XIV.

_LOST ON THE VELDT._

THE glories of an African sunset were adding a more than usual radiance to sand and sky. Mr. Treby urged on his weary oxen as he came within sight of Jaarsveldt, with its long range of low farm-buildings and smiling orchard.

The Kafir guide he had engaged to accompany him on his homeward route was calling to the oxen.

Jack's father had had a most successful journey. He was returning with money in his pocket and a loaded waggon. Wilton, the postman, who had been the first to speak a word of sympathy on the morning after the fire, had not let his sympathy end in words. He had crossed Mr. Treby on the road as the mail went back to Natal, and had lent him money enough to rebuild the house; for the postman, receiving his regular pay from Government, had more actual money in reserve than Mr. Treby's other neighbours.

Mr. Treby had accepted the loan at once, for he knew his aged father in England would help him to repay it. So all his plans were changed. The diamond-digging was given up; his waggon was bringing back beams and roofing, doors and windows—in fact, a skeleton house. The helping hand so unexpectedly stretched out had cheered his heart. As he drove up to Jaarsveldt, the "oom" was standing by the open gate. He turned away his head at the sight of his English neighbour.

"Where is Jack?" was the father's first inquiry as his eyes looked eagerly round, hoping to catch sight of his boy.

The Kafir groom was hurrying to assist in the out-spanning of the oxen. All were running to welcome him; and yet, and yet, every face was averted. Van Immerseel wrung his hand with a heartiness which threatened dislocation of every joint, and groaned.

"Where is my boy?" repeated Mr. Treby, growing cold with fear.

The sturdy Dutchman paused blankly, then slowly pointed across the shadowy veldt. Somewhat re-assured, Mr. Treby entered the house. Tante Milligen's ruddy face grew white at the sight of their English neighbour. Genderen crept behind the door. The evening meal was preparing. With an added warmth of hospitality, the "tante" forced him into the "oom's" big chair, and began to drive about her maids as if nothing their plentiful household afforded could be good enough to set before their guest.

During his brief absence, Mr. Treby had made a point of adding to his Dutch vocabulary at every chance. He thought he had learned a good deal, but, strange to say, no one at Jaarsveldt seemed to understand a single word. In his despair, he asked for Otto.

"Jah, jah," repeated Van Immerseel, and a messenger was despatched for the shepherd.

Mr. Treby concluded his Jack was away with the young Immerseels, for neither Walt nor Zyl was visible. A little comforted by this idea, he began his supper with the appetite of a hunter; but it suddenly failed him when Otto entered. The German's face was livid with conflicting feelings, as he assured the anxious father that Van Immerseel and all his family had been kindness itself to the boy, but the ungrateful young dog had run away and never been heard of since.

"My Jack!" exclaimed Mr. Treby, in tones of bitter anguish, as he pictured his boy dying of hunger in that vast sandy wilderness. "O God what men are these, to have kept my sordid pelf and lost my child!"

The silent Dutchman met the agonized reproach in his tear-blinded eyes with a look of stolid compassion, as he directed the shepherd to tell him they had just returned from a fruitless search, and that Walt was still scouring the veldt in another direction with his dogs and the Kafir groom. They had done everything they could to find the child, but in vain.

Mr. Treby turned away his head, but he could not hide the quiver of anguish he was struggling to control. Tante Milligen rocked herself backwards and forwards; her husband rose from his seat and stood beside the unhappy father.

They knew they had acted generously and hospitably to the Englishman and his child, and they saw his heart was bursting with reproach and blame. Poor fellow! He was wild with grief! The "oom" would rather have faced an angry elephant in his lair than own to that doting father that they had lost his child.

"No more dread of you supplanting me," thought Otto as he looked from one to the other, and tried, by his covert insinuations on either hand, to turn grief into anger. He thought he should find it easy work to set the Dutch and English by the ears; and he might have succeeded, had it not been for little Sannie.

She had been laid to sleep in her usual corner, but the entrance of Mr. Treby had roused her. For a while she sat up and listened unnoticed by any one. Then she got up slowly, and walking deliberately to Mr. Treby she struck him on the knee, exclaiming in tones of severe reproach that at any other time would have made them all laugh,—

"'Ou big baby! 'Ou cry! 'Ou go look for poor Jock Trairbee. Sannie 'll be your voorlooper."

