A Rip Van Winkle of the Kalahari | Page 3

but the momentary flicker showed me a countenance so grotesque that I must have made an involuntary movement of surprise, for with a short laugh the unknown man rose and came towards me, saying as he did so, "Don't be scared even the devil isn't as black as he's painted!" And, whoever he was, the way in which he tended to my throbbing head, advising me not to talk, but to rest and sleep, soon soothed my shaken nerves, and I slept again till broad daylight.
I could hear the low murmur of voices, and sitting up, I saw that Jantje and Kambala had put in an appearance and were talking in an unknown tongue to my friend of the night before--a white man--but surely the strangest-looking being I had ever beheld.
First of all he was a hunchback, and his body was twisted and distorted to a remarkable degree yet in spite of his curved shoulders he was of more than average height, and of a breadth incredible. But his face! who can describe it? Seamed and scarred in deep gashes, as though by some hideous torture, the nose broken and flattened almost upon the cheek, there remained but little human about the awful countenance except the eyes. But these, as I found later, were of a beauty and expressiveness to make one forget their terrible setting. Large, pellucid, of a bright hazel, there was something magnetic in their straight and honest gaze; and I can well believe that before he met with his awful disfigurement their owner must have been a man of superb appearance.
As I moved, he came towards me, holding out his hand as he did so, and a fine, warm-hearted grip he gave me.
"Better, eh?" he said. "No don't get up; you've had an ugly smack, and must take care of yourself for a bit. And I'm afraid," he continued, as he sat down beside me, "that I was the cause of your accident for your horse shied at me, and you came near breaking your neck!"
"Shied at you?" I queried, in surprise for there was scarce cover for a cat just where I had been thrown "but where were you, then I never saw you?"
"No, but I saw you," he replied grimly, "and having been the cause of your downfall, I could do no less than look after you till your boys came."
Thus strangely began an acquaintance that lasted only all too short a time, but that was full of interest for me; for I found my new friend to be a remarkable man in more ways than in appearance. His knowledge of the region we were in was wonderful, the few natives we met treated him with every sign of respect and fear, and he seemed equally conversant with their language, as with that of my own boys, Jantje the Hottentot, and Kambala the Herero.
The habits of the game, the properties of each bush and shrub, each game-path and water-hole, he knew them all, and had something interesting to say about all of them; and the few days of our companionship were pleasant in the extreme.
I never knew his name, and had it not been that chance came to my aid, I should probably never have heard his strange history. But it so happened that a few days after our first meeting, a buffalo, with the finest horns I had ever seen, got up within twenty yards of us; and in my eagerness to secure his wonderful head, I shot badly, and only succeeded in wounding him slightly. His terrific charge was a thing to be remembered.
Straight at us he came, wild with rage, and my new friend's horse, gored and screaming, went down before him in a flash. The rider was thrown, and to my horror, before I could control my own frightened animal sufficiently to enable me to shoot, the bull was upon the fallen man, goring and trampling upon him in an awful manner. Leaping from my horse, I put bullet after bullet through the big bull's head, and at length he lurched forward, dead, upon the mangled body of his victim.
We had some difficulty in extricating the man, and never expected to find him alive, but though badly crushed and torn he still breathed, and naturally I did all I could to save his life.
That night he was delirious, and it was then that I had evidence of the almost superhuman strength with which he was endowed. Time after time he tore himself from the combined strength of my two sturdy boys, and always he raved of diamonds, and of a never-ending search for something, or some one, in the desert.
His hurts were sufficient to have killed half a dozen men, and I never expected him to live; but two days