A Rip Van Winkle of the Kalahari | Page 3

was still burning, and a figure was seated
beside it: a figure that the leaping flames rendered monstrous and
distorted. The back was towards me, but at the slight rustle I made
upon my bed of dry leaves in awakening, the figure turned in my
direction, and I caught a momentary glimpse of the face. Firelight plays
strange tricks sometimes, 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