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SWALLOW

A TALE OF THE GREAT TREK

BY

H. RIDER HAGGARD



Ditchingham, 20th May, 1898.

My dear Clarke,

Over twenty years have passed since we found some unique opportunities
of observing Boer and Kaffir character in company; therefore it is not
perhaps out of place that I should ask you to allow me to put your name
upon a book which deals more or less with the peculiarities of those
races--a tale of the great Trek of 1836.

You, as I know, entertain both for Dutchman and Bantu that regard
tempered by a sense of respectful superiority which we are apt to feel
for those who on sundry occasions have but just failed in bringing our
earthly career to an end. The latter of these admirations I share to the
full; and in the case of the first of them, as I hope that the dour but
not unkindly character of Vrouw Botmar will prove to you, time softens
a man's judgment. Nor have I ever questioned, as the worthy Vrouw tells
us, that in the beginning of the trouble the Boers met with much
of which to complain at the hands of English Governments. Their
maltreatment was not intentional indeed, but rather a result of
systematic neglect--to use a mild word--of colonies and their
inhabitants, which has culminated within our own experience, only,
thanks to a merciful change in public opinion, to pass away for ever.
Sympathy with the Voortrekkers of 1836 is easy; whether it remains so in
the case of their descendants, the present masters of the Transvaal, is
a matter that admits of many opinions. At the least, allowance should
always be made for the susceptibilities of a race that finds its
individuality and national life sinking slowly, but without hope of
resurrection, beneath an invading flood of Anglo-Saxons.

But these are issues of to-day with which this story has little to do.

Without further explanation, then, I hope that you will accept these
pages in memory of past time and friendship, and more especially of the
providential events connected with a night-long ride which once we took
on duty together among the "schanzes" and across the moon-lit paths of
Secocoeni's mountain.

Believe me, my dear Clarke, Your sincere friend, H. Rider Haggard.

To Lieut.-Colonel Sir Marshal Clarke, R.A., K.C.M.G.





SWALLOW



CHAPTER I

WHY VROUW BOTMAR TELLS HER TALE

It is a strange thing that I, an old Boer _vrouw_, should even think
of beginning to write a book when there are such numbers already in
the world, most of them worthless, and many of the rest a scandal and
offence in the face of the Lord. Notably is this so in the case of those
called novels, which are stiff as mealie-pap with lies that fill the
heads of silly girls with vain imaginings, causing them to neglect their
household duties and to look out of the corners of their eyes at young
men of whom their elders do not approve. In truth, my mother and those
whom I knew in my youth, fifty years ago, when women were good and
worthy and never had a thought beyond their husbands and their children,
would laugh aloud could any whisper in their dead ears that Suzanne
Naude was about to write a book. Well might they laugh indeed, seeing
that to this hour the most that I can do with men and ink is to sign
my own name very large; in this matter alone, not being the equal of my
husband Jan, who, before he became paralysed, had so much learning
that he could read aloud from the Bible, leaving out the names and long
words.

No, no, _I_ am not going to write; it is my great-granddaughter, who is
named Suzanne after me, who writes. And who that had not seen her at the
work could even guess how she does it? I tell you that she has brought
up from Durban a machine about the size of a pumpkin which goes
tap-tap--like a woodpecker, and prints as it taps. Now, my husband Jan
was always very fond of music in his youth, and when first the girl
began to tap upon this strange instrument, he, being almost blind and
not able to see it, thought that she was playing on a spinet such
as stood in my grandfather's house away in the Old Colony. The noise
pleases him and sends him to sleep, reminding him of the days when
he courted me and I used to strum upon that spinet with one finger.
Therefore I am dictating this history that he may have plenty of it, and
that Suzanne may be kept out of mischief.

There, that is my joke. Still there is truth in it, for Jan Botmar, my
husband, he who was the strongest man among the fathers of the great
trek of 1836, when, like the Israelites of old, we escaped from the
English, our masters, into the wilderness, crouches in the corner yonder
a crippled giant with but one sense left to him, his hearing, and a
little power of wandering speech. It is strange to look at him, his
white hair hanging upon his shoulders, his eyes glazed, his chin sunk
upon his breast, his great hands knotted and helpless, and to remember
that at the battle of Vechtkop, when Moselikatse sent his regiments to
crush us, I saw those same hands of his seize the only two Zulus who
broke a way into our laager and shake and dash them together till they
were dead.

