veld round and round, their tops bending over to each other an’ the bottoms stirring up everything movable, and the whole length of the funells dotted about with snakes, an’ lizards, an’ bits of wood. Why, I see one o’ em whip up a dead sheep, an’ shed the wool off o’ the carcase as it went twisting round an’ round.”

“And the gun?”

“The gun was on the wall over my bed. Don’t you mind the gun. Well, it was that dry the pumpkins withered up where they lay on the hard ground – an’ one day there was nought in the larder, not so much as a smell. There was no breakfast for ole Abe Pike, nor dinner nor yet tea, an’ the next morning ’twas the same story o’ emptiness. I took down the old gun from the wall an’ cleaned her up. There was one full charge o’ powder in the horn, an’ one bullet in the bag. All that morning I considered whether ’twould be wiser to divide that charge inter three, or to pour the whole lot of it in’t once. When dinner-time came an’ there was no dinner, I solumnly poured the whole bang of it inter the barrel, an’ listened to the music of the black grains as they rattled on their way down to their last dooty. I cut a good thick wad from a buck-hide and rammed it down, ‘Plunk, plenk, plank, plonk, ploonk,’ until the rod jumped clean out o’ the muzzle. Then I polished up that lone bullet, wrapped him round in a piece o’ oil rag, an’ sent him down gently. ‘Squish, squish, squash, squoosh.’ I put the cap on the nipple, an’ sent him home with the pressure o’ the hammer. Then I took a look over the country to ’cide on a plan o’ campaign. What I wanted was a big ram with meat on him ter last for a month, if ’twas made inter biltong. There was one down by the hoek, but it warnt full grown. He was nearest, but there was one I’d seen over yonder off by the river, beyond the kloof, an’ I reckoned ’twas worth while going a couple o’ mile extra to get him.”

“You were sure of him?”

“He was as good as dead when I shouldered the gun an’ stepped off out on that wilderness o’ burnt land. The wind came like a breath from a furnace, an’ the hair on my head split an’ curled up under the heat. Whenever I came across a rock with a breadth of shade I sot there to cool off, panting like a fowl, an’ also to cool off the gun for fear ’twould explode. By reason o’ this resting the dark came down when I reached the ridge above the river, an’ I jest camped where it found me, after digging up some insange root to chew. The fast had been with me for two days, an’ the gnawing pain inside was terrible, so that I kept awake looking up at the stars an’ listening to the plovers.”

“It must have been lonesome!”

“’Twas not the lonesomeness so much as the emptiness that troubled me. Before the morning came, lighting up the valley, I was going down to the river on the last hunt. ’Twas do or die that trip – an’ it seemed to me I could see the gleam o’ my bones away down there through the mist that hung over the sick river. I made straight for the river, knowing there was a comfort an’ fellowship in the water which would draw game there, an’ the big black ram, too, ’fore he marched off inter the thick o’ the kloof for his sleep. By-and-by, as I went down among the rocks an’ trees, I pitched head first – ker smash – in a sudden fit o’ dizziness, but the shock did me good. It rattled up my brain – an’ instead o’ jest plunging ahead I went slow – slow an’ soft as a cat on the trail – pushing aside a branch here, shoving away a dry twig there, an’ glaring around with hungry eyes. I spotted him!”

“The ram?”

“Ay, the ram. The very buck I’d had in my mind when I loaded the old gun. He stood away off the other side o’ the river, moving his ears, but still as a rock, and black as the bowl of this pipe, except where the white showed along his side. He seemed to be looking straight at me – an’ I sank by inches to the ground with my legs all o’ a shake. Then, on my falling, he stepped down to the water, and stood there admiring hisself – his sharp horns an’ fine legs – an’ on my belly, all empty as ’twas, I crawled, an’ crawled, an’ crawled. There was a bush this side the river, an’ I got it in line. At last I reached it, the sweat pouring off me, an’ slowly I rose up. The water was dripping from his muzzle as he threw his head up, an’ he turned to spring back, when, half-kneeling, I fired, an’ the next moment the old gun kicked me flat as a pancake.”

“And you missed him?”

“Never! I got him. I said I would, an’ I did. I got him, an’ a 9 pound barbel.”

“Uncle Abe!”

“I say a 9 pound barbel, tho’ he might a been 8 and a half pound, an’ a brace of pheasants.”

“Uncle Abe!”

“I zed so – an’ a hare an’, an’,” he went on quickly, “a porkipine.”

“Uncle Abe!”

“Well – what are you Abeing me for?”

“You got all those with one shot. Never!”

