Part 8

She held up her hands and turned to her eager, interested auditors, who echoed back their mistress's exclamation, each in her own peculiar fashion.

The truth was Tante Milligen had heard a noise in the night—a noise like thunder, she averred. It was just as if a heavy weight had been thrown down suddenly over her head. Like most of the females among the Dutch Boers, Tante Milligen, although a brave woman, was fearfully superstitious. A noise outside the house would not have frightened her half so much, even if it had proved to be another Kafir scare. But this mysterious noise inside the house, what could it mean?

When Jack came up to her with the traces of the night's excitement still visible in his pale cheeks and circled eyes, she only thought he had heard it too, and of course any child must be frightened. She was pleased that it confirmed her own experience, for one of those shameless Hottentots had positively suggested that she must have been dreaming.

"Slaap wohl?" she asked Jack, who shook his head most decidedly. Having had that question put to him every morning during his illness, he knew what it meant, and did his best to make her understand he had not slept at all.

Overcome with compassion, Tante Milligen sat down on the nearest chair, and took the little English boy on her lap, giving him a motherly hug and calling her maids one by one to notice the blackness of the circles under his eyes. This was indeed treating him like a baby; but Jack was not so aggravated by it as he had been when Walt laid him down on Sannie's sheep-skin, because it convinced him Tante Milligen would have interfered if she had had the least idea that Otto had been trying to frighten him.

Then Genderen came to fetch him. Tante Milligen said he would be better out of doors; besides she wished to keep the house quiet until her sons should awaken. Jack took Sannie's hand and wandered about with her, keeping very near the farm-gate, for fear of meeting Otto. Genderen was seated on the steop, shelling pepper, ready for one of the maids to pound. Jack would willingly have helped her, but he was looking for Vickel.

His giant fairy was far too stately a creature to be overlooked, yet she seemed to have vanished. He thought of the day when he lost her before; but Genderen's fluffy charges were all safe with their respective mothers. Everything was as usual, only his own ostrich was nowhere to be seen. Could anybody have hurt his Vickel? Jack's blood was boiling at the thought. He rushed back to Genderen, and showing her a dirty feather his bird had dropped, repeated her own mournful word, "verloren" (lost).

But Genderen smiled reassuringly, and pointed in the direction of their own ostrich camp.

At that moment the shepherd came out of the granary, and apparently thinking the farm-yard was deserted, began to pull about the loose straw at the bottom of the stack where Jack had taken his siesta on that unlucky day when he fell ill with the fever. The children saw him through the open gate, and the Kafir groom watched him behind the stable door. His movements were awkward, for he was stiff and sore, and his hat was pulled over his eyes—his Sunday hat!

The girls began to laugh at the incongruity of his appearance. At the sound of their merriment, Otto left his search, and limping up to them, turned to Jack with a scowl, saying,—"The 'oom' has ordered that vicious bird of yours to be shut up as long as it is here. The cow-keeper has been telling him how it flew at Sannie."

"Zyl can tell him more about that than the cow-keeper, and perhaps I could tell him more about last night than you did, Mr. Otto," retorted Jack.

"See if I don't take your English impudence out of you some of these days," growled Otto.

Jack's blood was up, and his prudence was nowhere, so he answered hotly, "Then you will just rouse the British bull-dog. Don't you know he would die rather than let you or any man touch a rag that was in his care."

"Oh, oh!" sneered the German. "And where is the brute to be found?"

"Here," returned Jack proudly, laying his hand on his own heart. "I don't imagine English boys were made of poorer stuff than a dog in his kennel; do you?"

XII.

_WRITING TO GRANDFATHER._

IN another minute Jack's arm was round Genderen's neck, coaxing and entreating for something, she could not tell what. He took up one of the peppersticks and pretended to write on her pinafore.

"When would the schoolmaster come again?" was that it? Genderen counted the number of days upon her fingers. Ten more, and he would be due. But Jack persistently shook his head and wrote on. Thinking he wanted to borrow a slate and pencil, she led him into the sit-kamé and touched the door of the cupboard where their books were kept. This was right.

