Hair-Breadth Escapes: The Adventures of Three Boys in South Africa

by H. C. Adams

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

  THE BASUTO KRAAL--QUEEN LAURA--THE QUEEN'S NARRATIVE--THE WRECK OF THEGROSVENOR--SUFFERINGS OF THE SURVIVORS--THE BASUTO CHIEF--DE WALDEN'SJOY.

  Nightfall was near at hand, when the party approached the Basuto kraal;and the boys looked eagerly round them to see if they could discover anymarked differences between it and the other native villages which theyhad visited. Ella, as she had called herself, had hardly spoken a wordduring the whole journey. A sudden shyness apparently having seizedher, which was a curious contrast to the self-possession of herdemeanour when she first encountered them. To the questions addressedto her by Frank and Nick, she made very brief and seemingly reluctantreplies, and they soon discontinued their inquiries. But theircuriosity was only heightened by the lady's unwillingness to satisfy it.It appeared that De Walden had heard something of a white Basuto Queen;but whence she came, or how she had attained to her kingdom, was asealed mystery. Perhaps she might be one of an English colony, whichhad established itself in these parts, and assumed a sovereignty overall the inhabitants round about But if so, it was strange that none ofthem should have heard from the Bechuanas, and especially from Kobo,anything about such a colony. Well, at all events, a very short stay inthe village would suffice to explain the mystery; probably, indeed, thefirst sight of it would be sufficient.

  But this did not prove to be the case. The kraal was not very unlikethose of the Bechuanas, and other neighbouring tribes. The houses wereconstructed of wicker-work plaited with reed, and had the usual archedentrance, which served as door, window, and chimney. There were thebaskets and pails, the assegais, and bows and arrows, which usuallystood in front of a Kaffir hut, or were hung against the central pole.The population, too, which had assembled, one and all, to witness theentry of the strangers, did not materially differ from the otherinhabitants of the district. The whole kraal, to be sure, had theappearance of having been constructed in haste, and only partiallyfinished; but otherwise, our adventurers would hardly have known thatthey had entered the country of a new people. As soon as they hadentered the enclosure, Ella called up one of the natives, to whom shegave some orders in a tone that was not audible, and then, turning toher companions with a graceful bend of the head, she vanished into oneof the neighbouring houses. The Basuto to whom she had spoken, nowstepped up to the Englishmen and invited them, by a gesture of the hand,to follow him. They obeyed, and presently found themselves in a roomwhich showed, for the first time, a real contrast to ordinary savagelife. It was a _room_, not the inside of a hut--a room perhaps fourteenfeet square, hastily constructed of trees squared by the axe, and planksnailed horizontally to them, but a room, nevertheless, with ceiling,unglazed windows and doors, and carpeted with Kaffir matting. Therewere even some rude chairs and a table in the centre. Their guidepointed to these first, and then to a door opening into anotherapartment of about the same size, where some skins were spread on thefloor. "Eat here," he said; "sleep there."

  The first part of his speech was presently made good by the arrival oftwo Basutos, carrying some baskets, which contained rice, Indian corn,and several varieties of fruit. These were placed in the middle of thetable, and a wooden platter was assigned to each guest, who sat down tosomething like a regular meal for the first day for many months past."I don't understand about this Queen," said Frank, as he pushed away hiswooden plate. "I remember my uncle told me that, beyond the limits ofthe Cape Colony, there were nothing but savages for hundreds andthousands of miles; and that it wasn't safe for white people to ventureamong them. Who in the world can she be?"

  "You seemed to know something about her, sir," remarked Warley, turningto De Walden. "Perhaps you can explain the mystery."

  "I know nothing more," said the missionary, "than that I sometimesheard, whilst living to the north of the Basuto country, that somehundreds of miles southwards, there was a tribe under the rule of awoman, whose race and colour was different from theirs, and who wasgenerally believed to be an enchantress. That, of course, was merebarbarous superstition, but the true facts of the case I never learned.We shall doubtless, however, soon hear them, as we were to be summonedto her presence as soon as we had partaken of food. Ay, here, Isuppose, comes the messenger to give us notice that she is ready toreceive us."

