CHAPTER VII
ALLAN'S CALL
A fortnight later Marais, Pereira and their companions, a little band in
all of about twenty men, thirty women and children, and say fifty
half-breeds and Hottentot after-riders, trekked from their homes into
the wilderness. I rode to the crest of a table-topped hill and watched
the long line of wagons, one of them containing Marie, crawl away
northward across the veld a mile or more beneath.
Sorely was I tempted to gallop after them and seek a last interview with
her and her father. But my pride forbade me. Henri Marais had given
out that if I came near his daughter he would have me beaten back with
"sjambocks" or hide whips. Perhaps he had gained some inkling of our
last farewell in the peach orchard. I do not know. But I do know that
if anyone had lifted a sjambock on me I should have answered with a
bullet. Then there would have been blood between us, which is worse to
cross than whole rivers of wrath and jealousy. So I just watched the
wagons until they vanished, and galloped home down the rock-strewn
slope, wishing that the horse would stumble and break my neck.
When I reached the station, however, I was glad that it had not done so,
as I found my father sitting on the stoep reading a letter that had been
brought by a mounted Hottentot.
It was from Henri Marais, and ran thus:--
"'REVEREND HEER AND FRIEND QUATERMAIN,--I send this to bid you farewell,
for although you are English and we have quarrelled at times, I honour
you in my heart. Friend, now that we are starting, your warning words
lie on me like lead, I know not why. But what is done cannot be undone,
and I trust that all will come right. If not, it is because the Good
Lord wills it otherwise.'"
Here my father looked up and said: "When men suffer from their own
passion and folly, they always lay the blame on the back of Providence."
Then he went on, spelling out the letter:
"'I fear your boy Allan, who is a brave lad, as I have reason to know,
and honest, must think that I have treated him harshly and without
gratitude. But I have only done what I must do. True, Marie, who, like
her mother, is very strong and stubborn in mind, swears that she will
marry no one else; but soon Nature will make her forget all that,
especially as such a fine husband waits for her hand. So bid Allan
forget all about her also, and when he is old enough choose some English
girl. I have sworn a great oath before my God that he shall never marry
my daughter with my consent.
"'Friend, I write to ask you something because I trust you more than
these slim agents. Half the price, a very poor one, that I have for my
farm is still unpaid to me by Jacobus van der Merve, who remains behind
and buys up all our lands. It is #100 English, due this day year, and I
enclose you power of attorney to receive and give receipt for the same.
Also there is due to me from your British Government #253 on account of
slaves liberated which were worth quite #1,000. This also the paper
gives you authority to receive. As regards my claims against the said
cursed Government because of the loss brought on me by the Quabie
Kaffirs, it will not acknowledge them, saying that the attack was caused
by the Frenchman Leblanc, one of my household.'"
"And with good reason," commented my father.
"'When you have received these monies, if ever, I pray you take some
safe opportunity of sending them to me, wherever I may be, which
doubtless you will hear in due course, although by that time I hope to
be rich again and not to need money. Farewell and God be with you, as I
hope He will be with me and Marie and the rest of us trek-Boers. The
bearer will overtake us with your answer at our first outspan.
"'HENRI MARAIS.'"
"Well," said my father with a sigh, "I suppose I must accept his trust,
though why he should choose an 'accursed Englishman' with whom he has
quarrelled violently to collect his debts instead of one of his own
beloved Boers, I am sure I do not know. I will go and write to him.
Allan, see that the messenger and his horse get something to eat."
I nodded and went to the man, who was one of those that had defended
Maraisfontein with me, a good fellow unless he got near liquor.
"Heer Allan," he said, looking round to see that we were not overheard,
"I have a little writing for you also," and be produced from his pouch a
note that was unaddressed.
I tore it open eagerly. Within was written in French, which no Boer
would understand if the letter fell into his hands:
"Be brave and faithful, and remember, as I shall. Oh! love of my heart,
adieu, adieu!"
This message was unsigned; but what need was there of signature?
I wrote an answer of a sort that may be imagined, though what the exact
words were I cannot remember after the lapse of nearly half a century.
Oddly enough, it is the things I said which I recall at such a distance
of time rather than the things which I wrote, perhaps because, when once
written, my mind being delivered, troubled itself with them no more. So
in due course the Hottentot departed with my father's letter and my own,
and that was the last direct communication which we had with Henri or
Marie Marais for more than a year.
