CHAPTER XXIV
THE MADNESS OF RALPH KENZIE
Now my story goes back to that night at the stead when I, Suzanne Botmarand my husband, Jan Botmar, were awakened from our sleep to learn thatour daughter had been carried off by that mad villain, Piet Van Vooren,and that her husband Ralph lay senseless and wounded in the waggonat the door. We carried him in, groaning in our bitter grief, anddespatched messengers to arouse all the Kaffirs on and about the placewhom we could trust and to a party of Boers, six men in all, who chancedto have outspanned that night upon the borders of our farm to shootvildebeest and blesbok. Also we sent another messenger mounted on agood horse to the house of that neighbour who was being attended by thedoctor from the dorp, praying that he would come with all speed to visitRalph, which indeed he did, for he was with us by half-past eight in themorning.
Within an hour of the despatch of the messengers the Boers rode up fromtheir waggons, and to them, as well as to ourselves and to the Kaffirswho had gathered, the driver and voorlooper told all they knew of theterrible crime that had been done upon the persons of Ralph Kenzie andhis wife by Piet Van Vooren and his band. Also they repeated all thatZinti had taught them of the road to the secret krantz whither it wasbelieved that he had carried off Suzanne. Then Jan asked those presentif they would help him in this trouble, and being true men, one andall, they answered yes, so by seven in the morning the little commando,numbering twenty-one guns--eight white men and thirteen Kaffirs--startedto seek for Swart Piet's hiding-place, and to rescue Suzanne if theymight.
"Alas!" I said to Jan as he bade me farewell, "at the best I fear thatyou will be too late."
"We must trust in God," he answered heavily.
"Never had we more need of trust, husband, but I think that God turnsHis face from us because of the lies we told to the Englishmen, for nowthe punishment which you foresaw has fallen."
"Then, wife, it were more just that it should have fallen on us who wereguilty, and not on those two who are innocent. But still I say I trustin God--and in Sihamba"--he added by an afterthought, "for she is braveand clever, and can run upon a path which others cannot even see."
Then they went, and were away five days, or it may have been six. Theystarted early on Tuesday, and upon the Thursday morning, after muchtrouble, by the help of a native whom they captured, they found SwartPiet's kraal, but of Swart Piet or Suzanne or the hidden krantz theycould see nothing. Indeed, it was not until they had gathered togetherevery man they could find in the kraal and tied them to trees, sayingthat they would shoot them, that a woman, the wife of one of the men,led them to a rock wall and showed the secret of the kloof. They enteredand found the big hut with the body of the man whom Sihamba had killedstill lying in it, and also the knife with which Suzanne had intended todestroy herself, and which her father knew again.
Then by degrees they discovered the whole story, for the woman pointedout to them the man who had guarded the entrance to the kloof, at whomZinti had fired, and under fear of death this man confessed all he knew,which was that Suzanne, Sihamba and Zinti had escaped northward upontheir horses, followed by Swart Piet and his band.
Accordingly northwards they rode, but they never found any traces ofthem, for rain had fallen, washing out their spoor, and as might beexpected in that vast veldt they headed in the wrong direction. Soat last worn out, they returned to the stead, hoping that Suzanne andSihamba would have found their way back there, but hoping in vain.
After that for days and weeks they searched and hunted, but quitewithout result, for as it chanced the Kaffirs who lived between theterritory of Sigwe and the stead rose in arms just then, and began toraid the Boer farms, stealing the cattle, including some of our own, sothat it was impossible to travel in their country, and therefore nobodyever reached the town of Sigwe to make inquiries there.
The end of it was that, exhausted by search and sorrow, Jan sat down athome and abandoned hope; nor could the prayers and urgings of Ralph, whoall this while was unable even to mount a horse, persuade him to go outagain upon so fruitless an errand.