  This conjecture proved to be correct, and in a few minutes they wereushered into the apartment, where the Queen of the Basutos sat in stateto receive them. It was similar in construction to the one they hadjust quitted, but larger, and with more attempt at ornament. Theceiling was coloured white, relieved with green, and the walls a darkyellow; the latter exhibiting something like an attempt at panelling.At the further end was a kind of dais rising three steps, on the topmostof which stood a massive chair of ebony wood, and one smaller but of thesame material by its side. The floor was spread with Kaffir mats of gaypatterns, while several articles belonging only to Europeancivilisation--books, an inkstand, a writing-desk, and the like--werearranged on a large heavy table of the same material as the chair. Fromthe ceiling there hung a lamp, like those ordinarily used on boardships, and fed with oil, which diffused a very sufficient lightthroughout the apartment. Behind the royal chair, and on either sidedown the room, were several Basutos, wearing dresses made of the skin ofthe koodoo, or the leche, and carrying light assegais in their hands.

  The Queen herself was a woman apparently between forty and fifty;bearing a strong resemblance to her daughter, but of a fairercomplexion, her hair and eyes being also of a lighter brown. She waspicturesquely, even richly, dressed, in a kind of long tunic of scarletcloth trimmed with swan's-down, over which she wore a robe of leopardskin; slippers and buskins of the same material as her gown, but thicklyset with coloured beads and spangles. A tiara, similarly ornamented andsurmounted by ostrich feathers, completed her attire.

  She greeted her visitors as they moved up to her chair with gracefulcourtesy.

  "You are English, I am told?" she said, interrogatively; "if so, mycountrymen, and the first I have beheld for six and twenty years. But Ihave not forgotten the dear old language, in which, indeed, I and mydaughter always converse, and it will delight us both to hear it fromother lips beside our own."

  "Yes, madam," answered De Walden, "we are English--my three youngercompanions entirely so; while I am of English descent and Englishparentage on the father's side. We thank you for your kind reception ofus, which, it is needless to say, is most welcome after the toils anddangers we have undergone."

  "Your appearance is that of a missionary," rejoined the Queen. "May Iask if that is the case, and if so, what is your name, and where haveyou of late been residing?"

  "I am a preacher of the Gospel," said De Walden, "and my name isTheodore De Walden. I have been for many years in different parts ofSouth Africa, both to the north and west of this land."

  "I have heard of you," said the Queen, "and have long been desirous ofmeeting with you, or some other of your calling. I myself am by birth amember of the English Church, and still account myself one, though solong cut off from its ministrations."

  "The English Church--indeed!" exclaimed Warley. "May we presume to askhow--how--"

  "How it comes that an English Churchwoman should be living in this wildcountry, so far from her native land, and the ruler of a barbariantribe--that is what you would ask," said the Queen, smiling. "Well, ofcourse I knew you would wish to learn the particulars of my strangehistory, and it is perhaps as agreeable to me to relate, as it is to youto hear it. Seat yourselves"--she beckoned to the attendants to bringforward chairs, as she spoke--"and I will tell you the whole tale."

  "I was born in one of the midland counties of England, and am thedaughter of a man of good family, though at the time of my birth reducedin means. He was a surgeon in a small country town, skilful andunwearied in his profession, but unable to realise any considerableincome. My mother died when I was about twelve years old, and as myfather could not afford to keep any assistant, he was obliged to rely agood deal on
my help, as I grew up, in making up his medicines, andoccasionally attending cases of slight illness under his directions.When I was about seventeen, my father unexpectedly obtained a valuableappointment in India, in the Company's service, and thither weaccordingly proceeded in the spring of the year 1778.

