Tales from the Veld

Chapter Four

Abe Pike and the Whip

I don’t know what degree of truth there was in old Abe’s account of his adventure with the black tiger, but I certainly learnt to my cost that whether the brute had or had not given a domicile to a witch-doctor, it was too cunning for any efforts on my part to get even with it for the heavy toll it levied on the young cattle. I was driven once more to seek out his assistance, but I thought I would get him over to the homestead on some other pretext, being firmly persuaded that once he was there his hunting instincts would lead him on the tiger’s spoor. One afternoon, therefore, I drove over in the “spider,” and found him busily engaged waxing a stout fishing line for “kabblejauw,” a very large, but coarse sea fish, which loved to venture up the Fish River with the tide.

“Holloa, sonny!” he cried; “climb out an’ make yerself at home. Got any baccy?”

I stepped out, and handed him a cake of golden leaf, which he just smelt, then turned over and over.

“Sugar stuff,” he growled, with a queer look of disgust, wrinkling up his nose.

“Good American leaf, Uncle.”

“Well, well; what’s the race comin’ to? Sugar – all sugar. Sugar with tea, sugar with coffee, so that the spoon stands up; sugar with pumkins, sugar with grog, sugar with baccy, until the stummick which nature gives us revolts an’ cries out for salt an’ the bitterness o’ wholesome plants. Bitterness ’ardens, my boy – bitterness in food, bitterness in life – an’ sugar softens. Jes’ you hole on to that as you plough the furrer thro’ the ups an’ downs o’ your caryeer.” He cut a slice from the cake and stowed it away in his cheek. “Well! ha’ yer cotched that tiger yet?”

“He’s prowling around yet, Uncle.”

“Soh! An’ you want ole Abe Pike to settle ’im, eh! – but ’taint no use.”

“I want you to ‘ride’ a load of wood to the house. The ‘boys’ have gone off to a beer dance, and I’m short-handed. The wood is cut and shaped.”

“But I’m goin’ a fishin’. Lemme see. It’s full moon next week. Well I’ll come along.”

He coiled up his line, stowed it away in his skin bag, locked his door, and climbed in. Next morning the old chap went off with the wagon for the wood, and returned late at night. He had a peculiar way of humming to himself whenever he was pleased, and I caught the sound as he came in through the kitchen to the dining-room, where the evening meal was on the table. With a nod to me, he sat down to a hearty meal, then, filling his pipe, he leant back and laughed silently.

“Seen anything, Uncle?”

“I don’t know that I have seed anythin’ outer the common, but I’ve learnt somethin’ that’s given me a better understandin’ o’ the spread o’ kindness overlaying things.”

“What was that?”

“You know where the wood were stacked?”

I knew the place very well, for that brute of a tiger had killed a foal there only two days before, and I had directed Abe there in the hope that he would drop across its tracks.

The old man, still chuckling, went out of the room and returned with a long bamboo whip-stick, deprived, however, of the twenty-foot thong made from buffalo hide.

“What’s become of the thong?” I cried.

“That’s it. It’s on account of the missin’ thong that I’m telling you o’ this remarkable cirkumst’nce. There’s a clump o’ trees ’long side the path ’way over yonder, where the wood were stacked, an’ the thong flew off in the dusk o’ the evening thereabouts. You see there were a stick fas’, and when I lammed into the oxen that ere thong flew off – whizz! – whang! – into the dark o’ the trees. I lay the stick down an’ searched fer it up an’ down, in an’ out – the oxen standin’ there knockin’ their horns, an’ the stars poppin’ out. Well, I guv it up, an’ picked up the stick, an’ the thong came through my fingers.”

“You said the thong flew off.”

“So it did; but there it were fast on the stick – long, smooth, round, an’ taperin’ off inter a fine lash, as thick about the middle as my little finger, an’ as tough as steel.”

