The Settler and the Savage by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best e reader for epub .txt) 📕

thither he came to a Kafir kraal, where the men seemed to be engaged in the performance of a war-dance.

On being questioned by these Kafirs as to who he was, and where he came from, Orpin replied, in his best Kafir, that he was a trader and a missionary.

The chief looked surprised, but, on hearing the whole of Orpin's story, a cunning look twinkled in his eyes, and he professed great friendship for the missionaries, stating at the same time that he was going to one of the Wesleyan stations, and would be glad to escort Orpin thither. Thereafter he gave orders that the white man should be taken to one of his huts and supplied with a "basket" of milk.

The white man gratefully acknowledged the kind offer, and, asking the name of the friendly chief, was informed that it was Hintza. Just then a court fool or jester stepped forward, and cried aloud his announcements of the events of the day, mixed with highly complimentary praises of his master. Stephen did not understand all he said, but he gathered thus much,--that the warriors had been out to battle and had returned victorious; that Hintza was the greatest man and most courageous warrior who had ever appeared among the Kafirs, to gladden their hearts and enrich their bands; and that there was great work yet for the warriors to do in the way of driving certain barbarians into the sea--to which desirable deed the heroic, the valiant, the wise, the unapproachable Hintza would lead them.

Orpin feared that he understood the meaning of the last words too well, but, being aware that Hintza was regarded by the colonists as one of the friendliest of the Kafir chiefs, he hoped that he might be mistaken.

Hintza was as good as his word, and set out next day with a band of warriors, giving the white man a good horse that he might ride beside him. On the way they came on a sight which filled Orpin with sadness and anxiety. It was the ruins of a village, which from the appearance of the remains had evidently been occupied in part by white men. He observed that a gleam of satisfaction lit up Hintza's swarthy visage for a moment as he passed the place.

Dismounting, the party proceeded to examine the ruins, but found nothing. The Kafirs were very taciturn, but the chief said, on being pressed, that he believed it had been a mission station which wicked men of other tribes had burned.

On the outbreak of this war some of the missionaries remained by their people, others were compelled to leave them.

The station just passed had been deserted. At the one to which Hintza was now leading Orpin the missionaries had remained at their post. There he found them still holding out, but in deep dejection, for nearly all their people had forsaken them, and gone to the war. Even while he was talking with them, crowds of the bloodstained savages were returning from the colony, laden with the spoils of the white man, and driving thousands of his sheep and cattle before them. In these circumstances, Stephen resolved to make the best of his way back to Salem. On telling this to Hintza, that chief from some cause that he could not understand, again offered to escort him. He would not accompany him personally, he said, but he would send with him a band of his warriors, and he trusted that on his arrival in the colony he would tell to the great white chief (the Governor) that he, Hintza, did not aid the other Kafir tribes in this war.

Stephen's eyes were opened by the last speech, and from that moment he suspected Hintza of treachery.

He had no choice, however, but to accept the escort. On the very day after they had started, they came to a spot where a terrible fight had obviously taken place. The ground was strewn with the mangled corpses of a party of white men, while the remains of waggons and other signs showed that they had formed one of the bands of Dutch emigrants which had already begun to quit the colony. The savages made ineffectual attempts to conceal their delight at what they saw, and Orpin now felt that he was in the power of enemies who merely spared his life in the hope that he might afterwards be useful to them.

The band which escorted him consisted of several hundred warriors, a few of whom were mounted on splendid horses stolen from the settlers. He himself was also mounted on a good steed, but felt that it would be madness to attempt to fly from them. On the second day they were joined--whether by arrangement or not Orpin had no means of judging--by a band of over a thousand warriors belonging to a different tribe from his escort. As the trader rode along in a dejected state of mind, one of the advance-guard or scouts came back with excited looks, saying that a large band of Dutch farmers was encamped down in a hollow just beyond the rise in front of them. The chief of the Kafirs ordered the scout sternly to be silent, at the same time glancing at Orpin. Then he whispered to two men, who quietly took their assagais and stationed themselves one on either side of their white prisoner--for such he really was.

