Read Ebook: Harley Greenoak's Charge by Mitford Bertram

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Ebook has 1641 lines and 79156 words, and 33 pages

The above conversation took place in the otherwise empty smoking-room of the Port Elizabeth Club. The old gentleman was returning to England that afternoon, incidentally by the same liner that had brought them out. It would be more comfortable, he reckoned, than returning by a strange boat, and the sooner Dick set off on his travels the better; a theory, by the way, which was held by Dick even more firmly than by his father. The said Dick now put in his appearance.

"Time, dad," he said, comparing his watch with the mantelpiece clock. "The last launch, you know, and she won't wait. So come along."

"Good-bye again, Greenoak," said Sir Anson, as the two men heartily gripped hands. "And don't forget your promise."

"Good-bye to you, Sir Anson. And I won't."

So Dick and his father betook themselves to the landing-place, and Harley Greenoak betook himself to lunch. With characteristic judgment he had divined that father and son would prefer to be alone together at the last, and so had refrained from seeing the old gentleman off to the ship. Now as he sat in the club dining-room he was thinking, and his thoughts, needless to say, ran upon the charge he had just undertaken. To that end he was rather glad there was nobody he knew in the room.

Needless to say, too, that after the episode off Danger Point, which might so nearly have ended in tragedy, the tendency now among his fellow-passengers was to make very much of a hero of Dick Selmes, and more especially did this hold good of the "fair" section thereof. It was as well, perhaps, decided Harley Greenoak, that only a day or two remained for the absorption of all this adulation. Towards himself the tendency was not so marked, for which he was unaffectedly glad. He had borne part in too many strange and perilous episodes in his time for one, more or less, to afflict him with "swelled head." It was all in the day's work.

"I don't want to fool about, old chap," he had said. "I want to see something of the real thing."

"Thought you would, Dick," had been the answer. "Well, I see we're going to make a real up-country man of you before we've done."

Thinking over these things Greenoak sat. Then deciding that Dick would be returning from the ship about now, he concluded to stroll down and meet him.

He left the club. From the steep hill leading down to Main Street there was a view of the bay and the shipping, the homeward-bound liner flying the blue peter and sending up a thickening volume of smoke, while away behind the Winterhoek mountains rose soft and hazy against the unclouded sky.

"Hi!--hallo, Greenoak," and a hand dropped on his shoulder from behind; but he did not start, his nerves were in far too good training for that. He only stopped.

"That you, Simcox? How are you?"

The man thus addressed was about Greenoak's own age, hard, wiry, weather-beaten. A typical colonist of the downright rough-and-ready type. Now he exclaimed:

"Well, this is a surprise. And what brings you down here?"

The other told him.

"Rum thing, isn't it," he said with a laugh, "that at my time of life I should start out in the bear-leading line? Well, this is a particularly nice young chap, so that the job's likely to turn out `clovery' all round."

"So?" said Simcox. "Why not bring him out to my place. We could get up a hunt or two, if he's fond of sport."

The very thing, decided Greenoak. The question of how and where to make a start was solved, so he answered:

"He just is. Well then, Simcox, thanks awfully, and we'll come. When?"

"Now. To-morrow morning."

"But we've got no horses."

"I can drive you out--that is, if that young Britisher can do without top-hats and swallow-tail suits. No room in the cart for all that sort of thing."

"He'll have to. Why, here he comes. This is an old friend of mine, Dick," he went on, introducing them. "He's got a farm out on the borders of the Addo Bush, and we're going out there with him to-morrow to do a little hunting. How's that?"

"Ripping," answered Dick, brightening up, for he had been a little "down" after his recent farewell. "Perfectly, absolutely ripping."

"We're a bit rough and tumble out at our place, you know," said the stock farmer, who was appraising his guest-elect. "No champagne and cigars and all that sort of thing. Eh, Greenoak?"

The latter nodded.

"I don't expect or want luxuries, Mr Simcox," answered Dick. "Shall I tell you what I do want?"

"What?"

"To shoot as many of your bucks and things as lean."

"You're heartily welcome to."

And Simcox laughed good-naturedly, and opined that Greenoak's "bear-leading" would be no very trying job after all.

"He'll do," he pronounced, with an approving nod towards the young fellow.

THE TERROR OF THE ADDO.

Simcox's farm, Buffels Draai, comprised about as wild a tract of bush country as exists, although not many hours' ride or drive from the busiest of Cape Colony towns. Before Dick Selmes had been in the house two hours he had completely won the hearts of Mrs Simcox and the two grown-up nice, plain, homely girls, but blessed with no particular outward attractions; while Simcox himself pronounced him, when out of his hearing, as nice a young fellow as he had ever run against. Before he had been in the house two weeks he had shot many bush-bucks, and other unconsidered trifles, and knew his way all about the place. He took a vivid interest in everything, and imbibed veldt-craft with an adaptability which surprised his host and Harley Greenoak. Likewise he had learned what an astonishing number of things he could do without, together with what an astonishing number of things he could do for himself.