"No, son," he answered, "long before this the girl is either dead orshe is safe far away, and in either event it is useless to look for herabout here, since Van Vooren's kraal is watched, and we know that she isnot in it." To which Ralph would answer:
"She is not dead, I know that she is not dead," and we understood thathe spoke of the vision which had come to him, for I had told the tale ofit to Jan. But in his heart Jan put no faith in the vision, and believedthat Suzanne, our beloved child, had been dead for many days, for he wascertain that she would die rather than fall again into the hands of VanVooren, as I was also, and indeed of this we were glad to be sure.
To Ralph, however, that we might comfort him in his sorrow, which waseven more terrible than our own, we made pretence that we believedSuzanne to be hiding far away, but unable to communicate with us, as infact she was.
Oh! our lives were sad during those bitter months. Yes, the lighthad gone out of our lives, and often we wished, the three of us, thatalready we were resting in the grave. As he recovered from his woundsand the strength of his body came back to him, a kind of gentlemadness took hold of Ralph which it wrung our hearts to see. For hours,sometimes for days indeed, he would sit about the place brooding andsaying no word. At other times he would mount his horse and ride awaynone knew whither, perhaps not to return that night or the next, or thenext, till we were terrified by the thought that he too might nevercome back again. It was useless to be angry with him, for he would onlyanswer with a little smile:
"You forget; I must be seeking my wife, who is waiting for me upon theMountain of the Hand," and then we learned that he had ridden to a faroff hill to examine it, or to see some travellers or natives and ask ofthem if they knew or had heard of such a mountain, with ridges upon itseastern slopes fashioned like the thumb and fingers of a man's hand.Indeed, in all that countryside, among both Boers and natives, Ralphwon the by-name of the "Man of the Mountain" because he rarely spokeof aught else. But still folk, black and white, knew the reason of hismadness and bore with him, pitying his grief.
It was, I remember, in the season after Suzanne had vanished that theKaffirs became so angry and dangerous. For my part I believe that thosein our neighbourhood were stirred up by the emissaries of Swart Piet,for though he had gone none knew where, his tools and agents remainedbehind him. However this may have been, all over the country the blackmen began to raid the stock, and in our case they ended by attacking thestead also, a great number of them armed with guns. Fortunately we had alittle warning, and they were very sad Kaffirs that went away next day;moreover, forty of them never went away at all. Just at dawn, when theyhad been besieging the house for some hours, shouting, banging off theirguns, and trying to fire the roof by means of assegais with tufts ofblazing grass tied on to them, Jan, Ralph, and about twenty of ourpeople crept down under cover of the orchard wall and sallied out uponthem.
Almighty! how those men fought, especially Jan and Ralph. It was apleasure to see them, for I watched the whole thing from the _stoep_,though I admit that I was anxious, since it was evident that neither ofthem seemed to care whether he lived or died. However, as it turned out,it was not they who died, but the Kaffirs, who went off with some fewcattle and afterwards left us in peace.
And now comes the strange part of the affair, though I scarcely like totell it, lest after all these years it should not be believed. Someoneconnected with the London Missionary Society reported us to theGovernment at the Cape for shooting poor, innocent black men, and it wasthreatened that Jan and Ralph would be put upon their trial for murderby the British Government. Indeed, I believe that this would have beendone had not we and others of our neighbourhood let it be clearly knownthat before they were dragged to the common gaol there would be killingnot only of black but of white men.
Our case was only one of many, since in those times there was nosecurity for us Boers--we were robbed, we were slandered, we weredeserted. Our goods we
re taken and we were not compensated; the Kaffirsstole our herds, and if we resisted them we were tried as murderers; ourslaves were freed, and we were cheated of their value, and the word of ablack man was accepted before our solemn oath upon the Bible.
No wonder that we grew tired of it and trekked, seeking to shake thedust of British rule from off our feet, and to find a new homefor ourselves out of the reach of the hand of the accursed BritishGovernment. Oh! I know that there are two sides to the story, and Idaresay that the British Government meant well, but at the least it wasa fool, and it always will be a fool with its Secretaries of State, whoknow nothing sitting far away there in London, and its Governors, whoseonly business is to please the Secretaries of State, that when thecountry they are sent to rule grows sick of them, they may win anotherpost with larger pay.
