The Settler and the Savage by R. M. Ballantyne (universal ebook reader txt) 📖

returned the Hottentot gloomily. “It is true your laws do not allow us to be bought and sold like de slaves, but dat very ting makes de masters hate us and hurt us more dan de slaves.”

This was to some extent true. At the time we write of, slavery, being still permitted in the British colonies, the Dutch, and other Cape colonists, possessed great numbers of negro slaves, whom it was their interest to treat well, as being valuable “property,” and whom most of them probably did treat well, as a man will treat a useful horse or ox, though of course there were—as there always must be in the circumstances—many instances of cruelty, by passionate and brutal owners. But the Hottentots, or original natives of the South African soil, having been declared unsaleable, and therefore not “property,” were in many cases treated with greater degradation by their masters than the slaves, were made to work like them, but not cared for or fed like them, because not so valuable. At the same time, although not absolute slaves, the Hottentots were practically in a state of servitude, in which the freedom accorded to them by Government had, by one subterfuge or another, been rendered inoperative. Not long before this period the colonists possessed absolute power over the Hottentots, and although recent efforts had been made to legislate in their favour, their wrongs had only been mitigated,—by no means redressed. Masters were, it is true, held accountable by the law for the treatment of their Hottentots, but were rarely called to account; and the Hottentots knew too well, from sad experience, that to make a complaint would be in many cases worse than useless, as it would only rouse the ire of their masters and make them doubly severe.

“You say de Hottentots are not slaves, but you treat us all de same as slaves—anyhow, Jan Smit does.”

“That is the sin of Jan Smit, not of the British law,” replied Considine.

Ruyter’s face grew darker as he rejoined fiercely, “What de use of your laws if dey won’t work? Besides, what right hab de white scoundril to make slave at all—whether you call him slave or no call him slave. Look at Jemalee!”

The Hottentot pointed with violent action to the Malay, who, with a calm and sad but dignified mien, stood listening to the small-talk of Booby, while the light of the camp-fire played fitfully on their swarthy features.

“Well, what of Jemalee!” asked Considine.

“You know dat him’s a slave—a real slave?”

“Yes, I know that, poor fellow.”

“You never hear how him was brought up here?”

“No, never—tell me about it.”

Hereupon the Hottentot related the following brief story.

Abdul Jemalee, a year or two before, had lived in Capetown, where his owner was a man of some substance. Jemalee had a wife and several children, who were also the property of his owner. Being an expert waggon-driver, the Malay was a valuable piece of human goods. On one occasion Jan Smit happened to be in Capetown, and, hearing of the Malay’s qualities, offered his master a high price for him. The offer was accepted, but in order to avoid a scene, the bargain was kept secret from the piece of property, and he was given to understand that he was going up country on his old master’s business. When poor Jemalee bade his pretty wife and little ones goodbye, he comforted them with the assurance that he should be back in a few months. On arriving at Smit’s place, however, the truth was told, and he found that he had been separated for ever from those he most loved on earth. For some time Abdul Jemalee gave way to sullen despair, and took every sort of abuse and cruel treatment with apparent indifference, but, as time went on, a change came over him. He became more like his former self, and did his work so well, that even the savage Jan Smit seldom had any excuse for finding fault. On his last journey to the Cape, Smit took the Malay with him only part of the way. He left him in charge of a friend, who agreed to look well after him until his return.

Even this crushing of Jemalee’s hope that he might meet his wife and children once more did not appear to oppress him much, and when his master returned from Capetown he resumed charge of one of the waggons, and went quietly back to his home in the karroo.

“And can you tell what brought about this change?” asked Considine.

“Oh ja, I knows,” replied Ruyter, with a decided nod and a deep chuckle; “Jemalee him’s got a powerful glitter in him’s eye now and den—bery powerful an’ strange!”

“And what may that have to do with it?” asked Considine.

Ruyter’s visage changed from a look of deep cunning to one of childlike simplicity as he replied— “Can’t go for to say what de glitter of him’s eye got to do wid it. Snakes’ eyes glitter sometimes—s’pose ’cause he can’t help it, or he’s wicked p’raps.”

Considine smiled, but, seeing that the Hottentot did not choose to be communicative on the point, he forbore further question.

“What a funny man Jerry Goldboy is!” said Jessie McTavish, as she sat that same evening sipping a pannikin of tea in her father’s tent.

From the opening of the tent the fire was visible.

Jerry was busy preparing his supper, while he kept up an incessant run of small-chat with Booby and Jemalee. The latter replied to him chiefly with grave smiles, the former with shouts of appreciative laughter.

“He is funny,” asserted Mrs McTavish, “and uncommonly noisy. I doubt if there is much good in him.”

