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Journey Into Danger
By STUART CLOETE
Illustrated by Austin Briggs
Now she was his prize. The price a human life.
We are the subjects of the English and we would be free burghers," Barend Beyers told Willem Prinsloo. As Francina, Willem's grandniece, eavesdropped, she heard Barend and-his brothers beg Oom Willem to lead their trek to the north of South Africa and help them form an independent Boer republic. But Oom Willem refused because he felt he was too old for the perilous thousand-mile journey.
The next day, Capt. Jack Robinson arrived with five English soldiers. Their mission was twofold-first, to bring back Blaubooi, the famous thoroughbred stallion which they had traced to the Prinsloo farm; and second, to find Harry Bates, the English deserter who had stolen the horse and sold it to Oom Willem five years before.
To Francina, this magnificent animal was hers alone; her fierce devotion to Blaubooi worried her grandmother, Tante Maria. And Solomon Rosenberg, the itinerant peddler now visiting the farm, was amazed at this beautiful girl's love for a horse. Now, determined to keep Blaubooi, Francina mounted him and led every horse on the ranch to the open veld-and then even the soldiers' horse’s joined the stampede.
II
Captain Robinson had his mouth open to speak. He reached the half door in time to see the troop horses swept up into the stampede. He caught, or thought he caught, a glimpse of a big gray horse that might have been the stallion he was looking for. His face became suffused with angry blood.
He was not going to be able to recover the gray. He could not even prove that he was here. There had been a high percentage of grays and roans among the horses that had galloped past. But he could make nothing of it, whatever he believed to be the cause, nor would there be any chance now of capturing Harry Bates. It was even impossible to distribute more leaflets. They had disappeared in the saddlebag of his orderly; so had everything else-his silver-mounted pistols, his cavalry cloak. All had gone with his horse, a valuable Irish hunter. He put his hand to his neck, almost choking now. In all the world there was nothing so utterly helpless and absurd as a dismounted dragoon, dragging his saber, hardly able to walk in his jack boots. Someone was going to pay for this!
The troopers stood staring at the dust made by the escaping horses, their minds still bemused with brandy and girls-only dimly, as through a fog of sound, did they hear their captain's shouts.
"By heaven, I'll have you flogged. Neglect of duty. Desertion in the face of the enemy! Loss of government property-and my property! My black! My pistols! By thunder! I'll-I'll _"
He turned to Willem Prinsloo. "Well," he roared, "what are you going to do now?"
"Niks," Oom Willem said. Then he shouted, "And magtig, I will not be shouted at in my own house. No one shouts here but me."
Tante Maria thrust herself between them. "No one shouts at the oubaas," she said. "He is the master here. This is our home. You have no right here." An idea struck her. "Have you a warrant? If not, by what right do you thrust yourself upon us, frightening the life out of our maids and bolting our horses. Ja," she screamed, "a warrant. Show us your warrant."
"I am not a policeman," Robinson said, giving way as Tante Maria forced her bulk against him.
"Not a policeman? You are worse than a policeman. They only put innocent men into the tronk. You soldiers, you-you are murderers. You cut men to pieces as if they were strings of sausages. You tramp them under the feet of your horses. Well, now you have no horses. It is a judgment. God has swept them away."
"He swept away ours, too," Oom Willem said.
"The ways of God are inscrutable," was Tante Maria's answer.
"Get food," Oom Willem said. "Get food, woman. We must feed these men and set them on their way."
"I must have horses," Captain Robinson said. "We must go after our chargers." "Horses?" Willem said. "There is not a horse within ten miles."
"You mean you cannot mount us?"
"Mount you?" Oom Willem roared with laughter. "Meneer officer," he said, "I will feed you and your men. Then I will have a team of oxen inspanned and send you to Sandfontein in a wagon. You should be there by dark. There you may be able to get a horse or two and send a message to Cape Town."
By now Gam Willem had guessed what had happened. Francina had realized that the gray stallion had been traced to Groeplaas. Somehow she had got rid of the troopers who were standing with their horses and had bolted their chargers with the horse herd. He knew as well as if he had seen her do it. She had ridden Blaubooi barebacked, and he had led the herd. He was proud of the girl. What a boy she would have made! He went to the back, leaving the Englishman. He wanted to talk to the colored girls."Come here," he said. They followed him out into the yard, close together, giggling, but looking down at the ground with simulated modesty.
