Tales of South Africa

“We had some Masarwa bushmen with us, and they were as keen as hawks at the prospect of showing us heavy game, and getting a liberal supply of flesh. Northward we trekked steadily through wild desolate country for the best part of one day, and outspanned by a desert pool for the night. Here we were greatly disappointed to find no spoor of elephant, although giraffe, ostrich, gemsbok, and hartebeest were fairly plentiful. Next day at dawn we again pushed doggedly on, Angus and I taking different directions, and riding some miles ahead of the wagon on the look-out for elephant-spoor. I rode behind a Masarwa at a steady pace all morning without finding the least sign of the game we wanted, and, after an off-saddle at midday, once more pushed on in a north-westerly direction.

“Rather suddenly we came upon a klompje of giraffe, and as the elephants seemed very much in the air and we wanted meat, I rammed the spurs in and galloped headlong for the kameels (Camels. The Boer term for giraffe). It was desperately hot, and we were shut up in thick thorny bush in which not a breath of wind stirred, and I consequently had not got my coat on. The beast I rode for, a fat, fresh young cow, led me a pretty dance of two miles, hell for leather, at a terrific pace through the very thorniest jungle she could pick; and although I presently ranged close up to her rump, and with my third bullet (firing from my horse) brought her down with a crash, she had taken pretty heavy toll of me. My flannel shirt was torn to ribbons, and my chest and shoulders were rarely gashed about. Never hunt ‘camel’, gentlemen, in thick bush, without a stout coat on; that’s the advice of an old veldt-man, and it’s worth remembering. I ought to have known better that day, but I was not prepared for game at that particular moment.

“Well, I stuck my knife into the cow’s back and found her well covered with fat, and the Masarwa coming up soon after, we set to work to skin and cut her up. Presently, having fastened about twenty pounds of meat to my saddle, and carrying the long, prehensile tongue dangling far below my belt, I saddled up, leaving the Masarwa, who had a calabash of water, to finish the job and wait for the wagon to pick him up next morning.

“I myself took a sweep north-north-east, with the intention of working round to the wagon before sundown.

“I had not left the Masarwa half an hour, when I suddenly, to my intense surprise, cut the spoor of a wagon running pretty well east and west, and going westward. It was not fresh, but at the same time not very old either. It might have been a month or two old at most. ‘Now,’ thought I, ‘what in the mischief does this mean?’ Very few hunters use this veldt. I knew Khama had sent no wagons that way this season, and the only white man in front of us this year was Dirk Starreberg, one of the few Dutch hunters to whom Khama gave permission to hunt in his veldt. Starreberg’s wagon it could only be. And yet it struck me as strange that Dirk, whom I knew well – for he was a noted interior hunter – should be trekking in this veldt. He was, I knew, bound for the Victoria Falls. Probably, like ourselves, enticed by the unwonted water supply and the possibility of a slap at the elephants, he had turned off somewhere between Nata River and Daka, and pushed across for the Chobé. Thus reasoning, I turned my horse’s head, and, with the westering sun now on my right flank, struck homeward for the wagon. I rode on for half a mile, and then came another strange thing. As I crossed an open glade I saw coming towards me the figure of a man. I knew in a moment who it was. The slouching walk, the big, burly form, the vast red beard, the rifle carried – as Dirk always carried his – by the muzzle end, with the stock poised behind his shoulder – it was none but Dirk Starreberg himself. But there was something amiss with him. He looked worn and troubled, almost distraught, it seemed to me, at that distance; and he gazed neither to right nor left of him, but passed hurriedly and very swiftly in front of me at a distance of about eighty paces.

“‘Hallo! Dirk!’ I shouted. ‘Allemaghte! war loup jij? Wacht een bitje, Dirk!’ (Almighty! where are you off to? Wait a little, Dirk!) To my utter astonishment, the man took not the slightest notice, but passed on. I became indignant, and yelled, ‘Dirk, Dirk, have you no manners? It’s me, George Kenstone. I want you. Stop!’ Still the man passed on. In another moment he had reached the bush again. He turned now, beckoned to me with his right hand, and, in another instant, had disappeared into the low forest.

