Part 9

Jack gave one cry—he could hardly help it—as the thunder crashed and rolled above his head. But his faithful Vic's broad wing was spread above two heads instead of one, as the bird and the boy huddled together in the hole she had been scooping.

It was an awful moment. Down came the heavy drops of thunder-rain. The tall grass waved and shivered. Aroused by Jack's wild cry, a quaint black figure crept cautiously out of a deserted ant-bear's hole, with which the ground was honey-combed, and looked around. Another and another jagged flash compelled her to fling herself on the ground to escape its fury.

Swiftly as the storm had arisen, so swiftly did it pass. Beyond the angry clouds a bright-hued rainbow spanned the wide reach of sky and kissed the crimsoned sand, that seemed to glow with a deeper red when the brightness of the golden sunshine was withdrawn.

To Jack's surprise Vickel began to hiss. He parted her feathers with his fingers and looked cautiously around.

The storm was dying, but every leaf was glittering with its sparkling diamond drop. The thirsty earth was already rejoicing; the very flowers seemed whispering, "Rain, more rain," as they lifted their drooping heads in grateful gladness.

The black had raised herself on one elbow, and was gazing earnestly at Vickel's damaged plumage. Those singed wings could not easily be mistaken. Like the hum of the wandering bee her song arose:—

"Lamb without a mother, where, oh, where? Bird without a heart, To leave the fair 'umfana' and depart; Or was the hard, hard casa hard to thee? And did he force a faithful bird to flee?"

Jack sprang to his feet and rushed towards the singer. The voice was the voice of the poor Black Antelope. He could have recognized that song had they met at the ends of the earth.

"Umfana," repeated Jack, catching the sound of the one Kafir word with which she had made him familiar. "Why, that was what she always called me, and Zyl was her 'umdanda,' now I recollect."

To make assurance doubly sure, Jack shouted, "Here's your old umfana."

"Ou ka! (Oh no)," cried the Black Antelope, springing to her feet, for she began to think the bird was talking; she could see no umfana (child) or umdanda (boy) anywhere.

Her frantic gesticulations, her wild cries, set Jack off laughing. She began to tear her hair, declaring it was a spook (a bogle) that was mocking her.

Up rose Vickel with a screaming hiss, leaving Jack tumbling in the sand. The next minute he found himself half hugged to death in the fervid embraces of the Kafir nurse.

"You did not expect to meet a six-foot hen with a two-handed chick, now did you?" asked Jack, kissing her fondly, as he felt her bony arm.

How sorry Jack was he had eaten all the food Mr. Wilton and his passengers had given him, for he was certain the poor girl was really starving. Like Vickel, she had been eating rosemary leaves. But her delight at finding Jack made her forget her own sufferings.

Yet, yet, she asked, why was her pet-lamb straying on the veldt? It was well they had met, for the homeless dog, as she called herself, could guard the lost lamb and save him from destruction. She drew him to a safer spot, and sitting down beside him, watched the parting clouds, for the lightning had not altogether ceased, and the thunder still rumbled behind the low sand-hills. Overhead the sky was clearing, and the arching rainbow shone with brightened hues.

Jack leaned against his Kafir friend, while Vickel strutted about, drying her feathers in the transient gleams of the returning sun. The air grew fresh and reviving. The sleep the postman had so earnestly recommended to Jack fell upon him unawares.

The Black Antelope had noticed at the first glance that her lamb had been shorn of his wavy curls, and now she perceived the traces of recent illness in his pale lips and hollow eyes. So she waited patiently beside him, flapping away the stinging flies with a long tuft of grass, that his sleep might be unbroken; and so the weary hours passed by.

When Jack at length awakened, the darkness of night had gathered around them. Vickel was roosting in the sand at their feet; but the glorious stars of the southern hemisphere were shining forth in all their splendour.

"There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard," thought Jack as he looked into the Kafir's eyes and then pointed upwards to their glittering light, and began to sing,—

"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on!"

Oh, how she listened. The solemn stillness of the night oppressed them both. Jack was almost afraid to think, and altogether too proud to cry; yet in spite of himself a something rising in his throat choked his voice.

