Adams Henry Cadwallader
Hair-Breadth Escapes: The Adventures of Three Boys in South Africa

Chapter Eight
Dangerous Neighbours – Free and Easy Visitors – Proposed Departure – Journey Resumed – An African Storm – A Neck and Neck Struggle

The sun was high in the heavens before any of the party were roused from their slumbers. Then the doctor was the first to wake up, and his thoughts were at once turned to his patient. He was pleased to find him in a most satisfactory condition. His skin was cool, and his pulse, though still low, was steadily recovering its tone. As for Frank and Ernest – they had no sooner opened their eyes, than they hurried off to the pool, which lay two or three hundred yards off, to enjoy a refreshing bath. They were followed shortly afterwards by Lavie and Omatoko, the latter having contrived to descend from his bedchamber by the help of the doctor’s arm, and to walk, though very slowly, as far as the waterside.

Having completed their ablutions, the lads set about preparing the breakfast; which, it was agreed, was to be eaten under the shade of the acacias.

“I think Omatoko must be mistaken about the wild animals,” observed Frank. “I slept as sound as a top, and so did Lion; and if there had been any of his namesakes about, or tigers either, he would have been pretty sure to give us notice.”

“You forget how tired we were, Frank; Lion as well as ourselves,” said the doctor. “Unless they made a very great uproar we should probably not hear them.”

“What does Omatoko say?” suggested Warley. “Does he think there were wild beasts about?”

The Hottentot nodded. “One, two lion,” he said, pointing to some footprints in the short grass round the pool. “One, two lion; many tigers; one rhinoceros.”

“Is that the spoor of a lion?” asked Warley with much interest, as he stooped down and examined the footprints. “How can you tell it from that of a large tiger?”

“You may always know the spoor of a lion by the marks of the toe-nails,” said Lavie; “they turn in, whereas those of other feline animals project. Yes, that is a lion’s spoor, sure enough, and those broad deep prints are as plainly those of a rhinoceros, and a pretty large one too. And there are plenty of others besides, which I am not sure of. Omatoko was certainly right. It was quite as well that we did not bivouac by this pool.”

Breakfast was now announced, and the party gathered round the eatables, when it was for the first time noticed that Nick was not present.

“I suppose he is still asleep,” said the surgeon. “I called to him to come and help me to get Omatoko down, but I got nothing but an intelligible growl at first, and then a sleepy assurance that he would be sure to be in time for breakfast.”

“No, he is not the fellow to miss that,” remarked Frank. “He must be very sleepy indeed, before he’ll go without his victuals. Depend upon it he will be here in a minute or two.”

Half an hour however passed away, and the meal was quite completed, and still no Nick made his appearance.

“Go, and look after him, Frank,” said the doctor, “while I consult with Omatoko as to what ought to be done next. We can’t afford to lose time, if it should be thought better for us to move.”

Wilmore took up his gun accordingly, and walked off towards the tree where they had slept. The dense foliage almost entirely concealed the staging from sight: but as he drew nearer he was sensible of loud chattering and gibbering sounds, intermixed occasionally with shrill screams, which seemed to come from a great number of throats. Wondering what this could mean, he made his approach as noiselessly as possible, and climbing up to the top of one of the roots, which projected a foot or two upwards, he peered cautiously over the edge of the platform. A most extraordinary sight greeted him, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he restrained himself from bursting into a loud laugh.

Nick was seated in the middle of the stage, bareheaded and without shoes, and was gazing upward with a look of mingled alarm and annoyance, which seemed to the spectator of the scene irresistibly ludicrous. On the boughs immediately over his head, as far up as Frank could descry, a great number of baboons were to be seen, leaping from one resting-place to another, with hideous grimaces, and keeping up incessant and most discordant screams. The grotesqueness of their appearance was much increased by their having taken possession of such of Nick’s property as they had been able to lay their paws on. One wore the blue cloth cap, with the leather peak and white edging, which was a souvenir of Dr Staines’s establishment. Two more had possessed themselves, each of one of his shoes, which he had laid aside when he went to sleep; and were turning them over with an air of grave curiosity, as if to discover what their use might be. Another party had seized the knapsack, which had been pulled from under Nick’s head before he was fully awake. The contents had been divided between several old baboons, who had turned the various articles to all sort of strange uses. One was scratching his ear with Gilbert’s pipe; another had thrust its head into a stocking, and appeared to have some difficulty in getting it out again; a third was enveloped from head to foot in a cotton shirt, his head showing itself just above the collar; while a fourth was examining the contents of the flask, which it had contrived partially to open, and was making hideous faces over the taste of the gunpowder, of which it had swallowed a good spoonful. Nick had fortunately awoke in time to prevent the baboons from seizing his knife or gun. He now held the latter with a strong grip in both hands, and seemed disposed to discharge its contents at one of his assailants, if he could only make up his mind which to single out for attack.