Jack murmured a grateful "Jah."

Genderen unlocked the door, and waited for him to point to what he wanted.

Jack's eye roved over the motley contents for a moment, and then his finger touched the inkstand.

Genderen gave a smile of intelligence, and putting her own pen in his other hand let him carry them off in triumph.

He knew that Otto was gone by this time, and that Zyl was still asleep, so he slipped unperceived into the garden and made a writing-desk of his friend's three-cornered seat. The hedge round Zyl's garden had grown luxuriantly, thanks to the diligent use of his watering-pot, so that no one could see what Jack was doing behind it.

He sat down on the grass and took out his treasure. It was all right, but the edges were wearing away. He read the lady's note again. It only covered one page of the sheet of paper. Jack's eyes grew bright: with three pages of blank paper he could write a letter to his grandfather, and send the note and its contents to him.

"He can find the lady. They are both living at Nottingham. Tomorrow is the day for the post-cart to pass," thought Jack, feeling his spirits rise like a bird at having found such a good way out of his difficulty.

Jack had never written a letter by himself before. He had often put a little note to his grandfather into his father's letters. But then there was always his father to tell him if it were all right. Now he must do it all; for if he wore the bank-note round his neck another week, it would drop to pieces, and if he tried to hide it anywhere else Otto would get it. So Jack wrote on as well as he could:—

"DEAR GRANDFATHER,—Some thieves burned down our house, and father burned his coat getting me out of the fire, so he had to buy one of a stranger—a young Englishman, who said he had got a coat he did not want. It was too big for him. It had belonged to a friend of his, and it was put with his luggage by mistake, for he left England in a great hurry. His friend said it was not worth while to send it back. Father and I went to the nearest farm, and he was to send the coat there. Father was going away with the waggon, but as I was ill, he left me behind.

"The coat came too late for him to wear it on the journey, so I was taking care of it for him. And one day when I was ill in bed my ostrich tore it, only because it was in the way, and she wanted to come to me. Then I found there was a letter between the lining and the cloth, with a bank-note in it. I thought at first I had better keep it until father came back; but I can't. The people here are very kind to me; but they speak Dutch, so I cannot tell them anything.

"There is only one man who can speak English, and he is a bad man, and tried last night to steal the bank-note. I do not know what he would have done to me if my ostrich had not come to my help and knocked him down. She is the dearest, loveliest bird in all the world. I can't tell you how I love her. I have just found out this horrid man has got my ostrich shut up. I know what that means. He thinks he shall get the bank-note away from me when I have no big bird to fight for me. But he is making a mistake, for I am going to send it to you by the post.

"And please, grandfather dear, will you give back to the lady it belongs to, if she is still at Nottingham; and if she is not there now, you will be more likely to find her than father; and anyhow it will be safe. I will put all in this letter; the card that was tied to the coat too, for I am afraid I should not write the names plain. I have no more paper, so good-bye, dear grandfather.

"Your affectionate grandson,

"JOHN TREBY."

Jack dried his letter in the sun, and then folded the bank-note in it once again, and slipped it into the ragged envelope. He looked well at the card, thinking that if he were the schoolmaster, he should not like to have such a difficult name to spell every time he had to write a letter. Then he packed both card and letter in a sheet of his "Illustrated London News," and tied it up with the precious piece of string he had found in his pocket after the fire.

Oh, was not it a wonderful thing that he should actually have money enough to pay the postage. It was good of Zyl's uncle to give him that sixpence. Oh, how true it is that with the trial God sends the way of escape, that we may be able to bear it. Jack thought of the night when his father had explained that to him—a Sunday night years ago. He had listened and remembered then; he was living by it now.

Next the thought of what Otto might do to him in his exasperation, when he found himself baffled, came over Jack like a cold shadow; but he threw it off, exclaiming, "I comforted father when I reminded him of Christ's own words,—

"'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.'