“I know it. You couldn’t match that thong in the Colony. But where is it?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ yer about. The thong flew off – whizz! – whang! – but when I picked the stick up, there it were. I jes’ stood there ponderin’ over the strangeness o’ this, when a breath o’ wind come up the valley with a sigh on it – one o’ those quiverin’, mysterious, solumnelly sounds that makes you look over yer shoulder an’ start at a shadder. ‘Hambaka – trek,’ I cried, an’ whirling the whip around, touched up the fore-leaders, then brought the forslag down on the achter ox. I told you them oxen had stuck fas’. Well! at the touch o’ the whip they jes’ laid their shoulders agin the yokes, an’, with a low groan, they yanked the wagon up that stiff bit – up an’ up, without a pause, to the level veld. I tell you, sonny, I never seed oxen lay themselves down like that span.”

“Where does the kindness come in?”

“Hole on. The tortoise gets to the end o’ his journey same as the hare, only samer. On the level I called to the oxen to whoa! – whoa! – whoa! – and, arter a time they whoa’d, tho’ somehow ’twas ag’inst their will. They were that active they could have trotted home – they could so. I lay down that whip an’ filled my pipe.”

“Yes?”

“Then I took the stick up, an’ the thong were gone agin.”

“What!”

“Clean gone, sonny! Clean gone!”

“Did it fly off?”

“No, sonny; it crawled off.”

“Crawled off?”

“That there thong were a whip-snake. It jes’ gripped on ter the bamboo with its jaws to help me outer that stick fas’, an’ when we got to the level it unhitched. It knew as well as I did the oxen didn’t want any more whip when the flat were reached, and it unhitched.”

“Uncle Abe Pike! Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I have my hopes, my lad. But when yer gets older you’ll get more faith. Why, man, an’ I yeared that snake move off. It give a sort o’ friendly hiss as it slid away thro’ the grass, an’ it cracked its tail in sport like a whip. The oxen yeared it, too, and they moved off ’thout waitin’ for my call. I tell you there’s a heap o’ goodness among animiles an’ reptiles, tho’ this is the fust time I ’xperienced the thoughtfulness o’ a snake. It jes’ snapped its tail – ker – rack – as it moved off.”

When the old man prepared himself for sleep I saw the lash off my whip projecting from the mouth of his skin bag.

Chapter Five

The Spook of the Hare

The next day was hot and drowsy, and old man Pike simply lazed around, with his smasher hat tilted over his eyes and his hands in his pockets. He could not, however, be tempted to roam any distance from the house, and he showed not the slightest curiosity about that fiend of a black tiger, which in the night had killed a goat belonging to one of the “boys.” The kill was made out of sheer lust of blood, for he had eaten nothing, the body being untouched, except for the festering marks about the throat I had the carcase brought up for Abe’s inspection, since he would not walk down to the kraal, and he held an inquest upon it, sitting on an upturned “vatje,” or small water barrel.

“That goat,” he drawled, “were killed!”

“There seems proof of it,” I said mildly.

“Yes, killed by a ole tiger.”

“Why old?”

“Well, you see, this yer goat died o’ a broken shoulder an’ shock – mostly shock. The tiger just patted the shoulder in his spring with the open paw. I see there are four scratches, an’ the hook of the dew claw over here, a span away from the fore claws. The middle an’ end scratch is shaller. Why? Cas the claws a been worn down. Now take these yer wounds in the throat. These two deep holes here’s where his fangs went in, but on the top side there’s jest the marks o’ his small teeth. The upper fangs is missing or worn down. Consekently, ’tis a ole tiger.”

“And you will catch the old tiger?”

“Not me! Bein’ ole, he’s cunnin’, an’ bein’ black, he’s naturelly fierce; and bein’ ole an’ black he’s more’n a match fer me. See that big blue fly? I swear there warn’t a blue fly around here ten minutes ago, an’ now there’s a whole cloud o’ ’em followin’ the track, an’ buzzin’ like a telegraph wire! Little things is like big ’uns. That there fly is like the first aasvogel sailin’ away from the limits o’ the sky on the taint of a dead ox, an’ behind him a whole string o’ vultures, with their wings outstretched like the sails of a ship, an’ ther bald heads bent down to spot the dead heap of corruption miles away below.”