"Have I done wrong to venture here alone?" he asked. "I almost wish—but no—" He checked himself. "I won't mind, for I've done it. The letter is safe on its way to grandfather. Oh, if I could only have asked father what I had better do."

Then the sweet words of his hymn came back to him; and kneeling down amid the eerie, lonesome waste, he took the Black Antelope's hand in his, and coaxed her to kneel beside him as he repeated aloud,—

"Our Father."

Yes, her Father as well as his, if she but knew it. Yet his prayer was for them both, as she dimly felt.

Jack had poured forth all his troubles, and his heart was lightened. They could do nothing but keep just where they were until daylight. "And then," thought Jack, "I shall see the tracks of the post-cart, and I'll take the poor Black Antelope home to Tottie; for all her trouble came through her kindness to me. It is hard when trouble comes through trying to do right."

Then sleep came slowly back again, and Jack was dreaming of the home he could not find.

At the peep of dawn he rose and began searching diligently for the track of the post-cart. Alas, alas! He could not find it. How was it? Had they wandered unconsciously from the spot? Or had the storm obliterated the deep wheel-ruts? He could not tell.

Jack tried to explain to his companion what it was that he was searching for, by drawing lines with his finger in the sand.

Both were faint for want of breakfast, and soon grew tired. The eagerness with which Jack had started on his fruitless search had dwindled to a lagging walk; but not one vestige of a cart-track could be discovered.

Then he sprang upon Vickel, who had made her breakfast on the scrubby grass as she loitered after them. Jack arranged her hood and bridle, and then invited the Black Antelope to mount beside him. Vickel was now so strong she could have carried a man on each shoulder with ease. She thought nothing of her added burden, and ran off as gaily as on the preceding day. She, at least, was in her native element, and every now and then turned a loving look to her master's face as she took a wider sweep, scouring the mighty plain in every direction.

At last the Kafir girl's quick eye detected the welcome lines ridging the wavy sand. She pointed them out to Jack with a cry of joy. The track of the post-cart at last, thought Jack, as he dropped the hood over Vickel's eyes and jumped off. But the Kafir was before him, running swiftly between the two deep ruts, which nothing smaller than the broad wheels of a heavily-laden waggon could have made.

Jack was thinking only of the way home; but the Black Antelope, with her larger experience of all the ups and downs a life on the veldt embraces, knew that the tracks could only be a few hours old, for the hoof-marks of the oxen were not yet effaced. She noticed them carefully to find out which way the waggon had gone; not that she wished to follow it, but she shrewdly conjectured that a few miles the other way they should find the spot where the waggon-driver had out-spanned for the night. Perhaps a waste crust or a half-picked bone might be dropped beside the ashes of his fire. She beckoned Jack to follow her; for he had paused, waiting for Vickel, who seemed wonderfully busy scratching about in the sand. At last she sat down in it.

So unlike her, Jack thought, as he went back to call her. The fear of losing his ostrich over-mastered every other feeling.

But for once in her life she refused to answer to his call. Would his Vickel grow wild and forsake him if they kept on wandering about the veldt? At last she got up with an air of importance, and began scratching up the sand vehemently.

He went close up to her before he could rouse her. Then he saw she was covering something up. Oh, joy, joy! His Vickel had laid her first egg!

He ran and picked it up. What a jolly egg it was! Almost as big as Jack's head, now he had lost his hair. He was certain it must weigh nearly two pounds and a half. He thought she might have chosen a better colour, for it was a dirty white marbled over with yellow. Jack took it up very carefully and held it up on high to show it to his companion. Jack never forgot the cry with which she bounded towards him and pounced upon the egg.

Snatching up a sharp stone, she made a small hole in the shell, and began to suck the rich nutritious yolk. Then remembering herself, she held it to Jack's lips, with a look so deprecating that it stopped his reproachful "Don't, don't!" For he saw that she was famishing. He took a sip. The welcome nourishment revived his spirits.

It was life to them both. They shared it between them, each trying to make the other take the lion's share. Hungry as they were, there was more than enough to satisfy them.

"My best and sweetest! My ownie and good!" cried Jack, as he kissed the breast of his snow-feathered queen, who walked beside him with added dignity.

