The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley

“Do we outspan on this side or cross first?” said Gerard, as the cool murmur of water became audible.

“We’ll outspan on the other. The river’s low enough to cross without any trouble; but the drift isn’t always a good one. The principle of the road is always outspan on the other side of a drift – that is, the opposite side from the one you arrive at. These rivers, you see, come down with surprising swiftness, and then, of course, if you delay, you may be stuck for a week or more. The exception, however, to this rule is, if there’s more water in the river than you quite like but yet not enough to stop you. Then it is sometimes a good plan to outspan for a little while to rest your oxen, because they’ll need all their strength for pulling through.”

The current, though smooth and swift flowing, proved stronger than it looked. In splashed the first waggon, amid the shouting and whip-cracking. The leader could hardly keep his feet, and what with the force of the current and the plunges of the fore oxen, he was having a pretty bad time of it. But they emerged panting and dripping on the other side. Gerard, however, who was on the second waggon, came near meeting with a disaster that might have cost him his life.

The great vehicle was three parts through. The driver, wading and splashing beside the span, was urging and encouraging it by the regulation series of shrill and long-drawn yells. Gerard, who was standing on the box, cracking the long whip, and also lending his voice to swell the chorus, was suddenly seen to overbalance, sway, and topple over into the water, disappearing immediately.

John Dawes, watching progress from the opposite bank, turned white as death. Gerard had fallen in front of the wheels!

“Oh, good God! He’s done for!” he gasped.

Meanwhile the driver, who had not seen the accident, was yelling his loudest, with the result that the span was tugging its hardest. The waggon was already emerging from the water, rolling up the steep slope from the drift.

“He’s done for,” muttered Dawes, ashy pale. “He’ll have been ground to pulp under the water.”

But no sooner had the words escaped him, than, lo, Gerard himself, dripping from head to foot! He jumped down from behind the waggon with a celerity that showed he had come to no sort of harm.

“What – what did you do that for?” stammered Dawes. “How did you do it?”

“I just grazed one wheel in falling. Luckily I fell between both, and remembering all you had said about falling off the disselboom, I hung on like grim death to the bottom of the waggon – held my breath under water, knowing we would be out in a minute. Then I worked my way along till I was clear of the wheels and got out. But I’m pretty well blown after it. I couldn’t have held on a minute longer,” he gasped, still out of breath with the almost superhuman exertion he had just gone through.

“By Jove, youngster, but you’ll do!” said the other. “You’ve got pluck and presence of mind, and that’s all you want to carry you through any mortal thing.” And he turned away, to give orders about outspanning, glad of the opportunity to recover his self-possession, for even he had undergone a rude shock over the frightfully narrow escape his young companion had just experienced.

The next morning, when they turned out, Dawes said —

“Do you feel like paying Bob Kingsland a visit, Ridgeley?”

“Rather. Does he live near here, then?”

“A few miles off. In fact, this outspan is almost on his farm. Doorn Draai, it’s called. We’ve come along very well, and the grazing here is first rate. It won’t hurt the oxen to have a day’s rest and a real good fill up. We’ll have breakfast early and ride over. We are likely to find some of them at home, anyway.”

“That’ll be first rate!” said Gerard, with genuine pleasure. And then he set to work to serve out rations to the leaders and drivers, each of whom received a measure of maize-meal, which, going into a common stock, was stirred up in a three-legged pot and soon reduced to porridge, for on such fare do the natives of Natal wax fat and strong. Afterwards he got out a clean basin and kneaded up roster-koekjes, a species of damper-cake, and put them to bake on the ashes for their own breakfast, while Dawes superintended the cooking of a savoury game stew, compounded of partridges, ringdoves, and a plover or two, which they had shot the day before while coming along.

“We don’t live so badly, even on the road, eh, Ridgeley?” said Dawes, as they sat doing ample justice to this, and to the steaming cups of strong black coffee wherewith it was washed down.

“No, indeed,” assented Gerard, briskly, beginning on half a partridge. “Shall we take a gun along this morning?”

“We might. Don’t know that it’s worth while, though. By the way, Kingsland’s a widower, and his pretty daughter keeps house for him. Don’t you go and fall in love with her – in view of the time our trip is likely to last.”