"Now-" he said "-now where is the nooi.?"
"She is gone."
"Ja, she is gone. But where?"
"On the blue horse. Ja, baas. She led the clompie of horses lying flat on his back, her hair mingling with his mane."
"It was a fine sight," Eva said.
"And you? You girls What were you doing?"
"We were with the soldiers. The nooi told us to go to them. We gave them a drink. She said we could do anything. Ja, baas, the nooi gave us permission."
"You should be whipped," moO Willem said.
"We are not slaves," Sara said.
"You are still children and will still be whipped when you misbehave. But this time I will buy each of you a new duk from the smous."
"Silk?" Sara asked.
"Ja, of silk."
The girls smiled at each other. They had a good master. These talks of whipping were a joke. Would the Jew have a big variety of headcloths? Life was certainly very interesting.
Once well away from the farm Frananica slowed down her horse. The mares and colts began to graze. She had halted in the grassy glade where she had met the Beyers brothers. She would take Blaubooi and the mares up to their farm. They would take care of them till all danger was past and would lend her a horse to ride back. But first she must offsaddle the troop horses. They let her walk up to them. She took off their saddles and bridles, setting them in the crotch of an old tree. Then she went to the officer's horse-a splendid black gelding beautifully accoutered. She transferred his saddle and bridle onto Blaubooi.
He looked very handsome with a gold-embroidered saddlecloth. There were silver-mounted pistols in the holsters and a silver flask in a leather container. Behind the saddle a dark blue cloak was rolled.
Smiling to herself, Francina shortened the stirrup leathers by three holes and remounted.
The Beyers place resembled most others in the district-a main house with stables, outbuildings and kraals distributed somewhat haphazardly about it. Francina knew the farm well. These were their nearest neighbors.
Riding at a walk now, followed by the herd of horses, Francina came through the ravine and into full sight from the house. The Beyers dogs ran out, barking. This brought Mevrouw Beyers from the kitchen. She was followed by Daniel's wife. Young Louis came from the stables and, recognizing the visitor, ran to greet her.
"How are you?" he said. "And why are you bringing all your horses here?"
"I want you to keep them for a few days till all danger is past."
"Danger? What danger?"
"The English, Louis. They came for Blaubooi. So I took all the horses, including theirs, so that they could not follow me."
"That was clever," Louis said. He was walking beside her with his hand on Blaubooi's neck. "Of course we'll keep your horses, and you can have mine to carry you home. Come," he said, "we'll take your beasts into an empty kraal." He flung open the gate of a large, walled enclosure, and they drove the horses in. Francina dismounted.
"That is a very fine saddle," Louis said. "You are certainly very well equipped, with horse pistols, a flask and everything."
Francina smiled at him. "I stole them from the English officer. At least I stole his horse, and they were on him."
"You stole an English horse, Francina?"
"I stole six. They are in your kraal."
"And what will the English do?"
"I don't know. Walk home perhaps. But they do not know I stole them. They think they ran away." She put a hand on Louis' arm. "You can ride Blaubooi, but keep him stabled alone."
"I'll take care of him," Louis said. "It is nice to think that you are riding my horse and I am riding yours."
The women now came forward to greet her. Mevrouw Beyers was dark-haired, dark-eyed and vivacious. She had been married young. Louis was her son. The other boys were her husband's by a previous wife. Dora, Daniel's wife, was still a girl, but growing plump with matrimony.
They embraced Francina. How daring! How brave was she-escaping like that, and bareback too! Yet she felt Dora thought that such things were not for women.
But did one have to live as if one were already dead to be a woman? Had women, then, no brains, no feelings, no sense at all? That was not the way her oupa had brought her up. Be free, he had said. Do what you must and pay the price. For each thing there is a price-in risk, in pain, in joy.
She ate what they put before her and drank coffee. Louis fetched his yellow horse. Francina put Blaubooi into a stall and kissed his nose. "I love you," she said. "I'll die before they get you."
Then she mounted and rode away- but not to Groenplaas. She must find Harry Bates, the English soldier, and warn him that he was not forgotten, that the authorities were still after him. No one knew where the bandits bid, but she had heard that they kept a lookout on one of the mountains seven or eight miles away. She must find this man and send him for Bates, the red-haired soldier.
