Off to the Wilds Part 13

Now Dinny's hands were greasy with helping to skin the gnu, and the handle of the a.s.segai kept slipping through his fingers, and threatening to cut them against the blade; to avoid which, as the dog tugged fiercely and dragged at the handle, Dinny kept taking a fresh hold hand over hand, as if he were hauling rope, abusing the dog at the same time.

"Ah, get out, ye dirty baste," he cried. "Let go, will ye?"

_Worry_! _worry_! _worry_! growled Cra.s.sus, holding on with all his might of jaw, which was really great; and seeing the successful effort made by their companion, Pompey and Caesar began to bark and bay at Dinny on either side of Cra.s.sus.

"Oh, here's a game, d.i.c.k!" cried Jack, holding his sides and laughing.

"Call 'em off, will ye?" cried Dinny. "Ah, get out, ye dirty, yelping bastes."

"Serve you right, for hitting them in that cruel way," said d.i.c.k cynically; while seeing the fun, as they seemed to consider it, Coffee and Chicory each seized his kiri, and began to perform a war-dance round Dinny and the dogs.

"Lave go, will ye?" cried Dinny to Cra.s.sus. "Sure it's a taste of the other end I'll be giving ye dreckerly."

Cra.s.sus evidently believed him, for he held on all the tighter. Dinny dragged hard, but the dog's jaws had closed upon the wood like a steel trap, and though Dinny dragged him here and there, he did not leave go; and so sure as the man began to obtain a little advantage, Pompey and Caesar made such a desperate attack upon his rear that he immediately lost ground, and the French and English tug-of-war continued, the dogs barking, Dinny abusing them, and the boys, black as well as white, shouting with delight.

This was very good fun for the latter, but anything but pleasant for Dinny. In fact, so bad was his case, and so threatening the aspect of the dogs, that any one who would have insured the legs of Dinny's trousers from being torn by the dogs, would have been guilty of a very insane act, especially as Rough'un, after sitting up on end encouraging Cra.s.sus to hold on to the a.s.segai staff by a loud bark now and then, suddenly took it into his head to join in the fray.

For Dinny had not been particularly friendly to him since they started.

Upon one occasion Dinny had tickled him--so he called it--with Peter's whip, the tickling consisting in giving the dog so severe a flick that it seemed like taking out a piece of the flesh; while no later than that morning Rough'un felt that he had been misused in the matter of the skin that he wanted to lick.

So, unable to bear matters any longer, Rough'un, who had momentarily grown more excited, suddenly made an open-mouthed onslaught upon the a.s.segai stock.

"Carl him off, Masther d.i.c.k, Masther Jack. Oh, murther, what'll I do.

Ah! get out--get--"

Dinny said no more, but loosed his hold of the a.s.segai, and fled, leaping on to the front box of the waggon, and then climbing in beneath the tilt, while the dogs chased him, barking and baying him furiously.

This did not last, however, for the denuding of the gnu's bones was pretty well ended, and one of the oxen dragged the remains into the forest, when the dogs were called up, and Dinny was forgotten.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A BUFFALO RUN.

The General owned that there would be good hunting here, but he wanted to get the party well into the interior, where, taking up a central position, they could make excursions in any direction according to the way in which the game lay. If they stayed where they were, all they would do would be to drive the game away, and it would grow more scarce.

The boys were as eager as the General, and looking upon the interior as a land of mystery and romance, they readily backed up the proposal to go farther.

"Well, my boys, I hardly know what to say," replied Mr Rogers. "I want for you both to grow st.u.r.dy, manly, and inured to danger; but I scarcely like running the risk of taking you where we may be constantly encountering the lion, the rhinoceros, and the elephant and hippopotamus."

"But we shall be very careful," said Jack.

"And we are growing better marksmen every day, father," exclaimed d.i.c.k.

"Yes, my boys, I dare say you are," replied Mr Rogers. "But please remember that taking aim at and shooting a timid deer is one thing; standing face to face with some fierce beast ready to take your life, quite another."

"Oh, yes, father, I know that," said Jack; "and I dare say I should be horribly frightened, but I wouldn't run away."

"It might be wiser to do so than to provoke the animal by firing," said Mr Rogers, smiling. "What do you say, d.i.c.k?"

