The Gold Kloof

"Why," said Guy, with a smile, as they sat at supper that evening, "what can you possibly want to go spying again for? Our troubles from that quarter are all at an end. Engelbrecht and his friends had such a dose of it that they will never want to tackle us again. You're getting fanciful, Poeskop!"

"Ja, Baas Guy," returned the Bushman, with a grin; "I am fanciful. I always have been since I lived naked in the veldt and dug for roots. And my fancy now is that I should like to climb the ladder to-night, and go beyond the camp and have a look round. I feel restless, shut up here, and I want a change."

"But you can't climb to-night, Poeskop?" argued Mr. Blakeney. "I don't want to stop your going. I daresay it will do you good to have a day off and prowl around. But you had better wait till morning."

"Nie, baas," persisted the little man, "I think I will go to-night. There will be a young moon coming up directly, and I see well enough. I could climb that ladder, mind you, baas, if the night were as dark as pitch."

So Poeskop had his way, and presently, taking his carbine on his back, went silently to the ladder, and climbed away into the dim heights above them, with steps so secret and so stealthy that the watchers below heard and saw absolutely nothing. The Bushman disappeared into the night, vanishing up the cliff face very much as a bat vanishes into the dark spaces in which it loves to make its flight.

And, in very sooth, Poeskop had reason for uneasiness. Karl Engelbrecht was not yet done with his revenge. After retiring beaten from the attack on the English camp, he had trekked out of the mountains, and outspanned with the remnant of his Boer allies some ten miles away. There, after mutual recriminations, the two parties split up, and the filibusters who had joined forces with him, disgusted with their losses and their ill-success, moved away for the coast. Engelbrecht himself, as had been observed by Poeskop, had trekked northward into unknown veldt. But the Boer, although he had betaken himself beyond the ken of the gold-seekers, had by no means abated one jot or tittle of the fierce anger and hatred that had for so long possessed him. In a few days he had recovered from the flesh wound sustained in the attack on the English camp. During these days of enforced quiet his mind, still consumed by an overpowering passion for revenge, turned over incessantly murderous plans against the men who had so lately defeated him. If, by some means, he could gain the gold valley and lie in ambush, he might surely, he thought to himself, with the aid of his henchman Quasip, a notably good shot, dispose of two of the most hated of his rivals without much difficulty. Poeskop and the man Blakeney should fall to their first two barrels, and they could surely manage the two lads thereafter. There were risks, it was true-risks which, in his calmer moments, he would have weighed in the balance many times before accepting; but in his present frame of mind the man saw red and nothing else. Revenge called him loudly back to the Gold Kloof; and go he must. Somehow or other he would find means of compassing the destruction of his foes.

Taking with him his Hottentot Quasip, and accompanied by a native after-rider mounted on a spare horse, Karl Engelbrecht then rode back for the mountains surrounding the Gold Kloof. He had with him a fortnight's supply of biltong and other necessaries, but he reckoned upon accomplishing his designs within a week. They approached the mountains by a narrow ravine some miles to the right of the main valley by which the gold-finders had found their way into the hills. By this means Engelbrecht hoped to escape any scouting observations made by the English party. From this ravine the after-rider, Klaas, was sent back with the three horses to Engelbrecht's outspan, two days distant, with minute instructions to return to the same place seven days thence.

Then, climbing the mountain, the Boer and his Hottentot set out to find the way to the Gold Kloof. It was a long and a difficult task, but, thanks to their instinct of locality, they made their way over the hills, and, passing under the vultures' peak, found themselves next day overlooking the Gold Kloof on the opposite side to that on which the rope-ladder hung. Several times during this day they reconnoitred most carefully for the gold-searchers, whom they could see at work far beneath them. They passed on to the head of the kloof, and marked very carefully the cliffs and edges of the ravine whence issued the stream that ran down the gold valley.

"Now," said Engelbrecht to his companion, after regarding the place from every point of view for a long hour, "supposing we get down into the kloof by the rope-ladder yonder, and supposing we settle these precious folk below, what are we to do if their servants in the camp above cut or pull up the ladder?"

"Ek wit nie, baas [I don't know, master]," replied the Hottentot. "We should be in a nasty place."