Away she trotted to the open door. Otto thought to fetch her back, but she fought him off, asserting,—

"Me won't have 'ou. 'Ou hate Jock Trairbee. 'Ou do that at him," she persisted, imitating the scowl and the menacing gesture of the shepherd. "'Ou don't want to find him; 'ou stay there."

Tante Milligen repeated the imperious command of her youngest born.

And Otto resumed his seat, refusing to notice the idle prattle of a child. But no one echoed his laugh.

"God bless the baby! She speaks more sense than any of us," muttered her father.

As drowning men catch at straws, Mr. Treby exclaimed, "That child knows something; let us follow her."

"Ridiculous!" cried Otto.

"But it is true," retorted Genderen.

The two fathers went out.

Otto would have followed; but Tante Milligen, who was a formidable woman when she was roused, being six feet high, and broad and strong in proportion, took the German by the shoulders and turned him round. But all her cross-questioning failed to elicit more than that the English boy had been impertinent and Otto cross. Yet no one was satisfied.

Sannie met her brothers at the gate. Their jaded horses told of the many miles of sand which had been traversed. Weary as they were, no one thought of rest. "Search" was the word with them all. Walt, who had taken Jack under his protection from the first, refused to give up hope. Van Immerseel took Sannie in his arms, and leading Zyl aside, questioned him about Otto's behaviour to Jack.

Zyl remembered the morning when they visited the shepherd's hut.

"But," persisted Sannie, "it was Jock Trairbee's own knife. Me know it was. He cut my beauty letters."

"Run into the house, Zyl, and tell your mother not to let the shepherd stir from the sit-kamé until I come back," said Van Immerseel, as he strode off in his high-handed fashion to search the shepherd's hut.

The knife lay upon the shelf, as the children had said. Mr. Treby knew it in a moment. After that night, Otto's dismissal was sure; but they were no nearer finding Jack.

All this did not take place unnoticed by the Kafirs about the farm. With their acute power of observation on the alert, they were soon aware that the German shepherd was suspected of having a hand in Jack's disappearance. The little gifts which Mr. Treby had scattered among them the night before his departure were not forgotten, and many a dark brow scowled upon Otto. But in spite of Van Immerseel's threats and Mr. Treby's entreaties, Otto refused to give any account of his quarrel with Jack; and still the fruitless search went on.

Jack had not gone home—that alone was certain. Van Immerseel had sent over to the ruined farm directly the boy was missed. Seco and Tottie had been on the lookout ever since. Mr. Treby never doubted Jack had lost himself trying to find his way to his old home, and therefore, like Van Immerseel, began his search in that direction.

One night, when they returned utterly disheartened, the Kafir groom walked up to the heart-broken father with a hat under one arm and a pair of boots under the other.

"Inkoos! Casa! (master and chief)," said his countryman the guide, turning to Mr. Treby, "this man tells you to look for your child here." Then he went on to explain how the big bird bellowed one night like a bull, and the shepherd's hat was found at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft where Jack had slept, and the shepherd's boots hidden in the straw.

Mr. Treby was distracted when Tante Milligen herself added her experiences to the mystery of that night, and how Jack tried to make her understand he dare not sleep alone again.

How was Mr. Treby ever to find out the truth about his lost darling amidst a confusion of tongues he could not understand? Ah, but if he could not comprehend the jargon around him, Seco would; so he determined to start at once and fetch the trusty old Hottentot to his aid. What would he have given for one sympathizing countryman? He thought perhaps the reckless young schoolmaster would be coming again. But no; Tante Milligen had sent a message to delay him. She was not going to pay for nothing; and what could the children learn while their hearts were aching for their lost companion?

Mr. Treby bought a horse of Van Immerseel, and started on his homeward road. He felt as if he had grown to be all ear and eye as he trotted across the lonely veldt. When he drew near the blackened ash-heap that had been his home, he said that the joy of his life was quenched beneath it, and his tears, when there was no eye but God's to watch him, rained freely down. But hark! There was a sound—a deep, hoarse boom. Surely he knew it.

"Vic! Vic! Vic!" he shouted, spurring his horse forward in the direction from whence it came. Out ran Tottie from her tumble-down hut; up sprang Seco from the mat where he was dozing. They had all heard it.

"'Tis as I said," he exclaimed; "the ostrich is drawing home."