"And ought not they to comfort me? I won't be made afraid." He put back his precious letter into its case of rushes, and marched into the house with Genderen's pen and ink.

Zyl was just out of bed, and laughing heartily at the idea of beginning his day with dinner; but for all that there was a cloud on his brow, for like Genderen and Sannie, he was secretly fretting for his Kafir nurse, and sullenly resenting his father's harshness to her. So Jack's excitement passed unnoticed.

Van Immerseel himself was sorry for them all; and hoping to divert his children's thoughts from the lost Intombi (as a Kafir girl is usually called), he told them he was going down to the ostrich camp to collect the eggs, and that they should go too. Zyl should drive them in the cart.

The girls ran off for their sun-kappjes, whilst the boys packed the egg-baskets in the back of the cart. Jack was delighted, for he expected to find his Vickel there. He had often seen the Boer's men loading this cart with barley quite early in the morning, and he guessed very shrewdly that it was to feed the ostriches.

Jack's great question now was how to get his letter to the post-cart. And in this discovery, he found a key to unlock his difficulty. Van Immerseel was mounted on his favourite cob. Like most African farmers, he preferred riding to walking when he visited his ostriches, because the presence of a horse has a very quieting effect upon these feathered giants. He rode slowly, whistling a favourite tune, whilst the cart rumbled over the stones at a little distance.

When they reached the camp, Van Immerseel left the girls outside, but he took Jack upon his horse and showed him Vickel, very happy and content in the midst of her feathered kin. Zyl marched boldly after them with a basket on his head, until they came to the nests. Here the Van dismounted, and was soon in high good humour with the number of beautiful eggs he was able to collect. Jack was very quiet and very attentive, watching eagerly everything that went on around, not a little pleased that Van Immerseel trusted him to hold the bridle of his horse whilst he was busy after the eggs.

When they returned, Van Immerseel let both the boys ride at once, whilst he led the cart himself very carefully. Jack was happy, for he had worked out his plan, and not one of his Dutch friends imagined for a moment that his joyous laugh, as he rode behind his friend, was the effervescence of such a desperate resolution.

When they reached home, Jack employed the rest of the evening in making a hood for Vickel out of his pocket-handkerchief—something after the fashion of a carriage-hood, so that it might let up and down. He had saved a handful of the strongest rushes they had found in the ravine. Genderen supplied him with a needle and thread. He folded his handkerchief cornerwise, and made runners for the rushes across it at even distances. It was easy to draw it into shape and sew the rushes firmly together at the ends. He had torn off the hems of the handkerchief to serve for strings, and when these were sewn on his work was completed.

When one of the Hottentot maids fetched him indoors to supper, he took the opportunity to entreat Tante Milligen to let him sleep indoors. She was quite prepared for this, and understood him easily. So she put him in bed with Zyl. And when Walt joined them, an hour or two later, a nice time they had of it. With fever and fretting Jack was as thin as a little skeleton—a perfect shrimp in Walt's eyes, who insisted upon putting Jack between them, for fear he should kick him out of bed in his sleep without knowing it. When sleep visited his two Dutch friends it was banished from Jack's eyelids; for snoring followed in its train, and every time the two young giants stretched themselves or rolled over, he thought he should be crushed. So he passed the greater part of the night sitting cross-legged on his pillow.

With daybreak Walt arose, and Jack followed his example, for he was gasping like a little fish for air; but Zyl, who had not yet recovered his lost rest, was sleeping heavily. Walt perceived poor Jack's condition, and did not wonder at his determination to escape to the fresh, cool morning air outside; so he let the English boy accompany him to the garden, where Walt was soon too hard at work to take much heed of his restless companion.

As soon as the farm-yard gate was open Jack went in, and seating himself at the door of the granary, waited for the arrival of the ostrich-cart. When he heard the droning hum of the dairymaid's song, he ventured to her door and begged a cup of milk. The balmy air of the African dawn was breathing new life into every vein. It seemed an easy thing to him then to scamper over the veldt on Vickel and meet the post-cart; yes, and be back again almost before anybody could miss him.

