JESS
By H. Rider Haggard
First Published 1887.
JESS
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD
TO MY WIFE
JESS
CHAPTER I
JOHN HAS AN ADVENTURE
The day had been very hot even for the Transvaal, where the days still
know how to be hot in the autumn, although the neck of the summer is
broken--especially when the thunderstorms hold off for a week or two,
as they do occasionally. Even the succulent blue lilies--a variety of
the agapanthus which is so familiar to us in English greenhouses--hung
their long trumpet-shaped flowers and looked oppressed and miserable,
beneath the burning breath of the hot wind which had been blowing for
hours like the draught from a volcano. The grass, too, near the wide
roadway that stretched in a feeble and indeterminate fashion across
the veldt, forking, branching, and reuniting like the veins on a
lady's arm, was completely coated over with a thick layer of red dust.
But the hot wind was going down now, as it always does towards sunset.
Indeed, all that remained of it were a few strictly local and
miniature whirlwinds, which would suddenly spring up on the road
itself, and twist and twirl fiercely round, raising a mighty column of
dust fifty feet or more into the air, where it hung long after the
wind had passed, and then slowly dissolved as its particles floated to
the earth.
Advancing along the road, in the immediate track of one of these
desultory and inexplicable whirlwinds, was a man on horseback. The man
looked limp and dirty, and the horse limper and dirtier. The hot wind
had "taken all the bones out of them," as the Kafirs say, which was
not very much to be wondered at, seeing that they had been journeying
through it for the last four hours without off-saddling. Suddenly the
whirlwind, which had been travelling along smartly, halted, and the
dust, after revolving a few times in the air like a dying top, slowly
began to disperse in the accustomed fashion. The man on the horse
halted also, and contemplated it in an absent kind of way.
"It's just like a man's life," he said aloud to his horse, "coming
from nobody knows where, nobody knows why, and making a little column
of dust on the world's highway, then passing away, leaving the dust to
fall to the ground again, to be trodden under foot and forgotten."
The speaker, a stout, well set-up, rather ugly man, apparently on the
wrong side of thirty, with pleasant blue eyes and a reddish peaked
beard, laughed a little at his own sententious reflection, and then
gave his jaded horse a tap with the /sjambock/ in his hand.
"Come on, Blesbok," he said, "or we shall never get to old Croft's
place to-night. By Jove! I believe that must be the turn," and he
pointed with his whip to a little rutty track that branched from the
Wakkerstroom main road and stretched away towards a curious isolated
hill with a large flat top, which rose out of the rolling plain some
four miles to the right. "The old Boer said the second turn," he went
on still talking to himself, "but perhaps he lied. I am told that some
of them think it is a good joke to send an Englishman a few miles
wrong. Let's see, they told me the place was under the lee of a table-
topped hill, about half an hour's ride from the main road, and that is
a table-topped hill, so I think I will try it. Come on, Blesbok," and
he put the tired nag into a sort of "tripple," or ambling canter much
affected by South African horses.
"Life is a queer thing," reflected Captain John Niel to himself as he
cantered along slowly. "Now here am I, at the age of thirty-four,
about to begin the world again as assistant to an old Transvaal
farmer. It is a pretty end to all one's ambitions, and to fourteen
years' work in the army; but it is what it has come to, my boy, so you
had better make the best of it."
Just then his cogitations were interrupted, for on the farther side of
a gentle slope suddenly there appeared an extraordinary sight. Over
the crest of the rise of land, now some four or five hundred yards
away, a pony with a lady on its back galloped wildly, and after it,
with wings spread and outstretched neck, a huge cock ostrich was
speeding in pursuit, covering twelve or fifteen feet at every stride
of its long legs. The pony was still twenty yards ahead of the bird,
and travelling towards John rapidly, but strive as it would it could
not distance the swiftest thing on all the earth. Five seconds passed
--the great bird was close alongside now--Ah! and John Niel turned
sick and shut his eyes as he rode, for he saw the ostrich's thick leg
fly high into the air and then sweep down like a leaded bludgeon!
/Thud!/ It had missed the lady and struck her horse upon the spine,
just behind the saddle, for the moment completely paralysing it so
that it fell all of a heap on to the veldt. In a moment the girl on
its back was up and running towards him, and after her came the
ostrich. Up went the great leg again, but before it could come
crashing across her shoulders she had flung herself face downwards on
the grass. In an instant the huge bird was on the top of her, kicking
at her, rolling over her, and crushing the very life out of her. It
was at this juncture that John Niel arrived upon the scene. The moment
the ostrich saw him it gave up its attacks upon the lady on the ground
and began to waltz towards him with the pompous sort of step that
these birds sometimes assume before they give battle. Now Captain Niel
was unaccustomed to the pleasant ways of ostriches, and so was his
horse, which showed a strong inclination to bolt; as, indeed, under
other circumstances, his rider would have been glad to do himself. But
he could not abandon beauty in distress, so, finding it impossible to
control his horse, he slipped off it, and with the /sjambock/ or hide-
whip in his hand valiantly faced the enemy. For a moment or two the
great bird stood still, blinking its lustrous round eyes at him and
gently swaying its graceful neck to and fro.