“I was extremely annoyed, and after staring like a fool for a second or two, struck in spurs rather sharply and galloped after him. I was not three seconds in reaching the bush where he had entered, but, to my surprise, Dirk had vanished. I searched hither and thither, shouted – ay, swore – but still no Dirk. I came back, at length, to the point where I had last seen the Boer. Surprise Number 3. There was my own spoor as plain as a pikestaff in the red sand, but of Dirk Starreberg not one trace of spoor was to be seen!

“Now, spoor, as you all know, is a thing that never lies. I had seen Dirk cross the clearing and enter the bush at this point. Where were his tracks? I got off my horse and hunted carefully every bit of the way across the glade where I had seen Dirk pass. I am a reasonable good veldt-man, but – so help me God! – I never could find one trace of the man’s spoor, this way or that. I rubbed my eyes. It was incomprehensible. I searched again and again, carefully and methodically, with the same result. There was always my own and my horse’s spoor, but no one else’s.

“By this time I was not a little bothered. There must be some infernal mystery which I could not fathom. My eyesight had never yet failed me. It was broad daylight, and I was neither asleep, nor dreaming, nor drunk. An old childish superstition crept for an instant upon my mind, to be instantly cast aside. And yet the flesh, even of grown manhood, is weak. I remember distinctly that I shivered, blazing hot as was the afternoon. The bush seemed very still and lonely, and I am bound to say it suddenly struck me it was time to move for the wagon. I got on to my good nag, walked him away, and presently set him into a brisk canter, which I only once slackened till I made the camp, just at sundown, a couple of hours later.

“I told Angus what I had seen. He laughed, and told me I had evidently missed the spoor, although he admitted that it was strange that Dirk had made no sign when I hailed him; and next morning we moved on rapidly, picked up the meat of the dead giraffe, and then a little later struck the wagon-spoor I had found yesterday. This we followed briskly until four o’clock p.m., when we came upon an old outspan, and discovery Number 4.

“Here was a good-sized water-pit in limestone formation. There were the remains of the camp-fire; and it was evident, from several indications, that the wagon, whosever it was, had stood at least two days at this spot. The camel-thorn trees (Giraffe-acacias) grew pretty thickly all around, and there was a good deal of bush, and altogether it was a sequestered, silent spot. Lying by the largest of the dead fires was an object that instantly quickened our interest in the mystery we were unravelling – the skeleton of a man, clean-picked by the foul vultures, but apparently untouched by jackals or hyaenas. There were still the tattered remains of clothing upon it, and one velschoen – a Boer velschoen – upon the right foot. I turned over the poor bleached framework to try and discover some inkling of its end. As I did so, out pattered from the skull on to the sand a solid Martini-Henry bullet, slightly flattened on one side of its apex, manifestly from impact with some bone it had encountered – probably a cheek-bone. A closer scrutiny revealed a big hole in rear of the skull just behind the right ear.

“‘By George!’ exclaimed Angus, who was bending over me, ‘there’s been foul play here. That shot was fired at pretty close quarters.’

“I nodded, and at that instant my Masarwa, who had been searching about near us, picked up and brought me a bunch of long red hair.

“‘So help me God!’ I could not help exclaiming, ‘that’s from Dirk Starreberg’s beard, for any money! He has been murdered here – that’s certain. If it was an accident, they would have buried him. The question is, who is the murderer?’

“We hunted about, but found no more traces, except the other velschoen and the remains of a Dutchman’s broad-brimmed hat. We outspanned for the night, and sat down to think it over and have a pipe while supper was being got ready.

“‘Angus,’ I said, ‘I don’t half like things. There’s some dark riddle here. The figure I saw yesterday afternoon was Dirk Starreberg’s. I knew him well, and never could mistake him. And, strangely enough, he was heading, when I last saw him, for this very spot. If I believed in ghosts, which I don’t, I should say I had seen Dirk’s spook. What do you make of it all? I’m beginning to think I’m dreaming, or going dotty. It beats me altogether.’

“‘Well,’ returned Angus, in his quaint way, ‘it’s the most extraordinary rum go I ever heard of. We’d better trek on in the morning, first thing, and see what else we can discover. Those are Dirk’s bones undoubtedly; we must try and do something for the poor chap, though he is dead.’

