CHAPTER VIII
THE CAMP OF DEATH
Everything went well upon that voyage, except with me personally. Not
having been on the ocean since I was a child, I, who am naturally no
good sailor, was extremely ill as day by day we ploughed through seas
that grew ever more rough. Also, strong as I was, that fearful ride had
overdone me. Added to these physical discomforts was my agonising
anxiety of mind, which I leave anyone with imagination to picture for
himself. Really there were times when I wished that the Seven Stars
would plunge headlong to the bottom of the deep and put an end to me and
my miseries.
These, however, so far as the bodily side of them was concerned, were, I
think, surpassed by those of my henchman Hans, who, as a matter of fact,
had never before set foot in any kind of boat. Perhaps this was
fortunate, since had he known the horrors of the ocean, much as he loved
me, he would, I am sure, by one means or another, have left me to voyage
in the Seven Stars alone. There he lay upon the floor of my little
cabin, rolling to and fro with the violent motion of the brig, overcome
with terror. He was convinced that we were going to be drowned, and in
the intervals of furious sea-sickness uttered piteous lamentations in
Dutch, English, and various native tongues, mingled with curses and
prayers of the most primitive and realistic order.
After the first twenty-four hours or so he informed me with many moans
that the last bit of his inside had just come out of him, and that he
was now quite hollow "like a gourd." Also he declared that all these
evils had fallen upon him because he had been fool enough to forsake the
religion of his people (what was that, I wonder), and allow himself to
be "washed white," that is, be baptised, by my father.
I answered that as he had become white instead of staying yellow, I
advised him to remain so, since it was evident that the Hottentot gods
would have nothing more to do with one who had deserted them. Thereon
he made a dreadful face, which even in the midst of my own woes caused
me to laugh at him, uttered a prolonged groan, and became so silent that
I thought he must be dead. However, the sailor who brought me my
food--such food!--assured me that this was not so, and lashed him tight
to the legs of the bunk by his arm and ankle so as to prevent him from
being rolled to bits.
Next morning Hans was dosed with brandy, which, in his empty condition,
made him extremely drunk, and from that time forward began to take a
more cheerful view of things. Especially was this so when the hours for
the "brandy medicine" came round. Hans, like most other Hottentots,
loved spirits, and would put up with much to get them, even with my
father's fiery indignation.
I think it was on the fourth day that at length we pitched and rolled
ourselves over the shallow bar of Port Natal and found ourselves at
peace for a while under shelter of the Point in the beautiful bay upon
the shores of which the town of Durban now stands. Then it was but a
miserable place, consisting of a few shanties which were afterwards
burnt by the Zulus, and a number of Kaffir huts. For such white men as
dwelt there had for the most part native followings, and, I may add,
native wives.
We spent two days at this settlement of Durban, where Captain Richardson
had some cargo to land for the English settlers, one or two of whom had
started a trade with the natives and with parties of the emigrant Boers
who were beginning to enter the territory by the overland route. Those
days I passed on shore, though I would not allow Hans to accompany me
lest he should desert, employing my time in picking up all the
information I could about the state of affairs, especially with
reference to the Zulus, a people with whom I was destined ere long to
make an intimate acquaintance. Needless to say, I inquired both from
natives and from white men whether anything was known of the fate of
Marais's party, but no one seemed even to have heard of them. One thing
I did learn, however, that my old friend, Pieter Retief, with a large
following, had crossed the Quathlamba Mountains, which we now know as
the Drakensberg, and entered the territory of Natal. Here they proposed
to settle if they could get the leave of the Zulu king, Dingaan, a
savage potentate of whom and of whose armies everyone seemed to live in
terror.
On the third morning, to my great relief, for I was terrified lest we
should be delayed, the Seven Stars sailed with a favouring wind. Three
days later we entered the harbour of Delagoa, a sheet of water many
miles long and broad. Notwithstanding its shallow entrance, it is the
best natural port in Southeastern Africa, but now, alas! lost to the
English.