“I was there – you weren’t. ’Tis easy accounted for. When I pulled the trigger the fish leapt from the water in the line, and the bullet passed through him inter the buck. I tole you the gun kicked. Well, it flew out o’ my hands, an’ hit the hare square on the nose. To recover myself, I threw up my hands, an’ caught hold o’ the two pheasants jest startled outer the bush.”

“And the porcupine?”

“I sot down on the porkipine, an’ if you’d like to ’xamine my pants you’ll find where his quills went in. I was mighty sore, an’ I could ha’ spared him well from the bag. But ’twas a wonderful good shot. You’re not going?”

“Yes, I am. I’m afraid to stay with you.”

“Well, so long! I cut this yere forslag from the skin o’ that same buck.”

“Let me see – it’s nine years to the big drought.”

“That’s it.”

“That skin has kept well.”

“Oh, yes; ’twas a mighty tough skin.”

“Not so tough as your yarn, Uncle. So long!”

Chapter Three

Uncle Abe, the Baboon, and the Tiger

Abe Pike was one of those men who would walk ten miles to set a trap without a murmur, while he thought himself badly used if he were called upon to hoe a row in the mealie field. So when, for the third time within one week, a calf was killed by a tiger, and our attempts to shoot, poison, or trap the thief had failed, I rode over to Uncle Abe’s to secure his aid.

“I can’t do it,” he said, when I had stated my business.

“Too busy?”

“No; ’taint that, sonny, ’taint that – tho’ there’s a powerful heap o’ work to do on that shed.”

“I’ll put in a couple of days and help you finish it right off, as soon as the tiger is laid by the heels.”

“Thank ye kindly; but I’ve got to finish that there shed offun my own bat. It’s a job that wants doin’ keerfly.”

“Well, Uncle, I’ll plough up your old land by the hoek, and put in two muids of corn. How will that do?”

“’Twont do, my lad; that land’s full o’ charlock.”

“Then, Uncle, the day you show me the dead body of that tiger, the red heifer with the white patch on the hump is yours.”

He heaved a sigh, and knocked the bowl of his pipe on his thumb, but he did not accept the offer, though I knew he admired that heifer.

“Why, Uncle, what is the matter? You’re not ill?”

“’Tain’t that, either – not ’xactly – tho’ there’s such a thing as illness o’ the mind.”

“I’m very sorry,” as I unhitched the bridle and prepared to mount, “for I’ll have to go to Long Sam, and from the hairs I’ve seen I shouldn’t be surprised if this is a black tiger.”

This was the last shot – Abe Pike had not yet trapped a black tiger, and Long Sam was his rival in bush lore.

“That settles it,” he said, with a groan.

“Come along then,” I said, with a smile at my success in breaking through his obstinacy.

Abe rose up and laid his gnarled hand on the mane of the horse. “’Tis the same one,” he muttered, “the same one, sure.”

“Why, of course; you know the old horse, Black Dick.”

“Black Nick,” he said slowly, and, drawing his hand across his forehead; “my boy, you’ll never trap that animile; he’s a witch tiger.”

“A witch tiger?”

“That’s so: he’s given a lodging to some ole Kaffir. Abe Pike ain’t going arter any black tigers, not he.”

“What are you driving at now, you old buffer?”

“Buffer, is it; well – well – buffer – oh, yes, of course; an’ me that has passed through sich a three weeks as ud have scared many another into his grave.”

I felt remorse at the thought that for three weeks I had not called on the lonely old man, and concluded that he was paying me out for this neglect.

“I am very sorry,” I said eagerly, “I have not been over; but the truth is the work has been very heavy. It must have been very lonely.”

“I’ve had kempany.”

“Oh, I see; and perhaps they’ve engaged your services?”

“That’s it. On ’count o’ ’em that’s been callin’ here I can’t go catching any black tigers.”

“I should like to know who it is has set you against doing a service for a neighbour?”

“There’s kempany an’ kempany. This yer kempany ud turn your hair white.”

“Ah!” I said, sniffing a story.

“Yes, ’twould that. There were some baboons away over by the big kloof. A family party – ole man, wives, middle-aged, an’ pickaninnies. They came there for the Kaffir plum crop, an’ were mighty lively, not to say noisy, three weeks ago, when they began to drop. I yeared ’em dropping off.”

“Off the trees?”

“No; offun this mortal spear. As they dropped off in the dark, the others howled an’ whooped like mad. It was a tiger that did the droppin’.”

“A tiger?”

“You hold on to him. At last the ole man were left alone, an’ he had a mighty anxious time looking all around at onct, while he hunted for grubs for fear the enemy ’ud spring on him. He used to come over yonder in the lands for kempany. I’ve sot here on the door-step an’ he sot over there, glaring at me from his little grey eyes. Arter a time we got to know each other, an’ I found out he went to sleep on the roof alongside the chimney.”

“He was the company?”

