VII.

_THE BLACK ANTELOPE._

THE evening darkened into night, but Jack's father did not return. Tante Milligen had sent her Kafir maid to look for Jack, and when she heard he was asleep in his father's waggon, she thought it best to leave him there. But the kind-hearted Black Antelope was troubled, for his restless sleep convinced her the fever was upon him. She had washed his sooty clothes for pure love of his fair English face, and laid them by him in the waggon.

Among the few trifles which had been saved from the fire was Mr. Treby's drinking-flask, which was in the pocket of his coat, but had not been destroyed with it. Before he departed, he had filled it with water for Jack's benefit, and left it, with the remains of the dinner Tottie had provided, by the sleeping child. Jack could not touch the bone of cold mutton or the crust of bread, but he drank the water. He fell asleep with the flask in his hands. It had been a keepsake from an English friend, and Mr. Treby's name was engraved upon the silver stopper.

The night was intensely hot, and the moon was near the full. The light of the lamp still streamed through the half-open door of the sit-kamé, where Tante Milligen was awaiting the return of her husband and son. Most of the Kafir servants had been dismissed to their huts for the night.

Sandford Algarkirke, preferring the company of the fireflies to the conversation of the Boeress, had retreated to the orange grove, where he too was listening for the first sound of the horses' feet. But they were scarcely audible, for the weary travellers rode slowly over the sandy veldt, and were within sight of the farm before any one at home was aware of their presence.

The Black Antelope had just paid her last visit to the fever-stricken child. She found him trying to drain another drop from the now empty flask. She took it from him, intending to refill it, and was stepping out of the waggon with it in her hand when the "oom" rode up.

In that brilliant moonlight he saw the silver-mounted flask in the black girl's hand as clearly as if it had been noonday, and so did Mr. Treby, who rode beside him. Believing she had stolen it from the waggon, the Boer leaped from his horse and struck her such a blow with his clenched fist that she lay moaning on the ground.

"Bread of mine was never yet broken by a thief, and never shall be!" he exclaimed indignantly, snatching the flask from her unresisting hand and returning it to Mr. Treby.

The gate of Jaarsveldt was flung open as Tante Milligen and the schoolmaster ran out to ascertain the cause of the commotion. The rest of the party spurred forward; but amidst the stamping of hoofs and the neighing of horses, the Boer's stentorian voice was heard denouncing the guilty hand that dared to touch the Englishman's goods in his absence.

"What is he saying?" asked Jack's father in an anxious aside to the German Otto.

The shepherd translated his master's words, adding, "Your things are safe enough under Van Immerseel's protection."

"Jah! Jah!" cried Walt, who was standing behind them. "We'll show you in the morning how we punish a thief at Jaarsveldt. Such gentry, be their colour what it may, had better not come here."

The noise had effectually roused poor Jack from his feverish sleep. He saw the Black Antelope, who had been so kind to him all day, staggering to her feet but he saw his father in the group, and scrambling out of the waggon, he rushed to him, gasping, "Don't let them hurt her, father dear! Oh, don't! Don't!" For the Boer had doubled up his gigantic fist to deal a second blow.

Mr. Treby stepped forward and caught Van Immerseel's arm, expressing his heartfelt thanks for his timely intervention, yet adding a plea for mercy to the delinquent.

The Kafir girl cast one loving look of gratitude on Jack, and slunk away into the shadows.

Tante Milligen, with her arms akimbo, was warmly applauding her husband's conduct.

Sandford Algarkirke had drawn back into the garden. He held the gate in his hand, and was listening attentively to every word.

"Please, sir," cried Jack excitedly, "you can make these people understand. Do come and tell them the poor Kafir girl only went to fetch me some more water. I am sure she did not mean to steal the flask."

"Then say so," was the brief reply; "but do not drag me into the matter."

"Of course I would, if I could speak their Dutch. I ought, I must; but they do not know what I am saying, so it is of no use. But you can explain it; and if you do not, they will beat her dreadfully," urged Jack. "We must not let the innocent suffer. It is not right, Mr. Algarkirke."

"Come along, then," returned the young schoolmaster, and taking Jack's hand he led him into the house, where the travellers were already seated round the supper-table.

"This little fellow has asked me to be his interpreter," said Algarkirke as he repeated Jack's assertion.

But the burly Dutchman only laughed.

"Say no more now, Jack," interposed his father, making room for his boy beside him. "Circumstances are very much against her."

"And circumstances weigh so heavily when you have only innocence without proof to balance them in the other scale; but she is happy to have even a child like you to believe in her," added the young schoolmaster, with a bitterness that made Jack's father think,—

"Some personal experience, something in your own life, gave its sting to that remark."

"She will never pilfer again," remarked Walt; "she is too true a Kafir for that. There is the dog-nature in them all—just the same sort of fidelity, and all that." So the talk ran on, and in the discussions over more important matters the Black Antelope was forgotten by all but Jack and the schoolmaster.