The cart was coming for the barley. Jack was at his post in a moment. The "oom" himself had taken him to see his bird the night before, so the men about the yard, who had found Vickel guarding the door of the loft morning after morning, thought it quite natural Jack should want to go and feed her.

The drive through the morning air raised Jack's spirits, and he joined merrily in the Kafir's song, catching the lilt and humming the tune when the queer-sounding words escaped him.

A deafening scream from the ostrich camp greeted their arrival. The hungry birds were crowding round the gate, crying their loudest for breakfast. A hundred open beaks and as many impatient claws scratching up the sand looked somewhat formidable. Jack filled the crown of his hat with barley, and as soon as the gate was unlocked, he waved it high in the air, flinging the grains of corn far and wide. The feathered phalanx was dispersed in a moment. The tall, towering necks were bent to the ground with a meek gobble, gobble.

"They are nothing but big poultry after all," laughed Jack.

The Kafir laughed too, and invited Jack to enter; but he preferred remaining by the gate, whilst the Kafir went in with his sack of barley on his shoulders.

While the man was thus engaged, Jack called, "Vic! Vic!" but at first there was no answer. Jack raised his voice, and looked around. He soon found her, for the other birds would not suffer the stranger to eat with them at present; so Vickel was hovering round and round the busy group, fain to content herself with a solitary grain or two snatched desperately between her companions' feet. At the sound of Jack's call she ran towards him with a crow of delight.

He had kept some barley for her in the crown of his hat. A few grains flung towards her again and again soon separated her from the other ostriches. Jack softly opened the gate, and by showing her the barley still left in his hat, he tempted her to follow him out. He shut the gate behind them, emptied the remainder of the barley on the ground, and whilst Vickel devoured it eagerly, he sprang upon her back.

Away on his winged steed, away like the wind, across that sea of glowing sand they flitted like a light-gray cloud, circling round and round in their rapid flight. Never before had Vickel tasted the full delight of perfect liberty on her native veldt. She arched her graceful neck and shook out her curling plumes to the morning breeze in a whirl of mad delight, as if she were a willing participant in her master's daring scheme.

Pursuit was impossible; nothing could overtake them now. Vickel scarcely touched the ground as she skimmed across the mighty plain, balancing herself with her outspread wings, with an easy, graceful movement that was neither running nor flying, but swifter than the swiftest racer that ever won the Derby. The speed at which they travelled almost took away Jack's breath.

He was delighted with the success of his manœuvre. The ease with which he had been able to manage the starting encouraged him mightily. Through the clear African atmosphere Jack could see for miles. He had so often watched for the post-cart by his father's side, and had been the first to perceive the little cloud of dust darkening the horizon line, he could not miss it now.

XIII.

_HOW THE LETTER WAS POSTED._

JACK did not miss it. After an hour or more of anxious watching, the rolling cloud of dust appeared, but it was going from him. In an agony of desperation, he put his hand to his head to try to think. Yes, there was the post-cart almost out of sight, and altogether out of hearing,—nothing but a moving speck of cloud. No one but himself, thought Jack, would have been sure that it was the post-cart. No power on earth could make Vickel run in a straight line. He saw it now, as she circled round and round, he had lost his way.

His heart beat wildly, his breath was almost gone with the terrific speed, when a crystal gleam in the glowing sand attracted Vickel. Easy as it is for an ostrich to go without water in her native deserts, she loves it all the same; and now of her own accord, Vickel stopped to drink. Jack got down and drank also: the water was warm with the growing sunshine. Then he sprang upon her shoulder once again, and she waded through the little stream with infinite satisfaction.

When she stepped out again on the opposite bank, she shook the water from her wings, and covered Jack with a light and glistening shower, which both steed and rider felt infinitely refreshing.

Jack took the hood he had made out of his pocket and tied it on his ostrich. It answered well; he could let it down over her eyes and stop her when he liked. He gave up all thought of trying to make her run after the post-cart. But he had watched the way it was going, and now he started his ostrich in another direction, hoping as she circled round, he should fall in with it further on.