He caught up a calabash of mealies, out of which Vickel had so often been fed, and scanning the vast distance, where sand and sky melted into one, he shouted joyfully. There was something moving on the veldt, like a small gray cloud at first, but gradually shaping itself into outstretched wings.

Mr. Treby got off his horse, and tied it to a shrub of prickly pear, for fear it should scare away the returning bird.

Nearer and nearer still it came, louder and louder grew the master's call. The three stood breathless, afraid of driving back the vagrant bird if they continued running towards it. But what was Mr. Treby's dismay to perceive a grinning Kafir face peering over Vickel's shoulder.

When a wild cry of "Father! Father!" echoed through the evening stillness.

"Jack! Jack!" responded Mr. Treby, darting forward like an arrow from a bow; but Seco, exerting all the speed of a wild hunter, outran him, and placing the calabash full in Vickel's sight, brought her to a standstill. Mr. Treby saw nothing but a little sun-burnt skeleton stretching its arms towards him. Could that be his Jack—his handsome Jack?

Another moment, and bird and child and Kafir were caught in a grasp so tight, Jack could only gasp out, "Father, she has saved me."

For Seco had seized upon a large stone to hurl at the poor blackie's head, believing she had stolen their darling to make "mouti" (medicine) from his heart and brain, according to their wild Kafir ways.

But at Mr. Treby's word the stone rolled back upon the ground. Between them the two men guided Vickel home, while Jack poured out his story to their delighted ears.

"I only wanted to post my letter, father; but somehow I could not get back," he pleaded piteously.

"Jack," retorted Mr. Treby, "how could you, how dare you, run so great a risk? Hadn't I charged you to take care of yourself, my boy? Don't you know you are my very life, my precious boy? You've had a hair's-breadth escape." And at the thought of all the perils his child had undergone, a sort of sob choked his words. A huge hug finished all he meant to say, and drowned Jack's promises.

"Father dear, I will take care, only you see—"

And Mr. Treby did see, thinking in his fatherly pride and joy his boy was just the bravest and the best in all the world. "Only, Jack, you must learn to consider the consequences. Think of all we have gone through just think."

Jack did think; and truly his best way was to tell his father all straight and clearly as it happened. Mr. Treby's eyes flashed fire as he heard how Otto had treated his boy; but he never uttered a word to interrupt him, until Vickel tucked her long head under her master's arm, and looked up in his face with her beautiful eyes, as if she said, "I've brought him safely home."

Mr. Treby's head went lower and lower. Jack really thought he kissed his snowy queen. He was sure his father muttered, "Yes, yes, you've been his guardian angel—saved and fed him."

"Yes, father; but I'm so sorry we've eaten all Vic's eggs, but the poor Black Antelope was so hungry."

Then Mr. Treby turned and grasped the skinny black fingers, trying to make the poor runaway understand she should always find in him a protector and a friend.

By this time they had reached the hut, and he left her to Tottie's care, telling the old Hottentot to find out, if she could, how he should best reward and serve the luckless girl.

"Buy her," said Tottie coolly.

Mr. Treby threw up his hands in despair. "God help us!" he exclaimed. "See what it is to live among savages. Just hear her, 'asking' an Englishman to buy human flesh and blood."

"But you won't send her back to Van Immerseel, father?" entreated Jack.

"There is not anything that I possess that I would not freely give her at this moment, and think it all too small, for I am very sure I owe your life to her and Vickel. But Englishmen make no slaves, my boy. Well, well, I shall have to do it though—buy her, and give her her freedom; that must be it. And then we can't turn her adrift on the veldt; we must hire her for a while, and then we'll see what more we can do."

"That we will, father," cried Jack, with brightening eyes, as they all sat down under the garden hedge.

Seco had gone to his hut for milk and fruit for the famished travellers.

"'For this my son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found,'" said Mr. Treby reverently. "Trouble springs up thick and fast," he went on, with Jack's head resting on his shoulder; "but trace it home, it is all of man's making, and we should be crushed beneath its weight if there were not One above over-ruling all, and more ready to help us in our hour of need than we to ask."

"But I did ask, father," whispered Jack; "and I think the Lord heard me."

"Never doubt it, my boy. Prayer is the ladder which reaches up to heaven, and it is always ours.

"'It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.'

"It was just that thought kept me up when my heart was breaking for you; and now—and now—Well, I have only to pour it out in thanksgiving."

"Both of us together, father," murmured the happy boy, as his eyes feasted on every dear familiar object the fire had spared.