The sheep-tracks had been carefully traced, but they did not lead to the district of the free Kafirs in the valleys among the rocks. Mr. Treby began to think his Tottie was right in her estimate of the thieves. But the scare had spread through the whole district. The police would be here in the morning and until they had investigated the matter, watch must be kept, for fear the aggressors should return and attack another of the lonely farms which dotted the sandy waste.

Mr. Treby had encountered his white-haired Hottentot Seco returning. He brought him word that the new settler at Scarsdorp found the wild life in that vast karroo too rough for his taste, and had previously decided to change his sheep-farm and try tobacco-growing in Natal. The news which Seco carried made him hasten his departure all he could. He would "trek" at once (as the African settlers say when they move, using the old Dutch word their neighbours the Boers have made familiar throughout the district), if he could buy or hire another waggon to carry the rest of his goods.

Mr. Treby caught at the opportunity this offered him to retrieve his fortunes. He decided to place his waggon and oxen at his neighbour's service. For this he would receive a good round sum. He would drive it himself; and when he had delivered the goods, he must start for Kimberley and dig for diamonds, until he had gained money enough to rebuild his house and stock his farm. Van Immerseel was ready to hire his pasture for the rest of the season, and pay him on his return—not with money, but with sheep.

Jack, of course, would go with him, for he could work with him at the diamond diggings. Jack could manage a sieve; his young eyes would be as sharp as his own to pick out the sparkling diamonds as he sifted the loosened earth in which they were embedded. The journey would give his burned arm time to recover its natural strength, before he shouldered mattock and spade among the crowds of busy workers at the Kimberley diggings.

Such were the plans that Mr. Treby was revolving, as he did justice to the cold mutton and steaming coffee Tante Milligen had provided for the travellers.

"It is chancey work at the diamond mines," remarked the "oom." "A fellow may dig for weeks and get nothing but dirt for his pains; or he may make his fortune in a day."

"I can only try," answered Jack's father; "and with God's blessing I may pull round before another year."

How the young schoolmaster listened, as if he longed to follow his example.

Otto had been to Kimberley, and he described the giant circle, where the diamonds were to be found. So much earth had been already scooped away that he could liken it to nothing but an enormous basin, filled with men of all colours, grubbing in the earth like human ants. He spoke of its ceaseless toil and its uncertain gains.

But Mr. Treby still repeated, "I can only try. Hard work won't frighten me."

It was the look on Jack's face that was frightening him. He saw the feverish flush and the glittering eyes, and felt him shiver as the child crept closer and closer to his side.

"What is the matter, my boy?" he whispered.

But Jack did not reply. The group of rough, bearded men hastily snatching a supper seemed to him no better than the unreal phantoms of a troubled dream. Tante Milligen's broad, quaint figure, with her bare arms and borderless cap, seemed everywhere. The talk of dangers and daring thrilled through his over-excited brain; and then, worse than all, the great trap-door in the ceiling over his head appeared to open and shut of itself. The plum-stones which studded the floor seemed to dance before his eyes, until he hardly knew where he was. But his father's arm was around him, and to that he clung desperately.

When he came to himself, his father was pouring something down his throat from a cow's horn; Tante held a candle in her hand, and was saying something in Dutch. Jack caught the oft-repeated word "slaap-kamé" (sleep-chamber). At last she opened the door into one of the side rooms, which Jack could distinguish the curtains of a huge four-post bed. The room felt hot and stifling as his father carried him in and laid him down upon the softest pillow Jack had ever known. Tante Milligen stuck the candle she carried somewhere in the wall.

"There is no sleep for me to-night," said Jack's father. "I do not expect any disturbance; but come what may, I can keep watch within doors."

"And I shall share your vigil," interposed the schoolmaster; "so your little boy can occupy this room (where I was to have slept) undisturbed. Don't say no, for a dash of adventure has all imaginable charms for me."

According to Dutch fashion, every breath of air was carefully excluded from the room, so Mr. Treby set the door ajar, and the light from the lamp on the supper-table streamed across the floor.

An old Hottentot woman, with her shrivelled, yellow hand, brought a cool leaf to lay on Jack's forehead, and muttered something over him like a charm.

Tante Milligen herself fetched a pitcher of herbal tea, and then, with many maternal shakings of her head and sundry commiserative sounds, departed to her own slaap-kamé on the other side of the great room, into which all the doors of the house seemed to open, for the Boer's house was but one story high. There were lofts in the roof, where stores were kept, but these were reached by a wooden ladder outside the house, or through the trap-door which had had so large a share in Jack's delirious fancies.

He could have slept now, poor boy, but for the snoring duet that was kept up by the little sisters on the other side of the wall.

The Kafir servants, who had been playing scout all day by turns, came in to report that all was quiet. Walt decided to go with Otto to his hut by the sheep-kraals, as on the preceding night. Van Immerseel was persuaded to lie down on his bed; but he would not undress so that he could be roused at a moment's notice.