The track that led to the mountain was not well defined. It did not occur to Francina that she might not find the sentry. She was merely curious about the road that snaked up the hills. If there were men about, they would know someone was coming. She began to sing. She had a high clear voice that was caught in the sounding board of the hills. The track came round a shoulder where the great tumbled rocks that had rolled down from the berg above almost blocked it.
A man with a gun stood in front of her-a colored man with a dirty, evil face and snaggleteeth. She pulled up her horse. Her dogs advanced and stood growling on each side of her. Francina said, "I have a message for a man you have with you."
"What man? And who are you?"
"I am Francina Prinsloo, and the man I seek is Harry Bates, the English deserter. It is important. Either take me to him 'or bring him here to me. "
The man adjusted the bandanna he had wrapped around his head. He was stripped to the waist. He had a pistol stuck into his belt; a powder horn hung from a wide bandoleer that went over his shoulder, supporting a brass-handled cutlass in a sheath of zebra skin. His feet were bare, the soles horny. His greasy hair was long and tied with a dirty black velvet ribbon.
If she had not had the dogs with her, Francina might have been frightened of him, having never seen his like before-a man who quite obviously was a criminal. Her will hardened against him. Her eyes never left his. She said, "Fetch Bates. I will wait here."
"Who are you to give orders?" he said. But after a moment's pause he turned away and went up the mountain in great strides. Once he had gone, she off-saddled her horse, knee-haltered him and sat down in the shade of a big rock.
Harry Bates followed his man down the mountain. De Vries was not one of his favorites, a cruel man, who killed and tortured because he enjoyed it, but left others to take the risks. But he had been born in this district and knew the mountains hereabouts better than any of them.
A girl to see him. What girl? It had been years since he had spoken to or even seen a white woman. "She's down there," De Vries said, pointing.
The dogs heard him speak and barked. The yellow horse looked up. Francina moved toward the men coming down the mountain.
Bates was in front. There was no mistaking him. His eyes were as blue as she remembered them, his hair still flamed. But his face had changed. It was harder. It looked as if it were no longer made of flesh and bone, but of some hard, brown, polished stone. He came forward, his hand extended. "I am Harry Bates," he said.
"My name is Francina Prinsloo, Meneer Bates," Francina said. "You do not remember me?"
"I don't remember you."
"It was a long time ago. I was ten," Francina said. "It was when you came with the big gray horse. When you sold Blaubooi to my oupa-Oom Willem Prinsloo. "
"The gray?" Bates said. "Then you're the little girl who stood watching. I've often thought of you and the way you looked. I remember thinking, There's a girl who loves horses."
"I love him," Francina said.
"Who do you love, my pretty maid?"
"Blaubooi. That is why I am here."
Bates took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. "You do not make yourself very clear," he said.
"Oh, it is clear enough," Francina said. "The soldiers came for him-the redcoats."
"They were on your farm?"
"Ja, they had traced him. We sold some of his colts. They were so like him that a man who knew Blaubooi recognized them as his sons."
"Everyone knew that gray," Bates said. "Didn't you know that he was famous? That he cost five thousand guineas?"
"No," Francina said. "I did not know. I only know oupa gave you twenty-five pounds for him and that I love him. So I rode him away with all the other horses when the redcoats came. I also took their horses, one of them a splendid black with a white star on his face, and one white sock."
Bates said, "A white sock on his near foreleg?"
"Ja," Francina said. "You know him?"
"That's old Nick, Captain John Robinson's black hunter," Bates said.
"That is the name of the captain. He hates you. He was asking for you. He called you a deserter, a horse thief. That is why I came," she said simply. "To warn you. Now I will go. They will wonder where I am at home."
She picked up her saddle and bridle and moved toward her grazing horse.
Then she turned back. "There is one more thing," she said. "He is offering a reward for you-a hundred-pound reward for your capture." Then, before she could turn back, an event-which, when she thought about it afterward, seemed to have taken a long time-took place-and was all over in half a minute. She had never seen a man killed before.
At her words a curious expression flitted across De Vries' face. Harry Bates' face changed too. In an instant, all in one movement, his hand fell on his pistol and he drew it and fired. De Vries, an evil smile still on his lips, put his hand to his bare chest as if to stem the blood and fell forward, dead.
