I.

_A HOME ON THE VELDT._

JACK TREBY loved to say that he was an English boy, although he had never seen the dear old mother country of which his father so often talked; for he was born among the wide South African plains, where through the parching summer the sun-rays burn like fire, where the dry leaves shrivel with the heat, and the flowers can only bloom in sheltered places. Yet he was the proudest and happiest of boys when his father stroked his curly head and called him a "true-born Briton."

For Jack was his father's all—his joy and treasure. In that wide, lonely plain they had but each other. Their nearest neighbour was a good twenty miles distant across country, and he was a Dutch Boer.

There was a Hottentot woman, with arms and face as yellow as a duck's bill, who lived in a hut at the other side of the farm-yard. She cooked the dinner and washed the shirts for Jack and his father. She was always ready to do anything she could to make them comfortable, if she only knew how. Jack called her "Old Tottie," or "Granny Golden-face," when he was in a roguish mood; for she had been very good and kind to him when he was left a little motherless boy.

Then there were the Kafir men, as black as ebony, with naked legs and arms, and just a dirty scarlet blanket twisted round their waists—handsome fellows, who came and worked for Jack's father every now and then; working diligently and well until they had earned money enough to buy a rifle or a new blanket, when they would throw down the spade and flail and go back to their own people.

Jack's father was not a rich man. He had not much money when he came out to Africa, so he bought his farm where farms were the cheapest—right out in the wilds. It was life in the rough. No wonder he kept his little boy always at his side. It made a man of Jack, for he learned many things in his long talks with his father which a boy of ten in England would know nothing about. Jack learned more in this way than he did from books; for his school-hour was the last hour at night, when his father's work was done, and when both of them were very often sleepy.

On one delightful summer evening, when the brilliant African moon poured down its floods of silvery light, Jack sat nodding on the door-step with a coloured map of England spread upon his knees. He was trying to rub the sleep out of his winking eyes with one hand, whilst with the forefinger of the other he tried to trace the boundaries of the English counties.

"York; chief town, York," he cried triumphantly. "But, father, what word is this?"

Jack ran off with his map to where his father sat smoking on a rough bench, in what should have been their garden, only there was so much work to be done on the farm and so few to do it that the garden was left to Jack and nature. A hedge of prickly pear kept the oxen from trampling over it. Jack's watering-pot encouraged one tall cactus to show its scarlet flowers, under the shadow of the broad eaves of the low thatched roof of the farm-house.

Jack's father nodded, and then roused himself with a smile to answer his son's inquiry. "That, Jack? Why, that's Nottingham—the very town where your grandfather still lives."

"I'll make a mark against it," said Jack. Dashing back into their one sitting-room for the pen and ink, he made a good round blotch right over the name.

"Well done," laughed his father. "So you think erasing it in your map will stamp it in your mind, my boy. Come, we are dead-beat to-night, and must give it up. Tomorrow we will have a good spell at the figures. So now to bed; the faster the better."

Jack gathered up his books and went indoors.

His little bedstead was an officer's camp-chair, which his father had picked up second-hand at the Cape. It stood just opposite the bedroom window, in the same room with his father's. Between them were the well-battered black travelling-chests his father had brought with him from England; and on the pegs over the head of his father's bed lay his rifle. Every night it was loaded and ready for use. Jack was often in the room alone with it; but then Jack could be trusted anywhere.

He said his prayers and tumbled into bed; but not to sleep, for his thoughts were busy with Nottingham and grandfather.

The house was only one story high, and the room had no ceiling. Jack could look between the rough wooden rafters right up into the thatch, and watch the bright eyes of the tarantula spiders as they crawled along the beams. He heard his father speaking to Tottie's husband, a white-haired Hottentot, who knew the ways of the country, and was by turns ploughman, shepherd, and house-servant.

"Sheep all right," he heard them say, and lifted up his curly head to look at the white walls of the sheepfold; for an African sheepfold has a stone wall all round it, and a good strong gate, which is safely locked at night-fall. Jack knew very well that this flock was his father's chief wealth. There was not much ploughing and sowing with so few hands to depend upon. The sheep were everything.

By-and-by his father came in, gave his little son his customary good-night kiss, and stretched himself on the truckle-bed in the other corner, to enjoy the sweet sleep of the labouring man. Jack was careful not to wake him.

The glorious splendour of the South African moon made the room as light as day, while all without was flooded with a silvery radiance, so beautiful that our little Jack felt more wide awake than ever. He was watching for the stars as they shone out one by one, so much larger and brighter than we in England have ever seen them.

Presently he saw something black on the wall of the sheepfold. He sat upright. It moved. He saw it fling out its long dark arms; and then another and another patch of black seemed crawling up behind it.

Suddenly it flashed into Jack's head,—

"'Whosoever climbeth up by the wall into the sheepfold, the same is a thief and a robber.'"

Out of bed he jumped, shouting, "Father! Father!" At the same moment, Jack's grand pet, the tame ostrich Vickel, set up a loud noisy scream.