  "But the climate never agreed with him; and after persisting for two orthree years in the vain hope of becoming habituated to it, his healthaltogether broke down, and he died, leaving me with a very slenderprovision. I resolved at once to return to England, and solicit thehelp of my relatives there. Some of them may still be living, anddoubtless believe that I have long been dead. It would only distressthem if they were to learn the real facts, and I therefore shall notdisclose my true name, or those indeed of any of the party.

  "I took my passage homeward by the _Grosvenor_, a fine vessel belongingto the East India Company's service. It carried a great manypassengers, mostly officers returning home, and a few civilians. Therewere also several ladies, though none about my own age. I remember,particularly, Colonel Harrison--so I will name him--an old friend of myfather's, Major Piers, Captains Gilby and Andrewes, Mr Hickson, MrMorgan, and Mr Gregg, as well as his sister, Mrs Gilby, MrsWilkinson, and Miss Hordern. It is strange how well I can recall alltheir faces and persons at this interval of time.

  "The voyage was unusually quick and agreeable until we arrived off thecoast of South Africa. But there we encountered a gale so violent, thatthe ship soon became wholly unmanageable. Everybody concurred insaying, that it was through no fault either of the captain or of thecrew that the vessel was lost. The wind drove her directly ashore, theanchors that were thrown out parted during the height of the storm, andthere are no harbours anywhere along that coast for which vessels canrun. The end was that she was thrown upon a reef at no great distancefrom shore, and entirely broken up.

  "By the good management of the officers in command, the whole of thepassengers, and nearly all the crew, were got into the boats and safelylanded on the shore. We were at first very thankful for our escape; butif we had known the fate that awaited nearly all of us, I think weshould have preferred being swallowed up by the raging sea to undergoingit. The sea-coast at that point consists of long stretches of sandybeach, overgrown at a short distance from the sea by thick scrub andunderwood, while further inland are dense and almost impassable forests.Our first step was to provide ourselves with some shelter against thewind and rain which continued unabated for several days. By the help ofthe carpenter's chest, and the various articles which were thrown ashorefrom the wreck, we soon established ourselves comfortably enough. Hutswere run up in which the whole of the party were lodged, hunting partiesorganised, and then a general meeting was summoned to determine whatsteps were to be taken to deliver ourselves from the embarrassingposition in which we were placed.

  "I remember there was great difference of opinion. Some proposed tobuild a barque out of the remains of the _Grosvenor_, sufficiently largeto convey the whole party round to Table Bay. The distance, it wasreckoned, was six or seven hundred miles. We might easily row or sailon an average forty or fifty miles a day. And even if Cape Town shouldbe too far to be so reached, we should be safe to come to some of thevillages scattered here and there along the coast, which kept up somekind of communication with the interior. Others urged our continuing inour present quarters until we succeeded in attracting the attention ofsome passing vessel. Others, again, proposed a plan compounded ofthese. One of the small boats was to be repaired sufficiently to allowtwo or three of the most experienced sailors to go in search of help forthe whole party.

  "On the whole, I believe the last-named suggestion would have had thebest chance of success. Any one of the three would certainly have beenpreferable to the one adopted, and which had in the first instance beenproposed by the Captain himself, viz., that the whole of the partyshould make their way overland to the nearest inhabited district. Thiswas strongly opposed by Colonel Harrison and old Mr Hickson; the formerof whom warned us, that the attempt would probably result in thedestruction of all. But there were among the passengers, as well asamong the junior officers of the ship, a number of hot-headedadventurous spirits, to whom such a journey, as that designed, had anirresistible charm. We all set out; but after a few days of suffering,all the women and most of the men returned to the coast, while theothers went on.

  "I have been told that some at least of this party succeeded after along and hazardous journey in reaching the Dutch settlements at CapeTown. I suppose that must be so, because I learned, some yearsafterwards, that all the particulars of the loss of the _Grosvenor_ wereknown to the Dutch authorities, and I do not know how they could havelearned anything on the subject except from my fellow-passengers. Ihave also been told that a party was sent out to search for anysurvivors of the ill-fated ship. If that was so, they never came nearthe spot where I was living.

