A Veldt Vendetta

"By Jove! Why, so it is. I'm awfully glad to meet you. It's small wonder if I didn't know you again, Matterson. You were a youngster then, and it must be quite a dozen years ago...

My own fault? No doubt. It is usually said so, at any rate, so of course must be true. For I, Kenrick Holt, who do this tale unfold, am not by nature and temperament an expansiv...

Now I, Kenrick Holt, who do this tale unfold, am not by nature an especially intrepid animal, wherefore aught in the course of this narrative which might savour of "derring do"...

Shattuck, C.C. and R.M., was not a genial type of Civil servant, in that he was cold and short of manner, and always intensely official. Moreover, he was popularly credited with...

A cool hand was laid upon my forehead, while another smoothed the pillows. Bending over me was the face that had been with me in the life for months--in imagination through all...

He reined up the Cape cart at the gate of a picturesque verandah-fronted house which stood against a background of wild and romantic bush scenery. Not for this, however, had I a...

I awoke in the morning feeling but poorly rested, and having assimilated an indifferent breakfast, which however was quite passable after four weeks of ship fare, set out to int...

Brian repeated what he had just been telling me. "The cheek of the brutes!" he went on. "Mind, this thing was done in broad daylight. I suppose they thought that as it was Sunda...

We were walking together, Beryl and I, in the garden, just as we had walked on the evening of my arrival, only that now the shade had nearly vanished with the fall of leaves. We...

"What do you think of this, Kenrick?" said Brian, as I went into the cattle kraal at milking time a couple of mornings after. "Here's old Dumela saying he wants to leave."

"Well, who's for church to-day?" said Brian, one fine Sunday morning as we straggled in to breakfast. "There's one, anyhow," he appended, as Beryl appeared, clad in a riding hab...

To give an adequate idea of my thoughts and feelings at that moment, or during those that followed, would amount to a sheer impossibility. Truly I had distinguished myself. I ha...

Septimus Matterson put forth his hand and uttered just the one word, and the effect was like fire applied to the train. A roar of menace and fury ran through the whole crowd. A...

Gonya's kloof seemed no longer the same place. The period of suspense following upon George's committal told upon all of us, seeming to cast a gloom over everything, damping our...

For some hours we held on without difficulty. It became very hot. The sun's rays poured down into the close, shut-in kloofs as from the lens of a gigantic burning-glass; and the...

George's education at that time was effected through the agency of a farm-school about seven miles off, whither he rode over five days per week; in theory at least, for few inde...

The address was frank and friendly, the aspect of the speaker prepossessing. I strove to respond with suitable cordiality, and while doing so a resolve flashed lightning-like th...

It will be remembered that my first impressions as regarded Beryl Matterson savoured somewhat of disappointment. By the time I had dwelt a week beneath the same roof I could onl...

"Bring back Meerkat," had been Beryl's parting injunction, and I had fulfilled it to the letter. And as I restored her favourite horse, literally with my own hands--and none the...

Now as I sat there, that still and radiant afternoon, in the sylvan wildness of our shaded resting-place, whose cool gloom contrasted well with the golden warmth of the sunlight...

"Here comes a fellow who looks as if he didn't want to use his horse again for a day or two." And Brian shaded his eyes to watch a moving speck rapidly approaching, but still at...

The words of old Dumela were humming through my brain, as I bent over the dead boy in quest of spoor. Such was plain and abundant, and showed that he had not been slain here, bu...

No, it was not to last. Something seemed to break the spell--and that with the same magical suddenness wherewith it had come about. A roar of rage arose, terrible in its menace,...

"They are late--very late. They ought to be here by now," murmured Beryl, more to herself than to me, as she came out on the stoep, where I was seated alone, admiring the splend...

Beryl looked wholly fresh and delightful as she welcomed us, and it was hard to believe she had been up nearly three hours "seeing to things," as Brian put it. There was a good...

Was I dead, and were these voices of another world? Hardly. They had a homely and British intonation which savoured too much of this one. Then I grew confused, and dozed off again.

A stirring and lively scene met my gaze as I emerged from the companion-way. A great waste of roaring tumbling seas, their dull green mountainous masses breaking off into foamy...

A few hundred yards beneath we now saw a kraal. It lay in a deep natural basin, walled in with rugged rocks and thick bush; but so shut in was it on all sides that this seemed t...

I awoke from a sound sleep, or rather was awakened by a knocking at the door. Remembering my disclaimer of susceptibility, I hardly like to own the persistency wherewith my drea...

"Well, good-bye, Holt. Wish you every luck if I don't see you again, but I expect I shall if you stop on a day or two at the hotel yonder. I'll be getting a run on shore--when I...