Well, well, who am I that I should talk? For has not the dropsy got hold
of my legs, and did not that doctor, who, though an Englishman, is no
fool, tell me but yesterday that it was creeping up towards my heart?
We are old and soon must die, for such is the will of God. Let us then
thank God that it is our lot to pass thus easily and in age, and not
to have perished in our youth, as did so many of our companions, the
Voortrekkers, they and their children together, by the spear of the
savage, or by starvation and fever and wild beasts in the wilderness.
Ah! I think of them often, and in my sleep, which has grown light of
late, I see them often, and hear those voices that none but I would know
to-day. I think of them and I see them, and since Suzanne has the skill
to set down my words, a desire comes upon me to tell of them and
their deeds before God takes me by the hand and I am borne through the
darkness by the wings of God.

Also there is another reason. The girl, Suzanne Kenzie, my
great-granddaughter, who writes this, alone is left of my blood, since
her father and grandfather, who was our adopted son, and the husband of
our only child, fell in the Zulu war fighting with the English against
Cetywayo. Now many have heard the strange story of Ralph Kenzie, the
English castaway, and of how he was found by our daughter Suzanne. Many
have heard also the still stranger story of how this child of ours,
Suzanne, in her need, was sheltered by savages, and for more than two
years lived with Sihamba, the little witch doctoress and ruler of the
Tribe of the Mountains, till Ralph, her husband, who loved her, sought
her out and rescued her, that by the mercy of the Lord during all this
time had suffered neither harm nor violence. Yes, many have heard of
these things, for in bygone years there was much talk of them as of
events out of nature and marvellous, but few have heard them right.
Therefore before I go, I, who remember and know them all, would set them
down that they may be a record for ever among my descendants and the
descendants of Ralph Kenzie, my foster-son, who, having been brought up
amongst us Boers, was the best and bravest Englishman that ever lived in
Africa.



And now I will tell of the finding of Ralph Kenzie many years ago.


To begin at the beginning, my husband, Jan Botmar, is one of the
well-known Boer family of that name, the most of whom lived in the
Graafreinet district in the Old Colony till some of them trekked into
the Transkei, when I was still a young girl, to be as far as they could
from the heart of the British power. Nor did they trek for a little
reason. Listen and judge.

One of the Bezuidenhouts, Frederick, was accused of treating some
black slave of his cruelly, and a body of the accursed _Pandours_,
the Hottentots whom the English had made into a regiment, were sent to
arrest him. He would not suffer that these black creatures should lay
hands upon a Boer, so he fled to a cave and fought there till he was
shot dead. Over his open grave his brethren and friends swore to take
vengeance for his murder, and fifty of them raised an insurrection. They
were pursued by the _Pandours_ and by burghers more law abiding or more
cautious, till Jan Bezuidenhout, the brother of Frederick, was shot
also, fighting to the last while his wife and little son loaded the
rifles. Then the rest were captured and put upon their trial, and to the
rage and horror of all their countrymen the brutal British governor of
that day, who was named Somerset, ordered five of them to be hanged,
among them my husband's father and uncle. Petitions for mercy availed
nothing, and these five were tied to a beam like Kaffir dogs yonder at
Slagter's Nek, they who had shed the blood of no man. Yes, yes, it is
true, for Jan, my man, saw it; he saw his father and his uncle hanged
like dogs. When they pushed them from the beam four of the ropes
broke--perhaps they had been tampered with, I know not--but still the
devils who murdered them would show no mercy. Jan ran to his father and
cast his arms about him, but they tore him away.

"Do not forget, my son," he gasped as he lay there on the ground with
the broken rope about his neck, nor did Jan ever forget.

It was after this that the Botmars trekked into the Transkei, and with
them some other families, amongst whom were the Naudes, my parents. Here
in the Transkei the widow Botmar and my father were near neighbours,
their steads being at a distance from each other of about three hours
upon horseback, or something over twenty miles. In those days, I may say
it without shame now, I was the prettiest girl in the Transkei, a great
deal prettier than my granddaughter Suzanne there, although some think
well of her looks, but not so well as she thinks of them herself, for
that would be impossible. I have been told that I have noble French
blood in my veins, though I care little for this, being quite content to
be one of the Boers, who are all of noble blood. At least I believe
that my great-grandfather was a French Huguenot Count who fled from his
country to escape massacre because of his religion. From him and his
wife Suzanne, so it is said, we women of the Naudes get our beauty, for
we have always been beautiful; but the loveliest of the race by far was
my daughter Suzanne who married the Englishman, Ralph Kenzie, from which
time our good looks have begun to fall off, though it is true that he
was no ill-favoured man.