“Don’t fire, Nick,” exclaimed Wilmore, as he noticed Gilbert’s demeanour. “You’d enrage them greatly, if you were to wound or kill any of them. They have been known to tear a fellow to pieces, who shot one of their number. They’re terribly fierce and strong, if they are provoked.”

“What am I to do, then?” returned Gilbert. “They’ve not only carried off my knapsack and pipe, but my hat and shoes too; and I can’t venture to walk a step in these parts without them.”

“The best way will be to scare them away,” suggested Wilmore, “if we could think of any way of doing it.”

“I’ll tell you,” cried Nick, catching a sudden inspiration. “Do you climb up into the tree on the other side. The leaves are so thick that these brutes won’t see you, and the branches are easy enough to climb. When you’re well up over their heads, let fly with your gun. I’ll do the same the moment afterwards, and between the two reports they’ll be so scared, I expect, that they’ll cut for it straightway.”

“Very well,” said Frank, laughing, “I’ve no objection. We can but try, any way.” He carefully uncocked his gun, and began mounting the branches as quietly as possible, while Nick distracted the attention of the monkeys, by shaking his fist at them, and pelting them with fragments of bark. Presently there came the double explosion, which fully answered his expectations. Uttering a Babel of discordant screams, they dropped their recently acquired treasures, and made off at the top of their speed, bounding from tree to tree till they were lost in the distance. Nick set himself to collect the various articles thus restored, and had nearly repossessed himself of all of them, when Frank descended from his elevation and joined him on the platform.

“You get into scrapes, Nick, more than most,” he said, “but you’ve a wonderful knack of getting out of them again, that’s certain. Well, come along, if you’ve got everything. The doctor is anxious to start, if this Hottentot chap will let us, and you’ve still your breakfast to get.”

“The Hottentot let us start this morning!” repeated Gilbert. “Not if he’s to go with us himself, to be sure! To look at him last night, he wouldn’t be fit to walk again this side of Christmas. Perhaps he expects us to carry him, as we did yesterday – do you really think that, Frank?” continued Gilbert, stopping short, and eyeing his companion with an expression of much dismay.

“No, I don’t,” returned Wilmore, again bursting into a laugh; “and if he did expect it, he’d find his expectations deceive him considerably. That’s what I expect, at all events.”

“Well, here we are,” said Nick, a minute or two afterwards, as they reached the post. “Well, doctor, I’m sorry to be late, but Frank will tell you that I have been in the hands of the swell mob, and have only just contrived to escape them.”

The doctor looked puzzled, but he had no time for explanations. “Eat your breakfast, Gilbert,” he said, “while we settle what is to be done to-day. I suppose we are all agreed that it won’t do for us to stop here longer than we can help. Now Omatoko is not able to travel very far, but he could walk a few miles if he went very slowly and had a rest every now and then. He thinks so himself, and wishes to start at once.”

“We could give him an arm by turns, if that was all; but the question is, Charles, could we reach any good halting-place?” suggested Warley.

“That’s just it, Ernest,” returned Charles. “Omatoko says that about four or five miles from this there is a place where we could stay two or three days, if necessary, and find plenty of food and water. It is a ruined kraal – destroyed by the Dutch, he says, many years ago, but some of the cottages are still in sufficient repair to shelter us.”

“Why shouldn’t we stay here?” asked Nick, with his mouth full of parrot. “This is a jolly place enough – fresh water, lots of melons and parrots, and they’re both of them capital eating. And a comfortable sleeping-place. If we must make a halt anywhere, why not here? It’s a capital place, I think, except for the baboons,” he muttered in a lower tone, as the recollection of his recent adventure suddenly occurred to him.

“Why shouldn’t we stay here?” repeated Lavie. “Well, I’ll tell you, Gilbert. It isn’t so much the wild beasts – though a place which every night is full of lions, rhinoceroses, and leopards doesn’t exactly suit anybody but a professed hunter – but there is the fear of the Bushmen returning to cut off Omatoko’s head, whom they will expect to find dead. And if they find him alive, it is most probable that they will do both him and us some deadly mischief. And they may be looked for to-day, or to-morrow, certainly. Besides – ”

“There’s no need to say any more, I am sure,” broke in Gilbert. “I didn’t think of the Bushmen. Let us be off at once, I say. I’d rather carry the Hottentot on my shoulders than stay here to be murdered, probably, by those savages!”