Six hours later we anchored opposite a sandbank on which stood a
dilapidated fort and a dirty settlement known as Lorenzo Marquez, where
the Portuguese kept a few soldiers, most of them coloured. I pass over
my troubles with the Customs, if such they could be called. Suffice it
to say that ultimately I succeeded in landing my goods, on which the
duty chargeable was apparently enormous. This I did by distributing
twenty-five English sovereigns among various officials, beginning with
the acting-governor and ending with a drunken black sweep who sat in a
kind of sentry box on the quay.
Early next morning the Seven Stars sailed again, because of some quarrel
with the officials, who threatened to seize her--I forget why. Her
destination was the East African ports and, I think, Madagascar, where a
profitable trade was to be done in carrying cattle and slaves. Captain
Richardson said he might be back at Lorenzo Marquez in two or three
months' time, or he might not. As a matter of fact the latter
supposition proved correct, for the Seven Stars was lost on a sandbank
somewhere up the coast, her crew only escaping to Mombasa after enduring
great hardships.
Well, she had served my turn, for I heard afterwards that no other ship
put into the Bay for a whole year from the date she left it. So if I
had not caught her at Port Elizabeth I could not have come at all,
except, of course, overland. This at best must have taken many months,
and was moreover a journey that no man could enter on alone.
Now I get back to my story again.
There was no inn at Lorenzo Marquez. Through the kindness of one of his
native or half-breed wives, who could talk a little Dutch, I managed,
however, to get a lodging in a tumble-down house belonging to a
dissolute person who called himself Don Jose Ximenes, but who was really
himself a half-breed. Here good fortune befriended me. Don Jose, when
sober, was a trader with the natives, and a year before had acquired
from them two good buck wagons. Probably they were stolen from some
wandering Boers or found derelict after their murder or death by fever.
These wagons he was only too glad to sell for a song. I think I gave
him twenty pounds English for the two, and thirty more for twelve oxen
that he had bought at the same time as the wagons. They were fine
beasts of the Afrikander breed, that after a long rest had grown quite
fat and strong.
Of course twelve oxen were not enough to draw two wagons, or even one.
Therefore, hearing that there were natives on the mainland who possessed
plenty of cattle, I at once gave out that I was ready to buy, and pay
well in blankets, cloth, beads and so forth. The result was that within
two days I had forty or fifty to choose from, small animals of the Zulu
character and, I should add, unbroken. Still they were sturdy and used
to that veld and its diseases. Here it was that my twelve trained
beasts came in. By putting six of them to each wagon, two as fore- and
two as after-oxen, and two in the middle, Hans and I were able to get
the other ten necessary to make up a team of sixteen under some sort of
control.
Heavens! how we worked during the week or so which went by before it was
possible for me to leave Lorenzo Marquez. What with mending up and
loading the wagons, buying and breaking in the wild oxen, purchasing
provisions, hiring native servants--of whom I was lucky enough to secure
eight who belonged to one of the Zulu tribes and desired to get back to
their own country, whence they had wandered with some Boers, I do not
think that we slept more than two or three hours out of the twenty-four.
But, it may be asked, what was my aim, whither went I, what inquiries
had I made? To answer the last question first, I had made every
possible inquiry, but with little or no result. Marie's letter had said
that they were encamped on the bank of the Crocodile River, about fifty
miles from Delagoa Bay. I asked everyone I met among the
Portuguese--who, after all, were not many--if they had heard of such an
encampment of emigrant Boers. But these Portuguese appeared to have
heard nothing, except my host, Don Jose, who had a vague recollection of
something--he could not remember what.
The fact was at this time the few people who lived at Lorenzo Marquez
were too sodden with liquor and other vices to take any interest in
outside news that did not immediately concern them. Moreover, the
natives whom they flogged and oppressed if they were their servants, or
fought with if they were not, told them little, and almost nothing that
was true, for between the two races there was an hereditary hate
stretching back for generations. So from the Portuguese I gained no
information.