"Well, I'll tell you," answered the Boer. "We could build our way out of the kloof by light ladders. There are two difficult places down this krantz which we couldn't scale. The rest is climbable. If we are put to it, we will build ladders, set them against these places, and get out. It is to be done. The axes we have with us I brought for some such job. I can make a ladder as well as any man in Benguela or Mossamedes, and if we are shut up in the kloof yonder we'll just set to work and build ourselves out of it. Two ladders, one of forty feet at the base, another of thirty feet half-way up, will, I reckon, pass us over those dangerous places; the rest is climbable."

That afternoon the two men, making a wide circuit, got round the head of the ravine, and approached the Englishmen's camp in the rear. The camp, as we have seen, had at its back a shoulder of the mountain. Engelbrecht, in the evening, before sunset, reconnoitred this shoulder, and discovered that with care the descent could be made. There were many bushes, by the aid of which the steep declivity could be accomplished. The English party, as a matter of fact, had somewhat neglected this approach. They knew only of one avenue to their camp, that by which they themselves had made their way thither, and by which also their enemies had attacked them. And now all danger of any fresh assault seemed far remote.

That night Engelbrecht and his Hottentot slept among some bush on the mountain side, within three hundred yards of the English camp. They had well calculated the movements of the gold-seekers and their native servants guarding the camp, and had determined to hazard the descent by the rope-ladder at about two hours after sunrise next morning. By that time, they reckoned, the party down the kloof would have quitted their resting-place and gone off for the head of the valley, where their operations now lay. Three of the servants in the camp would probably be away-so Quasip, from his previous spying operations, reckoned it out-with the oxen and horses, grazing far down the hill. Jan Kokerboom would most likely be alone at the wagon. If they could avoid his scrutiny, as they hoped to be able to do, they could descend the ladder and conceal themselves without difficulty in the kloof below. In the afternoon, as the diggers returned to their sleeping-place, they could be easily ambuscaded. Some dangers there might be-dangers which had been pointed out to his master by Quasip; but in the mind of the Boer, thirsting as he was for revenge at any price, these were as naught compared with the chances of success. At dawn the pair of ruffians descended very softly from their place of concealment, and letting themselves down the steep declivity with the greatest care and caution, by means of bushes and stunted olive-wood trees, which lent them invaluable aid, safely accomplished their purpose. Now, seeking the centre of a clump of high bush close to the cliff edge, they lay within a hundred and fifty yards of the ladder, and about two hundred yards from the camp, from which they were still completely screened. Two hours went by. Surely by this time the coast must be nearly clear, and their attempt might be made? With extreme caution Engelbrecht raised himself from his hiding-place, and, peering through the bushes, looked down into the kloof. Far away, up near the head of the valley, he could discern two or three men, their figures dwarfed by the distance, at work. That was right enough. Now for the attempt on the ladder.

With beating hearts the two men crawled quietly from the bush in which they were ensconced, and crept, well under the lee of more bush, towards the ladder. Up to half an hour ago they had heard voices about the camp and the lowing of cattle. The voices had ceased, and the cattle had evidently been driven down hill to pasture; all was now quiet. If any one remained in camp it would be Jan Kokerboom, and presumably he would be asleep. Very slowly, very cautiously, the two men crawled on hands and knees towards the ladder. The journey was safely accomplished. They lay now by the ladder of rope and hide, seventy yards only from the camp, but concealed from it by some high bush and a little group of wild olive trees. Karl Engelbrecht now nodded to his henchman to begin the descent. Quasip little liked the job; but he was the servant of an iron-willed and ruthless master, and he knew he had to go through with it. Rising very cautiously, he gripped the upper part of the ladder and went over the side.

It was a breathless moment for both. The Hottentot, his face deeply puckered with anxiety, began the downward climb. Engelbrecht shuffled his huge form to the edge of the cliff and saw his man's descent. He watched him till the lower angle of the cliff concealed him from view. The movement of the ladder presently ceased. Quasip had reached the bottom. His own turn had now come. Mingled with some natural feeling of suspense was also a sense of elation. His man was down the cliff; half their difficulties were over. In ten minutes he himself would be safely at the foot, near to that great pile of gold-and then revenge and plunder. The blood of his hated enemies and a vast treasure would be his.