Just about that time they were seated out on the stoep one evening, talking over a projected bush-buck hunt, when there arose a sudden and terrific clamour from the dogs lying around the house. These sprang up, and rushed, barking and growling furiously, towards the nearest bush line.

"Tame?" said Dick, inquiringly, as they stood up to gaze in the direction of the hubbub.

They got a gun apiece and set forth. The cause of the racket was soon revealed, and it took the form of a badly-scared old Hottentot, who had fortunately found a handy tree. The dogs were driven off, and even as they took him to the house he told his story, and a tragical story it was. A buffalo had killed Jan Bruintjes, the boy who brought the mail-bags from the local post-office. The narrator and he were walking along the road, when an enormous buffalo bull rushed out of the bush and caught Jan on its horns, flung him into the air, and when he fell, ripped and gored him again and again. Dead? Oh, he was so torn as to be hardly recognisable. He himself had hidden, and then, when the beast had gone, went back to look at his friend. Where did it happen? About half an hour from the house, where the road made a bend towards Krantz Hoek. He had come straight to tell Baas Simcox.

"Well, we can't do anything to-night," declared the latter, "first thing in the morning, I'll go round and investigate. I wonder if that's the brute that chevied the Alexandria post cart last year? The driver tootled his horn, but it had the opposite effect intended. The horses bolted and upset the cart against a tree. The driver was killed--not in the same way--gored to death. In fact this brute is suspected of having done for half a dozen in all, and it's very likely true. He set up a perfect scare at one time, like an Indian man-eater would."

"They must be a jolly nuisance," said Dick. "If I lived here I'd jolly well thin them down."

"Would you? Fine of 100 pounds a head. They're strictly preserved."

"Well, it's a beastly shame."

"So it is," said Harley Greenoak. "But buffalo rank first among game called dangerous, especially in country like this." And he told a yarn or two to bear out his statement.

One yarn led to another, and it was rather later than usual when they went to bed.

The story he had just heard fired Dick Selmes' imagination to such an extent that when he got to his room he felt it was impossible to go to sleep or even to turn in. He hung out of his open window, and in the sombre shadow of the depths of the moonlit bush, seemed to see the whole horrid tragedy re-enacted. The boom of night-flying beetles, the chirp of the tree-frog, the whistle of plover, now invisible overhead, now lighting on the ground in darting white spots, were all to him as the poetic voices of the weirder night which could contain such tragical possibilities: and it seemed that each ghostly sound--whether of mysterious rustling, or the clatter of a stone--heralded the appearance of the terrible beast, pacing forth into the open, its wicked, massive horns still smeared with the unfortunate man's blood. Then an idea struck him--struck him between the eyes, so to speak--for it was a momentous one. What if he--?

He got out his double gun, slipped a Martini cartridge into the rifle breech, a heavy charge of loepers into the smooth-bore, and two or three spare ones into his pocket. The window was only his own height from the ground. Out of this he dropped quietly, so as not to rouse the house.

But he reckoned without the dogs. Those faithful animals immediately sprang up, and from all directions came for him open-mouthed. They knew him well enough to quiet their clamour almost immediately, but even then their delighted whining at the prospect of a nocturnal hunt was almost as noisy. But he had to drive them back, even with stones. Then he struck into the darkest shades of the bush, relieved that the clamour had apparently aroused no one.

How glad he felt that he knew his way about fairly well by this time! In the bright moonlight he had no difficulty whatever in finding it. Yet every stealthy sound set his heart wildly beating, and he carried his gun at full cock. Ah, here was the place.

The white riband of road snaked away in the moonlight--and--here was the spot. Yes, the huge hoof-marks were plain, and the signs in the dust of a sudden scuffle; and there were two of the leathern letter-bags carried by the unfortunate man lying by the roadside, and then--Dick Selmes, for all, his pluck, for all his ambition, and the adventurous excitement that had swayed him, felt quite sick. For, lying there by the roadside, torn, horribly mangled, was the body of the unfortunate victim itself.

But somehow the sight, horrible though it was, roused in him a fierce longing for retribution. If he could but find the slayer! Yet, why not? He had no dogs to give the miscreant warning of his approach, and if it did "wind" him, in its present mood, why, it would not be the one of the two the most eager to vanish. He tried hard to follow the spoor; and up to a certain distance succeeded, then it got lost in the shadows of the bush. Even then he would not give up. He had the whole night before him, and--if he should return in the morning triumphant? The very thought acted like a spur.

Moving cautiously, his weapon cocked and ready, he was compelled to move slowly. And now every sound intensified itself tenfold, and once a bush-buck, undisturbed by his silent advance until he was close upon it, sprang up and bounded away with a rustle that made him think it could be nothing less than the gigantic destroyer itself.

Seeming to rise out of the ground, something huge and black rose up in the moonlight. There it stood, the terrible beast, the manslayer, gigantic in its might, and for a moment the spectator stood petrified. This then was what he had come out to find, he in his puniness! The curved horns gleamed viciously, the fierce head with its mail-clad frontlet moved to and fro, the dilated nostrils sniffing the air as though scenting the presence of an enemy.

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