“I don’t know what was wrong that night, but several times the oxen were startled, and sprang to their feet; and the nags – fastened up to the wagon-wheels – were desperately scared once or twice, and pulled at their riems as though they must break them; the dogs, too, barked and howled, and behaved very strangely. And yet no lions were near us. Once or twice we looked out, but saw nothing. All of us, masters and boys, were uncomfortable – we could hardly explain why, and the men undoubtedly knew nothing of what I had seen the day before.

“At dawn next morning we were not sorry to inspan and trek; and, following the old wagon-spoor, we pushed on, determined if possible to get to the bottom of the affair. All that day and all the next we toiled on, only outspanning once or twice during the daytime, and at night, by water, to rest and refresh the oxen for a few hours. At last, an hour before sunset of the second day, Angus and I, who were riding ahead of the wagon, spied suddenly among some camel-thorn trees the tent of a wagon, to which we cantered. Suddenly, as we reined up, the fore-clap was cast aside, and a wild figure of a woman appeared, and scrambled down from the wagon-box. It was Vrouw Starreberg, but terribly, sadly altered from the stout, if somewhat grim, good-wife I had last seen a couple of years before. Her dark stuff dress was torn and cut about by the thorn-bushes; her erst fat, smooth face, broad though it still was, was lined and haggard, and terribly fallen away; but, above all, there was a rolling vacancy, a wildness, in her eye, that made me fear at once for her reason. Under one arm she clasped tightly a big Bible, and never in the subsequent days that we were together did she once relinquish it. It seemed that some terrible calamity had overturned her reason.

“‘Whence come ye, George Kenstone?’ (she had known me well for years), she cried in a harsh, high-pitched scream, very painful to listen to. ‘Take me out of this desert, and back to my home. I have been cast away these six weeks able to move neither hand nor foot for freedom. The man I called husband is dead, and my servants have fled, and the oxen are gone – the Lord knows where.’

“I scarce knew how to begin with her.

“‘I’m sorry, Tant’ Starreberg,’ I said, ‘to find you in this plight. I’m afraid there has been sad mischief, and your husband has been shot. Is it not so? We will help you gladly, of course, and early in the morning, when the oxen will be rested, we will take you out of this place. I fear you have suffered much. But how came poor Dirk by his end? Was it the boys?’

“At the mention of Dirk her whole expression changed; her eyes filled with a terrible light. In her best days Vrouw Starreberg was a hard-featured, ugly woman. Now she looked almost fiendish.

“‘Poor Dirk?’ she shrieked with a horrible scorn. ‘Poor Dirk? No, I am not afraid to own it! The man you call Dirk Starreberg – he was no more husband of mine – died by my hand. I shot him; yes, dead I shot him, as he sat by his fire. And why? Because he lied and was unfaithful. Because he forsook me for that mop-headed, blue-eyed, pink-faced doll – Alletta Veeland. And when at last I had discovered all – he talked over-much in his sleep, the traitor! – and taxed him with it, here in this very veldt, he laughed me to scorn, and told me he was tired of my black face and my sour ways, and gloried in his evil love. Ja! he taunted me that I was old and barren – I that had made a man of him, and brought him gold, and flocks, and herds, and set him up. And so I shot him, as I say. I could endure it no longer; and the servants, having trekked to this place with me, fled, and the oxen wandered, and I am alone, the Lord help me!’ At the next instant the poor, overwrought creature fell in a swoon upon the sand.

“Well, it was all very horrible; although even now we hardly knew what to believe. But we brought her to, gave her some brandy, and put her into her wagon to rest. And later on I took her some soup and bread, and made her eat it. She was exhausted now, and told me in a low voice that she had lived on meal and water for weeks past. Presently we turned in, and all was quiet.

“It was, I suppose, some little time after midnight that Angus and I were roused by a loud voice beyond the camp-fire, which lay between the other wagon and our own. We listened; it was the vrouw herself. Hastily we got down from the kartel and went towards her. She was beyond the fire, and her figure was well-nigh lost in the gloom of night. We could just see her white kopje, and an arm waving frantically. It was a terrible and uncanny scene. There stood the woman, screaming in wild and excited tones at something beyond – what we could not see, and shivered even to imagine. ‘Yes,’ she cried, ‘you come here to frighten me, Dirk Starreberg. I feared you not in life; I fear you not in death. I slew you, and I would slay you again. But I know why you walk thus through the veldt, and come seeking to drive me mad, night after night. To-morrow – now that I can trek – I will come and bury your bones, and you may rest quiet if you can. Trouble me no more, I say – begone!’