Then I turned to the Kaffirs, especially to those from whom I had bought
the cattle. _They_ had heard that some Boers reached the banks of the
Crocodile moons ago--how many they could not tell. But that country,
they said, was under the rule of a chief who was hostile to them, and
killed any of their people who ventured thither. Therefore they knew
nothing for certain. Still, one of them stated that a woman whom he had
bought as a slave, and who had passed through the district in question a
few weeks before, told him that someone had told her that these Boers
were all dead of sickness. She added that she had seen their wagon caps
from a distance, so, if they were dead, "their wagons were still alive."
I asked to see this woman, but the native refused to produce her. After
a great deal of talk, however, he offered to sell her to me, saying that
he was tired of her. So I bargained with the man and finally agreed for
her purchase for three pounds of copper wire and eight yards of blue
cloth. Next morning she was produced, an extremely ugly person with a
large, flat nose, who came from somewhere in the interior of Africa,
having, I gathered, been taken captive by Arabs and sold from hand to
hand. Her name, as near as I can pronounce it, was Jeel.
I had great difficulty in establishing communication with her, but
ultimately found that one of my newly hired Kaffirs could understand
something of her language. Even then it was hard to make her talk, for
she had never seen a white man, and thought I had bought her for some
dreadful purpose or other. However, when she found that she was kindly
treated, she opened her lips and told me the same story that her late
master had repeated, neither more nor less. Finally I asked her whether
she could guide me to the place where she had seen the "live wagons."
She answered: "Oh, yes," as she had travelled many roads and never
forgot any of them.
This, of course, was all I wanted from the woman, who, I may add,
ultimately gave me a good deal of trouble. The poor creature seemed
never to have experienced kindness, and her gratitude for the little I
showed her was so intense that it became a nuisance. She followed me
about everywhere, trying to do me service in her savage way, and even
attempted to seize my food and chew it before I put it into my own
mouth--to save me the trouble, I suppose. Ultimately I married her,
somewhat against her will, I fear, to one of the hired Kaffirs, who made
her a very good husband, although when he was dismissed from my service
she wanted to leave him and follow me.
At length, under the guidance of this woman, Jeel, we made a start.
There were but fifty miles to go, a distance that on a fair road any
good horse would cover in eight hours, or less. But we had no horses,
and there was no road--nothing but swamps and bush and rocky hills.
With our untrained cattle it took us three days to travel the first
twelve miles, though after that things went somewhat better.
It may be asked, why did I not send on? But whom could I send when no
one knew the way, except the woman, Jeel, whom I feared to part with
lest I should see her no more? Moreover, what was the use of sending,
since the messengers could take no help? If everyone at the camp was
dead, as rumour told us--well, they were dead. And if they lived, the
hope was that they might live a little longer. Meanwhile, I dared not
part with my guide, nor dared I leave the relief wagons to go on with
her alone. If I did so, I knew that I should never see them again,
since only the prestige of their being owned by a white man who was not
a Portuguese prevented the natives from looting them.
It was a truly awful journey. My first idea had been to follow the
banks of the Crocodile River, which is what I should have attempted had
I not chanced on the woman, Jeel. Lucky was it that I did not do so,
since I found afterwards that this river wound about a great deal and
was joined by impassable tributaries. Also it was bordered by forests.
Jeel's track, on the contrary, followed an old slave road that, bad as
it was, avoided the swampy places of the surrounding country, and those
native tribes which the experience of generations of the traders in this
iniquitous traffic showed to be most dangerous.
Nine days of fearful struggle had gone by. We had camped one night
below the crest of a long slope strewn with great rocks, many of which
we were obliged to roll out of the path by main force in order to make a
way for the wagons. The oxen had to lie in their yokes all night, since
we dared not let them loose fearing lest they should stray; also lions
were roaring in the distance, although, game being plentiful, these did
not come near to us. As soon as there was any light we let out the
teams to fill themselves on the tussocky grass that grew about, and
meanwhile cooked and ate some food.
Presently the sun rose, and I saw that beneath us was a great stretch of
plain covered with mist, and to the north, on our right, several denser
billows of mist that marked the course of the Crocodile River.
By degrees this mist lifted, tall tops of trees appearing above it, till
at length it thinned into vapour that vanished away as the sun rose. As
I watched it idly, the woman, Jeel, crept up to me in her furtive
fashion, touched me on the shoulder and pointed to a distant group of
trees.
