The Settler and the Savage by R. M. Ballantyne (great books to read txt) 📕

scarcely ask, for all the world seems to be crowding into the town. Not hurt, I hope?” he added, observing the blood which stained his friend’s dress.

“Not in person,” answered Hans, with a smile, returning his cordial grasp.

“And what of property!” asked Edwin Brook, looking round.

“All gone,” returned Hans sadly. “I rose this morning a reasonably wealthy man—now, I am a beggar. But tell me, what of your family, Mr Brook?”

“All saved, thank God,” was the reply. “Junkie, dear boy, who is the most active young fellow in the land, managed to—Ah! here he comes, and will speak for himself.”

As he spoke a tall strapping youth of about fifteen entered, opened wide his laughing blue eyes on seeing Hans, and, after a hearty greeting, told with some hesitation that he had chanced to be out hunting on foot in the jungles of the Great Fish River when the Kafirs crossed the frontier, and had managed, being a pretty good runner, to give his father warning, so that the family had time to escape. He did not tell, however, that he had, in a narrow pass, kept above sixty Kafirs in check with his own hand and gun until George Dally could run to the house for his weapons and ammunition, and that then the two held a hundred of them in play long enough to permit of the whole family escaping under the care of Scholtz.

“But,” said Edwin Brook, who related all this with evident satisfaction, “I am like yourself, Hans, in regard to property. Mount Hope is a blackened ruin, the farm is laid waste, and the cattle are over the borders.”

“And where is Mrs Brook?” asked Considine.

“In this house. Up-stairs. Come, Gertie is getting impatient. Let us go to see her.”

“Now, friends,” said Considine to the brothers Skyd, who had by that time been joined by the hunting partners, “there is a matter on which we must consult and act without delay.”

Here he told of Conrad Marais’s departure with the boers across the frontier, and added that if the party was to be saved at all it must be gone about instantly.

“You can’t go about it to-day, Charlie,” said John Skyd, “so don’t give way to impatience. For such a long trip into the enemy’s country we must go well armed and supplied.”

“I will brook no delay,” said Considine, with flushing countenance. “If it had not been for the necessity of bringing Gertie here in safety, Hans and I would have set out at once and alone on their spoor. Is it not so?”

Hans nodded assent.

“No, friends,” he said, turning to the brothers with decision, “we must be off at once.”

“What! without your suppers?” exclaimed Bob Skyd; “but to be serious, it won’t be possible to get things ready before to-morrow. Surely that will do, if we start at daybreak. Besides, the party with your father, Hans, is a strong one, well able to hold out against a vastly superior force of savages. Moreover, if you wait we shall get up a small body of volunteers.”

Hans and Charlie were thus constrained unwillingly to delay. At grey dawn, however, they rode out of Grahamstown at the head of a small party, consisting of the entire firm of Dobson and Skyd, inclusive of Junkie, whose father granted him permission to go. His mother silently acquiesced. Mrs Scholtz violently protested; and when she found that her protests were useless, she changed them into pathetic entreaties that Junkie would on no account whatever go to sleep in camp with wet feet.

As soon as the invasion took place, an express had been sent to Capetown, and the able Governor, Sir Benjamin D’Urban, took instant and energetic measures to undo, as far as possible, the mischief done by his predecessors. Colonel (afterwards Sir Harry) Smith was despatched to the frontier, and rode the distance—six hundred miles—in six days.

Arriving in Grahamstown, he took command with a firm hand, organised the whole male population into a warlike garrison, built barricades across the streets, planted cannon in commanding positions, cleared the town of flocks and herds, which were breeding a nuisance, sent them to the open country with a cattle guard, and prepared not only to defend the capital, but to carry war into the enemy’s country. In short, he breathed into the people much of his own energy, and soon brought order out of confusion.