Bates took the saddle from Francina's arms and led her around the shoulder of the hill. "You will stay here till I fetch you," he said.
She said, "Ja" I'll stay. But why?"
"Why, my dear," he said, "how long do you think I should remain free if my men knew I was worth a hundred pounds?"
"So I might have been the end of you?" Francina said. Tears filled her eyes. "I came to save you and I might have killed you."
"You saved my life," he said. "Now rest till I come to fetch you." He took her hand and kissed it.
When he had gone Francina began to tremble. She had just seen a man killed. Her knees gave way, and she fell crying in a heap.
That was how Bates found her when he came back. No wonder she was crying. It would do her good. When it was over she would be well. Sometimes, he thought, it was a pity that men could not cry. He laughed at the thought of someone's crying for that devil Piet de Vries, whose body he had disposed of and whose death he must soon explain to a band of men who would be in no way surprised at his end.
The story he would tell was simple. De Vries had tried to kill him and take the girl who had come to warn them of the dragoons in the vicinity.
Francina looked at Bates as he walked beside her horse. How sad he seemed. What a terrible life he led.
The track they followed led on over the foothills till they reached a small flat-topped mountain from a narrow, easily defended neck that linked it to a lower range. Here suddenly there were men about them. They sprang up from behind every rock and heather tussock-ragged, wild-eyed, unkempt men pointing their guns.'
One, bigger than the others, came forward and said, "She can't go back, Harry. She must stay or die."
"She'll go back," Bates said. "She'll sleep here and then go back tomorrow."
"A spy," someone shouted. "It's a trick to send a woman spy."
"You fool! She came to warn us. I know this girl," Bates said. "She came by herself to tell us that there are troops about-dragoons who are looking for us."
They were moving forward, the band grouped about them. The mountain had a flat top that sank into a saucerlike depression which was filled with water and surrounded by reeds.
The brigands' village consisted of a row of huts and small houses that ran round the Curve of the rim but well below it, facing north to catch the sun. Wild-looking women with children hanging onto their skirts came to stare. Dogs barked. A medium-sized, thickset man came up to them and was introduced by Bates. "This is Fred Carter," he said, "once of the Tenth."
Carter was fair-haired with a reddish face and very powerful-looking, with a barrel chest and bowed legs. Francina did not like the look of his eyes. They were a very pale, unwinking gray; his eyebrows and lashes were almost white. Like Bates, he was clean-shaven. Most of the other men were bearded.
Someone took away the yellow horse. Bates led her to a house that looked rather cleaner and larger than the others. It had been whitewashed once, but the whitewash was peeling off. The thatch was neat and new.
He had a lot to think about. He was going to send Fred Carter back with her-the best of a bad lot, English too, a Kentishman, but he did not trust him. He had seen the look in his eyes as he looked at the girl. There was only one answer- he would have to send someone else with him, a second man whom he could trust. Kleinbooi, his Zulu servant, must go with them.
Next morning the procession down the mountain began. Fred Carter led the way on foot, then came Francina riding her borrowed horse or leading it where the descent was too steep. Behind her came her dogs, followed closely by Kleinbooi, Bates' Zulu, so called because of his immense size. No one knew how he had arrived in these parts. No one knew anything about him except that he was unbelievably powerful and devoted to Bates.
They went back a different way. Carter said they were going to a farmer who kept their horses for them. She gathered that he also ran the cattle they stole and in general acted as a link between the bandits and the outer world. When they had been going about two hours Carter left her with the Zulu and continued on by himself. Kleinbooi built a small fire and put on a pot to cook.
Francina sat with her dogs about her. Life had taken a strange turn, what with this talk of the trek, the coming of the redcoats, the smous and her escape with Blaubooi. Then there was the terrible sentry that Bates had shot before her eyes. Bates had shot him as he would have shot a mad dog.
Francina had no great respect for human life. As she saw it, men and beasts were born, lived for a while, and then died in one way or another. Of course, God cared for human beings and saw to it that if they were not evil they went to heaven after death. She thought of people in heaven being rather like old horses pensioned off and turned out to grass.
By the time Kleinbooi's stew was ready Carter was back. He rode a chestnut mare and led a powerful, dark brown stallion. He looked slow, Francina thought, but it would be impossible to get a fast horse to carry the big Zulu.