Looking closely at these trees, I saw between them what at first I took
for some white rocks. Further examination, as the mist cleared,
suggested to my mind, however, that they might be wagon tilts. Just
then the Zulu who understood Jeel's talk came up. I asked him as well
as I could, for at that time my knowledge of his tongue was very
imperfect, what she wished to say. He questioned her, and answered that
she desired to tell me that those were the moving houses of the Amaboona
(the Boer people), just where she had seen them nearly two moons ago.
At this tidings my heart seemed to stand still, so that for more than a
minute I could not speak. There were the wagons at last, but--oh! who
and what should I find in them? I called Hans and bade him inspan as
quickly as possible, explaining to him that yonder was Marais's camp.
"Why not let the oxen fill themselves first, baas?" he answered. "There
is no hurry, for though the wagons are there, no doubt all the people
are dead long ago."
"Do what I bid you, you ill-omened beast," I said, "instead of croaking
of death like a crow. And listen: I am going to walk forward to that
camp; you must follow with the wagons as fast as they can travel."
"No, baas, it is not safe that you should go alone. Kaffirs or wild
beasts might take you."
"Safe or not, I am going; but if you think it wise, tell two of those
Zulus to come with me."
A few minutes later I was on the road, followed by the two Kaffirs armed
with spears. In my youth I was a good runner, being strong of leg and
light in body, but I do not think that I ever covered seven miles, for
that was about the distance to the camp, in quicker time than I did that
morning. Indeed, I left those active Kaffirs so far behind that when I
approached the trees they were not in sight. Here I dropped to a walk,
as I said to myself--to get my breath. Really it was because I felt so
terrified at what I might find that I delayed the discovery just for one
minute more. While I approached, hope, however faint, still remained;
when I arrived, hope might be replaced by everlasting despair.
Now I could see that there were some shanties built behind the wagons,
doubtless those "rude houses" of which Marie had written. But I could
not see anyone moving about them, or any cattle or any smoke, or other
sign of life. Nor could I hear a single sound.
Doubtless, thought I to myself, Hans is right. They are all long dead.
My agony of suspense was replaced by an icy calm. At length I knew the
worst. It was finished--I had striven in vain. I walked through the
outlying trees and between two of the wagons. One of these I noticed,
as we do notice things at such times, was the same in which Marais had
trekked with his daughter, his favourite wagon that once I had helped to
fit with a new dissel-boom.
Before me were the rough houses built of the branches of trees, daubed
over with mud, or rather the backs of them, for they faced west. I
stood still for a moment, and as I stood thought that I heard a faint
sound as of someone reciting slowly. I crept along the end of the
outermost house and, rubbing the cold sweat from my eyes, peeped round
the corner, for it occurred to me that savages might be in possession.
Then I saw what caused the sound. A tattered, blackened, bearded man
stood at the head of a long and shallow hole saying a prayer.
It was Henri Marais, although at the time I did not recognise him, so
changed was he. A number of little mounds to the right and left of him
told me, however, that the hole was a grave. As I watched two more men
appeared, dragging between them the body of a woman, which evidently
they had not strength to carry, as its legs trailed upon the ground.
From the shape of the corpse it seemed to be that of a tall young woman,
but the features I could not see, because it was being dragged face
downwards. Also the long hair hanging from the head hid them. It was
dark hair, like Marie's. They reached the grave, and tumbled their sad
burden into it; but I--I could not stir!
At length my limbs obeyed my will. I went forward to the men and said
in a hollow voice in Dutch:
"Whom do you bury?"
"Johanna Meyer," answered someone mechanically, for they did not seem to
have taken the trouble to look at me. As I listened to those words my
heart, which had stood still waiting for the answer, beat again with a
sudden bound that I could hear in the silence.
I looked up. There, advancing from the doorway of one of the houses,
very slowly, as though overpowered by weakness, and leading by the hand
a mere skeleton of a child, who was chewing some leaves, I saw--I saw
_Marie Marais!_ She was wasted to nothing, but I could not mistake her
eyes, those great soft eyes that had grown so unnaturally large in the
white, thin face.
