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

“So you like the study of French?” said Charlie Considine, as he sat one morning beside Bertha Marais in the porch of her father’s dwelling.

“Yes, very much,” answered the girl. She said no more, but she thought, “Especially when I am taught it by such a kind, painstaking teacher as you.”

“And you like to live in the wild karroo?” asked the youth.

“Of course I do,” was the reply, with a look of surprise.

“Of course. It was a stupid question, Bertha; I did not think at the moment that it is home to you, and that you have known no other since you were a little child. But to my mind it would be a dull sort of life to live here always.”

“Do you find it so dull?” asked Bertha, with a sad look.

“No, not in the least,” replied the youth, quickly. “How could I, living as I do with such pleasant people, like one of their own kith and kin, hunting with the sons and teaching the daughters—to say nothing of scolding them and playing chess, and singing and riding. Oh no! I’m anything but dull, but I was talking generally of life in the karroo. If I lived alone, for instance, like poor Horley, or with a disagreeable family like that of Jan Smit—by the way, that reminds me that we have heard news of the three runaways, Ruyter, Jemalee, and Booby.”

“Oh! I’m so glad,” cried Bertha, her fair face brightening up with pleasure, “for I am very fond of Ruyter. He was so kind to me that time he found me lying near Smit’s house, when my pony ran away and threw me, and I felt so miserable when I heard that his master was cruel and often beat him with a sjambok. Often and often since he ran away—and it must be nearly a year now—I have prayed God that he might come back, and that Jan Smit might become good to him—What have you heard?”

Considine’s face wore a troubled look. “I fear,” he said, “the news will distress you, for what I heard was that the three men, driven to desperation by the harsh treatment received from their master, have joined one of the fiercest of these gangs of robbers, called the Bergenaars—the gang led, I believe, by Dragoener. It was Lucas Van Dyk, the hunter, who told me, and he is said to be generally correct in his statements.”

Bertha’s nether lip quivered, and she hid her face in her hands for a few moments in silence.

“Oh! I’m so sorry—so sorry,” she said at length, looking up. “He was so gentle, so kind. I can’t imagine Ruyter becoming one of those dreadful Bergenaars, about whose ferocious cruelty we hear so much—his nature was so different. I can’t believe it.”

“I fear,” rejoined Considine gently, “that it is true. You know it is said that oppression will drive even a wise man mad, and a man will take to anything when he is mad.”

“It could not drive a Christian to such a life,” returned the girl sadly. “Oh! I wish he had become a Christian when Stephen Orpin spoke to him, but he wouldn’t.”

“When did Orpin speak to him, and what did he say?” asked Considine, whose own ideas as to Christianity were by no means fixed or clear.

“It was just after that time,” rejoined Bertha, “when Jan Smit had had him tied to a cart-wheel, and flogged so terribly that he could not walk for some days. Orpin happened to arrive at the time with his waggon—you know he has taken to going about as a trader,—and he spoke a great deal to Ruyter about his soul, and about Jesus coming to save men from sin, and enabling them to forgive their enemies; but when Ruyter heard about forgiving his enemies he wouldn’t listen any more. Pointing to his wounds, he said, ‘Do you think I can forgive Jan Smit?’”

“I don’t wonder,” said Considine; “it is too much to expect a black fellow smarting under the sjambok to forgive the man who applies it—especially when it is applied unjustly, and with savage cruelty.”

Bertha was not gifted with an argumentative spirit. She looked anxiously in the face of her companion, and murmured some broken sentences about the Lord’s Prayer and the Golden Rule, and wound up by saying hesitatingly, “How can we ask forgiveness if we do not forgive?”

“You are right, Bertha,” was Considine’s rejoinder, uttered gravely; “but, truly, a man must be more than a man to act on such principles. Think, now of the state of things at the present time with regard to the settlers. The ‘rust,’ as they call that strange disease which has totally ruined the first year’s crop of wheat, has thrown the most of them into difficulties, and in the midst of this almost overwhelming calamity down came the Kafirs on the Albany District, and the Bergenaars, of whom we have just been speaking, not, like men, to fight openly—that were endurable,—but like sly thieves in the dead of night, to carry off sheep and cattle from many of the farms—in some cases even killing the herdsmen. Now, what think you must be the feelings of the settlers towards these Kafirs and runaway robbers?—can they forgive?”