Carter sat down with them, and they ate. Then they mounted and rode off, taking short cuts across the hills until they emerged into country that Francina knew. Now she took the lead, and they soon broke out into the little valley where she had halted and hidden the troopers' saddles. There they were over the old horizontal branches of the old tree, as if they were in a saddle room, their stirrups hanging on their leathers, the girths thrown back over the seats. The headstalls hung from the stubs of broken branches.
"What's all this?" Fred Carter swung his horse in beside hers. "Saddles and bridles in a tree? Cavalry gear," he said. He began to laugh. "It belongs to the Tenth Dragoons. How did it get here?"
"I put it there," Francina said complacently. She was seeing things a little differently now that Blaubooi and Harry Bates were safe. Ja, she was in her way something of a heroine. She had stolen six cavalry horses, one of them of unusual quality, complete with saddles and gear, from the English. After all, how many other Boer girls of fifteen had done as much?
Carter was examining the saddlebags. They contained spare clothing. Behind the saddles there were rolled cloaks. What a find!
"I'd like to take them when I go back."
"You can have them, meneer. What use would they be to me?"
Carter opened another bag. It was full of printed forms. "Here," he said. "What's this?" He pulled one out. "By thunder, it's about poor Harry- Harry Bates. There's a reward of a hundred pounds for him, and it's offered by Captain John Robinson of the Tenth. He always hated Harry, did Captain Jack."
"That's why I went to find him," Francina said, "to tell him there was a price on his head."
The picture was clear to Carter now. That was why Harry had shot De Vries. "No one must know about this," he said. "We'll burn the lot of them."
He told the Zulu to collect some sticks. In a few minutes the posters were gone, the flat sheets of ash scattered by the wind-all gone but the one which Carter had secreted in his pocket.
A plan was forming in his mind. There was more in this than met the, eye. "You'll be all right now," he said to Francina.
"Ja," she said, "I am home."
"Then we will leave you," Carter said, "and get back with the saddlery."
"Good-by and thank you," Francina said.
"Good-by," Carter said, "and God bless you."
Willem Prinsloo was not worried by Francina's absence. She could take care of herself. She was strong, quick and clever. His gray horse had been saved, and a decision had been forced on him. Now he would lead the trek. This would be his Last act-last, for certainly he would never return. But why should a man cling to the graves of his race? Remain like an ox in a kraal when the world lay wide and open before him?
He thought of the English soldiers he had loaded into the ox wagon and of their officer's fury. They had sat on the benches he had put in it like little children in a school. How everyone had laughed when the wagon started.
The smous had asked to remain a few days to rest his donkeys.
"Stay, stay," he'd said. "Everything is now so disturbed that one person more or less can make no difference. I lose my great-niece and gain a Jew, but at least the English have gone."
"Meneer Prinsloo," Solomon said, "is it not true that there are some families about here who are determined to trek to the North?"
"Ja, it is true."
"Then it would be wise of these people to turn most of their beasts into gold and only take their breeding stock." He had agreed with the Jew. It was a good plan. Everything was now in the hands of God. He had made his decision. It was based on his desire to adventure once again and to annoy Tante Maria. He also felt that the redcoats would come back. Magtig, that was something. He thought of Blaubooi-a horse worth five thousand guineas, the price of a hundred farms, running half wild in the open veld, the pet of a Boer maid. But if they took him, she might try to kill one of them. She might even succeed.
He knew now that for thirty years the northern bushveld had called to him. He had been like a loaded gun, and the English redcoats had pulled the trigger.
Damn them-these men from over the sea who squeezed the Boers as if they were oranges for all the tax juice they could extract from them, who fenced them in with laws, who. . . . There was no end to the reasons for his hatred-the language they spoke, the way they dressed and looked, their manners, the fact that they were not respectable and turned Cape Town into a Sodom and Gomorrah with their vices.
And who, after all, was he to refuse a direct order from God? If God had not wanted him to lead this trek, would he have sent him north thirty years ago to spy out the land? Would he have permitted him to survive? Of all those whom he had known in those old days only he still lived to tell the tale. Was it not God who had 'inspired the Beyers boys to come to ask him to lead them?
