The Settler and the Savage - Robert Michael Ballantyne (reading a book .txt) 📗

victory by dancing on its prostrate foe, when Hans galloped up. The bird turned on him at once, with a hiss and a furious rush. The terrified horse reared and wheeled round with such force as almost to throw Hans, who dropped his gun in trying to keep his seat. Jumping into the air, and bringing its foot down with a resounding smack, the bird sent its two formidable nails deep into the steed's flank, from which blood flowed copiously. The horse took the bit in its teeth, and ran.

Hans Marais was very strong, but fear was stronger. The horse fairly ran off, and the ostrich pursued. Being fleeter than the horse, it not only kept up with ease, but managed ever and anon to give it another kick on flank, sides, or limbs. Hans vainly tried to grasp his assailant by the neck. If he succeeded in this he knew that he could easily have choked it, for the ostrich's weak point is its long slender neck--its strong point being its tremendous leg, the thigh of which, blue-black, and destitute of feathers, resembles a leg of mutton in shape and size.

At last Hans bethought him of his stirrup. Unbuckling it, he swung it by the leather round his head, and succeeded, after one or two attempts, in hitting his enemy on the head with the iron. The ostrich dropped at once and never rose again.

Returning to the nest with his vanquished foe strapped to his saddle, he found Considine sitting somewhat confused among the egg-debris, much of which consisted of flattened young ones, for the eggs were in an advanced state of incubation.

"Why, Charlie, are you going to try your hand at hatching?" cried Hans, laughing in spite of himself.

Considine smiled rather ruefully. "I believe my breast-bone is knocked in. Just help me to examine; but first catch my horse, like a good fellow."

It was found on examination that no bones were broken, and that, beyond a bruise, Considine was none the worse of his adventure.

One egg was found to have survived the general destruction. This was taken to the farm and handed to Mrs Marais, and that amiable lady adopted and hatched it! We do not mean to assert that she sat upon it, but having discovered, from mysterious sounds inside, that the young ostrich contained in it was still alive, and, being a woman of an experimental tendency, she resolved to become a mother to it. She prepared a box, by lining it with a warm feather pillow, above which she spread several skin karosses or blankets, and into this she put the egg. Every morning and every evening she visited the nest, felt the egg to ascertain its temperature, and added or removed a blanket according to circumstances. How the good woman knew the proper temperature is a mystery which no one could explain, but certain it is that she succeeded, for in a few days the little one became so lively in its prison as to suggest the idea that it wanted out. Mrs Marais then listened attentively to the sounds, and, having come to a decision as to which end of the egg contained the head of the bird, she cracked the shell at that point and returned it to the nest.

Thus aided, the infant ostrich, whose head and feet lay in juxtaposition, began life most appropriately with its strongest point-- put its best foot foremost; drove out the end of its prison with a kick, and looked astonished. One or two more kicks and it was out. Next time its foster-mother visited the nest she found the little one free,--but subdued, as if it knew it had been naughty,--and with that "well--what-- next?" expression of countenance which is peculiar to very young birds in general.

When born, this little creature was about the size of a small barn-door hen, but it was exceeding weak as well as long in the legs, and its first efforts at walking were a mere burlesque.

The feeding of this foundling was in keeping with its antecedents. Mrs Marais was a thoroughgoing but incomprehensible woman. One would have thought that boiled sheep's liver, chopped fine, and hens' eggs boiled hard, were about the most violently opposed to probability in the way of food for an ostrich, old or young. Yet that is the food which she gave this baby. The manner of giving it, too, was in accordance with the gift.

Sitting down on a low stool, she placed the patient--so to speak--on its back, between her knees, and held it fast; then she rammed the liver and egg down its throat with her fingers as far as they would reach, after which she set it on its legs and left it for a few minutes to contemplation. Hitching it suddenly on its back again, she repeated the operation until it had had enough. In regard to quantity, she regulated herself by feeling its stomach. In the matter of drink she was more pronounced than a teetotaler, for she gave it none at all.

Thus she continued perseveringly to act until the young ostrich was old enough to go out in charge of a little Hottentot girl named Hreikie, who became a very sister to it, and whose life thence-forward was spent either in going to sleep under bushes, on the understanding that she was taking care of baby, or in laughing at the singular way in which her charge waltzed when in a facetious mood.

There is no doubt that this ostrich would have reached a healthy maturity if its career had not been cut short by a hyena.