“Well, I own I think the return of the Bushmen quite enough by itself,” said the surgeon; “but I ought to add that Omatoko thinks the weather is going to change, and there is likely before long to be a violent storm. None of you have had much experience of what an African storm is like. But I have had quite as much as I desire, and do not wish to encounter it, without a roof of some kind over my head! Well, then, if we are all ready, let us set out at once.”

The grove and pool were soon left behind. Omatoko stepped out valiantly, sometimes leaning on Lavie’s or Warley’s shoulder, and sitting down to rest, whenever a thicket of trees afforded a sufficient close screen to hide the party from sight. They noticed that before leaving any of these coverts, he anxiously scrutinised the horizon towards the north, and once or twice requested the boys to climb the highest tree they could find, and report whether anything was visible in the distance.

His strength and confidence alike seemed to improve as the day advanced. About twelve o’clock they made what was to be their long halt, in a patch of scrub which sprung apparently out of the barren sand, though there was neither spring nor pond anywhere to be seen, nor even any appearance of moisture. They had progressed about four miles in something less than five hours, and were now, Omatoko told them, hardly a mile from their destination. He pointed it out indeed in the distance – a rocky eminence, with a patch of trees and grass lying close to it. But the party had not been seated for ten minutes, and were still engaged in devouring the melons they had brought with them, when their guide again rose and advised their immediately resuming their journey.

“What, go on at once?” exclaimed Gilbert. “Why, what is that for? I am just beginning to get cool – that is, as cool as ever I expect to be again. If we have only a mile to go, we had surely better walk it in the cool of the evening than under this broiling sun.”

“Must not wait,” said Omatoko. “Storm come soon – not able go at all.”

“The storm! Do you see any signs of one, doctor? I don’t.”

“Yes, I see signs; but I own I should not have thought it would break out for some hours. But the changes of the atmosphere are wonderfully rapid in this country, and I have no doubt the Hottentot is right. Will it be on us in another hour, Omatoko?”

“Perhaps half an hour, perhaps three-quarters,” was the answer.

“Half an hour! We must be off this minute, and move as fast as we can. Here, Frank, Ernest – hoist Omatoko on to my shoulders; I can carry him for a quarter of a mile, any way, and that will be ten minutes saved.”

“And I’ll take him as far as I can, when you’ve done with him,” added Warley, “and so, I doubt not, will the others. Lift him up. There, that’s right. Now step out as fast as we can.”

By the time that the doctor’s “quarter of a mile,” as it was called – though it was in reality nearly twice that distance – was completed, the signs of the approaching hurricane began to gather so fast, that even the most unobservant must have perceived them. The clouds came rapidly up, and gradually hid the rich blue of the sky. The light breeze which had stirred the foliage of the few trees which rose above the level of the scrub, gradually died away, and a dead, ominous calm succeeded. Warley, to whose back the sick man had now been transferred, hurried on with all the speed he could command, and rapid way was made. Every minute they expected the rain to burst forth. The black clouds which hid the horizon, every other minute seemed to be split open, and forked flashes of fire issued from them. Presently there came a furious rush of wind, almost icy cold – the immediate precursor of the outburst.

“We close by now,” exclaimed Omatoko, as he was transferred from Ernest’s shoulders to those of Frank. “Not hundred yards off. Turn round tall rock by pool there. Kraal little further on.”

They all ran as fast as their exhausted limbs would allow. The corner was attained, and there, sure enough, some forty or fifty yards further, were the ruins of a number of mud cottages thatched with reed. They were, for the most part, mere ruins. The walls had been broken down, the thatch scattered to the four winds. Some one or two, which had stood in the background, immediately under the shelter of a limestone precipice, had retained their walls, and some portions of the thatch unhurt. But one hut only, which stood in a corner under a sloping shelf, presented the spectacle of a roof still firm and whole. Frank hurried along the narrow defile leading to this cottage, putting out all strength to reach it. He was only a few yards from it, when the tempest at last broke forth in all its fury. The wind swept down with a force, which on the open plain no man or horse would have been able to stand against. The hail, or rather the large lumps of ice into which the rain was frozen, rattled against the rocks like cannon balls against the walls of a besieged fortress, and the sky grew so dark, that it was with difficulty that the travellers could discern each other’s features. But they had reached the friendly shelter of the cottage, and that was everything. For two hours the fury of the elements beggared all description. The rain, which after a quarter of an hour or so had succeeded the hail, seemed to descend in one great sheet of water, converting the path along which they had travelled not half an hour before, into a foaming torrent, bearing trees and stones before it. One flash of lightning succeeded another so rapidly that the light inside the cottage was almost continuous. Lavie looked several times anxiously at the thatch overhead, which could not have resisted the deluge incessantly poured upon it, if it had not been for the shelving rocks which nearly formed a second roof above it. As it was, not a drop penetrated, and when the raging of the wind and the deluge of rain at last subsided, not one of the party had sustained any injury.

