Long Odds | Page 5

was the body of a young woman recently dead. For a moment I
thought of turning back, but my curiosity overcame me; so going past
the dead woman I went down on my hands and knees and crept into the
hut. It was so dark that I could not see anything, though I could smell a
great deal, so I lit a match. It was a 'tandstickor' match, and burnt
slowly and dimly, and as the light gradually increased I made out what
I took to be a family of people, men, women, and children, fast asleep.
Presently it burnt up brightly, and I saw that they too, five of them
altogether, were quite dead. One was a baby. I dropped the match in a
hurry, and was making my way from the hut as quick as I could go,
when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking
it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when
suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send
up a succession of awful yells.
"Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an
old woman, wrapped up in a greasy leather garment. Taking her by the
arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would not, come by herself,
and the stench was overpowering me. Such a sight as she was-- a bag of
bones, covered over with black, shrivelled parchment. The only white
thing about her was her wool, and she seemed to be pretty well dead
except for her eyes and her voice. She thought that I was a devil come
to take her, and that is why she yelled so. Well, I got her down to the
waggon, and gave her a 'tot' of Cape smoke, and then, as soon as it was
ready, poured about a pint of beef-tea down her throat, made from the
flesh of a blue vilderbeeste I had killed the day before, and after that
she brightened up wonderfully. She could talk Zulu--indeed, it turned
out that she had run away from Zululand in T'Chaka's time--and she
told me that all the people whom I had seen had died of fever. When
they had died the other inhabitants of the kraal had taken the cattle and
gone away, leaving the poor old woman, who was helpless from age
and infirmity, to perish of starvation or disease, as the case might be.
She had been sitting there for three days among the bodies when I
found her. I took her on to the next kraal, and gave the headman a
blanket to look after her, promising him another if I found her well
when I came back. I remember that he was much astonished at my

parting with two blankets for the sake of such a worthless old creature.
'Why did I not leave her in the bush?' he asked. Those people carry the
doctrine of the survival of the fittest to its extreme, you see.
"It was the night after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my
first acquaintance with my friend yonder," and he nodded towards the
skull that seemed to be grinning down at us in the shadow of the wide
mantel-shelf. "I had trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock--a long
trek--but I wanted to get on, and had turned the oxen out to graze,
sending the voorlooper to look after them, my intention being to inspan
again about six o'clock, and trek with the moon till ten. Then I got into
the waggon, and had a good sleep till half-past two or so in the
afternoon, when I rose and cooked some meat, and had my dinner,
washing it down with a pannikin of black coffee--for it was difficult to
get preserved milk in those days. Just as I had finished, and the driver,
a man called Tom, was washing up the things, in comes the young
scoundrel of a voorlooper driving one ox before him.
"'Where are the other oxen?' I asked.
"'Koos!' he said, 'Koos! the other oxen have gone away. I turned my
back for a minute, and when I looked round again they were all gone
except Kaptein, here, who was rubbing his back against a tree.'
"'You mean that you have been asleep, and let them stray, you villain. I
will rub your back against a stick,' I answered, feeling very angry, for it
was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever trap for a week
or so while we were hunting for the oxen. 'Off you go, and you too,
Tom, and mind you don't come back till you have found them. They
have trekked