Whatever the cause, in my youth, I was not like the other Boer girls,
who for the most part are stout, heavy, and slow of speech, even before
they are married, nor did I need to wear a _kapje_ to keep a pink and
white face from burning in the sun. I was not tall, but my figure was
rounded and my movements were as quick as my tongue. Also I had brown
hair that curled and brown eyes beneath it, and full red lips, which all
the young men of that district--and there were six of them who can be
counted--would have given their best horse to kiss, with the saddle and
bridle thrown in. But remember this, Suzanne, I never suffered them to
do so, for in my time girls knew better what was right.

Well, among all these suitors I favoured Jan Botmar, the old cripple who
sits yonder, though in those days he was no cripple but the properest
man a girl could wish to see. My father was against such a match, for
he had the old French pride of race in him, and thought little of the
Botmar family, as though we were not all the children of one God--except
the black Kaffirs, who are the children of the devil. But in the end he
gave way, for Jan was well-to-do; so after we had "opsitted" together
several times according to our customs, and burnt many very long
candles,[*] we were married and went to live on a farm of our own at a
distance. For my part I have never regretted it, although doubtless I
might have done much better for myself; and if Jan did, he has been wise
enough not to say so to me. In this country most of us women must choose
a man to look after--it is a burden that Heaven lays upon us--so one
may as well choose him one fancies, and Jan was my fancy, though why he
should have been I am sure I do not know. Well, if he had any wits left
he would speak up and tell what a blessing I have been to him, and how
often my good sense has supplied the lack of his, and how I forgave him,
yes, and helped him out of the scrape when he made a fool of himself
with--but I will not write of that, for it makes me angry, and as likely
as not I should throw something at him before I had finished, which he
would not understand.

[*] It is customary among the Boers for the suitor to sit up
alone at night with the object of his choice. Should the
lady favour him, she lights long candles, but if he does not
please her she produces "ends," signifying thereby that she
prefers his room to his company.--Author.

No, no; I do not regret it, and, what is more, when my man dies I shall
not be long behind him. Ah! they may talk, all these wise young people;
but, after all, what is there better for a woman than to love some man,
the good and the bad of him together, to bear his children and to share
his sorrows, and to try to make him a little better and a little less
selfish and unfortunate than he would have been alone? Poor men! Without
us women their lot would be hard indeed, and how they will get on in
heaven, where they are not allowed to marry, is more than I can guess.

So we married, and within a year our daughter was born and christened by
the family name of Suzanne after me, though almost from her cradle
the Kaffirs called her "Swallow," I am not sure why. She was a very
beautiful child from the first, and she was the only one, for I was ill
at her birth and never had any more children. The other women with their
coveys of eight and ten and twelve used to condole with me about this,
and get a sharp answer for their pains. I had one which always shut
their mouths, but I won't ask the girl here to set it down. An only
daughter was enough for me, I said, and if it wasn't I shouldn't have
told them so, for the truth is that it is best to take these things as
we find them, and whether it be one or ten, to declare that that is just
as we would wish it. I know that when we were on the great trek and I
saw the _kinderchies_ of others dying of starvation, or massacred in
dozens by the Kaffir devils, ah! then I was glad that we had no more
children. Heartaches enough my ewe lamb Suzanne gave me during those
bitter years when she was lost. And when she died, having lived out her
life just before her husband, Ralph Kenzie, went on commando with his
son to the Zulu war, whither her death drove him, ah! then it ached for
the last time. When next my heart aches it shall be with joy to find
them both in Heaven.



