The Triumph of Hilary Blachland Page 16

  CHAPTER THREE.

  BAYFIELD'S FARM.

  There is a rustling in the cover, faint at first, but drawing nearer.As it does so, the man with the gun, who has been squatting halfconcealed by a shrub in one corner of the little glade, picks himself upstealthily, noiselessly, and now widely on the alert. A fine bushbuckram leaps lightly into the open, and as its large protruding eye lightson this unusual object, its easy, graceful bound becomes a wild rush.Then the gun speaks. The beautiful animal sinks in his stride andfalls, a frantic, kicking heap, carried forward some six or eight yardsby the impetus of his pace. Twirling, twisting, now attempting to rise,and almost succeeding, then rolling back, but still fighting desperatelyfor life--the blood welling forth over his black hide where the deadly_loepers_ have penetrated--the stricken buck emits loud raucousbellowings of rage and fear and agony. But the man with the gun knowsbetter than to approach too near, knows well the power of those long,needle-pointed horns, and the tenacity of life contained within thebrain beneath them; knows well that a stricken bushbuck ram, with allthat life still in him, can become a terribly dangerous and formidableantagonist, and this is a very large and powerful unit of the species.

  The crash of the shot reverberates, roaring from the overhangingkrantz--dislodging a cloud of spreuws from its rocky ledges. These darthither and thither, whistling and chattering, their shrill din minglingwith the bellowings of the wounded buck. But upon this arises anotherdin and it is that of canine throats. Two great rough-haired dogs leapforth into the glade, following upon the line taken by the buck. Thenensues a desperate game. The stricken animal, summoning all hisremaining strength to meet these new foes, staggers to his feet, and,with head lowered and menacing, it seems that no power on earth can staythe foremost of the dogs from receiving the full length of thesefourteen-inch horns in his onward rush. These, however, are no puppies,but old, well-seasoned dogs, thoroughly accustomed to bush-hunting.Wonderfully quick are they in their movements as, just avoiding eachdeadly thrust, they leap, snapping and snarling, round their quarry--until one, seeing his chance, seizes the latter just below the haunch insuch fashion as promptly to hamstring him. The game antelope is donefor now. Weakened, too, by the jets of blood spurting from his wounds,he totters and falls. The fight is over.

  With it the man with the gun has deemed it sound policy not tointerfere. To encourage the dogs would render them too eager--at theexpense of their judgment--and to fire a second shot would be seriouslyto imperil them. Besides, he is interested in this not so veryill-matched combat. Now, however, it is time to call them off.

  To call is one thing, but to be obeyed is quite another. The two greatdogs, excited and savage, are snarling and worrying at the carcase oftheir now vanquished enemy--and the first attempt to enforce the orderis met with a very menacing and determined growl, for this man is nottheir master. Wisely he desists.

  "Confound it, they'll tear that fine skin to ribbons!" he soliloquisesdisgustedly. Then--"Oh, there you are, Bayfield. Man, call thosebrutes off. They don't care a damn for me."

  A horseman has dashed into the glade. He, too, carries a gun, but in atrice he has torn a _reim_ from the D. of his saddle, and is lashing andcursing with a will among the excited hounds. These draw off, stillsnarling savagely, for he is their master.

  "_Magtig_! Blachland, but you're in luck's way!" he exclaimed. "That'sthe finest ram that's been shot here for the last five years. Welldone! I believe it's the same one I drove right over that Britisherlast month, and he missed it clean with both barrels. That young fellowstopping with Earle."

  "Who's he? A jackaroo?"

  "No. A visitor. I don't know who he is. By the way, I must take youover to Earle's one of these days. He's got a good bit of shoot. Lookhere, Jafta," turning to a yellow-skinned Hottentot, also mounted, whohad just arrived on the scene, "Baas Blachland has shot our biggestbushbuck ram at last."

  "Ja. That is true, Baas," grinned the fellow, who was Bayfield'safter-rider, inspecting the edge of his knife preparatory to thenecessary disembowelling and loading up of the quarry.

  "We may as well be getting along," said Bayfield. "Jafta, go and fetchBaas Blachland's horse."

  "I thought an up-country man like you would turn up his nose at ourhunting, Blachland," said Bayfield as they rode along. "But what youcan't turn up your nose at is our air--eh? Why, you're looking twicethe man you were a fortnight ago even. I suppose that infernal fever'snot easily shaken off."

  "It's the very devil to shake off, but if anything will do it, thiswill." And the speaker glanced around with a feeling of complete andrestful enjoyment.

  The kloof they were threading afforded in itself a noble and romanticscene. Great krantzes soaring up to the unclouded blue, walls of redironstone gleaming like bronze in the sun-rays--or, in tier upon tier,peeping forth from festoons of creeper and anchored tree and spiky aloe.Yonder a sweep of spur on the one hand, like a combing wave of tossingtumbling foliage, on the other a mighty cliff, forming a portal beyondwhich was glimpsed a round, rolling summit, high above in the distance--but everywhere foliage, its many shades of green relieved here and thereby the scarlet and pink of the wild geranium, the light blue of theplumbago, and half a dozen other splashes of colour, bright andharmonising; aglow, too, with the glancing of brilliant-winged birds,tuneful with their melodious piping and the murmuring hum of bees. Andthe air--strong, clear, exhilarating, such as never could be mistakenfor the enervating steaminess of up-country heat--for the place was at agood elevation, and in one of the settled parts of the Cape Colony.