Not until many years after this did "ostrich-farming" and feather-exporting become, as it still continues, one of the most important branches of commercial enterprise in the Cape Colony; but we cannot avoid the conclusion, that, as Watt gave the first impulse to the steam-engine when he sat and watched the boiling kettle, so Mrs Marais opened the door to a great colonial industry when she held that infant ostrich between her knees, and stuffed it with minced eggs and liver.


CHAPTER FOURTEEN.


THE BERGENAARS.

"So you like the study of French?" said Charlie Considine, as he sat one morning beside Bertha Marais in the porch of her father's dwelling.

"Yes, very much," answered the girl. She said no more, but she thought, "Especially when I am taught it by such a kind, painstaking teacher as you."

"And you like to live in the wild karroo?" asked the youth.

"Of course I do," was the reply, with a look of surprise.

"Of course. It was a stupid question, Bertha; I did not think at the moment that it is _home_ to you, and that you have known no other since you were a little child. But to my mind it would be a dull sort of life to live here always."

"Do you find it so dull?" asked Bertha, with a sad look.

"No, not in the least," replied the youth, quickly. "How _could_ I, living as I do with such pleasant people, like one of their own kith and kin, hunting with the sons and teaching the daughters--to say nothing of scolding them and playing chess, and singing and riding. Oh no! I'm anything but dull, but I was talking _generally_ of life in the karroo. If I lived alone, for instance, like poor Horley, or with a disagreeable family like that of Jan Smit--by the way, that reminds me that we have heard news of the three runaways, Ruyter, Jemalee, and Booby."

"Oh! I'm so glad," cried Bertha, her fair face brightening up with pleasure, "for I am very fond of Ruyter. He was so kind to me that time he found me lying near Smit's house, when my pony ran away and threw me, and I felt so miserable when I heard that his master was cruel and often beat him with a sjambok. Often and often since he ran away--and it must be nearly a year now--I have prayed God that he might come back, and that Jan Smit might become good to him--What have you heard?"

Considine's face wore a troubled look. "I fear," he said, "the news will distress you, for what I heard was that the three men, driven to desperation by the harsh treatment received from their master, have joined one of the fiercest of these gangs of robbers, called the Bergenaars--the gang led, I believe, by Dragoener. It was Lucas Van Dyk, the hunter, who told me, and he is said to be generally correct in his statements."

Bertha's nether lip quivered, and she hid her face in her hands for a few moments in silence.

"Oh! I'm so sorry--so sorry," she said at length, looking up. "He was so gentle, so kind. I can't imagine Ruyter becoming one of those dreadful Bergenaars, about whose ferocious cruelty we hear so much--his nature was so different. I can't believe it."

"I fear," rejoined Considine gently, "that it is true. You know it is said that oppression will drive even a wise man mad, and a man will take to anything when he is mad."

"It could not drive a Christian to such a life," returned the girl sadly. "Oh! I _wish_ he had become a Christian when Stephen Orpin spoke to him, but he wouldn't."

"When did Orpin speak to him, and what did he say?" asked Considine, whose own ideas as to Christianity were by no means fixed or clear.

"It was just after that time," rejoined Bertha, "when Jan Smit had had him tied to a cart-wheel, and flogged so terribly that he could not walk for some days. Orpin happened to arrive at the time with his waggon-- you know he has taken to going about as a trader,--and he spoke a great deal to Ruyter about his soul, and about Jesus coming to save men from sin, and enabling them to forgive their enemies; but when Ruyter heard about forgiving his enemies he wouldn't listen any more. Pointing to his wounds, he said, `Do you think I can forgive Jan Smit?'"

"I don't wonder," said Considine; "it is too much to expect a black fellow smarting under the sjambok to forgive the man who applies it-- especially when it is applied unjustly, and with savage cruelty."

Bertha was not gifted with an argumentative spirit. She looked anxiously in the face of her companion, and murmured some broken sentences about the Lord's Prayer and the Golden Rule, and wound up by saying hesitatingly, "How can we ask forgiveness if we do not forgive?"

"You are right, Bertha," was Considine's rejoinder, uttered gravely; "but, truly, a man must be more than a man to act on such principles. Think, now of the state of things at the present time with regard to the settlers. The `rust,' as they call that strange disease which has totally ruined the first year's crop of wheat, has thrown the most of them into difficulties, and in the midst of this almost overwhelming calamity down came the Kafirs on the Albany District, and the Bergenaars, of whom we have just been speaking, not, like men, to fight openly--that were endurable,--but like sly thieves in the dead of night, to carry off sheep and cattle from many of the farms--in some cases even killing the herdsmen. Now, what think you must