Bertha didn’t know. She thought their feelings must be very harsh. Diverging from the question, however, she returned to the first regret—namely, that her friend Ruyter had joined the Bergenaars.

“Hallo! Considine, hi! where are you?” came the sonorous voice of Conrad Marais in the distance, interrupting the conversation. Next moment the hearty countenance of the farmer followed his voice round the corner of the house.

“Come, get your gun, my boy!” he cried in some excitement. “These villains have been down last night and carried off two spans of my best oxen, besides killing and devouring several sheep.”

Considine started up at once.

“We shall be off in half an hour,” continued the farmer; “Hans is away gathering one or two neighbours, and the people are almost ready.”

“Do you accompany them?” asked Considine.

“Of course I do. Come along.”

The youth required no urging. In a few minutes he was armed and mounted, galloping in company with a score of horsemen—black, brown, and white—towards the cattle-kraals. Here was already assembled by Hans a troop of mounted men, among whom were Jan Smit and his three sons, David, Jacob, and Hendrik, also the hunter Van Dyk. After a brief consultation, in which Van Dyk took a prominent part, they rode off at a smart gallop.

We change the scene now to a large and dark cavern up among the wild heights of the Winterberg mountains.

It was evening, but the sun had still a considerable distance to descend before finding its bed on the western horizon. A faint gleam of day entered the cave, which was further illuminated by three fires, over which a band of savage-looking dark-skinned men were roasting chops and marrow-bones. Abdul Jemalee the Malay slave and Booby the Bushman were there, assisting at the feast. At the inner end of the cave, seated beside two men, was Ruyter the Hottentot. He was a good deal changed from the rough but careless and jolly fellow whom we first introduced to the reader. There was a stern severity on his countenance, coupled with a touch of sadness when in repose, but when called into action, or even when conversing, the softer feeling vanished, and nothing remained but the lines indicative of a stern settled purpose. Most of the robbers around him had like himself fled from harsh masters, and become hardened in a career of crime. The expression of almost every countenance was vindictive, sensual, coarse. Ruyter’s was not so. Unyielding sternness alone marked his features, which, we have elsewhere remarked, were unusually good for a Hottentot. Being a man of superior power he had become the leader of this robber-band. It was only one of many that existed at that time among the almost inaccessible heights of the mountain-ranges bordering on the colony. His companions recognised the difference between themselves and their captain, and did not love him for it, though they feared him. They also felt that he was irrevocably one of themselves, having imbrued his hands in white man’s blood more than once, and already made his name terrible on that part of the frontier.

“They should be here by this time,” said Ruyter, in Dutch, to one of the men at his side. “Why did you send them off before I returned?”

He said this with a look of annoyance. The man replied that he had acted according to the best of his judgment and had been particular in impressing the leader of the party that he was not to touch the flocks of old Marais, but to devote himself entirely to those of Jan Smit.

To this Ruyter observed with a growl that it was not likely they would attend to such orders if Marais’ herds chanced to be handy, but the robber to whom he spoke only replied with a sly smile, showing that he was of the same opinion.

Just then a man rushed into the cave announcing the fact that their comrades were returning with plenty cattle and sheep, but that they were pursued.

Instantly the chops and marrow-bones were flung aside, and the robbers, hastily arming, mounted their horses and descended to the rescue.

The band of which Ruyter had become leader had existed some time before he joined. It was a detachment from a larger band who acknowledged as their chief a desperado named Dragoener. This Bushman had been in the service of Diederik Muller, but, on being severely flogged by a hot-tempered kinsman of his master, had fled to the mountains, vowing vengeance against all white men. It is thus that one white scoundrel can sometimes not only turn a whole tribe of savages into bitter foes of the white men in general, but can bring discredit on his fellows in the eyes of Christian people at a distance, who