I bade the Kaffir take away the dead goat which formed the principal dish at the feast that night and, getting my double-barrelled gun, whistled up the dogs, and went off on the spoor of the tiger, leaving Abe listlessly whittling at a stick.

The scent was good, and the dogs went on it still-mouthed, except for an occasional growl, and they led me through the large ostrich camp, over a ridge, across an open strip of veld, to a deep and dark kloof, where the trees grew so thick that underneath it was twilight in the glare of mid-day. The dogs went on, with bristling hair, into the heart of the kloof, when a singular thing happened. The shrill, piercing cry of a “dassie,” or rock coney, arose from out the deep silence, and the dogs stopping, howled dismally, then suddenly turned and slipped away, disappearing like shadows among the trees. The noise I knew must have aroused the tiger, but I pushed on cautiously, hoping to get a shot at him as he slunk off. I reached the krantz which rimmed in the kloof without sight of him, and, hunting around, found his lair, still warm in a small cave. Retracing my steps, I had almost reached the edge of the trees, when in the way lay the body of one of the dogs, an old and favourite buffalo dog of the mastiff breed, his throat torn, and the mark of claws on his shoulder and flank.

“It’s lucky for you,” said Abe when I reached home, “that it were the dog he took.”

“How do you know he got the dog?”

“You went out with five, an’ you come home with four, an’ a look on your face ’s if you’d seen a ghost. I’m gwine back in the mornin’.”

“You’re no friend of mine, Abe Pike, if you don’t help destroy that brute!”

“I seed the ole man baboon makin’ tracks for my place this arternoon – an’ mebbe that ther’ tiger would be quittin’ too.”

“Hang you and your baboon!”

“All serene, sonny – all serene. I’d rayther be hanged than ’ave my wizened open’d out by a blood-sucking four-footed witch. What happened in your hunt?” I told him curtly enough. “My gum! You believe me: that dassie cried out to warn the tiger. He were put there to watch while his master slep’.”

“Nonsense! His cry was an accident.”

“Soh! Then tell me why the dogs scooted. You don’t know! O’ course you don’t know. But I know. I’ve had ’xperience o’ the same thing. Animiles have got a sense which is missin’ from folk, or maybe lost for want of use, I don’t know which, tho’ myself I think it’s lost. What we call a presentment is the remains o’ that missin’ sense, an’ animiles is got the full sense. Those dogs knew the meanin’ o’ that dassie’s yell – that’s so.”

“And what was your experience?”