I think that those long months were on the whole the most wretched I
have ever spent. The time of life which I was passing through is always
trying; that period of emergence from youth into full and responsible
manhood which in Africa generally takes place earlier than it does here
in England, where young men often seem to me to remain boys up to
five-and-twenty. The circumstances which I have detailed made it
particularly so in my own case, for here was I, who should have been but
a cheerful lad, oppressed with the sorrows and anxieties, and fettered
by the affections of maturity.
I could not get Marie out of my mind; her image was with me by day and
by night, especially by night, which caused me to sleep badly. I became
morose, supersensitive, and excitable. I developed a cough, and
thought, as did others, that I was going into a decline. I remember
that Hans even asked me once if I would not come and peg out the exact
place where I should like to be buried, so that I might be sure that
there would be no mistake made when I could no longer speak for myself.
On that occasion I kicked Hans, one of the few upon which I have ever
touched a native. The truth was that I had not the slightest intention
of being buried. I wanted to live and marry Marie, not to die and be
put in a hole by Hans. Only I saw no prospect of marrying Marie, or
even of seeing her again, and that was why I felt low-spirited.
Of course, from time to time news of the trek-Boers reached us, but it
was extremely confused. There were so many parties of them; their
adventures were so difficult to follow, and, I may add, often so
terrible; so few of them could write; trustworthy messengers were so
scanty; distances were so great. At any rate, we heard nothing of
Marais's band except a rumour that they had trekked to a district in
what is now the Transvaal, which is called Rustenberg, and thence on
towards Delagoa Bay into an unknown veld where they had vanished. From
Marie herself no letter came, which showed me clearly enough that she
had not found an opportunity of sending one.
Observing my depressed condition, my father suggested as a remedy that I
should go to the theological college at Cape Town and prepare myself for
ordination. But the Church as a career did not appeal to me, perhaps
because I felt that I could never be sufficiently good; perhaps because
I knew that as a clergyman I should find no opportunity of travelling
north when my call came. For I always believed that this call would
come.
My father, who wished that I should hear another kind of call, was vexed
with me over this matter. He desired earnestly that I should follow the
profession which he adorned, and indeed saw no other open for me any
more than I did myself. Of course he was right in a way, seeing that in
the end I found none, unless big game hunting and Kaffir trading can be
called a profession. I don't know, I am sure. Still, poor business as
it may be, I say now when I am getting towards the end of life that I am
glad I did not follow any other. It has suited me; that was the
insignificant hole in the world's affairs which I was destined to fit,
whose only gifts were a remarkable art of straight shooting and the more
common one of observation mixed with a little untrained philosophy.
So hot did our arguments become about this subject of the Church, for,
as may be imagined, in the course of them I revealed some unorthodoxy,
especially as regards the matter of our methods of Christianising
Kaffirs, that I was extremely thankful when a diversion occurred which
took me away from home. The story of my defence of Maraisfontein had
spread far, and that of my feats of shooting, especially in the Goose
Kloof, still farther. So the end of it was that those in authority
commandeered me to serve in one of the continual Kaffir frontier wars
which was in progress, and instantly gave me a commission as a kind of
lieutenant in a border corps.
Now the events of that particular war have nothing to do with the
history that I am telling, so I do not propose even to touch on them. I
served in it for a year, meeting with many adventures, one or two
successes, and several failures. Once I was wounded slightly, twice I
but just escaped with my life. Once I was reprimanded for taking a
foolish risk and losing some men. Twice I was commended for what were
called gallant actions, such as bringing a wounded comrade out of danger
under a warm fire, mostly of assegais, and penetrating by night, almost
alone, into the stronghold of a chieftain, and shooting him.
At length that war was patched up with an inconclusive peace and my
corps was disbanded. I returned home, no longer a lad, but a man with
experience of various kinds and a rather unique knowledge of Kaffirs,
their languages, history, and modes of thought and action. Also I had
associated a good deal with British officers, and from them acquired
much that I had found no opportunity of studying before, especially, I
hope, the ideas and standards of English gentlemen.
I had not been back at the Mission Station more than three weeks, quite
long enough for me to begin to be bored with idleness and inactivity,
when that call for which I had been waiting came at last.
One day a "smous", that is a low kind of white man, often a Jew, who
travels about trading with unsophisticated Boers and Kaffirs, and
cheating them if he can, called at the station with his cartful of
goods. I was about to send him away, having no liking for such gentry,
when he asked me if I were named Allan Quatermain. I said "Yes,"
whereon he replied that he had a letter for me, and produced a packet
wrapped up in sail-cloth. I asked him whence he had it, and he answered
from a man whom he had met at Port Elizabeth, an east coast trader, who,
hearing that he was coming into the Cradock district, entrusted him with
the letter. The man told him that it was very important, and that I
should reward the bearer well if it were delivered safely.