“More than you think, Mopsy,” said Kenneth (by this irreverent name did the Highlander call his better-half); “Jerry Goldboy is a small package, but he’s made of good stuff, depend upon it. No doubt he’s a little nervous, but I’ve observed that his nerves are tried more by the suddenness with which he may be surprised than by the actual danger he may chance to encounter. On our first night out, when he roused the camp and smashed the stock of his blunderbuss, no doubt I as well as others thought he showed the white feather, but there was no lack of courage in him when he went last week straight under the tree where the tiger was growling, and shot it so dead that when it fell it was not far from his feet.”

“I heard some of the men, papa,” observed Jessie, “say that it was Dutch courage that made him do that. What did they mean by Dutch courage?”

Jessie, being little more than eight, was ignorant of much of the world’s slang.

“Cape-smoke, my dear,” answered her father, with a laugh.

“Cape-smoke?” exclaimed Jessie, “what is that?”

“Brandy, child, peach-brandy, much loved by some of the boers, I’m told, and still more so by the Hottentots; but there was no more Cape-smoke in Jerry that day than in you. It was true English pluck. No doubt he could hardly fail to make a dead shot at so close a range, with such an awful weapon, loaded, as it usually is, with handfuls of slugs, buckshot, and gravel; but it was none the less plucky for all that. The old flint-lock might have missed fire, or he mightn’t have killed the brute outright, and in either case he knew well enough it would have been all up with Jerry Goldboy.”

“Who’s that taking my name in vain?” said Jerry himself, passing the tent at the moment, in company with Sandy Black.

“We were only praising you, Jerry,” cried Jessie, with a laugh, “for the way in which you shot that tiger the other day.”

“It wasn’t a teeger, Miss Jessie,” interposed Sandy Black, “it was only a leopard—ane o’ thae wee spottit beasts that they’re sae prood o’ in this country as to ca’ them teegers.”

“Come, Sandy,” cried Jerry Goldboy, “don’t rob me of the honour that is my due. The hanimal was big enough to ’ave torn you limb from limb if ’e’d got ’old of you.”

“It may be sae, but he wasna a teeger for a’ that,” retorted Black.—“D’ee know, sir,” he continued, turning to McTavish, “that Mr Pringle’s been askin’ for ’ee?”

“No, Sandy, but now that you’ve told me I’ll go to his tent.”

So saying the Highlander rose and went out, to attend a council of “heads of families.”

Hitherto we have directed the reader’s attention chiefly to one or two individuals of the Scotch party, but there were in that party a number of families who had appointed Mr Pringle their “head” and representative. In this capacity of chief-head, or leader, Mr Pringle was in the habit of convening a meeting of subordinate “heads” when matters of importance had to be discussed.

While the elders of the party were thus engaged in conclave at the door of their leader’s tent, and while the rest were busy round their several fires, a man with a body much blacker than the night was secretly gliding about the camp like a huge snake, now crouching as he passed quickly, but without noise, in rear of the thick bushes; now creeping on hands and knees among the waggons and oxen, and anon gliding almost flat on his breast up to the very verge of the light thrown by the camp-fires. At one and another of the fires he remained motionless like the blackened trunk of a dead tree, with his glittering eyes fixed on the settlers, as if listening intently to their conversation.

Whatever might be the ultimate designs of the Kafir—for such he was—his intentions at the time being were evidently peaceful, for he carried neither weapon nor shield. He touched nothing belonging to the white men, though guns and blankets and other tempting objects were more than once within reach of his hand. Neither did he attempt to steal that which to the Kafir is the most coveted prize of all—a fat ox. Gradually he melted away into the darkness from which he had emerged. No eye in all the emigrant band saw him come or go in his snake-like glidings, yet his presence was known to one of the party—to Ruyter the Hottentot.

Soon after the Kafir had taken his departure, Ruyter left his camp-fire and sauntered into the bush as if to meditate before lying down for the night. As soon as he was beyond observation he quickened his pace and walked in a straight line, like one who has a definite end in view.

The Hottentot fancied that he had got away unperceived, but in this he was mistaken. Hans Marais, having heard Considine’s account of his talk with Ruyter about Jemalee, had been troubled with suspicions about the former, which led to his paying more than usual attention to him. These suspicions were increased when he observed that the Hottentot went frequently and uneasily into the bushes, and looked altogether like a man expecting something which does not happen or appear. When, therefore, he noticed that after supper, Ruyter’s anxious look disappeared, and that, after looking carefully round at his comrades, he sauntered into the bush with an overdone air of nonchalance, he quietly took up his heavy gun and followed him.

The youth had been trained to observe from earliest childhood, and, having been born and bred on the karroo, he was as well skilled in tracking the footprints of animals and men as any red savage of the North American wilderness. He took care to keep the Hottentot in sight, however, the night being too dark to see footprints. Lithe and agile as a panther, he found no difficulty in doing so.

In a few minutes he reached an open space, in which he observed that the Hottentot had met with a Kafir, and was engaged with him in earnest conversation. Much however of what they said was lost by Hans, as he found it difficult to get within ear-shot unobserved.

“And why?” he at length heard the savage demand, “why should I spare them