The Hottentot had been laid on a heap of reeds which blocked up one corner of the hut, having been driven in there apparently at one time or another by the wind. He had been at first somewhat exhausted by the speed at which he had been carried for the last half mile or so, but he seemed quite restored before the storm had ceased. He now directed the boys to go out and gather some wild medlars, which he had noticed growing on a tree at no great distance from the rocky defile where they had turned aside from the main path, declaring them to be excellent eating. He also requested them to bring him a straight branch, about three feet long, from a particular tree which he described, and a dozen stout reeds from the edge of the pool. Out of these he intended, he said, to make a bow and arrows, by means of which he would soon provide the party with all the food they would require.

“Three feet long?” repeated Gilbert. “You mean six, I suppose.”

“No, he doesn’t,” said the doctor, who had overheard the request. “The bows of all these tribes are not more than three feet in length. I have seen several of them. It is wonderful to see with what force and accuracy they discharge their arrows, considering the material of which they are made. I had better go with you, I think. I know exactly the tree and the size of the bough required.”

Lavie, Wilmore, and Gilbert accordingly set out, leaving Warley to attend to Omatoko, and make the hut as comfortable as he could for a two days’ halt there. Lion also remained behind. As soon as his companions were gone Ernest set about his task.

“There are no chairs or tables to be had in these parts,” he thought. “We must sit on the ground when we do sit, and take our meals off the ground, when we take them. All that can be done is to strew the floor with rushes and grass, which will do also for beds at night I suppose everything outside is soaking wet, and won’t be dry enough for our purpose until it has had a good baking sun upon it for several hours. But the stuff we found in here was quite dry, and perhaps there may be some like it in the other huts. If not, I shall have to cut some from the edge of the pool, I suppose, and lay it out to dry.”

He took Lavie’s hatchet, and went into the nearest hut, the roof of which had been broken in in one or two places, but was still tolerably sound. He saw, as he stepped through the doorway, that he had not been mistaken about the reeds. A large heap had been lodged in one corner by the wind, and seemed to be quite dry. He stepped forward, and laying down his hatchet, gathered up a large armful. In so doing, he trod upon what appeared to be the end of a log: but his foot had no sooner touched it, than it was drawn away from under him, and a sharp hiss warned him that he had disturbed some enemy. At the same instant he felt a strong pressure round his legs and waist, and perceived that he was enveloped in the coils of a large serpent, which was rapidly winding itself round his chest. A moment afterwards, the flat diamond-shaped head came in sight, the eyes glaring fiercely at him, and the slaver dropping from the open jaws. Ernest’s arms were happily free, and he availed himself of the circumstance with the cool promptitude of his character. He glanced for a moment at the hatchet lying on the ground a few feet off; but he felt that it would be impossible for him to stoop to pick it up. It must be a struggle of muscle against muscle. Thrusting out his right hand, he grasped the snake by the neck, at the same time shouting aloud for help. The creature no sooner felt its antagonist’s grasp, than it turned its head, endeavouring to bite. Finding itself unable to seize Ernest’s hand, it drew in its folds, aiming at his face. The lad in an instant found that his muscular power was not nearly equal to that of his enemy. He seized hold of his right wrist with his other hand, throwing the whole power of his frame into the effort, but in vain. Slowly, inch by inch, his sinews were compelled to yield. Inch by inch the horrid fangs came nearer and nearer to his face. With the strength of despair he contrived to keep the reptile at bay for a few minutes longer; but his powers were fast failing him, and he expected every moment to feel the sharp teeth lacerating his flesh. Suddenly a shock seemed to be communicated to the monster’s frame. The terrible grip of the folds relaxed, and the threatening head drooped lax and powerless. Ernest cast his eyes downwards, and perceived that the mastiff had seized the tail in his strong jaws, and had almost bitten it in two. The muscular force of the serpent was paralysed by the wound, and Ernest had no difficulty in disengaging himself from the folds, and flinging them – a helpless and writhing mass – on the ground. Then, catching up the hatchet, he struck off the head, just as Omatoko hobbled up, leaning on a stick, from the adjoining hut.

“Very big snake,” was his comment, “bad poison too. Lucky him no bite white boy, or him dead for certain. Lucky, too, big dog near at hand. Never see bigger snake than that. Him seventeen – eighteen foot long! Big dog just come in time, and that all!”

Meanwhile Warley, who had partially recovered his senses, after bathing his face and hands in the fresh water, was returning heartfelt thanks to Heaven for his narrow and wonderful deliverance from the most dreadful death which the imagination of man can picture.