The state of affairs in the colony had indeed reached a terrible pass. From all sides news came in of murder and pillage. The unfortunate traders in Kafirland fared ill at that time. One of these, Rodgers, was murdered in the presence of his three children. A man named Cramer was savagely butchered while driving a few cattle along the road. Another, named Mahony, with his wife and son-in-law, were intercepted while trying to escape to the military post of Kafir Drift, and Mahony was stretched a corpse at his wife’s feet, then the son-in-law was murdered, but Mrs Mahony escaped into the bush with two of her children and a Hottentot female servant, and, after many hardships, reached Grahamstown. A mounted patrol scouring the country fell in with a farm-house where three Dutchmen, in a thick clump of bushes, were defending themselves against three hundred Kafirs. Of course the latter were put to flight, and the three heroes—two of them badly wounded—were rescued. Nearly everywhere the settlers, outnumbered, had to fly, and many were slain while defending their homes, but at the little village of Salem they held their ground gallantly. The Wesleyan chapel, mission-house, and schoolhouse, were filled with refugees, and although the Kafirs swooped down on it at night in large numbers and carried off the cattle, they failed to overcome the stout defenders. Theopolis also held out successfully against them—and so did the Scottish party at Baviaans River, although attacked and harassed continually.

During an attack near the latter place a Scottish gentleman of the Pringle race had a narrow escape. Sandy Black was with him at the time. Three or four Kafirs suddenly attacked them. Mr Pringle shot one, Sandy wounded another. A third ran forward while Pringle was loading and threw an assagai at him. It struck him with great force on the leathern bullet-pouch which hung at his belt. Sandy Black took aim at the savage with a pistol.

“Aim low, Sandy,” said Pringle, continuing to load.

Sandy obeyed and shot the Kafir dead, then, turning round, said anxiously—

“Are ’ee stickit, sir?”

“I’m not sure, Sandy,” replied Pringle, putting his hand in at the waist of his trousers, “there’s blood, I see.”

On examination it was found that the assagai had been arrested by the strong pouch and belt, and had only given him a trifling scratch, so that the gallant and amiable Mr Dods Pringle lived to fight in future Kafir wars. (See Note 1.)

In another place, near the Kat River, thirty men were attacked by a hundred and fifty Kafirs. The latter came on with fury, but five of the farmers brought down seven of the enemy at the first discharge, and thereafter poured into them so rapid and destructive a fire that they were seized with panic, and fled, leaving seventy-five of their number dead.

Instances of individual heroism might be endlessly multiplied, but we think this is enough to show the desperate nature of the struggle which had begun.

In the course of one fortnight the labours of fourteen years were annihilated. Forty-four persons were murdered, 369 dwellings consumed, 261 pillaged, and 172,000 head of live-stock carried off into Kafirland and irretrievably lost; and what aggravated the wickedness of the invasion was the fact that during a great part of the year the Governor had been engaged in special negotiations for a new—and to the Kafirs most advantageous—system of relations, with which all the chiefs except one had expressed themselves satisfied.

Writing on the condition of the country Colonel Smith said: “Already are seven thousand persons dependent on Government for the necessaries of life. The land is filled with the lamentations of the widow and the fatherless. The indelible impressions already made upon myself by the horrors of an irruption of savages upon a scattered population, almost exclusively engaged in the peaceful occupations of husbandry, are such as to make me look on those I have witnessed in a service of thirty years, ten of which in the most eventful period of war, as trifles to what I have now witnessed, and compel me to bring under consideration, as forcibly as I am able, the heartrending position in which a very large portion of the inhabitants of this frontier are at present placed, as well as their intense anxiety respecting their future condition.”

Sir Benjamin D’Urban, arriving soon afterwards, constituted a Board of Relief to meet the necessities of the distressed; and relief committees were established in Capetown, Stellenbosch, Graaff-Reinet, and other principal towns, while subscriptions were collected in Mauritius, Saint Helena, and India.

Soon after the arrival of Colonel Smith, burgher forces were collected; troops arrived with the Governor on the scene of action, and the work of expelling the invader was begun in earnest. Skirmishes by small bodies of farmers and detachments of troops took place all over the land, in which the Dutch-African colonists and English settlers with their descendants vied with each other, and with the regulars, in heroic daring. Justice requires it to be added that they had a bold enemy to deal with, for the Kafirs were physically splendid men; full of courage and daring, although armed only with light spears.

Note 1. The author had the pleasure of spending a night last year (1876) under the hospitable roof of Mr Pringle, shortly before his death, and saw the identical assagai, which was bent by the force with which it had been hurled against him on that occasion.