“It were all along o’ a spring hare hopping along in the night – without enough solid body to put a shot in. It were away back in the sixties, when I were younger nor I am now, an’ a sailor chap, knockin’ around doin’ odd jobs, happened across my house. He were a good-hearted critter, tho’ terrible lazy, ’xcept it were shootin’ spring hares at night by lamp-light, which came ’xpensive by reason of his usin’ up the oil an’ powder. Well, one night the wind came off the seas, bringing up a great stack of clouds, makin’ it that dark you couldn’t tell which were solid yearth an’ which were sky; but this sailor chap he would go out, an’ I had to go along to hold the lamp, he not bein’ keerful enough to carry it in the strap of his hat. Well, soon’s I got outer the door I knew there were somethin’ wrong. The black night were full o’ the roar o’ the surf breakin’ six miles away, an’ yet there were the same sort of shivery stillness you find in a great cave while the echoes are tossin’ about the sound of a dying shout. In the stillness behind the holler growl o’ the sea I could tell there were somethin’ watchful an’ bad. I wanted to turn back, but he yelled out he yeard the spring hare gruntin’, an’ I were obliged to foller him inter the black, with a sickly sort o’ fan-shaped light streaming from the lamp. ‘Hist!’ says he. I histed, an’ peering ahead seed a big bright eye glancing out o’ the dark, not mor’n twenty paces off – fer the lantern couldn’t throw a reflection farther than that. ‘Take him an inch below the eye,’ says I, an’ he let rip. We went forrard to pick the hare up, but he warn’t there – not a hair o’ him. The grunt o’ him come jest ahead agin – an’ steadyin’ the lamp, we caught his eye full an’ bright. ‘I’ll blow his head off,’ said the sailor chap, and taking a long aim, he banged off. There warn’t no dead spring hare. No, sonny; but while we gazed around his grunt come to us onct more. I took the ole gun an’ loaded her up. ‘You take the lantern,’ says I, ‘an’ lets stop this ’ere foolishness.’ A step or two we took, an’ sure enough that eye blazed out onct more. I jes’ knelt down under his arms, an’ taking full aim at the eye, was dead sure I had the long-tailed crittur, fer he sat still as a rock, an’ as onsuspicious as a tree trunk. An’ I missed him. His body warn’t there, but his grunt came jest as lively as ever. The sailor chap were laughing at me fer missin’, but Abe Pike warn’t doing no giggling. He smelt somethin’ onnatural.”

“You had been taking grog, perhaps, that evening?”

“Not a sup nor a sip. We stood there, he laughin’ and me listenin’ to the moan in the air, an’ lookin’ roun’ at the black wall o’ night ‘Blow me!’ says the sailor chap, ‘if the swab ain’t come back,’ an’ with that he took out his jack knife an’ flung it at the flamin’ eye, which had moved back inter the light from the lantern. That eye never winked, an’ it made me shiver. ‘Come on,’ says the sailor, ‘I’ll foller him to the devil,’ says he. ‘Foller him,’ says I, ‘but I’m goin’ back;’ and back I went; and he, not havin’ the lantern, had to come along too, which he did cheekin’ me the ole time. Well, before we’d gone a hundred paces, ther’ were that eye ahead, an’ he says, ‘Let us get nearer.’ We went closer, when all on a sudden that eye went out like a burnt match. Jes’ then I yeard a rustlin’ noise behind, an’ whipping roun’, saw there were a pair o’ sparkles shining green. He seed ’em too. ‘Don’t shoot,’ says I, ‘it’s a shadder.’ ‘Shadder be blowed,’ says he, ‘yer a ole fool.’ He were gettin’ ready to fire, when I gripped him by the arm, while the hair riz on my head, for I saw what was behind those green eyes. ‘Let me go,’ he says, hissin’ through his teeth. ‘If you fire,’ I says speakin’ solumn, ‘yere a dead man.’ ‘You’re silly,’ he says, pulling hard. ‘How can a little hare hurt me?’

“‘That hare,’ says I, ‘is a tiger.’”

“Was it?”

“You wait. You know’s well as I do a hare, by reason of his eyes bein’ wide apart, only shows one eye to the light, an’, moreover, he sits with his head sideways. Well, these two eyes, when I looked ag’in, were close together, an’ they gave a green light. ‘A tiger,’ says I, an’ with my hand on his arm we went back to the house. As I shut the door I yeared that grunt ag’in – an’ ag’in as we sat down listenin’. Well, that sailor chap, he warn’t satisfied. He must open the door an’ look out. ‘Come here,’ he says, an’ looking out over his shoulder there I seed that hare sitting up, an’ the light shining thro’ his body, ‘’Tis a white hare,’ he says. ‘It’s a sperrit,’ says I. ‘Sperrit or no sperrit,’ he says, snatchin’ the gun, ‘I lay him out!’ With that he stepped out into the darkness, an’ the lantern went out. Then it happened.”

“What happened?”