He rose slowly to his full height and stared about him as if seeing the farm on which he had been born and reared for the first time. I'm sick alit, he thought; it is too tame, too small. Why sit here and wait for death? He smiled. He would go and tell the old sea cow, the old hippopotamus, his good news.
"Go? Trek? Oom Willem, are you mad?" Tante Maria screamed. "You would leave a good farm and trek into the wilderness because you think a headstrong girl will die before she gives up her horse? Magtig, who gave her the horse? And is it decent for a girl to love a horse like that?"
"It is not the girl." Willem’s face had fallen into deep repose. His blue eyes were expressionless. "The girl is only part of it," he said. "The outward and visible sign of an inward call that has come to me. 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. . . .' That is in the Book, is it not?" He looked at his sister-in-law and, not waiting for an answer, said, "Ja, it is in the Book. The Lord God inspired her to love the horse, and I know my duty."
"Your duty!" Maria shouted. "Your duty is to stay in your own place on your farm. I am too old to move. I have taken root here. Groot Jan, your dead brother, God rest him, said if anything ever happened to him, I should have a place here in his old home." "You are not too old to trek," Willem said. "You are in your full strength. You are only fat and lazy."
"That I should hear this from my brother-in-law. Oh, if Groot Jan were here!"
"If Groot Jan were here, you would be absent. So listen, woman." Willem Prinsloo raised his voice. "I am inspired. I am directed. I must lead this trek. That is why I went to the North as a boy-to spy out the way to Canaan. That is why the British tax gatherers came to oppress me-the Egyptians, from whom we shall flee into the wilderness."
"Magtig," Tante Maria wailed, "how shall I get into a wagon? It's bad enough at Nagmaal four times a year. But every day, several times a day, every time I want to go outside."
"I will make you steps," Willem said, "strong steps. Also you will get thinner. Sometimes there will be little food."
The man was mad. There was no doubt about that. But all men were mad. Even Groot Jan, when she looked back on their life together, had been mad. Her mind went back to her sister's letter. Surely he had not forgotten it.
"The letter-" she said, "the letter I had from my sister and all that she has endured. Have you forgotten it?"
"I forget nothing. I have thought of all. Last night I prayed. I walked over the veld and thought of our land, our people. Others feel as I do. Some have already gone. Many more are going. This is the only way. What have we seen but oppression? Wars in which the English took more cattle than the Kaffirs? Our language is taken from us, and our lives when we try to protect our property."
He sprang to his feet and thumped the table so that it jumped. His white hair was wild as he ran his hand through it. His eyes blazed. "No," he shouted, "we will take no more of this oppression. We will make a new land. This time it will be one land, for our people, a free land for free Boers where we will worship God and live as brothers. This is our mission, for we are a chosen people."
Tante Maria got up to face him. They stood with the table between them. "Ja," she said, "you will go and you will drag me behind you like the tail of a kite. But I warn you, Oom Willem, I who am a wise woman and see hidden things as all men know-"
"All men, woman? You with your fortunetelling and visions! All men indeed! Some colored girls and tame Kaffirs whom you frighten with your spookeries. "
"Nevertheless, Willem," Tante Maria said as she closed her eyes and pointed her finger as if she were describing something that she saw. "Ja," she said, "ja, this is what I see. Blood," she said. "Ja, blood and fire and water. The plagues of Egypt will strike us down." She gave a scream and sank back in her chair. "The wagon camp," she said, "the camp. I see the Kaffirs swarming over the wagons. Ja, like bees with the bloody stings of their assagais."
"God will protect us," Willem said. "And if some die, it will be God's will."
"Willem" Maria said, "stay here."
"I will go. My mind is made up. It is the will of the Lord "
Eva and Sara burst in on him. "The nooi, the nooi is here-she is riding Baas Louis' little yellow horse."
Oom Willem got up. Tanie Maria followed him out. "You have Louis' dun horse," Oom Willem said.
"He lent it to me. Tomorrow I will ride over and bring back all the horses but Blaubooi. "
"That is good," Oom Willem said. "It is inconvenient here without horses, but it was a good trick you played upon the English."
"It was a good trick oupa, but when it was done and I had left the horses, I had to warn the redheaded man who brought us Blaubooi. His name is Bates," she said. "Meneer Bates. So I rode till I found him. I spent the night in his camp, and he sent two men to see me safely through the mountains."