CHAPTER II

HOW SUZANNE FOUND RALPH KENZIE

Our farm where we lived in the Transkei was not very far from the ocean;
indeed, any one seated in the _kopje_ or little hill at the back of the
house, from the very top of which bubbles a spring of fresh water, can
see the great rollers striking the straight cliffs of the shore and
spouting into the air in clouds of white foam. Even in warm weather they
spout thus, but when the south-easterly gales blow then the sight and
the sound of them are terrible as they rush in from the black water
one after another for days and nights together. Then the cliffs shiver
beneath their blows, and the spray flies up as though it were driven
from the nostrils of a thousand whales, and is swept inland in clouds,
turning the grass and the leaves of the trees black in its breath. Woe
to the ship that is caught in those breakers and ground against those
rocks, for soon nothing is left of it save scattered timbers shivered as
though by lightning.

One winter--it was when Suzanne was seven years old--such a south-east
gale as this blew for four days, and on a certain evening after the wind
had fallen, having finished my household work, I went to the top of the
_kopje_ to rest and look at the sea, which was still raging terrible,
taking with me Suzanne. I had been sitting there ten minutes or more
when Jan, my husband, joined me, and I wondered why he had come, for he,
as brave a man as ever lived in all other things, was greatly afraid
of the sea, and, indeed, of any water. So afraid was he that he did not
like the sight of it in its anger, and would wake at nights at the sound
of a storm--yes, he whom I have seen sleep through the trumpetings of
frightened elephants and the shouting of a Zulu impi.

"You think that sight fine, wife," he said, pointing to the spouting
foam; "but I call it the ugliest in the world. Almighty! it turns my
blood cold to look at it and to think that Christian men, ay, and women
and children too, may be pounding to pulp in those breakers."

"Without doubt the death is as good as another," I answered; "not that I
would choose it, for I wish to die in my bed with the _predicant_ saying
prayers over me, and my husband weeping--or pretending to--at the foot
of it."

"Choose it!" he said. "I had sooner be speared by savages or hanged by
the English Government as my father was."

"What makes you think of death in the sea, Jan?" I asked.

"Nothing, wife, nothing; but there is that fool of a Pondo
witch-doctoress down by the cattle kraal, and I heard her telling a
story as I went by to look at the ox that the snake bit yesterday."

"What was the story?"

"Oh! a short one; she said she had it from the coast Kaffirs--that far
away, up towards the mouth of the Umzimbubu, when the moon was young,
great guns had been heard fired one after the other, minute by minute,
and that then a ship was seen, a tall ship with three masts and many
'eyes' in it--I suppose she meant portholes with the light shining
through them--drifting on to the coast before the wind, for a storm was
raging, while streaks of fire like red and blue lightnings rushed up
from her decks."

"Well, and then?"

"And then, nothing. Almighty! that is all the tale. Those waves which
you love to watch can tell the rest."

"Most like it is some Kaffir lie, husband."

"May be, but amongst these people news travels faster than a good horse,
and before now there have been wrecks upon this coast. Child, put down
that gun. Do you want to shoot your mother? Have I not told you that you
must never touch a gun?" and he pointed to Suzanne, who had picked up
her father's _roer_--for in those days, when we lived among so many
Kaffirs, every man went armed--and was playing at soldiers with it.

"I was shooting buck and Kaffirs, papa," she said, obeying him with a
pout.

"Shooting Kaffirs, were you? Well, there will be a good deal of that to
do before all is finished in this land, little one. But it is not work
for girls; you should have been a boy, Suzanne."

"I can't; I am a girl," she answered; "and I haven't any brothers like
other girls. Why haven't I any brothers?"

Jan shrugged his shoulders, and looked at me.

"Won't the sea bring me a brother?" went on the child, for she had been
told that little children came out of the sea.

"Perhaps, if you look for one very hard," I answered with a sigh, little
knowing what fruit would spring from this seed of a child's talk.

On the morrow there was a great to do about the place, for the black
girl whose business it was to look after Suzanne came in at breakfast
time and said that she had lost the child. It seemed that they had gone
down to the shore in the early morning to gather big shells such as are
washed up there after a heavy storm, and that Suzanne had taken with her
a bag made of spring-buck hide in which to carry them. Well, the black
girl sat down under the shadow of a rock, leaving Suzanne to wander to
and fro looking for the shells, and not for an hour or more did she get
up to find her. Then she searched in vain, for the spoor of the child's
feet led from the sand between the rocks to the pebbly shore above,
which was covered with tough sea grasses, and there was lost. Now at the
girl's story I was frightened, and Jan was both frightened and so angry
that he would have tied her up and flogged her if he had found time. But
of this there was none to lose, so taking with him such Kaffirs as he
could find he set off for the seashore to hunt for Suzanne. It was near
sunset when he returned, and I, who was watching from the _stoep_, saw
with a shiver of fear that he was alone.