For reply Gerard laughed light-heartedly. It was not likely, he thought, remembering that pair of blue eyes in the buggy.

After breakfast they saddled up the horses, and Dawes having given Sintoba some final instructions, they started. The ride was a pleasant enough one, though somewhat hot. Their way lay mostly at the bottom of a long winding valley with great bush-clad slopes shooting up on either hand, and the sunny air was alive with the piping whistle of spreuws and the cooing of innumerable ringdoves.

“There’s the house,” said Dawes, as a curl of blue smoke rose from the bush-clad hillside about a mile ahead. “And – there’s Kingsland himself,” he added, as a shout from a little way off their road drew their attention to a horseman who was riding towards them.

“Hallo, John Dawes!” cried the latter, as he joined them. “Where have you dropped from now – and who have you got with you? Why, it’s young Ridgeley. Well, Ridgeley, I’m glad to see you, my boy. What have you been doing with yourself all this time? By-the-by, didn’t you get my letter?”

“Letter? No,” echoed Gerard, in some astonishment.

“Why, I wrote to you at Anstey’s about a fortnight ago. Found out you were there through the papers. That affair with the Zulu and the Umgeni Fall went the round of the papers. Didn’t you see it?”

“No,” answered Gerard, still lost in astonishment. “I’m very sorry. I don’t know what you must have thought of me, Mr Kingsland, but – I never had that letter. It must have come after I left, and – the fact is, Anstey and I didn’t part on very good terms.”

“So? The paragraph said you were in his employ. Couldn’t you get on with him, or wasn’t the work to your taste?”

“Anstey swindled him out of every shilling he had,” put in Dawes, seeing Gerard hesitate and look a trifle embarrassed. “Biggest blackguard in this colony, is Anstey.”

“So?” said Mr Kingsland again. “Well, we must hear all about your experiences by-and-by, Ridgeley. Here we are at the house now – and here’s my little housekeeper come to see who I’m bringing home to dinner,” he added lovingly, as the figure of a girl appeared at the door and came down the steps to meet them. “Ridgeley, this is my daughter May,” he went on, when they had dismounted. “May, you’ve heard me talk of this young man – we were shipmates on board the Amatikulu. Why, what’s the matter?”

For Gerard was staring in astonishment, and the girl’s blue eyes were opening wide with the same emotion, while a slight colour came into her face. And in those blue eyes Gerard recognised the identical pair which had beamed approval on the deft manner in which he had reduced the odds against the sorely beset Zulu.

“Why, we’ve met before, father, only we didn’t know who we were then,” she answered. “How do you do, Mr Ridgeley? Welcome to Doorn Draai.”

Gerard, in a sort of waking dream, took the hand extended to him – in no wise the sharer of the girl’s quiet self-possession. To think that the owner of those blue eyes which had been in his thoughts a great deal since that chance meeting, should turn out to be old Kingsland’s daughter! And again, the fact that they had dwelt in his thoughts was, considering his age, enough to play havoc with his composure on finding himself thus suddenly and unexpectedly face to face with their owner.

“Met before, have you?” echoed Mr Kingsland, in some surprise.

“Why, of course we have,” said a male voice in the background. “How d’you do, Mr Ridgeley!”

And Gerard found himself shaking hands with the other occupant of the buggy on that memorable evening.

“Been keeping up your boxing since then, eh?” laughed Tom Kingsland. “Why, governor, this is the man who floored those two niggers so neatly. I told you about it, you remember, when we were coming back from Maritzburg.”

“Ah, to be sure, to be sure. He can take care of himself anywhere now, I should think,” said the older man, kindly.

And Gerard, though somewhat shy and embarrassed at finding himself a sort of point of general observation, could not resist a feeling of elation over the consciousness that he stood well in the opinion of his new friends.

Then, after a brief rest, during which Dawes and Mr Kingsland put away a glass of grog together and smoked a pipe or two, they set out for a look round. And then for the first time Gerard was able to take in the place – for at the time of his arrival he had had no eyes for anything but one of its inhabitants. The house, a roomy, one-storeyed building, with a stoep and verandah, stood against the slope of the hill. A little distance off stood the sheep and cattle-kraals, and the huts of the native servants. Below, on the bank of a small watercourse, was a large bit of enclosed and cultivated land, and beside this a fruit orchard.