Tante Maria stood with her hands on her hips. "You slept with the brigands? You stand there before us and say that? How many brigands, may I ask?"
"About fifty," Francina said. "
You slept with fifty brigands. You, a virgin! And come back brass-bold to brag of it. Fie," she said, "perhaps after all it is a pity the Kaffirs did not kill you too. My granddaughter a harlot on a mountaintop, and we are going to trek. Ja, a harlot and a madman. These are the people with whom I am condemned to live."
"Nothing happened to· me, ouma," Francina said. "I slept in a house with my dogs beside me."
"Thank God," Tante Maria said. "Thank God."
Francina felt that there had been aspects of her adventure which had escaped her. She had feared De Vries. She did not like Fred Carter much, but she had never thought herself be in danger.
The smous joined them. "It is good to see you back," he said.
Tante Maria said something more about trekking. "Trekking? Who is trekking?" Francina asked.
"We are," Tante Maria said. "But don’t ask me. Ask him, your oupa. Ja, that madman, my dead husband's brother, to leave all this"-she waved her hand- "to leave Groenplaas, our home, my dead husband's birthplace, and trek as if we were paupers." She burst into sobs of rage. "Imagine it. Imagine my climbing up and down out of a wagon, many times a day, for weeks, for months."
Francina imagined it and burst out laughing. "You will get thin, ouma-thin as if you were a girl again." Then, as the full significance of what had been said dawned on her, she cried, "Trek? Us? We are really going?" She jumped up and down, clapping her hands "Do they know, oupa?" she cried.
"Does who know?"
"Do the Beyerses know you will lead the trek?"
"How could they since I have only just decided?" "Can I tell them, oupa?
Can I give them the good news?"
"Ja, you tell them. Tell them to come back here. I will show them the map I have made, and we will begin to plan on the number of wagons we will take, how many guns and how much livestock. And when you bring back the horses, leave the English beasts you stole."
Francina laughed.
Next morning, when she got ready to leave, Francina found the smous at her side. "May I come with you?" he asked. He had a donkey ready, saddled and bridled.
" They rode slowly. Francina was interested in the smous's conversation, in his knowledge of native peoples and their customs, in his talk of beauty. She had never heard anyone speak of beauty before. Coming to an open valley, he said, "Stop. Look about you. This is beautiful. The arum lilies, the maidenhair fern, the dark trees, the bright flowers of the pro-teas. Look at the sky, at the shadow of the berg."
Francina said, "I always liked this place. Now I know why."
"Many things are beautiful," he said. "Women, for instance. You are beautiful-also animals, flowers, mountains, rivers, houses. Beauty consists in the proportions of each object, its color and its relation to other objects."
Francina said, "Ja, I see." And she did, though she felt what he meant in her heart better than she understood it with her mind.
Once again she was greeted by Vrouw Beyers. Louis came to ask how she was. He patted his horse and took its bridle when Francina dismounted.
"I've come for our horses. All but Blaubooi and the English chargers. The chargers I will give to you," she said, laughing.
To each person the leaving of the farm that was their home meant something different. For each it was both the end of one thing and the beginning of another.
Tante Maria. wanted no new beginnings. Rooted in her fat, she rolled around the house and yard like a marble in a rut. She was a woman who was attached to things. She was fond of certain saucepans, of the blue-and-white china, of an ornamental china pig. Having lost her own home and all in it in war, she now loved everything here; and owing to an old man's foolish whim, all this was going to melt away. Then, too, there were the dangers and the discomforts of travel. It was all very well for Willem to say he would make strong steps that could be put against the wagon for her to ascend and descend it. But suppose there were no one to move the steps-that she were left there screaming like a child before a door it could not open. Moreover, when they arrived-if they arrived- houses would have to be built, lands and gardens made. It would be months, years, before any measure of comfort was achieved. All this time they would live like hunters-which was to say, like animals, like bushmen-on game and wild fruits when their grain ran out.
But there was one bright spot. She would be the oldest and most experienced woman of the trek, and her gift of second sight would impress them all. She would take her rightful place among the people. Ja, old Willem might lead the trek, but she would manage it.
The china pig she would take even if she had to carry it a thousand miles in her lap. Around it she would build a new home; and if she died, she wanted it buried with her.