“One on ’em. An’ seein’ him about reminded me o’ the Kaffir plums, so one mornin’ I took up the can an’ went away off to the big kloof where the plums are red an’ juicy. Well – my boy – that ole man baboon, he up an’ come along with me, an’ when he found I were goin’ to the kloof he jabbered most like a human. I could see he were excited – anybody could a seen that – an’ I sot down on a rock to argy the point with him. He wouldn’t argy, but he started back for the house. Well, you know me, when Abe Pike sots out to do a thing he does it, an’ arter I had smoked two pipes, I resoomed my way, jest as unconcarned as you are, for all the plain meanin’ o’ the baboon that I should go away home. When he saw that I were sot on it he came along at a canter, with his hind-quarters slewed round an’ the hair all standing up on his neck. He looked ugly, but ’xcept he lifted his eyebrows very quick, he said nothin’, and went along very quiet, with the same anxious look on his face I had noticed prev’ous. As I went into the kloof he swung into the trees, an’ kept along overhead. When we came to the thick o’ the wood, he going along all the time scarcely moving a leaf, he made a soft noise, an’ looking up I saw him bobbing his head up an’ down to make you giddy. I know by that he saw somethin’, an’ I jes’ slipped behind a tree to take stock. I yeerd a yawn, an’ what d’ye think I see thro’ the leaves stretched out on a rock, not twenty foot away?”

“A black fellow?”

“Yes; a black feller, with four legs an’ a tail, an’ a red mouth all agape, wide enough to take in my head, hat an’ all.”

“A black tiger?”

“Yes; an’ me with only a tin can. I jes’ sank down inter my boots. All o’ a sudden his jaws come to with a snap. Then he riz his head and stired straight fer me, his eyes gitting flamier as he looked, an’ his tail all on the jerk. He moved his round head about, then shot out his neck an’ growled in his stummik as he peered under the leaves. Just then that baboon let out a ‘baugh – baugh – bok-hem,’ an’ dropped down beyond the tiger. There were a roar, a leap, a scramble, an’ Abe Pike were shooting on his tracks for the open veld. He didn’t stop running till he got home – he didn’t – not me.”

“And the baboon? He wasn’t killed, was he?”

“You wait – jes’ you wait. Before you get the end o’ the journey you’ve got to pass the half-way house. This is a solitary place – this mansion – and beyond the ole Gaika-Bolo I have no visitors – an’ he only when he’s doctorin’ the Kaffirs down these parts. So that night, when there were a tap at the door, I were skeered a little from the shake I got when I saw that black critter staring at me with them wicked eyes of hisn. ‘Come in!’ I sed, an’ the tap came agin, soft an’ gentle, like as if a child or a woman were standin’ there – timid – tho’ it’s many a year since a female brushed the door-post with her dress – a many years, my lad.”

“Yes, Uncle; who was it?”

“‘Come in!’ I sed, laying hold o’ a piece of wood. ‘Jes’ pull the string,’ I sed. Believe me, the string were pulled – the upper half o’ the door swung open, an’ he stepped in.”

“Who?”

“The old man baboon! He pulled the string, the door swung open, an’ he hopped in.”

“Good gracious, Uncle!”

“Yer s’prised. Well, jes’ think how it took me – an’ on top o’ what I saw that day. I jes’ sot there an’ looked, an’ when he turned an’ shut that door, an’ moved the wooden button to secure it, I were fairly paralysed. ‘Ho-hoo,’ he sed, an’ blinked his eyes. He jes’ sed ‘ho-hoo’ in a friendly way, an’ planked hisself down before the fire, with the black palms o’ his hands to the coals, his head turned over his shoulder, an’ his little grey eyes takin’ stock o’ everythin’ in the room.”

“He must have escaped from captivity.”

“That’s the first thought that struck me when I steadied my brain pan. Thinks I, he b’longed to some man, an’ I looked at his waist for signs of the chain, but there were no sign. I noticed he looked empty, an’, remembering how he’d saved me by leading the tiger off another way, I got out a mealie cob. He snatched it quick, raised his eyebrows at me, then begun to eat as ef he’d been hungry for a week. There we sot – he one side, eating, me t’other, smoking. All o’ a sudden he quit eating: then he stood up on his hind legs an’ looked outer the winder. ‘Wot’s up now?’ sezs I to myself. There he stood looking outer that window; then he gave a jump into the rafters, crowding hisself under the slope. It gave me a sort o’ creepy crawl to see him do that, an’ I took down the ole gun. Bymby I yeard a sniff under the crack of the door as if a dog were taking a smell. Then there were a space o’ stillness that was terrible trying. I stood there looking at the door, ’xpecting to see it fly open, when I chanced to give a glance at the winder, and my blood froze.”