“Something ’twixt the sailor lad and the tiger. As I searched aroun’ fer a match I yeard the gun, there were a roar and a shriek, an’ when I got the light started an’ went out there were only his old hat an’ the gun. I’m not fooling with any o’ yer tigers that’s got sperrits watchin’ over ’em. I’m going home in the mornin’.”

Chapter Six

The Baboon and the Tortoise

I have referred to Bolo, an old Kaffir medicine man, who, on his professional tour round the country, always remained a day or two with Abe Pike, in his way, a great doctor with a valuable fund of information about the medicinal properties of plants and roots. Bolo turned up in the evening, fresh from a beer dance, and the manner of his coming was that of a ravenous lion. He charged down upon the house in the dusk, with his necklet bones rattling, the horsehair mane flying, and the bellow of his deep voice setting the dogs off into a fury of barking, up he came – leaping, bounding, hurling himself forward with in-creditable swiftness, whirling his knobbed kerrie, his eyes glaring and his features twitching, the dogs snapping around him – right up to the door, as if he meant to burst in and brain everyone he met. Then he stopped, smiled in a wide vacuous way, took snuff, and squatted down, while the dogs as suddenly ceased their clamour and walked sheepishly away.

“Well, you clatterin’ ole heathen,” said Abe, seating himself on the door-step, and shaving slices of tobacco against the ball of his thumb; “what mischief have you been up to?”

“Yoh,” said Bolo, resting his long arms on his knees; “I have heard tales of the black tiger and the white man’s fear. But my medicine has sent the black evil away back again to the big kloof.”

“To the kloof on my farm?”

“Eweh! Why not? The white man is a great medicine man. Has he not a familiar in the old baboon – who is the most cunning of familiars?”

“That’s so,” said Abe gravely; “the baboon is cunnin’, but he don’t know everything. Did I ever tell you the yarn o’ the baboon an’ the tortoise?”

“No. Fire away, Uncle.” He hitched himself up against the door-post and related his story in Kaffir for Bolo’s benefit, though I prefer to render it in English.

“The ole skelpot, one day hunting aroun’ nosed out a store o’ yearth nuts. He raked the yearth over an’ flatten’ it down, an’ he jes’ crawl aroun’ till the dry weather sot in, when he took’d up his quarters near the hidden store. One day he meet ole man baboon searching fer grubs. ‘Things is mighty dry,’ says the baboon. ‘Might be drier,’ says the skelpot. ‘Food is skerce,’ says the baboon. ‘Might be skercer,’ says the skelpot. ‘Ho! ho!’ says the baboon, mighty sharp, ‘you don’t seem to be troubled in your shell. There’s a shine on your shell, ole man skelpot,’ he says. ‘Shell shine when the stummick don’t pine,’ says the skelpot.”

“Er-umh!” grunted Bolo.

“‘Shell shine when the stummick don’t pine,’ said the skelpot. ‘Baugh,’ says the baboon, ‘p’raps you got some food, skelpot,’ says the baboon. ‘I’m gwine to sleep,’ says the skelpot, an’ he drew his head into his house, so the baboon couldn’t ask him any more questions.”

“Er-umh!” said Bolo, politely signifying his sustained interest.

“The ole man baboon he make sure the skelpot’s got some store o’ food, so he hid hisself in a tree an’ kep’ watch. There ain’t no hurry about a skelpot, an’ this yer skelpot he kep’ on sleepin’ all through the day, an’ the baboon got that hungry he were obliged ter gnaw the bark from the tree. But he jes’ kep’ on watchin’, an’ in the dusk he seed the skelpot pop out his head.”

“Er-umh!” said Bolo.

“Then the baboon climbed down softly, an’ when the skelpot move off, he follow’d. Arter a time the skelpot begin to scrape up the yearth, an’ the baboon look over his shoulder. He can’t see nothing, but he smelt the yearth nuts, an’ he makes a grab. ‘So! so!’ he says chuckling, ‘you got a fine pantry these dry times. Now you’ll have to go shares, or I’ll give the news out.’ Well, the skelpot he sees he were fairly caught, an’ so he take ole man baboon inter partnership, an’ the baboon show him where he’s ’ole is, though it were empty now.”