Vickel, as Jack's father had often said, was as good a guard as a mastiff. She had been given to Jack when she was a three days' chicken, looking like a round ball of dirty yellow fluff, and he had fed her with his own hands every day; and now as she stretched out her long neck she seemed as tall as the porch. She was crying "Thief! thief!" in her bird fashion, as plainly as any English watch-dog would growl "Thief!" to his master.

Jack's father was out of bed in an instant, with his rifle in his hand, just as the last black figure dropped over the wall into the sheepfold. He fired his rifle into the air, hoping the sound of the report might scare away the thieves, and began to dress in all haste.

"Keep where you are, my boy," he said, "and on no account leave the house. Put the bar in the bedroom door as soon as I am gone. I'll shut Vickel in the outer room, and she'll keep everybody else from coming in. Be a brave boy, and just lie still until I return."

"I'll be as still as a mouse, father; but hadn't I better get into my jacket?" answered Jack.

"Yes, dress," returned his father; "only be still."

Mr. Treby reloaded his rifle and crept out.

Presently, Jack heard the brush of Vickel's wings as she made the tour of their sitting-room.

"Don't do mischief, Vickel," gasped Jack with a catch in his breath very suggestive of tears; but he choked them back with all his might.

He stood with his little hands clasped tightly together, watching through the window, yet not near enough to it to be seen from without.

He saw his father creep cautiously along, in the shadow of the farm-yard wall, towards the great open shed where the oxen were tethered, and saw him climb into the heavy broad-wheeled waggon, which was drawn under one end, to shelter it from the sun. Now that Mr. Treby was mounted in the waggon, where he could see and not be seen, Jack felt easier. He thought of his dying mother's words, "In every trouble, pray;" and kneeling down at the bedside, he whispered,—

"Save, Lord, or we perish—"

When the flash and report of his father's rifle seemed to shake the house. The oxen bellowed and tore the ground in their infuriated terror. Jack started to his feet and ran to the window.

"Maw wah!" groaned the old Hottentot, who was crouching under the eaves, and caught sight of Jack's pale face. "He'll take 'em as they come out," he whispered, making emphatic signs to the boy to go back.

Jack knew that he must not let himself be seen. He remembered his father's charge, and moved away! What happened next he could not tell. There was a shout of savage glee, a wild, unintelligible yell. Vickel screamed like mad. A sudden light without—a strange, oppressive heat—and then a dense smoke began to fill the room.

Jack dipped the towel in the water-jug and put it over his head, for bright red sparks began to fall between the rafters.

"Father! Father!" he shrieked, forgetting his promise to be still in this unthought-of danger.

The ostrich heard his piteous cry, and split the door between them with her powerful beak. Then Jack drew out the bar and let her in. She flew past him, and in her frantic efforts to escape dashed against the window, smashing glass and frame to atoms. Jack drove her with all speed through the flying splinters. She was almost out of the window, when the glare from the blaring roof so frightened her that she drew back with a scream. After wheeling round and round the room, Vickel tucked her head under her wing like a true ostrich, as if shutting her eyes to the danger she could no longer escape would save her.

Jack was so well used to Vickel's ways that he knew he could catch her now easily enough. He had seen his father throw a fishing-net over her and haul her off when she was doing mischief in the garden. He managed to pull the blanket off his bed and throw it over her; but his limbs were heavy, and he felt like one moving in a dream.

At last he heard his father calling, in an agony of desperation, "My boy! My boy! Heaven help me! Where's my boy?"

"Here, father, here," Jack tried to answer, but his voice sounded feeble and strange even in his own ears. Things were falling all around him. Lights were flashing, and confused noises rang in his head. He was going, going somewhere. Then the dreadful feeling of oppression lightened, and he knew that the strong arms which clasped him so tightly were his father's.

Something he murmured about getting a hood for Vickel, as his father lifted him through the broken window and gave him to the Hottentot.

Once in the open air, Jack began to revive. The Hottentot laid him under the garden hedge, and charging him not to cry, ran back to help his master.

Poor little Jack gazed at the blazing roof with a bewildered face, as his senses slowly returned to him. Suddenly it flashed upon his mind that his father was still in the burning house, and staggering to his feet, he tottered round the garden. He was just in time to see Vickel, who was still enveloped in the blanket, hauled out of the bedroom window, as if she had been a sack of wheat. Like himself, she was stupefied by the smoke, or it would not have been so easy to save her.

"Drag her away!" shouted his father, as one of the great black chests was hoisted into the opening.

The Hottentot tugged at the ends of the blanket. Down came the heavy chest with a thud, and Jack's father sprang on to the window-sill, with his face as black as a Kafir's and his shirt sleeves in a blaze. He threw himself on the ground and rolled over and over.

The Hottentot snatched the blanket from Vickel's head and wrapped it round his master. Between them the flames were soon extinguished; for Mr. Treby seized some heavy sods, that were lying in a heap where he had been digging the day before, and crushed the burning shirt beneath them, plunging his arms into the midst of the heap.

What could poor Jack be thinking of when he saw his father burrowing in the ground, and the Hottentot twisting the blanket round and round his shoulders, as if he were about to choke him? For he ran away!