"Wife," he said in a hollow voice, "the child is lost. We have searched
far and wide and can find no trace of her. Make food ready to put in my
saddle-bags, for should we discover her to-night or to-morrow, she will
be starving."

"Be comforted," I said, "at least she will not starve, for the cook girl
tells me that before Suzanne set out this morning she begged of her a
bottle of milk and with it some biltong and meal cakes and put them in
her bag."

"It is strange," he answered. "What could the little maid want with
these unless she was minded to make a journey?"

"At times it comes into the thoughts of children to play truant,
husband."

"Yes, yes, that is so, but pray God that we may find her before the moon
sets."

Then while I filled the saddle-bags Jan swallowed some meat, and a fresh
horse having been brought he kissed me and rode away in the twilight.

Oh! what hours were those that followed! All night long I sat there
on the _stoep_, though the wind chilled me and the dew wet my clothes,
watching and praying as, I think, I never prayed before. This I knew
well--that our Suzanne, our only child, the light and joy of our home,
was in danger so great that the Lord alone could save her. The country
where we lived was lonely, savages still roamed about it who hated the
white man, and might steal or kill her; also it was full of leopards,
hyenas, and other beasts of prey which would devour her. Worst of all,
the tides on the coast were swift and treacherous, and it well might
happen that if she was wandering among the great rocks the sea would
come in and drown her. Indeed, again and again it seemed to me that I
could hear her death-cry in the sob of the wind.

At length the dawn broke, and with it came Jan. One glance at his face
was enough for me. "She is not dead?" I gasped.

"I know not," he answered, "we have found nothing of her. Give me brandy
and another horse, for the sun rises, and I return to the search. The
tide is down, perhaps we shall discover her among the rocks," and he
groaned and entered the house with me.

"Kneel down and let us pray, husband," I said, and we knelt down weeping
and praying aloud to our God who, seated in the Heavens, yet sees and
knows the needs and griefs of His servants upon the earth; prayed that
He would pity our agony and give us back our only child. Nor, blessed
be his name, did we pray vainly, for presently, while we still knelt,
we heard the voice of that girl who had lost Suzanne, and who all night
long had lain sobbing in the garden grounds, calling to us in wild
accents to come forth and see. Then we rushed out, hope burning up
suddenly in our hearts like a fire in dry grass.

In front of the house and not more than thirty paces from it, was the
crest of a little wave of land upon which at this moment the rays of the
rising sun struck brightly. There, yes, there, full in the glow of them,
stood the child Suzanne, wet, disarrayed, her hair hanging about her
face, but unharmed and smiling, and leaning on her shoulder another
child, a white boy, somewhat taller and older than herself. With a cry
of joy we rushed towards her, and reaching her the first, for my feet
were the swiftest, I snatched her to my breast and kissed her, whereon
the boy fell down, for it seemed that his foot was hurt and he could not
stand alone.

"In the name of Heaven, what is the meaning of this?" gasped Jan.

"What should it mean," answered the little maid proudly, "save that I
went to look for the brother whom you said I might find by the sea if
I searched hard enough, and I found him, though I do not understand his
words or he mine. Come, brother, let me help you up, for this is our
home, and here are our father and mother."

Then, filled with wonder, we carried the children into the house, and
took their wet clothes off them. It was I who undressed the boy, and
noted that though his garments were in rags and foul, yet they were of a
finer stuff than any that I had seen, and that his linen, which was soft
as silk, was marked with the letters R. M. Also I noted other things:
namely, that so swollen were his little feet that the boots must be cut
off them, and that he was well-nigh dead of starvation, for his bones
almost pierced his milk-white skin.

Well, we cleaned him, and having wrapped him in blankets and soft-tanned
hides, I fed him with broth a spoonful at a time, for had I let him
eat all he would, he was so famished that I feared lest he should kill
himself. After he was somewhat satisfied, sad memories seemed to come
back to him, for he cried and spoke in England, repeating the word
"Mother," which I knew, again and again, till presently he dropped
off to sleep, and for many hours slept without waking. Then, little by
little, I drew all the tale from Suzanne.

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