While the Jew talked (I think he was a Jew) I was opening the
sail-cloth. Within was a piece of linen which had been oiled to keep
out water, addressed in some red pigment to myself or my father. This,
too, I opened, not without difficulty, for it was carefully sewn up, and
found within it a letter-packet, also addressed to myself or my father,
in the handwriting of Marie.
Great Heaven! How my heart jumped at that sight! Calling to Hans to
make the smous comfortable and give him food, I went into my own room,
and there read the letter, which ran thus:
"MY DEAR ALLAN,--I do not know whether the other letters I have written
to you have ever come to your hands, or indeed if this one will. Still,
I send it on chance by a wandering Portuguese half-breed who is going to
Delagoa Bay, about fifty miles, I believe, from the place where I now
write, near the Crocodile River. My father has named it Maraisfontein,
after our old home. If those letters reached you, you will have learned
of the terrible things we went through on our journey; the attacks by
the Kaffirs in the Zoutpansberg region, who destroyed one of our parties
altogether, and so forth. If not, all that story must wait, for it is
too long to tell now, and, indeed, I have but little paper, and not much
pencil. It will be enough to say, therefore, that to the number of
thirty-five white people, men, women and children, we trekked at the
beginning of the summer season, when the grass was commencing to grow,
from the Lydenburg district--an awful journey over mountains and through
flooded rivers. After many delays, some of them months long, we reached
this place, about eight weeks ago, for I write to you at the beginning
of June, if we have kept correct account of the time, of which I am not
certain.
"It is a beautiful place to look at, a flat country of rich veld, with
big trees growing on it, and about two miles from the great river that
is called the Crocodile. Here, finding good water, my father and Hernan
Pereira, who now rules him in all things, determined to settle, although
some of the others wished to push on nearer to Delagoa Bay. There was a
great quarrel about it, but in the end my father, or rather Hernan, had
his will, as the oxen were worn out and many had already died from the
bites of a poisonous fly which is called the tsetse. So we lotted out
the land, of which there is enough for hundreds, and began to build rude
houses.
"Then trouble came upon us. The Kaffirs stole most of our horses,
although they have not dared to attack us, and except two belonging to
Hernan, the rest died of the sickness, the last of them but yesterday.
The oxen, too, have all died of the tsetse bites or other illnesses.
But the worst is that although this country looks so healthy, it is
poisoned with fever, which comes up, I think, in the mists from the
river. Already out of the thirty-five of us, ten are dead, two men,
three women, and five children, while more are sick. As yet my father
and I and my cousin Pereira have, by God's mercy, kept quite well; but
although we are all very strong, how long this will continue I cannot
tell. Fortunately we have plenty of ammunition and the place is thick
with game, so that those of the men who remain strong can kill all the
food we want, even shooting on foot, and we women have made a great
quantity of biltong by salting flesh and drying it in the sun. So we
shall not actually starve for a long while, even if the game goes away.
"But, dear Allan, unless help comes to us I think that we shall die
every one, for God alone knows the miseries that we suffer and the
horrible sights of sickness and death that are around us. At this
moment there lies by me a little girl who is dying of fever.
"Oh, Allan, if you can help us, do so! Because of our sick it is
impossible for us to get to Delagoa Bay, and if we did we have no money
to buy anything there, for all that we had with us was lost in a wagon
in a flooded river. It was a great sum, for it included Hernan's rich
fortune which he brought from the Cape with him in gold. Nor can we
move anywhere else, for we have no cattle or horses. We have sent to
Delagoa Bay, where we hear these are to be had, to try to buy them on
credit; but my cousin Hernan's relations, of whom he used to talk so
much, are dead or gone away, and no one will trust us. With the
neighbouring Kaffirs, too, who have plenty of cattle, we have quarrelled
since, unfortunately, my cousin and some of the other Boers tried to
take certain beasts of theirs without payment. So we are quite
helpless, and can only wait for death.
"Allan, my father says that he asked your father to collect some monies
that were owing to him. If it were possible for you or other friends to
come to Delagoa in a ship with that money, I think that it might serve
to buy some oxen, enough for a few wagons. Then perhaps we might trek
back and fall in with a party of Boers who, we believe, have crossed the
Quathlamba Mountains into Natal. Or perhaps we might get to the Bay and
find a ship to take us anywhere from this horrible place. If you could
come, the natives would guide you to where we are.