Oom Willem with difficulty controlled his excitement and gave what he hoped was an impression of calmness and pretended he was leading the trek only because he felt it to be his duty. The Beyers boys had thought his map wonderful, as indeed he did himself. He had described each mile of the way, illuminating them with tales of adventure. Then they had made their list-the names of the trekkers. There were six family groups including his own-the Beyerses, Van der Merwes, the Bokmans, the Du Plessises, and the Melks. Between them they could muster ten fighting men and boys. The total of married women and widows was six, of marriageable girls four, of other children sixteen, and some of the women were bound to be or to become pregnant.
This made a total of thirty-six souls. Ja, in addition there were nine young adventurous men who might or might not join them and, of course, the servants-both male and female. They would probably amount to another forty people.
He walked around the kraals. He looked at the buildings he had put up or enlarged. Everything was in good order, but suddenly it bored him.
The smous joined him. "You are saying good-by, meneer."
"Ja. I was born here and expected to die here, to lie with my loved ones in my own graveyard." He looked at the walled enclosure and the cypresses that pointed their dark fingers at the sky.
"What does it matter where we die?" the smous said. "It is where and how we live that counts. Dead, all men are equal, and there is no honor in equality. All babies are equal," he said, "for they are born and made in a similar manner. All corpses are equal, though the deaths they die are diverse. But in life that lies between the one and the other-between birth and death-men are not equal. In life, meneer, there are some men who live like lions and some like dogs. To lead a trek is a great thing, and if by chance you die on the road, each man who follows in the spoor of your wagons will raise his hat and offer up a prayer-even men perhaps not yet born. So that by some strange fate you may get more prayers by the roadside than in your own graveyard at home. Home- "he said" -home is a word. For me all the world, all Africa, is home." He raised his hat, bowed and left Oom Willem to his thoughts.
Francina looked at her home-the house, the stables, outbuildings, servants' quarters and kraals, at the big pale- leaved blue gums whose great trunks gleamed as white as bones in the moonlight. All this must be said good-by to, must be left behind. The thought of it tore at her heart, which beat faster as she pictured the adventures that must now befall her. So, divided between sorrow and anticipation, caught between the past and the future, she rode toward the sand dunes and the sea. She would say good-by to the ocean first. She wondered if she would ever see it again.
Her mind was filled with knowledge about the ways of the beasts and birds among whom she lived. But soon they would be off, and the animals and birds she saw would be different. Everything would be new and strange. She would see for herself the great wonders of which she had heard so much, see herds of game that were uncountable, see lions and elephants. She would also be among people. Having wanted this so much and for so long, she now wondered how she would like it. She would not be able to get away on her horse the way she did now; there would be too many dangers from savages and wild beasts.
Then there was this business of men-so many men in so few days. A week ago she had known nothing of this, felt nothing. Now - She dropped the reins on her horse's withers and counted them on her fingers-first the English officer, then the man Harry Bates had killed, Harry himself, and other men up there in the mountain camp, Fred Carter whom she had disliked, the Jew and the Beyers boys. With them all she had felt something strange-something that passed between them and her, from their eyes, from the touch of their hands, without spoken words. She knew she had responded to them with her blood, had felt it kindling in her veins. She knew that now suddenly the time had come-that somewhere there was a man for her. Was he one of those she had already met? Or would she meet him among the strangers on the trek?
A string of duikers flew across the horizon. It thickened into a rope. There must have been several thousand of them-cormorants that were called duikers because of the way they dived for fish.
This would be a good way to remember it all-the beach, the rocks, the great seas roaring in, and above them the birds flying home to sleep on some sea-girt rock as they had always done, done for a thousand years and would continue to do, though she was no longer here to see them. That seemed strange to her-that things should go on and on, that the parents and grandparents of these birds had flown as they did now. That their descendants would do the same long after she and they were dead.
She turned her horse and rode back through the vleis, where she stopped to watch the birds-greenshanks, sandpipers, sanderlings, ringed plovers, stilts, rails and coots-all busy about their affairs.
All this she would not see again. They were not moving for a month. It would take that time to organize the trek, but after today she would not see it even if she looked at it once more. For she had said good-by. She had parted from it in her heart. She was already distant, her feet on the road of the future.
TO BE CONTINUED
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