  "We saw our companions depart with very mingled feelings. Theconfidence of their leaders had inspired some of us with hope, whileothers were very despondent. This despondency was increased when, a fewdays after their departure, Captain Gilby and Mr Gregg, returning froma shooting expedition, reported that they had seen armed savages in theneighbourhood of the huts, prowling about, evidently with no friendlyintentions towards us. It was immediately resolved to protect thebuilding with a palisade; beyond which the ladies were never to venturewithout an armed escort, and to keep two of the men always on guardinside the stockade with loaded muskets. But these precautions were oflittle avail. Several of our small party were, from time to time,captured or wounded by the natives; and all who were thus injuredexpired soon afterwards in great agonies from the poison, in which theweapons of the savages had been steeped. Two or three of the women alsodied, partly of insufficient food, and partly of anxiety and alarm. Atlast the whole party was reduced to four men and five women; and we thenheld a consultation to decide what was to be done.

  "It was impossible to defend the stockade, with our reduced numbers. Itwas idle to hope for rescue. It would be still more useless tosurrender to the savages, who would observe no terms, even should theybe induced to agree to any. The only possible hope lay in flight. Ifwe stole out of the palisades by night, and took ourselves off indifferent directions through the depths of the forest, it was justpossible that some of us might escape the notice of our enemies. Wedivided into three parties, Captain Gilby, his wife, and Mrs Wilkinsonchose the path by the seashore; Captain Piers, Mr and Miss Gregg,endeavoured to follow the route taken by the party several weeks before;while Colonel Harrison took Miss Hordern and myself under his charge.The Colonel had some knowledge of the colony, and knew that the besthope of escape lay towards the north, where there were but few tribeslocated, and an almost endless screen of forest.

  "We took leave of one another only an hour after we had come to thisresolution, as the danger was growing every moment more imminent. Inever heard with any certainty what became of the rest of the party; buta report once reached me that Miss Gregg (so I call her, though, as Ihave said before, I give none of the real names), after the murder ofher brother and Captain Piers, had to submit to something of the samefate as myself. But this was only a rumour. Of the fate of CaptainGilby and his wife, I never heard anything.

  "As regards ourselves, we were fortunate enough entirely to escapepursuit, and after three days of intense anxiety and fatigue, hadreached a part of the forest which lay beyond the haunts of the tribes,by which we had been attacked. We were now compelled to rest awhile,and recover our strength. But though Miss Hordern and myself, who wereboth of us of a hardy constitution, soon rallied from the fatigues wehad undergone, the old Colonel could not. He grew daily weaker in spiteof all our care of him, and at last died, to our inexpressible grief.We laid his remains in an empty pit which we had found, and filled it inas well as we could, with clods and stones. We then set off--two poordesolate women--to find our way as well as we could to some place ofshelter.

  "The toil we underwent,
and the perils, which by a miracle we contrivedto avoid, would fill a volume, if I were to relate them. But it will beenough to say that, after endless wanderings, we found ourselves at lastsomewhere about fifty or sixty miles from the banks of the Gariep--at novery great distance, in fact, from this present spot. We had subsistedchiefly on the fruits that grow in abundance throughout the whole of thecountry, and were beginning to hope that, after all, we might reach theoutlying Dutch farms of which Colonel Harrison had spoken, when anothercalamity befell us. Miss Hordern and myself were one day suddenlysurprised by a party of Basutos, who had gone out on a shootingexpedition to the valley of the Vaal. We instantly took to flight, butbefore we had gone fifty yards, Miss Hordern was struck by an arrow, andthe wound proved almost instantly fatal. I stopped as soon as I saw herfall, and took her in my arms, too much distressed by this lastmisfortune to heed my own danger.

