R. M. Ballantyne

“ To them the great waggons; the gigantic Cape-oxen—which appeared to have been created expressly to match the waggons as well as to carry their own ponderous horns; the wild-looking Hottentots and Bushmen; the big phlegmatic Dutchmen; the bristling thorns of the mimosas, cropping out of comparative darkness; the varied groups of emigrants; the weird forms of the clumps of cactus, aloes, euphorbias, and other strange plants, lit up by the fitful glare of the camp-fires, and canopied by the star-spangled depths of a southern sky—all seemed to them the unbelievable creations of a wild vision. ”

“ On reaching the knoll a fearful scene presented itself. The Kafirs had already killed every man of the party—having come on them unawares and thrown their assagais with fatal precision from the bushes. They were completing the work of death with shouts and yells of fierce delight. Not a woman was to be seen. They had either been dragged into the bushes and slain, or had sought refuge in flight.
With a mighty shout of rage Hans and Considine dashed into the midst of the murderers, and two instantly fell, stabbed to the heart. ”

“ Ah! there was great fervour in Stephen Orpin’s tones when he said, as he often did— “Men and women, I do not come here to make you good, which, in the estimation of more than one half of the so-called Christian world, means goody. My desire is to open your eyes to see Jesus, the Saviour from sin. Who among you—except the young—does not know the power of sin; our inability to restrain bad and vicious habits; our passionate desire to do what we know is wrong; our frequent falling from courses that we know to be right? It is not that hell frightens us; it is not that heaven fails to attract us. ”

“ A solitary horseman—a youth in early manhood—riding at a snail’s pace over the great plains, or karroo, of South Africa. His chin on his breast; his hands in the pockets of an old shooting-coat; his legs in ragged trousers, and his feet in worn-out boots. Regardless of stirrups, the last are dangling. The reins hang on the neck of his steed, whose head may be said to dangle from its shoulders, so nearly does its nose approach the ground. A felt hat covers the youth’s curly black head, and a double-barrelled gun is slung across his broad shoulders. ”

“ It was touching to see, here and there, a stalwart man pick up a tired goat and lay it on his shoulders, or relieve a weary woman of her burden—or catch up a stumbling little one that had lost its mother, and carry it along in his arms. And it was a sublime thought that this great army was being led, like the Israelites of old, out of worse than Egyptian bondage, into a Christian colony, as the adopted sons and daughters of a civilised Government. ”

“ Great was the surprise of the farmers when they heard a loud shout, and beheld a white man flying for his life from a solitary savage. With the promptitude of men born and bred in the midst of alarms, they seized their guns and issued from their fortified enclosure to the rescue, but the Kafir was already close to Orpin, and in the act of raising his assagai to stab him.
Seeing the urgency of the case, Conrad Marais, who was considered a pretty good shot among his fellows, took steady aim, and, at the risk of hitting the white man, fired. ”

“ A yell was uttered by the savages as they rushed at a weak point, where the thorn-bush defences had been broken down. The point appeared to be undefended. They were about to leap through in a dense mass when ten Dutchmen, who had reserved their fire, discharged a volley simultaneously into the midst of them. It was a ruse of the defenders to draw the savages to that point. Whilst the Kafirs tumbled back over heaps of dead and dying, several other farmers thrust masses of impenetrable mimosa bush into the gap and refilled it. ”

“ Ruyter, being a well-known outlaw, did not dare to show himself at the fair, although not a whit worse in any respect than most of the Kafir chiefs who walked openly there unchallenged. He shrank back into the shelter of the jungle while the trader awaited the coming up of the waggon.
“Aha, here you are, Orpin—not kept you waiting long, I hope?” said John Skyd as he followed his waggon into the glade.
“Not long,” answered the trader; “but we must make the most of our time now, for the day is far spent.” ”

“ Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, were slain under that garden wall—hundreds of thousands, millions, hopped over their comrades’ backs and continued the assault with unconquerable pluck. The heroes of ancient Greece and Rome were nothing to them. Horses, cattle, and sheep were driven in among them and made to prance wildly, not in the hope of destroying the foe—as well might you have attempted to blot out the milky way,—but for the purpose of stemming the torrent and turning, if possible, the leading battalions aside from the garden. ”

“ Soon after, they came in sight of the party for which they were searching, just as the Kafirs were making a renewed attack. Already a few volleys had been fired by the Dutchmen, the smoke of which hung like a white shroud over the camp, and swarms of savages were yelling round it.
“The cattle and flocks have been swept away,” growled Frank Dobson.
“But the women and children must be safe as yet,” said Considine, with a sigh of relief.
“Now, boys,” cried Hans, who had been elected captain, “we must act together. When I give the word, halt and fire like one man, and then charge where I lead you. ”

“ We cannot subdue our passions; we cannot restrain our tempers. No wonder. Has not God said, ‘Greater is he who ruleth his own spirit, than he who taketh a city?’ The greatest conqueror is not so great as he who conquers himself. What then? Is there no deliverance from sin? Yes, there is. ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you,’ are the words of Him who also said, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”
“Stephen Orpin,” cried a sturdy sinner, in whose ears these words were preached, “do you know all that to be true? ”

“ It was a strange and stirring sight to behold the long files of Kafir women, straight and graceful as Venus in body, ugly almost as baboons in visage, coming to the fair from all parts of the land with enormous loads on their heads of ox-hides, horns, gum, and elephants’ tusks. Threading the narrow bush-paths in long single files, they came from hillside and thicket towards the great centre of attraction. Gradually the crowd thickened. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The big Kafir came on at once, and made a blow at Pat’s head with his knob-kerrie that would have ended the fight at once if it had taken effect, but the Irishman, well trained in the art, guarded it neatly, and returned with a blow so swift and vigorous that it fell on the pate of the savage like a flail. As well might Pat have hit a rock. If there is a strong point about a black man, it is his head. The Irish man knew this, but had forgotten it in the first flush of combat. He became wiser. Meanwhile a crowd of excited traders and Kafirs gathered round the combatants and backed them. ”

“ In these circumstances he seized the horrified Junkie by the arm, swung him on the pommel of his saddle, and galloped away up the kloof and over the mountains into the deepest recesses of Kafirland.
When Mrs Scholtz awoke that morning, rubbed her eyes, looked up and discovered that Junkie’s crib was empty, she sprang from her bed, perceived the open lattice, and gave vent to an awful scream. In barbarous times and regions a shriek is never uttered in vain. The McTavish household was instantly in the room, some of them in deshabille—some armed—all alarmed. ”

“ Knowing from long and bitter experience that he would be pursued by the inveterate Mrs Scholtz, the urchin ran up the kloof, bent on placing the greatest possible space between him and his natural enemy in the shortest possible time. In this way he was not long of drawing near to the leopard’s point of observation.
No doubt that keen-sighted animal would quickly have observed the child, if its attention had not at the moment been attracted by other and equally mischievous game. A troop of baboons came down the kloof to pilfer the white man’s fruit and vegetables. ”

“ Orpin was by no means a milksop, and, although a Christian man, did not understand Christianity to teach the absolute giving up of all one’s possessions to the first scoundrel who shall demand them. The moment, therefore, that the robbers showed themselves, he stopped the waggon at the foot of the precipice, drew his ever-ready double-barrelled large-bore gun from under the tilt, and ran out in front, calling on his men to support him. Kneeling down, he prepared to take a steady aim at the Bushman in advance, a wild-looking savage in a sheepskin kaross and armed with an assagai. ”

“ They found the region most desirable in all respects. Open grassy pastures were interspersed everywhere with clumps and groves of mimosa-trees, while the river, a gurgling mountain-brook, meandered musically through the meadows. From grove and thicket sprang the hartebeest and duiker. From their lairs among the reeds and sedges of the river rushed the reitbok and wild hog; while troops of quaggas appeared trotting on the lower declivities of the hills. ”