"I say I should like to go on, father, in spite of the risk," replied d.i.c.k. "Now we have come so far, I want to see more of the wonderful Central African land, and I should like to shoot a lion, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a hippopotamus."

"And a giraffe, a crocodile, and a boa-constrictor," said Jack.

"And would you both like to make that bag in one day, young gentlemen?"

said Mr Rogers, smiling.

"Ah, now you are laughing at us, father," said d.i.c.k. "Of course we don't expect to shoot all those creatures, but we should like to try."

"Yes," added Jack; "that's it, d.i.c.k. We should like to try."

"Then you shall try," said Mr Rogers, quietly; "on condition, mind, that you will neither of you do anything rash, but follow out either my advice or that of the General, whom I feel disposed to trust more and more."

The country seemed to grow more romantic and grand the farther they trekked on away from civilisation, and they travelled now very few hundred yards without seeing something new and full of interest. Game was so abundant that there was no difficulty in keeping up a plentiful supply. Dinny even threatened to lose the frying-pan, for, as he said, he was frying steak morning, noon, and night; but as he loved dearly to fry one particularly juicy piece always for a gentleman named Dinny, there was not much fear of his keeping his word.

But somehow Dinny did not add to the harmony of the expedition. He proved himself again and again to be an arrant coward; and, coward-like, he tried to tyrannise over the weaker.

He was afraid of the General; and when, upon one or two occasions, he had quarrelled with Peter or Dirk, those gentlemen had displayed so much pugnacity that Dinny had prudently resolved to quarrel with them no more. He, however, made up for this by pouring out his virulence upon Coffee and Chicory, the dogs having been too much for him; and the Zulu boys bore it all in silence, but evidently meant to remember Dinny's behaviour when the time came.

One day, soon after entering the game country, the General, who was on ahead alternately scanning the horizon and the ground, while the oxen slowly lumbered on behind, suddenly stopped, and began to examine some footprints in a marshy piece of ground which he had just told d.i.c.k to avoid.

"What is it?" said d.i.c.k, coming up.

"Look," said the General, pointing to the great footprints.

"Why, it looks as if a great cat had been here," said d.i.c.k.

"Yes; great cat; lion!" said the Zulu.

And when Mr Rogers and Jack had cantered up, and seen the spoor, as such footprints were generally termed in South Africa, they knew that there would be real danger now hovering about their nightly camps.

That afternoon, as they were pa.s.sing through a woody portion of the country, Chicory, who was well ahead, a.s.segai in hand, eagerly looking out for game, was heard suddenly to yell out as if in agony; and as all ran to his help, he was found to be rolling on the ground, shrieking the native word for "Snake! snake!"

Mr Rogers was the first to reach him, being mounted, and as he drew rein by the prostrate boy, he saw a long thin snake gliding away.

He was just in time, and leaning forward he took rapid aim with his fowling-piece; and as the smoke rose, a long thin ash-coloured snake was seen writhing, mortally wounded, upon the ground.

The General caught the boy by the shoulder, and proceeded to divide his jet-black hair, examining his scalp carefully, but without finding any trace of a wound; though Chicory declared that he was killed, and that the snake had seized him by the head as he was going under a tree.

He had felt it, and when he threw himself forward to avoid it, the creature writhed and twisted about his neck, till in his horror he rolled over and over, partly crus.h.i.+ng the reptile, which was making its escape when Mr Rogers's gun put an end to its power of doing mischief.

The General having satisfied himself that his boy was not hurt, sent him forward with a cuff on the ear, before giving his master a grateful look for destroying a virulently poisonous serpent--one, he a.s.sured them, whose regular practice was to hang suspended by the tail from some low branch, and in this position to strike at any living creature that pa.s.sed beneath.

"He would have been dead now," said the General, "if the snake's teeth had gone through his hair."

It was with no little satisfaction then, after this adventure, that the hunting-party pa.s.sed through the woody region they were then in, and came into the open, for during the last few hours everybody's eyes had been diligently directed at the overhanging branches of the trees, Dinny being so observant that he two or three times tripped over prostrate boughs, and went down upon his nose.

As they pa.s.sed out into the open they were in a rough plain, covered as far as they could see with coa.r.s.e herbage; and hardly had the waggon emerged before Mr Rogers, who was using his gla.s.s, drew the General's attention to some dark objects upon a slope some distance ahead.