Then all of a sudden it spread out its wings and came for him like a
thunderbolt. John sprang to one side, and was aware of a rustle of
rushing feathers, and of a vision of a thick leg striking downwards
past his head. Fortunately it missed him, and the ostrich sped on like
a flash. Before he could turn, however, it was back and had landed the
full weight of one of its awful forward kicks on the broad of his
shoulders, and away he went head-over-heels like a shot rabbit. In a
second he was on his legs again, shaken indeed, but not much the
worse, and perfectly mad with fury and pain. At him came the ostrich,
and at the ostrich went he, catching it a blow across the slim neck
with his /sjambock/ that staggered it for a moment. Profiting by the
check, he seized the bird by the wing and held on like grim death with
both hands. Now they began to gyrate, slowly at first, then quicker,
and yet more quick, till at last it seemed to Captain John Niel that
time and space and the solid earth were nothing but a revolving vision
fixed somewhere in the watches of the night. Above him, like a
stationary pivot, towered the tall graceful neck, beneath him spun the
top-like legs, and in front of him was a soft black and white mass of
feathers.
Thud, and a cloud of stars! He was on his back, and the ostrich, which
did not seem to be affected by giddiness, was on /him/, punishing him
dreadfully. Luckily an ostrich cannot kick a man very hard when he is
flat on the ground. If he could, there would have been an end of John
Niel, and his story need never have been written.
Half a minute or so passed, during which the bird worked his sweet
will upon his prostrate enemy, and at the end of it the man began to
feel very much as though his earthly career was closed. Just as things
were growing faint and dim to him, however, he suddenly saw a pair of
white arms clasp themselves round the ostrich's legs from behind, and
heard a voice cry:
"Break his neck while I hold his legs, or he will kill you."
This roused him from his torpor, and he staggered to his feet.
Meanwhile the ostrich and the young lady had come to the ground, and
were rolling about together in a confused heap, over which the elegant
neck and open hissing mouth wavered to and fro like a cobra about to
strike. With a rush John seized the neck in both his hands, and,
putting out all his strength (for he was a strong man), he twisted it
till it broke with a snap, and after a few wild and convulsive bounds
and struggles the great bird lay dead.
Then he sank down dazed and exhausted, and surveyed the scene. The
ostrich was perfectly quiet, and would never kick again, and the lady
too was quiet. He wondered vaguely if the brute had killed her--he was
as yet too weak to go and see--and then fell to gazing at her face.
Her head was pillowed on the body of the dead bird, and its feathery
plumes made it a fitting resting-place. Slowly it dawned on him that
the face was very beautiful, although it looked so pale just now. Low
broad brow, crowned with soft yellow hair, the chin very round and
white, the mouth sweet though rather large. The eyes he could not see,
because they were closed, for the lady had fainted. For the rest, she
was quite young--about twenty, tall and finely formed. Presently he
felt a little better, and, creeping towards her (for he was sadly
knocked about), took her hand and began to chafe it between his own.
It was a well-formed hand, but brown, and showed signs of doing plenty
of hard work. Soon she opened her eyes, and he noted with satisfaction
that they were very good eyes, blue in colour. Then she sat up and
laughed a little.
"Well, I am silly," she said; "I believe I fainted."
"It is not much to be wondered at," said John Niel politely, and
lifting his hand to take off his hat, only to find that it had gone in
the fray. "I hope you are not very much hurt by the bird."
"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "But I am glad that you killed
the /skellum/ (vicious beast). He got out of the ostrich camp three
days ago, and has been lost ever since. He killed a boy last year, and
I told uncle he ought to shoot him then, but he would not, because he
was such a beauty."
"Might I ask," said John Niel, "are you Miss Croft?"
"Yes, I am--one of them. There are two of us, you know; and I can
guess who you are--you are Captain Niel, whom uncle is expecting to
help him with the farm and the ostriches."
"If all of them are like that," he said, pointing to the dead bird, "I
don't think that I shall take kindly to ostrich farming."
She laughed, showing a charming line of teeth. "Oh no," she said, "he
was the only bad one--but, Captain Niel, I think you will find it
fearfully dull. There are nothing but Boers about here, you know. No
English people live nearer than Wakkerstroom."
"You overlook yourself," he said, bowing; for really this daughter of
the wilderness had a very charming air about her.
"Oh," she answered, "I am only a girl, you know, and besides, I am not
clever. Jess, now--that's my sister--Jess has been at school at
Capetown, and she /is/ clever. I was at Cape Town, too, though I
didn't learn much there. But, Captain Niel, both the horses have
bolted; mine has gone home, and I expect yours has followed, and I
should like to know how we are going to get up to Mooifontein--
beautiful fountain, that's what we call our place, you know. Can you
walk?"
"I don't know," he answered doubtfully; "I'll try. That bird has
knocked me about a good deal," and accordingly he staggered on to his
legs, only to collapse with an exclamation of pain. His ankle was
sprained, and he was so stiff and bruised that he could hardly stir.
"How far is the house?" he asked.
"Only about a mile--just there; we shall see it from the crest of the
rise. Look, I'm all right. It was silly to faint, but he kicked all
the breath out of me," and she got up and danced a little on the grass
to show him. "My word, though, I am sore! You must take my arm, that's
all; that is if you don't mind?"
"Oh dear no, indeed, I don't mind," he said laughing; and so they
started, arm affectionately linked in arm.