The Black Antelope was right. An hour's walk brought them to the smoking ashes of a dying fire. She raked these carefully together with a bit of charred stick; and after signing to Jack to lie down and rest under the nearest bush, she began to search about for fuel—a difficult matter on an African plain; an almost hopeless quest now, for the waggoner who lit the fire had been before her. A few dead leaves under a bush that had been struck by the lightning, and a twig or two, were all that she could find.

She returned to Jack, who was dozing in the sunshine, and made up the fire, little dreaming that it was his own father who had lighted it on his return journey. She wandered forth a second time in search of water, confident that she should find it somewhere in the neighbourhood of the traveller's fire. Vickel's egg-shell served her for a cup when she found a tiny runlet, glistening like a silver braid amidst the scorching sand. A dead bird lay on the ground, another victim of last night's tempest. Her cry of joy brought Jack to her side to taste the delights of a cup of sun-warmed water in the burning heat of an African noon.

Then she roasted the bird in the ashes for their dinner, content to let the morrow take care for itself; whilst poor Jack grew every hour more uneasy. He knew now they had lost their way. The track they had found was not the track of the post-cart; for he too had noticed the foot-prints of the oxen, so different from the mark of the horse-shoes. His only hope was in Vickel's sagacity. She might yet find her way back to Tottie's hut.

XIV.

_LOST ON THE VELDT._

THE glories of an African sunset were adding a more than usual radiance to sand and sky. Mr. Treby urged on his weary oxen as he came within sight of Jaarsveldt, with its long range of low farm-buildings and smiling orchard.

The Kafir guide he had engaged to accompany him on his homeward route was calling to the oxen.

Jack's father had had a most successful journey. He was returning with money in his pocket and a loaded waggon. Wilton, the postman, who had been the first to speak a word of sympathy on the morning after the fire, had not let his sympathy end in words. He had crossed Mr. Treby on the road as the mail went back to Natal, and had lent him money enough to rebuild the house; for the postman, receiving his regular pay from Government, had more actual money in reserve than Mr. Treby's other neighbours.

Mr. Treby had accepted the loan at once, for he knew his aged father in England would help him to repay it. So all his plans were changed. The diamond-digging was given up; his waggon was bringing back beams and roofing, doors and windows—in fact, a skeleton house. The helping hand so unexpectedly stretched out had cheered his heart. As he drove up to Jaarsveldt, the "oom" was standing by the open gate. He turned away his head at the sight of his English neighbour.

"Where is Jack?" was the father's first inquiry as his eyes looked eagerly round, hoping to catch sight of his boy.

The Kafir groom was hurrying to assist in the out-spanning of the oxen. All were running to welcome him; and yet, and yet, every face was averted. Van Immerseel wrung his hand with a heartiness which threatened dislocation of every joint, and groaned.

"Where is my boy?" repeated Mr. Treby, growing cold with fear.

The sturdy Dutchman paused blankly, then slowly pointed across the shadowy veldt. Somewhat re-assured, Mr. Treby entered the house. Tante Milligen's ruddy face grew white at the sight of their English neighbour. Genderen crept behind the door. The evening meal was preparing. With an added warmth of hospitality, the "tante" forced him into the "oom's" big chair, and began to drive about her maids as if nothing their plentiful household afforded could be good enough to set before their guest.

During his brief absence, Mr. Treby had made a point of adding to his Dutch vocabulary at every chance. He thought he had learned a good deal, but, strange to say, no one at Jaarsveldt seemed to understand a single word. In his despair, he asked for Otto.

"Jah, jah," repeated Van Immerseel, and a messenger was despatched for the shepherd.

Mr. Treby concluded his Jack was away with the young Immerseels, for neither Walt nor Zyl was visible. A little comforted by this idea, he began his supper with the appetite of a hunter; but it suddenly failed him when Otto entered. The German's face was livid with conflicting feelings, as he assured the anxious father that Van Immerseel and all his family had been kindness itself to the boy, but the ungrateful young dog had run away and never been heard of since.

