Читать книгу The Gold Kloof - H. A. Bryden - Страница 5

Karl Engelbrecht gathered himself up after a short pause, but there was no further fight left in him. He turned to go.

"All right, my fine Englishman," he said, shaking his fist at his conqueror. "I don't know who you are or what you are, but no one does Karl Engelbrecht an injury without paying for it. I shall be even with you, and that before very long. Meanwhile I shall go straight to the magistrate's office, and get that scoundrel arrested for running away from my service."

As he spoke he pointed to Poeskop, who was smiling all over his yellow face at his former master's discomfiture.

"And I'll follow you to the magistrate's office directly," said Mr. Blakeney, "and have you summoned for assaulting this native."

Accompanied by the two lads, who were overjoyed, if a little awed, at the result of the contest, Mr. Blakeney went into the hotel to wash his hands and get rid of all traces of the encounter. He himself had scarcely suffered at all. He had a lump on his forehead and a red patch on his cheek-bone, and one of his knuckles was badly cut; beyond these slight injuries he has untouched.

"My word, uncle," said Guy, as Mr. Blakeney took his coat off and poured out some water, "you did punish that ruffian. I had no idea you were such a fighting man. It was splendid!"

"Well, boys," returned Mr. Blakeney, "I don't like fighting, and I have always made it a point to avoid a scuffle if it can possibly be done. But sometimes there comes an occasion when a man must take his own part. This was one of them. I couldn't stand by and see that hulking bully knocking Poeskop about. My idea is that every decent Englishman, or English boy, should be able to defend himself when compelled to, and for that reason I believe in every lad being taught to box. My old boxing lessons stood me in good stead just now. I suppose the Boer was at least a couple of stone heavier than myself; but he knew no more about fighting than a baby, and he paid the penalty."

He soused his face in cold water, washed his hands, and with the two lads and Poeskop went off to the magistrate's office. The upshot of the affair was that Karl Engelbrecht was proved to be entirely in the wrong. It was shown that he had persistently maltreated Poeskop, and that he had seldom if ever paid him his rightful wages. Other natives in the town, who were under Portuguese rule, but who had served with Engelbrecht, could speak to these facts. In the end the Boer was fined for assaulting the Bushman, and ordered to pay him a further sum of money due for unpaid wages. The Dutchman paid the money with a wry face, and it was clear that he was yet more inflamed with hatred against Poeskop and his English supporters than he had been before.

But for the most part the people of Mossamedes, including the governor of the town and other officials, were delighted at the punishment inflicted on the big Boer. He was known and feared as a quarrelsome bully, and now some one had been found to check his blustering career and cut his comb. Mr. Blakeney was advised privately, after these occurrences, to keep his eyes open. Karl Engelbrecht was a man of evil reputation, who would not be likely to stop at trifles in the achievement of revenge, and revenge he was known to have vowed. In the town nothing would be attempted, but in the veldt such a ruffian might very well try to do mischief. However, Mr. Blakeney treated the matter very coolly. He was well able to take care of himself, he said; and having wide experience of the veldt and veldt ways, he felt perfectly competent to set at naught the blusterings of Karl Engelbrecht and his followers. The big Dutchman, having got over the effects of the fight, was having a good time in Mossamedes. For some time past the Portuguese Government had been employing the Trek Boers settled in their territory as mercenaries in their warfare against any tribes that happened to give trouble. The Boers took their payment chiefly in cattle, raided from the defeated tribesfolk; and Engelbrecht, who had been lately leading a commando against some unfortunate natives, had returned with much plunder in oxen and goats. These he had sold for good prices; his pockets were full of money, and he and his freebooting associates were bent on having a high time at the various bars and canteens of the place.

It is perhaps necessary to explain here, in a few words, how it came about that Boers were thus to be found in Portuguese territory, so far away from the homes of the South African Dutch stock settled in the Transvaal. Nearly twenty years before, many families of Boers, disgusted with the anarchy and bad government of the Transvaal Republic, and embittered yet more at the English taking over the country, as they had done in 1877, had quitted the Transvaal and trekked north-westward across the desert in search of a new Promised Land, which they believed to exist somewhere in the far interior. These ignorant and misguided folk found in their long wanderings no land of Canaan, flowing, as they had fondly hoped, with milk and honey. Their trek extended over several years; they endured almost unexampled privations and troubles from thirst, fevers, and the attacks of natives; scores of them died; they lost the greater portion of their stock, and abandoned many wagons; some turned back, and only a comparatively small remnant emerged from the perils of this unparalleled trek. After wandering about the western regions of the Kalahari, the Okavango country, and Ovampoland, they crossed the Cunene River and entered Portuguese territory.