  "What the pursuers would have done to me, I do not know. But when Irecovered from the swoon of grief into which I had fallen over the bodyof my dead friend, I saw a tall and noble-looking warrior bending overme, his fine eyes and manly features expressing a sympathy for myaffliction, which I should have supposed a savage to be incapable offeeling. He gave some orders to his men, in a language which I did notcomprehend, and I was immediately carried into a hut, and carefullywaited on by several women. I was ill a long time, but every day mywarrior came to visit me, and gradually I picked up enough of the Basutolanguage to exchange a few sentences with him. I soon perceived thelight in which he viewed me, and it was not unwelcome--strange as suchan idea would have appeared to me a few weeks before. But I was wornout by harsh usage, he alone having shown me kindness; and my utterhelplessness made me inclined to lean on any friendly arm. He was, too,one of the noblest and most generous characters I have ever met with,and his instinctive delicacy of feeling rendered him all the moreattractive in my eyes. I consented to be his wife, conditionally on histaking no others, and to this he readily agreed, for, I believe, nowoman but myself ever had any charm for him.

  "We were married according to the Basuto forms; but at my desire we alsorecited the vow of husband and wife, according to the marriage serviceof the English Church, and for ten years lived happily together. Ishould mention that I found the medical knowledge I had acquired in mygirlhood of the greatest benefit to my newly adopted countrymen.Several times, when epidemic fevers, common to this country, broke out,I was successful in treating them, and my husband's authority enabled meto enforce regulations, which otherwise I could not have induced thepeople to observe. When my husband was killed, some fifteen years ago,by the sudden fall of a tree, the tribe insisted on making me theirQueen; and nothing has ever seriously disturbed the prosperity of myreign. Ella, who was born a few years after our marriage, is our onlysurviving child.

  "Such is my history--a strange one, no doubt. Probably most personswould regard me as an object of pity, to say the least. But I do notshare the opinion. I have had, in my way, much happiness; and, if Ihave been deprived of privileges and blessings, which fall ordinarily tothe lot of Englishwomen, have also escaped many sorrows and trials, towhich in my own country I should have been exposed.

  "But there are two points on which I should like to say something beforeI conclude. I dare say you have thought it strange that I did notcommunicate with my countrymen at Cape Town, when the colony fell intotheir hands. But news travels so slowly in these wild and distantregions, that I did not know with any certainty what had taken placetill long after the occurrence. Then, my husband's death for the timedrove all other thoughts from my mind; and when I had regained mycomposure enough to attend once more to the affairs of my kingdom, and Isent an embassy to the English Governor, I found that the colony hadbeen given back to the Dutch.

  "The other matter is a more important one. I should be sorry for you,Mr De Walden, to think that I made no effort to induce my husband toadopt Christianity as his creed. It was a subject on which we oftentalked, and though he was slow to accept ideas so wholly new, yet theygradually grew upon him, and before his death he was a convert toChrist.

  "No Christian minister ever came into our neighbourhood during the wholeof our married life, or he would doubtless have gladly welcomed him, andreceived baptism at his hands. As it was, I myself administered therite to him, when I saw that he was dying.

  "I have done my best to bring up Ella in our faith, and to teach what Icould to others round me; but I hail your coming--the first preacher ofthe Gospel I have encountered in this land--with the utmostthankfulness, and trust you will remain among us as our teacher andguide, assured that all the help and countenance that I can give shallbe most willingly and gladly bestowed."

  She ceased, and De Walden, who had listened to her story with profoundinterest, hastened to make answer.

  "Be assured, gracious lady, that I will most cheerfully obey yourwishes. The hand of God is too plainly seen in what has occurred for meto venture to refuse, even were I so inclined; but earnestly as I have,for years past, been seeking for an opening like this, and alwayshitherto having failed to obtain it, I cannot be thankful enough to themerciful Providence, which has at last been pleased to hearken to myprayers."