"My Jack!" exclaimed Mr. Treby, in tones of bitter anguish, as he pictured his boy dying of hunger in that vast sandy wilderness. "O God what men are these, to have kept my sordid pelf and lost my child!"

The silent Dutchman met the agonized reproach in his tear-blinded eyes with a look of stolid compassion, as he directed the shepherd to tell him they had just returned from a fruitless search, and that Walt was still scouring the veldt in another direction with his dogs and the Kafir groom. They had done everything they could to find the child, but in vain.

Mr. Treby turned away his head, but he could not hide the quiver of anguish he was struggling to control. Tante Milligen rocked herself backwards and forwards; her husband rose from his seat and stood beside the unhappy father.

They knew they had acted generously and hospitably to the Englishman and his child, and they saw his heart was bursting with reproach and blame. Poor fellow! He was wild with grief! The "oom" would rather have faced an angry elephant in his lair than own to that doting father that they had lost his child.

"No more dread of you supplanting me," thought Otto as he looked from one to the other, and tried, by his covert insinuations on either hand, to turn grief into anger. He thought he should find it easy work to set the Dutch and English by the ears; and he might have succeeded, had it not been for little Sannie.

She had been laid to sleep in her usual corner, but the entrance of Mr. Treby had roused her. For a while she sat up and listened unnoticed by any one. Then she got up slowly, and walking deliberately to Mr. Treby she struck him on the knee, exclaiming in tones of severe reproach that at any other time would have made them all laugh,—

"'Ou big baby! 'Ou cry! 'Ou go look for poor Jock Trairbee. Sannie 'll be your voorlooper."

Away she trotted to the open door. Otto thought to fetch her back, but she fought him off, asserting,—

"Me won't have 'ou. 'Ou hate Jock Trairbee. 'Ou do that at him," she persisted, imitating the scowl and the menacing gesture of the shepherd. "'Ou don't want to find him; 'ou stay there."

Tante Milligen repeated the imperious command of her youngest born.

And Otto resumed his seat, refusing to notice the idle prattle of a child. But no one echoed his laugh.

"God bless the baby! She speaks more sense than any of us," muttered her father.

As drowning men catch at straws, Mr. Treby exclaimed, "That child knows something; let us follow her."

"Ridiculous!" cried Otto.

"But it is true," retorted Genderen.

The two fathers went out.

Otto would have followed; but Tante Milligen, who was a formidable woman when she was roused, being six feet high, and broad and strong in proportion, took the German by the shoulders and turned him round. But all her cross-questioning failed to elicit more than that the English boy had been impertinent and Otto cross. Yet no one was satisfied.

Sannie met her brothers at the gate. Their jaded horses told of the many miles of sand which had been traversed. Weary as they were, no one thought of rest. "Search" was the word with them all. Walt, who had taken Jack under his protection from the first, refused to give up hope. Van Immerseel took Sannie in his arms, and leading Zyl aside, questioned him about Otto's behaviour to Jack.

Zyl remembered the morning when they visited the shepherd's hut.

"But," persisted Sannie, "it was Jock Trairbee's own knife. Me know it was. He cut my beauty letters."

"Run into the house, Zyl, and tell your mother not to let the shepherd stir from the sit-kamé until I come back," said Van Immerseel, as he strode off in his high-handed fashion to search the shepherd's hut.

The knife lay upon the shelf, as the children had said. Mr. Treby knew it in a moment. After that night, Otto's dismissal was sure; but they were no nearer finding Jack.

All this did not take place unnoticed by the Kafirs about the farm. With their acute power of observation on the alert, they were soon aware that the German shepherd was suspected of having a hand in Jack's disappearance. The little gifts which Mr. Treby had scattered among them the night before his departure were not forgotten, and many a dark brow scowled upon Otto. But in spite of Van Immerseel's threats and Mr. Treby's entreaties, Otto refused to give any account of his quarrel with Jack; and still the fruitless search went on.

Jack had not gone home—that alone was certain. Van Immerseel had sent over to the ruined farm directly the boy was missed. Seco and Tottie had been on the lookout ever since. Mr. Treby never doubted Jack had lost himself trying to find his way to his old home, and therefore, like Van Immerseel, began his search in that direction.