Here they were well treated. They were allotted farms and encouraged to colonize the country, and many families did actually settle down at Humpata. Since that time-about the beginning of 1881-these Trek Boers and their descendants had accepted their lot in the new country and become Portuguese subjects. They tilled the ground, ranched cattle, sheep, and goats, rode transport (that is, carried goods) to and from Mossamedes and Benguela, hunted elephants for their ivory, and other kinds of game for their skins and flesh. Latterly, as we have seen, they had been assisting the Portuguese in native wars. For this kind of warfare they were excellently well adapted, being good shots and riders, and well versed in every trick and circumstance of veldt fighting. The Portuguese had, in fact, found them highly satisfactory auxiliaries, and the unfortunate natives-too often treated with the grossest unfairness and trickery by all parties-terrible enemies.

Among the Trek Boers of Humpata and the neighbouring country were many decent, deserving, and well-conducted people, who were only anxious to make a fair and honest living out of the country. A leaven of them, however, were mere filibusters and adventurers, cruel, cunning, and deceitful, ready to overreach and rob any man, especially if he had a black skin, and always prepared to use their rifles on small provocation. Among these was to be reckoned Karl Engelbrecht, who, even among these lawless spirits, had acquired a sinister reputation. Most of these Dutch settlers were fine, big, upstanding men, strong, bold, hardy, and athletic-as indeed they might well be; for they and their families represented the survival of the fittest, after one of the most trying and adventurous passages on record. Their seven years of wandering had, in truth, weeded out all the weak ones, and left alive only the toughest and hardiest of a tough and hardy race.

For the next few days Mr. Blakeney and his party were busied in pushing on their preparations for the trek. They filled the lower part of the wagon with various stores and provisions-meal, coffee, sugar, tinned provisions, jams, vegetables, and other small luxuries. They laid in also dried onions, always useful on an expedition of this kind, where green vegetables are unprocurable, as well as a bag or two of potatoes. They carried also sacks of mealies and Kaffir corn (the latter a kind of millet) with which to feed the horses. They anticipated a good deal of hunting; and you cannot pursue game on horseback, and run down giraffe, eland, and other fleet creatures, unless your nags are well fed and in good condition. This fact Guy had already become aware of during his stay in British Bechuanaland. Their saddlery, ammunition, guns and rifles had come round with them from Cape Town. Juno, their invaluable pointer, was also of the party. Juno seemed to be getting keener and keener as each day passed; she watched anxiously the loading of the wagon, and was evidently only too desirous to have the whole party out in the veldt. A good light tent had been procured, and Mr. Blakeney's kartel fixed up in the wagon. All was now ready for the trek, which they hoped to begin next day.

During these preparations they necessarily, moving as they did freely about the small seaport of Mossamedes, passed Karl Engelbrecht and his boon companions in close proximity. After his severe lesson the Boer, who was a coward at bottom, did not dare to attempt any further liberties with the Englishmen or their servants; but he scowled evilly as he passed, and had always some savage remark to make to his friends-delivered carefully in an undertone-as they went by. Mr. Blakeney and the two lads, for their part, took not the slightest notice of the freebooters; even Poeskop, strong in his reliance upon his English protectors, held his head well in the air, and assumed an air of supercilious indifference, which perhaps in his secret heart he felt was not altogether justified. For Poeskop, undoubtedly, knowing his former master and his evil ways so well, still retained within his soul certain secret quakings as he thought of or set eyes upon Karl Engelbrecht.

"My young baas," he would say to Guy, as they sighted the big, burly ruffian, "he is slim, and he is strong, and he is cruel. And he will try to make us suffer for his black eyes, which he still carries, the schelm! and his bleeding nose. Maghte! but it was good as a sackful of honey1 to see Karl Engelbrecht floored by Baas Blackenny" (he always mispronounced the word), "and it does me good still to see his battered face."

Then he would croon to himself in his croaking voice: "But we shall suffer, we shall suffer; Karl Engelbrecht is planning something; Poeskop knows it, ay, he knows it. Well, Poeskop will look out. He sleep always like the muishond [a kind of weasel], with one eye open."