“I’m afraid it’s a little late for fruit,” said Tom Kingsland, as they strolled through the latter. “There are still a few peaches left, though, and any amount of figs.”

“You can’t grow peaches and grapes like this out-of-doors in England?” said May. “I suppose you hardly ever see such a thing there except under glass.”

“Oh yes – on walls,” said Gerard.

And then, as they wandered on beneath the pleasant shade of the over-arching fig trees, and down by a quince hedge spangled with yellow fruit, or again emerged upon a water-hole where a colony of finks dashed hither and thither chattering in alarm, while their globular nests, hanging like oranges from the boughs above the water, swung and jerked at a rate which promised badly for the eggs they might contain – the girl plied him with all manner of questions about England and the life there. And, lo, when they had laughed over each other’s mistakes and misconceptions with regard to their respective countries, it seemed as if they had known each other all their lives. Certain it was that to Gerard that walk seemed the most delicious he had ever taken. But it could not last for ever, and so they had to return to the house and to dinner.

There they found Mr Kingsland’s other son, who was duly introduced to Gerard. Arthur Kingsland was very like his brother Tom, and both were fine specimens of young colonial manhood. They could ride anything, follow spoor, hit any mark at most astonishing ranges, and were afraid of nothing. The reputation of Gerard’s feats, which had already reached them, was a sure passport to their favour, and accordingly they soon became the very best of friends.

“Heard anything more about the Zulu question, Arthur?” said Mr Kingsland during dinner to his youngest son, who had been out on horseback since daybreak.

“Only the usual lie – Cetywayo is going to sweep in and eat us all up at a minute’s notice. Another yarn is that he’s going to drive all the Boers out of the disputed territory.”

“It’s just possible there may be some disturbance there,” said Mr Kingsland. “Still, Cetywayo is much too shrewd a man to declare regular war against the Transvaal.”

“Well, our route lies right through that same disputed territory,” said Dawes. “What do you think, Ridgeley? Like to get into a scrimmage with a Zulu impi?”

“Mr Ridgeley is pretty good at fighting Kafirs, I should say,” put in May, slyly, before he had time to reply.

“Oh, I’m afraid I shan’t hear the end of that little difference in a hurry,” said Gerard, laughing ruefully. “I rather wish I had left Sobuza to fight his own battles.”

“How can you say that?” said May. “Are you so utterly devoid of imagination? Why, you rescued the man twice on the same day! That means that he is to have some influence on your fortunes. You are going up into the Zulu country now. You are sure to see him again.”

“Maybe only to get an assegai put into him if he does,” cut in Tom. “Isn’t there a proverb, that if you save a fellow’s life he’s bound to play you a shady trick?”

“Be quiet, you wet blanket,” retorted the girl. “I foresee different things. I foresee that the Zulu will in some way or other turn up again, and that he will have an influence in Mr Ridgeley’s destinies.”

How true this was fated to prove it was little that either of them thought at the time.

The afternoon was spent very much as had been the morning, strolling around looking about the farm, for it was a slack time just then and there was not much doing. Towards sundown Tom Kingsland suggested they should go down to a water-hole and try for a shot at a duck, an idea which Gerard cordially endorsed, and in the sequel greatly distinguished himself, considering his want of practice with the gun, for the pair of ducks which they brought home represented one apiece. And then, in the evening, while Mr Kingsland and Dawes smoked their pipes on the stoep, the young people gathered round the piano, and Gerard thought he had never heard anything so entrancingly delicious in his life as May’s fresh clear voice lifted up in song. Then – all too soon for him – had come bedtime, and in the morning an early start to rejoin the waggons.

Before Gerard turned in Mr Kingsland followed him to his room for a few words.

“Well, Ridgeley, so you’re going to make another start, this time as an up-country trader. You’ve had a few ups and downs already, it appears; and maybe there’ll come a time when you’ll thank your stars you have.”

“I do that already, Mr Kingsland, for otherwise I should never have found myself launched on this undertaking. What a good fellow Dawes is!”