Away went Vickel with renewed speed, taking a wider sweep as she felt her capabilities expand with this unwonted exercise. The pace at which they were going was frightful. Mr. Wilton and his powerful grays crept like snails in comparison.

Jack was dizzy and sick, when suddenly he found himself, not behind the post-cart, but before it. Vickel was turning from the storm of dust it raised, when Jack let the hood drop over her eyes. She stopped at once, and Jack hung round her neck, more dead than alive. But he knew the critical moment had come; yet it was a mercy he had a breathing-space, or he might have fainted quite away. Vic was frightened at finding herself in the dark, so she lay down and ran her head in the sand, trying to rub her hood off. Jack stretched himself on the ground beside her and slowly rallied.

Great was the postman's astonishment when he perceived the little fellow, covered with dust and white with fatigue, sitting by the wayside waiting.

Jack got up as the tramp of the horses drew nearer and nearer. He waved his hat in the air and held aloft his precious letter. The postman drew up. Jack put the letter and the sixpence into his hand; but his voice was weak and faint, as he asked nervously, "Please, sir, is that enough for the postage?"

The postman took the letter from him and read the familiar address. Every time he had crossed that sandy waste for years, he had been stopped to take a letter for Mr. Treby, Nottingham, England. He looked Jack all over, as he said kindly, "You have had a long and dusty walk to overtake me here. It has been too much for you, my little man. Your letter shall go all right. Where is your father?"

"He is gone on a long journey, sir," answered Jack dolefully.

"Then keep your sixpence; I will give you the stamp. But do not try to walk back in the heat, or you will drop by the way. Lie down under one of the bushes and rest. Have you anything with you to eat?"

Jack shook his head. "I'm not hungry, sir."

"Hungry! No," repeated the postman; "you are past that. Why did not you send that letter by your father's man—the old fellow was waiting by the kopjee for the parcel I promised to bring your father—eh?"

"Please, sir, I came from Jaarsveldt," put in Jack.

"Jaarsveldt!" exclaimed Wilton in astonishment. "That is miles and miles away. You must not think of trying to go back there alone; you are a great deal nearer your old home. Keep to my tracks until you come to the kopjee, and then I think you will be able to find your way, for I have often seen you there by your father's side watching for my coming. Now mind what I say, and eat this," the postman continued, taking out his pocket-flask and pouring some of its contents over a piece of captain's biscuit.

Jack found it wonderfully reviving. One of the passengers who had been listening to the conversation threw him a bit of bultong—that is, meat cut in strips and dried in the wind; and a hand was stretched out from the inside of the cart with a nice slice of watermelon. Jack lifted his big hat and bowed all round.

Wilton reiterated his charges.

"Please, sir," said Jack earnestly, "I am not alone; I have got my ostrich," pointing to the hole where Vic still lay, with her head well buried in the sand, in a paroxysm of fear on account of the horses.

Jack wondered why the men all laughed. He promised faithfully to do as he was told; and away drove the post-cart, leaving him in that vast solitude once more. He watched "Her Majesty's mail" crossing the wild desert plain until it vanished to a dusky speck.

The rolling sand on every side surrounded him like an earthy sea, for it was driven in wave-like heaps by a sudden gust. An ice-cold wind was driving before it a cloud so dense and black Jack trembled, for he knew that thunder was lurking in its inky folds. He ran to Vickel, who was rallying her spirits, after the apparition of those prancing horses, by browsing among the rosemary bushes. She too had felt the change. A little black and white bird flew fast from ant-hill to ant-hill, seeking shelter from the coming storm.

Vickel began scratching a hole in the billowy sand with unusual vehemence, as a troop of eland deer rushed past within a dozen yards of the rosemary bush she had been munching. Jack crept in terror to her side, as the "velderbeeste" dashed madly on, and the first fierce lightning flash parted the blackening gloom.