Well, this tale is of people and not of politics, so I will say no moreof the causes that brought about the great trek of the Boers from theold Colony and sent them forth into the wilderness, there to make warwith the savage man and found new countries for themselves. I know thosecauses, for Jan and Ralph and I were of the number of the voortrekkers;still, had it not been for the loss of Suzanne, I do not think that weshould have trekked, for we loved the home we had made upon the face ofthe wild veldt.
But now that she was gone it was no home for us; every room of thehouse, every tree in the garden, every ox and horse and sheep remindedus of her. Yes, even the distant roar of the ocean and the sighingof the winds among the grasses seemed to speak of her. These were theflowers she loved, that was the stone she sat on, yonder was the pathwhich day by day she trod. The very air was thick with memories of her,and the tones of her lost voice seemed to linger in the echoes of thehills at night.
It was upon the anniversary of the marriage of Ralph and Suzanne, yes,on the very day year of her taking by Piet Van Vooren, that we made upour minds to go. We had dined and Ralph sat quite silent, his head boweda little upon his breast, as was his custom, while Jan spoke loudly ofthe wrongs of the Boers at the hand of the British Government. I donot think that he was much troubled with those wrongs just then, but hetalked because he wished to interest Ralph and turn his mind from sadthoughts.
"What think you of it, son?" said Jan at length, for it is hard worktalking all by oneself, even when one has the British Government toabuse, which was the only subject that made Jan a wordy man.
"I, father?" answered Ralph with a start, which showed me that his mindwas far away. "I do not quite know what I think. I should like to hearwhat the English Government say about the matter, for I think that theymean to be fair, only they do not understand the wants and troubles ofus Boers who live so far away. Also, without doubt the missionaries meanwell, but they believe that a black man has a bigger soul than a whiteman, whereas we who know the black man see that there is a difference."
"Allemachter, son," said Jan, looking at him out of the corner of hiseye, "cannot you show some spirit? I hoped that being an Englishmanyou would have stood up for your own people, and then we might havequarrelled about it, which would have done us both good, but you onlysit and talk like a magistrate in his chair, looking at both sides ofthe case at once, which is an evil habit for men who have to make theirway in the world. Well, I tell you that if you had seen the cursedBritish Government hang your father and uncle at Slagter's Nek, and notsatisfied with that, hang them a second time, when the ropes broke, justbecause they tried to shoot a few Hottentot policemen, you would notthink much of its fairness. And as for the missionaries of the LondonSociety, well, I should like to hang _them_, as would be right andproper, seeing that they blacken the names of honest Boers."
Ralph only smiled at this onslaught, for he was not to be stirred fromhis lethargy by talk about Slagter's Nek and the missionaries. For awhile there was silence, which presently was broken by Jan roaring at mein a loud voice as though I were deaf.
"_Vrouw, let ons trek_," and, to give weight to his words, he broughthis great fist down with a bang upon the table, knocking off a plate andbreaking it.
I stooped to pick up the pieces, rating him for his carelessness as Igathered them, for I wished to have time to think, although for a longwhile I had expected this. When I had found them all I placed them uponthe table, saying:
"They cannot be mended, and--hearts or plates--what cannot be mended hadbest be hidden away. Hearts and plates are brittle things, but the lastcan be bought in iron, as I wish the first could be also. Yes, husband,we will trek if you desire it."
"What say you, son?" asked Jan.
Ralph answered his question by another. "In which direction will theemigrants trek?"
"North, I believe, to the Vaal River."
"Then, father, I say let us go," he replied with more spirit than he hadshown for a long while, "for I have searched and inquired to the southand the east and the west, and in them I can hear of no mountain thathas ridges upon its eastern slopes shaped like the thumb and fingers ofa man's hand with a stream of water issuing from between the thumb andfirst finger."
Now once more we were silent, for we saw that his madness had againtaken hold of Ralph's mind, and that was a sad silence.