“He is – he is. But what I was going to say is this. It’ll do you no harm to get an insight into waggon travel and veldt life, and the native trade and the natives themselves. But a sensible fellow like you must see that that sort of thing isn’t going to last a man all his life; and, indeed, it oughtn’t to. It isn’t good for any man to become a confirmed wanderer, a sort of rolling stone. So don’t let this trip unsettle you, or turn your mind from the idea of going in for hard and regular work. Turn it to the best possible account you can while you’re on it, but make up your mind that it isn’t going to last, and that when you come back your plan is to settle down to regular work. You are made of far better stuff than to slide into the mere knockabout, harum-scarum adventurer, as some of these up-country going chaps are only too ready to do, especially when they begin young. So keep that before your mind is my advice to you. And now I dare say you’re wondering whether you are ever going to get to bed, or whether a certain prosy old fellow intends to keep preaching to you quite all night. So, good night, my lad. I won’t say goodbye, for we shall most of us be up before you start. Good night; I need hardly say I wish you every success.”

Chapter Ten.

A Piece of Zulu Jockeying

After leaving Doorn Draai they trekked on through the Umsinga district, and, turning off the main road at Helpmakaar on the Biggarsberg Heights, descended to Rorke’s Drift. And it was while making their way down to that now historical point that Gerard began to realise what a waggon could do; what an incredible amount of hard knocking about it could stand; for the track seemed a mere succession of ruts and boulders, and as the huge vehicles went creaking and grinding over this, they seemed literally to twist and writhe, until it looked as though each fresh bump must shatter the whole fabric into a thousand crashing fragments. Once, but for his promptitude, the waggon of which Gerard was in charge would infallibly have overturned. However, they reached the drift without accident, and crossed the next day into the Zulu country.

At first Gerard could hardly realise that he was no longer under the British flag. This side of the Buffalo river presented no appreciable difference to the side they had just left. A line of precipitous hills rose a few miles in front, and to the eastward a great lion-shaped crag, the now ill-famed Isandhlwana. But few Zulus had come to the waggons, and they struck him as wearing no different aspect to the natives on the Natal side, nor, by-the-by, did they seem in any way keen upon trading.

We fear it may hardly be denied that the rose-coloured spectacles through which Gerard had first looked upon the trip and its prospects had undergone some slight dimness, and for this May Kingsland’s blue eyes were wholly responsible. For be it remembered he was very young, and the consciousness that a long time – a whole year, perhaps – must elapse before he should see her again, cast something of a gloom upon his spirits. Good-natured John Dawes saw through the change in his young companion’s lightheartedness, and laughed dryly to himself. Gerard would soon find the right cure for that sort of complaint, he said, when the real business of the trip should begin.

One morning a party of half a dozen young Zulus, driving an ox, came up to them as they sat outspanned. The one who seemed to be the leader was a tall, straight, well-built fellow, with a pleasing intelligent countenance. He, like the rest, was unringed, but held his head high in the air, as though he were somebody. All carried assegais and shields. The young leader and two of the others strode up to where Gerard was sitting, and uttering the usual form of greeting, “Saku bona,” squatted down on the grass before him.

Now, it happened that Dawes was away, having ridden off to some kraals a few miles distant. Gerard, thus thrown upon his own resources, began to feel something of the burden of responsibility as he returned their greeting and waited for them to speak next. But the leader, stretching forth his hand, said —

“Give me that.”

Gerard was cleaning a gun at the time, the double-barrelled one, rifle and shot. The Zulu’s remark had come so quick, accompanied by a half-move forward, as though he might be going to seize the weapon, that Gerard instinctively tightened his grasp on it.

“Who are you?” he said, looking the other in the eyes.

“Nkumbi-ka-zulu, son of Sirayo, the king’s induna,” replied the youth, with a haughty toss of the head, denoting surprise that anybody should require to be informed of his identity. “Give me the gun; I want to look at it,” he continued, again stretching forth his hand.

Gerard realised the delicacy of the situation. There was a greedy sparkle in the young Zulu’s eye as it lighted upon the weapon, which caused him to feel anything but sure that it would be returned to him again. On the other hand, Dawes, he remembered, had a poor opinion of Sirayo and his clan, and he did not want to offend the chief’s son, if he could help it. His command of the language beginning to fail him, he summoned Sintoba to the rescue.

“Ask him if, he wants to trade, because, if so, the Baas (Master) will be back soon. Here is some snuff for him, meanwhile.”