"But it is too much to hope that you will come, or that if you do come
you will find us still alive.
"Allan, my dearest, I have one more thing to say, though I must say it
shortly, for the paper is nearly finished. I do not know, supposing
that you are alive and well, whether you still care for me, who left you
so long ago--it seems years and years--but _my_ heart is where it was,
and where I promised it should remain, in your keeping. Of course,
Hernan has pressed me to marry him, and my father has wished it. But I
have always said no, and now, in our wretchedness, there is no more talk
of marriage at present, which is the one good thing that has happened to
me. And, Allan, before so very long I shall be of age, if I live.
Still I dare say you no longer think of marriage with me, who, perhaps,
are already married to someone else, especially as now I and all of us
are no better than wandering beggars. Yet I have thought it right to
tell you these things, which you may like to know.
"Oh, why did God ever put it into my father's heart to leave the Cape
Colony just because he hated the British Government and Hernan Pereira
and others persuaded him? I know not, but, poor man, he is sorry enough
now. It is pitiful to see him; at times I think that he is going mad.
"The paper is done, and the messenger is going; also the sick child is
dying and I must attend to her. Will this letter ever come to your
hands, I wonder? I am sending with it the little money I have to pay
for its delivery--about four pounds English. If not, there is an end.
If it does, and you cannot come or send others, at least pray for us. I
dream of you by night and think of you by day, for how much I love you I
cannot tell.
"In life or death I am
"Your MARIE."
Such was this awful letter. I still have it; it lies before me, those
ragged sheets of paper covered with faint pencil-writing that is blotted
here and there with tear marks, some of them the tears of Marie who
wrote, some of them the tears of me who read. I wonder if there exists
a more piteous memorial of the terrible sufferings of the trek-Boers,
and especially of such of them as forced their way into the poisonous
veld around Delagoa, as did this Marais expedition and those under the
command of Triechard. Better, like many of their people, to have
perished at once by the spears of Umzilikazi and other savages than to
endure these lingering tortures of fever and starvation.
As I finished reading this letter my father, who had been out visiting
some of his Mission Kaffirs, entered the house, and I went into the
sitting-room to meet him.
"Why, Allan, what is the matter with you?" he asked, noting my
tear-stained face.
I gave him the letter, for I could not speak, and with difficulty he
deciphered it.
"Merciful God, what dreadful news!" he said when he had finished.
"Those poor people! those poor, misguided people! What can be done for
them?"
"I know one thing that can be done, father, or at any rate can be
attempted. I can try to reach them."
"Are you mad?" he asked. "How is it possible for you, one man, to get
to Delagoa Bay, buy cattle, and rescue these folk, who probably are now
all dead?"
"The first two things are possible enough, father. Some ship will take
me to the Bay. You have Marais's money, and I have that five hundred
pounds which my old aunt in England left me last year. Thank Heaven!
owing to my absence on commando, it still lies untouched in the bank at
Port Elizabeth. That is about eight hundred pounds in all, which would
buy a great many cattle and other things. As for the third, it is not
in our hands, is it? It may be that they cannot be rescued, it may be
that they are dead. I can only go to see."
"But, Allan, Allan, you are my only son, and if you go it is probable
that I shall never see you more."
"I have been through more dangers lately, father, and am still alive and
well. Moreover, if Marie is dead"--I paused, then went on
passionately--"Do not try to stop me, for I tell you, father, I will not
be stopped. Think of the words in that letter and what a shameless
hound I should be if I sat here quiet while Marie is dying yonder.
Would you have done so if Marie had been my mother?"
"No," answered the old gentleman, "I should not. Go, and God be with
you, Allan, and me also, for I never expect to see you again." And he
turned his head aside for a while.
Then we went into matters. The smous was summoned and asked about the
ship which brought the letter from Delagoa. It seemed that she was an
English-owned brig known as the Seven Stars, and that her captain, one
Richardson, proposed to sail back to the Bay on the morrow, that was the
third of July, or in other words, within twenty-four hours.
Twenty-four hours! And Port Elizabeth was one hundred and eighteen
miles away, and the Seven Stars might leave earlier if she had completed
her cargo and wind and weather served. Moreover, if she did leave, it
might be weeks or months before any other ship sailed for Delagoa Bay,
for in those days, of course, there were no mail boats.