Walt looked in at Mr. Treby before he departed. They showed each other their loaded rifles, and nodded significantly, as if to say, "We are ready." Otto, who had followed, stooped down and picked up something from the floor.

"My knife!" cried Jack, starting upright.

"All right," said his father, laying him gently upon the pillows again.

The German backed into the outer room.

Thinking the entrance of the young men disturbed his Jack, Mr. Treby followed his example, and taking Walt by the arm, went out also.

Swarms of those hard-winged, spotted flies danced round and round the candle, until they stuck fast in the burning tallow. A menacing mosquito buzzed in the curtains of the bed, and banished Jack's last chance of sleep.

At last the house grew still. Mr. Treby set the door of Jack's room wide open, so that he might feel the refreshing night-breeze from the open windows of the sit-kamé.

Believing that his child was dozing, he sat down by the door, with his face buried in his hands.

Algarkirke waited impatiently for his reverie to end. At last he said, "We are countrymen, and in a distant land like this that means friends, and almost brothers, does it not?"

"Of course, of course," returned Mr. Treby absently.

"Then whatever you may have heard about me from your Nottingham friends, you will not repeat it here."

"I!" returned Jack's father, rousing. "I know nothing about you, an utter stranger. I can have nothing to tell. It is years since I left Nottingham."

"It may be useless to ask you to believe me, when I say it was nothing but my own abominable carelessness made me the victim of circumstances," he went on bitterly. "And those who called themselves my friends chose rather to expatriate me than investigate."

"Young man," interrupted Jack's father, "I ask you for no confession; but if you wish to confide in me, every word you utter will be safe. But I must remind you beforehand that a man driven to asking help of his neighbours is not one to look to, to give it."

"You think me a flat," muttered Algarkirke.

"I think you a little too verdant," returned the other. "Whatever your bygones may have been, you have a chance of beginning a new life out here. Do not let your own self-consciousness spoil it. Bury the past, or retrieve it. Remember:

"'Men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.'"

"Could I dig diamonds with you at Kimberley?" was the eager answer to these words of fatherly advice.

"Did you ever use spade or pick?" asked Mr. Treby in his turn.

But Algarkirke shook his head.

"That answers your own question," returned his companion. "Stick to what you can do. You've no father, my lad, or you would not have been pitchforked into these wilds and left to sink or swim. All you brought with you is lost and gone? So I expected. I only wish I could help you."

"Your little boy told me you wanted to buy a coat. I've one to spare," said Algarkirke in a jerky tone, as if the words were forced out one by one. "I left England for Amsterdam—I had a merchant friend who traded with that city—but I was soon shipped off to Africa with a letter of recommendation to a Dutch clergyman at Pretoria. I lived on my money as long as it lasted. I was in the throes of despair when the grand church-going week came round. I shall never forget my first sight of the Boers bringing up their families from long distances in the country to join in the nachtmaal * service at their church.

"A bright idea occurred to my clerical friend. He found out that a schoolmaster was wanting in this district, and recommended me to the post. It was a civil way of freeing himself from a burden. I journeyed back in one of the Boer's wagons, and began the hopeless task of teaching the young idea how to shoot in broken Dutch. It is irksome drudgery; for those Dutch boys are worse than the Irishman's pig; they will neither be led nor driven. But the worst of it is, I have a few days now and then between the turns, and how to keep myself I do not know, until the quarter-day comes to take my promised fees, small as they are."

* Nachtmaal ("night-meal"), the Lord's Supper.

"'In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch Is in giving too little and asking too much,'"

laughed Mr. Treby. "Show me this coat, and I'll give you what I can for it."

Algarkirke went into the room for his portmanteau, which he unstrapped softly, for fear of disturbing Jack. But the little fellow was wide awake again, and very anxious to see the coat his father was going to buy. It was of gray traveller's tweed, a little stained with salt-water, but not much the worse for wear. But, alas no endeavours could squeeze Mr. Treby's well-developed shoulders into a garment made to fit young Algarkirke's slim figure. His disappointment was excessive. He looked at the half-sovereign in Mr. Treby's hand and bit his lip.

"Like my wretched luck!" he exclaimed. "But stop! I have another that I left behind me at Inderwick—a light dust-coat, too big for me. Neither is it properly my own; a friend lent it to me one wet day just before I left England. It was packed up with my luggage by mistake. 'Keep it,' he wrote, 'it is not worth returning.' You could wear that, I am sure."

"Can you let me have it before I start?" asked Mr. Treby.

"The people here have promised to send me on to the next farm; it is a part of our bargain. I will ask the man who drives me to bring it back, if that will do. I leave here the day after tomorrow," said Algarkirke, closing his fingers over the gold Mr. Treby dropped into his hand.

His exuberant gratitude was checked by the quiet remark, "We must all do as we would be done by. The strangers in the post-cart helped me yesterday, and I'm glad to be able to help you to-night."