One night, when they returned utterly disheartened, the Kafir groom walked up to the heart-broken father with a hat under one arm and a pair of boots under the other.

"Inkoos! Casa! (master and chief)," said his countryman the guide, turning to Mr. Treby, "this man tells you to look for your child here." Then he went on to explain how the big bird bellowed one night like a bull, and the shepherd's hat was found at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft where Jack had slept, and the shepherd's boots hidden in the straw.

Mr. Treby was distracted when Tante Milligen herself added her experiences to the mystery of that night, and how Jack tried to make her understand he dare not sleep alone again.

How was Mr. Treby ever to find out the truth about his lost darling amidst a confusion of tongues he could not understand? Ah, but if he could not comprehend the jargon around him, Seco would; so he determined to start at once and fetch the trusty old Hottentot to his aid. What would he have given for one sympathizing countryman? He thought perhaps the reckless young schoolmaster would be coming again. But no; Tante Milligen had sent a message to delay him. She was not going to pay for nothing; and what could the children learn while their hearts were aching for their lost companion?

Mr. Treby bought a horse of Van Immerseel, and started on his homeward road. He felt as if he had grown to be all ear and eye as he trotted across the lonely veldt. When he drew near the blackened ash-heap that had been his home, he said that the joy of his life was quenched beneath it, and his tears, when there was no eye but God's to watch him, rained freely down. But hark! There was a sound—a deep, hoarse boom. Surely he knew it.

"Vic! Vic! Vic!" he shouted, spurring his horse forward in the direction from whence it came. Out ran Tottie from her tumble-down hut; up sprang Seco from the mat where he was dozing. They had all heard it.

"'Tis as I said," he exclaimed; "the ostrich is drawing home."

He caught up a calabash of mealies, out of which Vickel had so often been fed, and scanning the vast distance, where sand and sky melted into one, he shouted joyfully. There was something moving on the veldt, like a small gray cloud at first, but gradually shaping itself into outstretched wings.

Mr. Treby got off his horse, and tied it to a shrub of prickly pear, for fear it should scare away the returning bird.

Nearer and nearer still it came, louder and louder grew the master's call. The three stood breathless, afraid of driving back the vagrant bird if they continued running towards it. But what was Mr. Treby's dismay to perceive a grinning Kafir face peering over Vickel's shoulder.

When a wild cry of "Father! Father!" echoed through the evening stillness.

"Jack! Jack!" responded Mr. Treby, darting forward like an arrow from a bow; but Seco, exerting all the speed of a wild hunter, outran him, and placing the calabash full in Vickel's sight, brought her to a standstill. Mr. Treby saw nothing but a little sun-burnt skeleton stretching its arms towards him. Could that be his Jack—his handsome Jack?

Another moment, and bird and child and Kafir were caught in a grasp so tight, Jack could only gasp out, "Father, she has saved me."

For Seco had seized upon a large stone to hurl at the poor blackie's head, believing she had stolen their darling to make "mouti" (medicine) from his heart and brain, according to their wild Kafir ways.

But at Mr. Treby's word the stone rolled back upon the ground. Between them the two men guided Vickel home, while Jack poured out his story to their delighted ears.

"I only wanted to post my letter, father; but somehow I could not get back," he pleaded piteously.

"Jack," retorted Mr. Treby, "how could you, how dare you, run so great a risk? Hadn't I charged you to take care of yourself, my boy? Don't you know you are my very life, my precious boy? You've had a hair's-breadth escape." And at the thought of all the perils his child had undergone, a sort of sob choked his words. A huge hug finished all he meant to say, and drowned Jack's promises.

"Father dear, I will take care, only you see—"

And Mr. Treby did see, thinking in his fatherly pride and joy his boy was just the bravest and the best in all the world. "Only, Jack, you must learn to consider the consequences. Think of all we have gone through just think."

Jack did think; and truly his best way was to tell his father all straight and clearly as it happened. Mr. Treby's eyes flashed fire as he heard how Otto had treated his boy; but he never uttered a word to interrupt him, until Vickel tucked her long head under her master's arm, and looked up in his face with her beautiful eyes, as if she said, "I've brought him safely home."