I looked at my watch. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and from a
calendar we had, which gave the tides at Port Elizabeth and other South
African harbours, it did not seem probable that the Seven Stars would
sail, if she kept to her date, before about eight on the morrow. One
hundred and twenty miles to be covered in, say, fourteen hours over
rough country with some hills! Well, on the other hand, the roads were
fairly good and dry, with no flooded rivers to cross, although there
might be one to swim, and there was a full moon. It could be
done--barely, and now I was glad indeed that Hernan Pereira had not won
my swift mare in that shooting match.
I called to Hans, who was loafing about outside, and said quietly:
"I ride to Port Elizabeth, and must be there by eight o'clock to-morrow
morning."
"Allemachte!" exclaimed Hans, who had been that road several times.
"You will go with me, and from Port Elizabeth on to Delagoa Bay. Saddle
the mare and the roan horse, and put a headstall on the chestnut to lead
with you as a spare. Give them all a feed, but no water. We start in
half an hour." Then I added certain directions as to the guns we would
take, saddle-bags, clothes, blankets and other details, and bade him
start about the business.
Hans never hesitated. He had been with me through my recent campaign,
and was accustomed to sudden orders. Moreover, I think that if I had
told him I was riding to the moon, beyond his customary exclamation of
"Allemachte!" he would have made no objection to accompanying me
thither.
The next half-hour was a busy time for me. Henri Marais's money had to
be got out of the strong box and arranged in a belt of buck's hide that
I had strapped about me. A letter had to be written by my father to the
manager of the Port Elizabeth bank, identifying me as the owner of the
sum lodged there in my name. A meal must be eaten and some food
prepared for us to carry. The horses' shoes had to be seen to, and a
few clothes packed in the saddle-bags. Also there were other things
which I have forgotten. Yet within five-and-thirty minutes the long,
lean mare stood before the door. Behind her, with a tall crane's
feather in his hat, was Hans, mounted on the roan stallion, and leading
the chestnut, a four-year-old which I had bought as a foal on the mare
as part of the bargain. Having been corn fed from a colt it was a very
sound and well-grown horse, though not the equal of its mother in speed.
In the passage my poor old father, who was quite bewildered by the
rapidity and urgent nature of this business, embraced me.
"God bless you, my dear boy," he said. "I have had little time to
think, but I pray that this may be all for the best, and that we may
meet again in the world. But if not, remember what I have taught you,
and if I survive you, for my part I shall remember that you died trying
to do your duty. Oh, what trouble has the blind madness of Henri Marais
brought upon us all! Well, I warned him that it would be so. Good-bye,
my dear boy, good-bye: my prayers will follow you, and for the rest--
Well, I am old, and what does it matter if my grey hairs come with
sorrow to the grave?"
I kissed him back, and with an aching heart sprang to the saddle. In
five more minutes the station was out of sight.
Thirteen and a half hours later I pulled rein upon the quay of Port
Elizabeth just, only just, in time to catch Captain Richardson as he was
entering his boat to row out to the Seven Stars, on which the canvas was
already being hoisted. As well as I could in my exhausted state, I
explained matters and persuaded him to wait till the next tide. Then,
thanking God for the mare's speed--the roan had been left foundered
thirty miles away, and Hans was following on the chestnut, but not yet
up--I dragged the poor beast to an inn at hand. There she lay down and
died. Well, she had done her work, and there was no other horse in the
country that could have caught that boat.
An hour or so later Hans came in flogging the chestnut, and here I may
add that both it and the roan recovered. Indeed I rode them for many
years, until they were quite old. When I had eaten, or tried to eat
something and rested awhile, I went to the bank, succeeded in explaining
the state of the case to the manager, and after some difficulty, for
gold was not very plentiful in Port Elizabeth, procured three hundred
pounds in sovereigns. For the other two he gave me a bill upon some
agent in Delagoa Bay, together with a letter of recommendation to him
and the Portuguese governor, who, it appeared, was in debt to their
establishment. By an afterthought, however, although I kept the
letters, I returned him the bill and spent the #200 in purchasing a
great variety of goods which I will not enumerate, that I knew would be
useful for trading purposes among the east coast Kaffirs. Indeed, I
practically cleared out the Port Elizabeth stores, and barely had time,
with the help of Hans and the storekeepers, to pack and ship the goods
before the Seven Stars put out to sea.
Within twenty-four hours from the time I had left the Mission Station,
Hans and I saw behind us Port Elizabeth fading into the distance, and in
front a waste of stormy waters.