“Angus and I could stand it no longer, sick with horror though we were.

“‘Come back to your wagon, Vrouw Starreberg,’ I called out ‘You are dreaming. Go to rest again!’

“Still glaring in front of her, the woman stepped back till she had met our advance. I am bound to say that I looked, and Angus looked, with terrified eyes, but saw nothing of what she saw or thought she saw. We took the poor mad creature’s arms. She was trembling and wet – literally bathed in perspiration. What the tension must have been if this sort of thing had been going on sight after night, I shuddered even to think of. We took her to her wagon and gave her a strong dose of brandy and water, and presently she fell into heavy sleep. Then Angus and I got down our karosses, rekindled a roaring fire, and sat smoking by the blaze for the rest of that sight. Scared as I was, I believe I dozed once or twice, and Angus always swears, to this day, that he once saw the figure of Dirk Starreberg pass within the firelight fifty yards away. He woke me, but it had gone. The cattle were uneasy and disturbed again, and our Kaffirs, who had heard the vrouw talking, as they said, at a spook, lay huddled together under our wagon. It was uncanny, devilish uncanny, I can tell you, that intangible horror about the camp.

“Well, the rest of my story is short. Vrouw Starreberg was moving before dawn, and insisted that we must trek back to the old camp and bury the skeleton. We – fearing more horrors – said it could not be done, and that we should at once quit the bush and strike directly for the road. She then utterly refused to leave her wagon unless we did as she asked. We seriously thought of taking her by force, but she was a strong, powerful woman, her mind was already unhinged, and we feared the consequences of a struggle. And so, very reluctantly, we agreed to humour her and give her her wish. It was a ghastly business; we only prayed to get it quickly over.

“At earliest streak of daylight we were in-spanned, and all day travelled steadily back towards the scene of Dirk’s tragical ending. That night, strange to say, nothing happened to disturb us; everything passed quietly. We trekked again all next day, and halted for the night some three miles short of ‘the skeleton outspan,’ as we called it. Our reason for this was that we hoped the burial might be quietly accomplished in the bright sunshine of next morning, and the woman got well away, before nightfall, on the homeward journey. Vrouw Starreberg, I noticed, was restless and excited, but she made no objection. Again, I noticed that she still carried her Bible tightly clasped under the left arm. The vrouw lay in our wagon; Angus and I sleeping by the fire again. We were dog-tired, and slept soundly until roused, just as daylight broke, by our wagon-driver, a Griqua named Albrecht. The man was looking very strangely. ‘Baas,’ he said, ‘the vrouw is not there,’ (pointing to the wagon); ‘she went in the night. I heard her whispering, and I looked from where I was lying, and there she was, beyond the firelight, following a man – a Dutchman, I think – or a spook, I don’t know which, towards the murderer’s outspan (de mordenaar’s outspan to). I was frightened, Baas, and I dared not move. There is her spoor; but the man’s spoor I cannot see.’

“We sprang to our feet and went straight to the wagon; the fore-clap was pulled aside; the kartel was empty. Yes, she had gone; and our hearts were sick with a nameless fear. Taking Albrecht with us, we saddled up at once, and spoored the vrouw along the track towards the old outspan. And there, surely enough, we found her, stone-dead by the side of the skeleton.

“There was no mark upon her, but in her face was the most awful look of horror and of fright that I ever saw upon the countenance of the dead. I believe she had died of sheer terror, and of nothing else. What had happened in those silent, terrible night hours – by what ghastly agency she had been dragged to the scene of the tragedy; how the end had actually come, God only knows.

“We were but too anxious to get away from this dreadful place after such events. We buried the body and skeleton together, and trekked out as fast as the oxen could travel, never stopping till we had struck the road and reached Scio Pans.

“That, gentlemen, is my solitary experience of spooks. I never want to have another. I was a scoffer before; I am a believer now. And if you told me that in the bush I speak of there were now standing ready for me, as a free gift, two buck-wagons loaded up with ivory – why, I should decline the offer.

“Never would I be induced to enter that veldt again!”