Orpin now felt certain that the group of principal men who drew together a little apart were concerting the best mode of attacking the emigrant farmers, and his heart burned within him as he thought of them resting there in fancied security, while these black scoundrels were plotting their destruction. But what could he do--alone and totally unarmed? He thought of making a dash and giving the alarm, but the watchful savages at his side seemed to divine his intentions, for they grasped their assagais with significant action.

"A desperate disease," thought Orpin, "requires a desperate remedy. I will try it, and may succeed--God helping me." A thought occurred just then. Disengaging his right foot from the stirrup, he made as if he were shortening it a little, but instead, he detached it from the saddle, and taking one turn of the leather round his hand, leaped his horse at the savage nearest him and struck him full on the forehead with the stirrup-iron. Dashing on at full speed, he bent low, and, as he had hoped, the spear of the other savage whizzed close over his back. The act was so sudden that he had almost gained the ridge before the other mounted Kafirs could pursue. He heard a loud voice, however, command them to stop, and, looking back, saw that only one Kafir--the leader-- gave chase, but that leader was a powerful man, armed, and on a fleeter horse than his own. A glance showed him the camp of the emigrant farmers in a hollow about a mile or so distant. He made straight for it. The action of the next few seconds was short, sharp, and decisive.

The Dutchmen, having had a previous alarm from a small Kafir band, were prepared. They had drawn their waggons into a compact circle, closing the apertures between and beneath them with thorn-bushes, which they lashed firmly with leather thongs to the wheels and dissel-booms or waggon-poles. Within this circle was a smaller one for the protection of the women and children.

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. The right arm of the savage dropped by his side and the assagai fell to the ground, but, plucking another from his bundle with his left hand, he made a furious thrust. Stephen Orpin, swaying aside, was only grazed by it. At the same time he whirled the stirrup once round his head, and, bringing the iron down with tremendous force on the skull of his pursuer, hurled him to the ground.

"Stephen Orpin!" exclaimed Conrad Marais in amazement, as the trader galloped up.

"You've got more pluck than I gave you credit for," growled Jan Smit.

"You'll need all your own pluck presently," retorted Orpin, who thereupon told them that hundreds of Kafirs were on the other side of the ridge, and would be down on them in a few minutes. Indeed, he had not finished speaking when the ridge in question was crossed by the black host, who came yelling on to the attack,--the few mounted men leading.

"Come, boys, let's meet them as far as possible from the waggons," cried Conrad.

The whole band of farmers, each mounted and carrying his gun, dashed forward. When quite close to the foe they halted, and, every man dismounting, knelt and fired. Nearly all the horsemen among the enemy fell to the ground at the discharge, and the riderless steeds galloped over the plain, while numbers of the footmen were also killed and wounded. But most of those savages belonged to a fierce and warlike tribe. Though checked for a moment, they soon returned to the attack more furiously than before. The Dutch farmers, remounting, galloped back a short distance, loading as they went; halting again, they dismounted and fired as before, with deadly effect.

There is no question that the white men, if sufficiently supplied with ammunition, could have thus easily overcome any number of the savages, but the waggons stopped them. On reaching these, they were obliged to stand at bay, and, being greatly outnumbered, took shelter inside of their enclosure. Of course their flocks and herds, being most of them outside, were at once driven away by a small party of the assailants, while the larger proportion, with savage yells and war-cries, made a furious attack on their position.

Closing round the circle, they endeavoured again and again to break through the line or to clamber over the waggon-tilts, and never did savage warriors earn a better title to the name of braves than on that occasion. Even the bristling four and six-inch thorns of the mimosa-bushes would not have been able to turn back their impetuous onset if behind these the stout Dutchmen, fighting for wives and children, had not stood manfully loading and firing volleys of slugs and buckshot at arm's-length from them. The crowded ranks of the Kafirs were ploughed as if by cannon, while hundreds of assagais were hurled into the enclosure, but happily with little effect, though a few of the defenders--exposing themselves recklessly--were wounded.

While Conrad Marais was standing close to the hind-wheels of one of the waggons, watching for a good shot at a Kafir outside, who was dodging about for the double purpose of baulking Conrad's intention and thrusting an assagai into him, another active Kafir had clambered unobserved on the tilt of the waggon and was in the very act of leaning over to thrust his spear into the back of the Dutchman's neck when he was observed by Stephen Orpin, who chanced