But Karl Engelbrecht, cleverly as he and his Hottentot had laid their plans, and made their approach to the ladder, had overlooked or never suspected one elemental fact in the situation. They were in complete ignorance that on the previous night Poeskop, their arch-enemy Poeskop, whom they now supposed to be far away up the kloof, digging for gold with his masters, had ascended the ladder. And Poeskop for the last five minutes had been attentively regarding Karl Engelbrecht. Something-he never afterwards could explain satisfactorily why or how it was-but something that morning had impelled him to remain in camp, mending his old, ragged pair of trousers, and to send Jan Kokerboom, who loved stalking and was not difficult to persuade, to shoot a head of game down the hill. While Poeskop sat silent and reflective, under the shade of the wagon, patching his old breeches, some faint sound, or vibration rather, from the direction of the edge of the cliff, caught his preternaturally sharp ears. He listened. Yes, he was certain now: there was a sound from the direction of the ladder. He knew that sound, but it puzzled him why he should hear it just then. None of his masters could be climbing upward!

Poeskop was instantly on the alert. Creeping, with the silence and adroitness of a serpent, in the direction of the cliff edge, he presently peeped through the bushes, and beheld his arch-enemy Karl Engelbrecht, lying prone on the lip of the precipice, evidently watching very intently some one on the ladder. For a moment the Bushman was uncertain what to do. Then it dawned upon him, from the movements of Engelbrecht, that the person beneath was descending and not climbing the ladder. He decided to wait for the Boer's next move, which, indeed, was not long in coming.

Engelbrecht softly rose, gripped the ladder fairly, and began to descend. His great frame disappeared over the cliff edge. Then a wonderful smile, a smile of triumphant hatred, swept over Poeskop's face. He knew now that at last his hated enemy was delivered into his hands. He waited till the big Boer was a third of the way down the precipice, and then, swiftly creeping to the edge, looked over. Karl Engelbrecht was going steadily down, hand under hand. He was not accustomed to a task like this; but he had nerves of steel and a good head, and he was getting used to the dizzy height and the sway of the ladder. Suddenly an exclamation from the cliff above him made him look up. What he saw struck, for the first time in his life, a freezing terror at his heart. He saw above him, leering at him with fiendish glee and malevolence, the face of Poeskop, the Bushman.

"So," cried Poeskop in Dutch, "I have you at last! At last, Karl Engelbrecht! I have waited a long time, but now I am even with you, edele heer [noble sir]," he added, with jeering sarcasm. "You won't like the fall, but you've got to face it, and you'll strike plaguy hard at the bottom. At last, Karl, the devil has thee! The devil has thee!"

Death, indeed, stared the Boer in the face. He knew he was doomed; he knew that nothing in this world would turn the fell purpose of the man above him. But, brute as he was, Engelbrecht was no coward, and, setting his teeth, he made one despairing attempt to snatch salvation. His rifle hung at his back. Clinging to the rope-ladder with one hand, he disengaged the weapon with marvellous dexterity, swinging as he was over that frightful abyss, and, pointing it upward, tried to align it on the Bushman. Next instant he pulled trigger, the bullet whizzed far upward into space, and the report of the rifle rattled with deafening reverberation around the cliffs.

Poeskop delayed no longer. The madness of revenge ran seething through his veins. Whipping out his long hunting knife from its sheath, he hacked with desperate energy at the tough hide of the ladder. One side went, the ladder drooped and collapsed, and the Boer hung helpless and awry by the frail support of the other side only.

"Die! die! die! you schelm!" gasped Poeskop, his voice shrill with passion, as he shore and hacked for the last three times at the raw hide. With the final frantic stroke the remaining strand went, and with it the whole ladder and its burden. From a height of three hundred feet Karl Engelbrecht fell to the bottom of the cliff. Thrice he turned over in mid-air; then, with a sickening thud, his huge frame struck the hard earth, within a few feet of his startled Hottentot. That terrific fall reduced the giant upon the instant to little more than a hideous pulp of broken bones, blood, and pounded flesh; and from the moment of the impact, the Boer neither breathed nor stirred again.