She too saw me and stared for one moment. Then, loosing the child, she
cast up her hands, through which the sunlight shone as through
parchment, and slowly sank to the ground.
"She has gone, too," said one of the men in an indifferent voice. "I
thought she would not last another day."
Now for the first time the man at the head of the grave turned. Lifting
his hand, he pointed to me, whereon the other two men turned also.
"God above us!" he said in a choked voice, "at last I am quite mad.
Look! there stands the spook of young Allan, the son of the English
predicant who lived near Cradock."
As soon as I heard the voice I knew the speaker.
"Oh, Mynheer Marais!" I cried, "I am no ghost, I am Allan himself come
to save you."
Marais made no answer; he seemed bewildered. But one of the men cried
out crazily:
"How can you save us, youngster, unless you are ready to be eaten?
Don't you see, we starve, we starve!"
"I have wagons and food," I answered.
"Allemachte! Henri," exclaimed the man, with a wild laugh, "do you hear
what your English spook says? He says that he has wagons and _food,
food, food!_"
Then Marais burst into tears and flung himself upon my breast, nearly
knocking me down. I wrenched myself free of him and ran to Marie, who
was lying face upwards on the ground. She seemed to hear my step, for
her eyes opened and she struggled to a sitting posture.
"Is it really you, Allan, or do I dream?" she murmured.
"It is I, it is I," I answered, lifting her to her feet, for she seemed
to weigh no more than a child. Her head fell upon my shoulder, and she
too began to weep.
Still holding her, I turned to the men and said:
"Why do you starve when there, is game all about?" and I pointed to two
fat elands strolling among the trees not more than a hundred and fifty
yards away.
"Can we kill game with stones?" asked one of them, "we whose powder was
all burnt a month ago. Those buck," he added, with a wild laugh, "come
here to mock us every morning; but they will not walk into our pitfalls.
They know them too well, and we have no strength to dig others."
Now when I left my wagons I had brought with me that same Purdey rifle
with which I had shot the geese in the match against Pereira, choosing
it because it was so light to carry. I held up my hand for silence, set
Marie gently on the ground, and began to steal towards the elands.
Taking what shelter I could, I got within a hundred yards of them, when
suddenly they took alarm, being frightened, in fact, by my two Zulu
servants, who were now arriving.
Off they galloped, the big bull leading, and vanished behind some trees.
I saw their line, and that they would appear again between two clumps
of bush about two hundred and fifty yards away. Hastily I raised the
full sight on the rifle, which was marked for two hundred yards, lifted
it, and waited, praying to God as I did so that my skill might not fail
me.
The bull appeared, its head held forward, its long horns lying flat upon
the back. The shot was very long, and the beast very large to bring
down with so small a bullet. I aimed right forward--clear of it,
indeed--high too, in a line with its backbone, and pressed the trigger.
The rifle exploded, the bullet clapped, and the buck sprang forward
faster than ever. I had failed! But what was this? Suddenly the great
bull swung round and began to gallop towards us. When it was not more
than fifty yards away, it fell in a heap, rolled twice over like a shot
rabbit, and lay still. That bullet was in its heart.
The two Kaffirs appeared breathless and streaming with perspiration.
"Cut meat from the eland's flank; don't stop to skin it," I said in my
broken Zulu, helping the words out with signs.
They understood, and a minute later were at work with their assegais.
Then I looked about me. Near by lay a store of dead branches placed
there for fuel.
"Have you fire?" I asked of the skeleton Boers, for they were nothing
more.
"Nein, nein," they answered; "our fire is dead."
I produced the tinder-box which I carried with me, and struck the flint.
Ten minutes later we had a cheerful blaze, and within three-quarters of
an hour good soup, for iron pots were not wanting--only food to put into
them. I think that for the rest of that day those poor creatures did
little else but eat, sleeping between their meals. Oh! the joy I had in
feeding them, especially after the wagons arrived, bringing with them
salt--how they longed for that salt!--sugar and coffee.