“Er-umh!” grunted Bolo.

“Well, the baboon got a bigger stummick than the skelpot, an it were not long afore he took two nuts to one; then he began ter take some away to his private ’ole in a Kaffir plum tree; then he break the agreement by taking three meals a day to the skelpot’s one.”

“Er-umh!” said Bolo.

“Well, about this time the skelpot smell’d out the baboon.”

“Eh-umh!” said Bolo.

“So he made a plan. He roll hisself in the mud, an’ crawl up near the store, where he draw his head in. Bymby ole man baboon come up, an arter takin’ some nuts, he sot down on ole skelpot to make his feast. ‘Poor ole skelpot,’ says the baboon, ‘three meals to his one, an’ a heap o’ nuts in my store ’ole by the ole ant-hill.’ ‘Too-loo-loo!’ says the skelpot. ‘What’s that noise?’ said the baboon. ‘Too-loo-loo!’ says the skelpot. ‘Hist!’ says the baboon, knockin’ his stummick. ‘Too-loo-loo!’ says the skelpot; then drawin’ in his breath he let it out ag’in, ‘Hiss! puff!’ like a great big snake. O’ coorse the baboon’s dead scared o’ snakes, an’ droppin’ the nuts he jest scooted fer the woods.”

“Er-umph!” said Bolo.

“He jest up an’ scooted fer the woods, an’ the skelpot arter eatin’ the nuts, he went back to the ’ole, scooped the yearth away, an’ crawled in. The baboon were very scared, but when the hunger come back he went for some more nuts. No sooner did he pop his hand in than the skelpot grab him by the little finger and hold on.”

“Eh! eh!” said Bolo.

“Grabbed him by ther little finger. The baboon nearly jumped outer his skin. ‘Who’s got hold o’ me?’ he yelled, but the skelpot he can’t talk, fer his mouth’s full. ‘Let me go!’ howled the baboon, an’ he pull and he pull, and bymby he draw the skelpot’s head outer the ’ole. Well, the skelpot he’s got a head like a puff-adder when yer don’t see his shell, an’ when the baboon see’d that yellow head glued onter his finger, he jest went green, and turned over in a fit. Bymby the baboon shivers, then he sot up. ‘Hiss! poof!’ says the skelpot, an’ the baboon lit out with a shriek, never to come back to that part ag’in. ‘Hiss! poof!’ says the skelpot, an’ the baboon lit out fer the nex’ country.”

Chapter Seven

The Jackal and the Wren

“Now, Bolo! let us hear something from you.”

The old Kaffir took a pinch of snuff, and began about the jackal and the netikee, the smallest of all South African birds, and a member of the wren family.

“The jackal one day was boasting. Said he, ‘When we go on the hunt all the animals are still. We – the lion and I – we rule the forest. When we growl the trees shiver, when we roar the earth shakes, when we strike the biggest goes down before us. Even the elephant turns out of our path.’ So he shook his tail and loped off to tell the lion that a fat eland was drinking at the vlei. Then up stood the lion, and crawled on his stomach to the shelter of a rock, while the jackal went round beyond. ‘Look out, eland,’ said the jackal; ‘here comes the lion.’ So the eland ran, and he ran straight for the lion, who rose through the air and broke the eland’s neck. The lion ate, and the jackal sat on his tail, licking his chops and whimpering. But the lion ate, and ate – first the hind legs, then the stomach, and the jackal ran up to take a bite. ‘Wait,’ grunted the lion, and the jackal sat on his tail and howled. Bymby the lion went off to the vlei to drink, and the jackal snap at the carcase, but before he gets a mouthful down swoop the ring crows and the aasvogels. ‘Away,’ said the jackal, ‘away – this food is mine and the lion’s.’