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Winkelsteg was to be my hermitage; and now I am here, a schoolmaster without a school. I shall have to study these rough folk and gain their confidence before I can set to work. The Forest Folk Strange trades are carried on in this wilderness. These people literally dig their bread out of earth and stone and ant-heaps, scrape it off the trees, distill it out of uneatable fruit.
Well, in that event, it was probable that something would happen to me too. Very possibly we should both be dead in an hour. Certainly I had no intention of allowing myself to be taken alive by those slaving devils. Hassan's remarks about fires and ant-heaps and the sun were too vividly impressed upon my memory.
Between the base of this hill and the foot of the wall was a wide ring of level ground, also swept and weeded, and on this space, neatly arranged in lines, were hundreds of little hillocks that resembled ant-heaps. "The burying-place of the Ghost-priests, Lady," said Nya, nodding at the hillocks. "Soon my bones will be added to them."
Starfield claimed the honour of having been pursued for half a day by two hundred British cavalryman, while Hiley, the finest marksman in the corps, had the distinction of killing Lieutenant Carron, an American, in Lord Loch's Horse, in a fierce duel behind ant-heaps at Modder River on April 21st.
At the battle of Koodoesberg Donnelly and Captain Higgins, of the Duke of Cornwall's regiment, both lay behind ant-heaps, several hundred yards apart, and engaged in a duel with carbines for almost an hour. After Donnelly had fired seventeen shots Captain Higgins was fatally wounded by a bullet, and lifted his handkerchief in token of surrender.
It does not follow: there are strange depths of idleness in man, a too-easily-got sufficiency, as in the case of the sago-eaters, often quenching the desire for all besides; and it is possible that the men of the richest ant-heaps may sink even into squalor.
Take these men, smear them with honey, and pin them over ant-heaps; by to-morrow's sun they will know their own minds. But first kill these two hunted jackals," and he pointed to Baleka and myself. "They seem tired and doubtless they long for sleep." Then for the first time I spoke, for the soldiers drew near to slay us. "O Chaka," I cried, "I am Mopo, and this is my sister Baleka."
The surprise of the rest on seeing the fuse alight took the form of helter-skeltering away, some rushing against the railway fence, others almost breaking their necks over ant-heaps, while some only got away a few yards before the explosion took place. Fortunately none were injured, and when all was over they laughed heartily over their own disorderly retreat.
Simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent under the pressure of so much vivid new life, and from his cheery letters she learned much that was not in the papers, especially in those tense days when the C.I.V.'S did at last get to the front and remained there: tales of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly poisoned, and oxen dropping dead as they dragged the convoys; tales of muddle and accident, tales of British soldiers slain by their own protective cannon as they lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and British officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match; tales of hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and putties worn to rags, and all the hidden miseries of uncleanliness and insanitation that underlie the glories of war.
Whilst all this was being carried out, I paced out some ranges to the north and south, and these we marked by a few empty tins placed on ant-heaps, etc. At dusk, when we had nearly all the pits finished and some of the clearance done, tents and gear were hidden, ammunition and rations distributed to all, and orders in case of an attack given out.
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