  Gazing around upon all this, Hilary Blachland seemed to be drinking innew draughts of life. The bout of fever, in the throes of which we lastsaw him lying, helpless and alone, had proved to be an exceptionallysharp one; indeed, but for the accident of Sybrandt happening alongalmost immediately after the Matabele raid, the tidings of which hadreached England, as we have seen--it is probable that a fataltermination might have ensued. But Sybrandt had tended him with devotedand loyal _camaraderie_, and when sufficiently restored, he had decidedto sell off everything and clear out. "You'll come back again,Blachland," Sybrandt had said. "Mark my words, you'll come back again.We all do." And he had answered that perhaps he would, but not just yetawhile.

  He had gone down country to the seaside, but the heat at Durban was sogreat at the time of year as to counteract the beneficial effect of thesea air. Then he had bethought himself of George Bayfield, a man he hadknown previously and liked, and who had more than once pressed him topay him a visit at his farm in the Eastern Province. And now, here hewas.

  A great feeling of restfulness and self-gratulation was upon him. Hewas free once more, free for a fresh clean start. The sequence of hisfoolishness, which had hung around his neck like a millstone, for years,had been removed, had suddenly fallen off like a load. For he had cometo see things clearer now. His character had changed and hardenedduring that interval, and he had come to realise that hitherto, hisviews of life, and his way of treating its conditions, had been verymuch those of a fool.

  George Bayfield had received him with a very warm welcome. He was acolonial man, and had never been out of his native land, yet contrastingthem as they stood together it was Blachland who looked the harder andmore weather-beaten of the two, so thorough an acclimatising process hadhis up-country wanderings proved. Bayfield was a man just the wrongside of fifty, and a widower. Two of his boys were away from home, andat that time his household consisted of a small son of eleven, and adaughter--of whom more anon.

  The kloof opened out into a wide open valley, covered mainly withrhenoster brush and a sprinkling of larger shrubs in clumps. From thisvalley on either side, opened lateral kloofs, similar to the one fromwhich they had just emerged, kloofs dark with forest and tangledthickets, very nurseries for tiger and wild-dogs, Bayfield declared--butthey had the compensating element of affording good sport whenever hewanted to go out and shoot a bushbuck or two--as in the present case.Hi
s boundary lines ran right along the high _rand_ which shut in thebroad valley on either side, and the farm was an excellent one for sheepand ostriches. In fact the valley portion of it was a perfect networkof wire fencing, and in their respective "camps" the great black bipedsstalked to and fro, uttering their truculent boom, or lazily picking atthe aromatic grasses, which constituted their natural and aboriginalfood. And the name of the place was Lannercost.

  "These confounded ostriches spoil half the shooting on the place, and,for the matter of that, anywhere," remarked Bayfield, as they ambledalong through one of the large camps, where one exceptionally fiercebird hung about their flank, only kept from a nearer approach by thepresence of the two dogs. "You flush a covey of partridges or a bigtroop of guinea-fowl, and away they go and squat in complete securityunder the wing of some particularly `kwai' bird in the next camp. It'sbeastly tantalising. Ever shot any wild ostriches up-country,Blachland?"

  "Yes, on two occasions--and I enjoyed it for that very reason. I washeld up once on top of a rail for nearly two hours besieged on each sideby an infuriated tame one. Had to wait until dark to get down. So yousee it was a kind of poetic justice to turn the tables on the wildones."

  "Rather. These are good game preservers though, in that they keep theniggers from killing the small bucks in the camps. Look at those fewspringbuck I'm trying to preserve. They'd all have been killed off ifit wasn't for the `kwai' birds in the camp. By George! the sun'll bedown before we get home. That isn't good for a man with fever still inhis system at this time of year."

  "Oh, that's no matter. I'm a good deal too tough."

  "Don't you be so sure about that. We'd better push the nags on a bit."

  The house stood at the head of the valley, and had been growing largerand larger as they drew near. The sun was dropping, and that wondrouslybeautiful glow which heralds his departure from the vivid, clear SouthAfrican day was upon the surroundings, softening, toning everything.Hundreds of doves cooed melodiously from the sprays, and as they passedthrough a gateway, ascending a winding path between high quince hedges,clouds of twittering finks and long-tailed mouse-birds scattered with awhirr on either side of the way. Spreuws, too, whistling among the tallfig-trees in the orchard, helped to swell the chorus of Nature'sevensong.

  "There are a sight too many of these small birds," observed Bayfield."They want keeping down. Sonny's getting lazy with that air-gun of his.They'll play the mischief with the garden if he gives them much morerope. There he is, the _schepsel_. Hi! Sonny!" he called out, as agood-looking boy came down the path to meet them. "Why don't you thinoff some of these birds? Look at 'em all. No one would think you'd gotan air-gun and half a dozen catapults."

  "The gun's out of order, father," answered the boy.

  "It's always getting out of order. Those air-guns are frauds. Where'sLyn?"

  "She was about just now. We watched you from beyond the third gate.There she is."

  Following his gaze they descried a white-clad feminine form in front ofthe house, which they were now very near.