Nkumbi-ka-zulu condescended to accept the snuff, then, through the driver, he explained that his father had sent the black ox as a present to “Jandosi” – for such was John Dawes’s name among the natives, being of course a corruption of his own – and he, the speaker, had come to do a little trade on his own account. First of all, he wanted that gun, and as many cartridges as he could have. What was the price?

Gerard replied that the gun was not for sale. It was wanted to shoot buck and birds during their trip further up-country.

“Au!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “You are so near the border, you can easily send back for another gun. I will give five oxen for it. Ten, then,” he added, as Gerard shook his head in dissent. Still Gerard refused.

“Hau! Does he want all the Zulu country?” muttered the others, forgetting good manners in their impatience and eagerness to possess the weapon, and for this, Sintoba, who was of Zulu descent and a ringed man at that, rebuked them sternly.

“Since when has the son of a chief learnt to talk with the loud tongue and windbag swagger of the Amabuna?” (Boers) he said. “Have you come here to trade or to play the fool?”

“Hau, listen to the Kafula!” cried the young Zulus, springing to their feet and rattling their assegais threateningly. “Since when is the son of a chief to be reviled by a Kafula, who is doing dog at the heels of a travelling white man?”

Gerard, who by this time could understand a great deal more than he could speak, looked apprehensively at Sintoba, expecting an immediate outbreak. But to his surprise the man merely uttered a disdainful click, and deliberately turned his broad back upon the exasperated Zulus. He almost expected to see it transfixed with their assegais, and stood ready to brain with his clubbed gun, for he had no cartridges handy, the first who should make an aggressive move. But no such move was made.

“I return,” said Nkumbi-ka-zulu, darting forth his hand, with a malevolent look directed especially upon Gerard, “I return to my father to carry word that Jandosi rejects his present, and has left a Kafula with his waggons, and a white umfane (boy) to revile the son of a chief.” And turning, the whole party walked rapidly away, driving the ox before them.

When they had gone a little distance, they began staging an improvised strophe the burden of whose veiled insolence took in the white race in general, and the last specimen of it the singers had seen in particular, and thus bawling, they eventually receded from sight.

Gerard was terribly put about by this occurrence, and was disposed to blame himself bitterly. Surely he had been over cautions, and had brought about this hostile termination by his own awkwardness and stupidity. But to his inexpressible relief John Dawes, to whom on his return he narrated the whole affair, was not at all of this opinion.

“It couldn’t have been helped,” the latter declared. “If I had been here the result would likely have been the same, for they’re cheeky young dogs those sons of Sirayo, and the old man himself is a thorough-paced old sweep. If you made any mistake at all, it was a mistake on the right side – that of firmness – and I’m not sure you made any.”

Which dictum lifted a weight from Gerard’s mind.

“I’m only afraid they’ll play us some trick,” he said. “Hadn’t we better get away from here as soon as possible?”

“N-no. They might construe that into an act of running away. We’ll just trek on a few miles further, and see what turns up, but I don’t mind telling you I hardly like the look of things. The people are very unsettled, thanks to this disputed boundary question, and the badgering of the Natal Government. They are sulky and sullen, and flatly refuse to trade. I think we’ll get away north pretty soon.”

That evening an incident occurred which, taken in conjunction with the events of the day, looked ominous. The “boy” who was sent to bring in the two horses, which were turned loose to graze, returned with only one; the other he could not find. He had hunted for it high and low, but without result.

By this time the two horses had become so accustomed to the waggons that they would never stray far, and often return of their own accord; consequently, it was not thought worthwhile even to knee-halter them. Now, however, the one which the “boy” had brought back had been found much further afield than was usual, and of the other there was no trace. And the missing steed was Gerard’s mouse-coloured Basuto pony.

Saddling up the horse that remained and giving orders where the waggons were to outspan, Dawes cantered away into the veldt. He returned in two hours. He had lighted upon the spoor, which led in the contrary direction from that which might have been expected, for it led in the direction of the Blood River, and therefore right away from Sirayo’s and out of the Zulu country, instead of farther into the same; and then darkness had baffled further investigation. Nevertheless, he would wager longish odds, he declared, that the missing quadruped would spend that night not a mile distant from Sirayo’s kraal.