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Updated: June 6, 2025
Half an hour afterwards, when they arrived again at the top of the slope, Mr. Muller was just riding off down the avenue of blue gums. By the verandah stood a Hottentot named Jantje, who had been holding the Dutchman's horse. He was a curious, wizened-up little fellow, dressed in rags, and with hair like the worn tags of a black woollen carpet.
Going down on his hands and knees, Jantje crept through, and Jess followed him. She found herself in a small apartment, about six feet square by eight high, formed for the most part by the accidental falling together of big boulders, and roofed in with one great natural slab.
It was at least five hundred feet deep, and perhaps a hundred yards across the bottom, which was flat and sandy. Even as we first looked into the place the baboons, several hundred strong, were surging through the gorge of which Jantje had spoken, away towards their feeding-ground by the Groot River. We watched them through our glasses.
A brief but animated conversation at once ensued, at the end of which Jantje turned to his employers and explained: "Dhese people say, sars, dat dhere is four, five lion in de bush yander and dhey won' go 'way, and dhey wan' to know if white gent'men be so kind as to kill dhem lion; because if dhey not be killed dhey kill de poor Kafirs' cattle.
For three or four minutes more Jess and Jantje whispered together, after which the Hottentot rose and crept away to find out what was passing among the Boers below, and watch when Frank Muller retired to his tent. So soon as he had marked him down it was agreed that he was to come back and report to Jess. When he was gone Jess gave a sigh of relief.
"I am sorry to hear you talk like that, Bessie, when your sister is in danger," answered her uncle rather sternly; "but there, I dare say that it is natural. I will go myself. Where is Jantje? I shall want the Cape cart and the four grey horses." "No, uncle dear, John shall go. I was not thinking what I was saying. It seemed a little hard at first." "Of course I must go," said John.
As he was about to re-enter the hut there arose a slight commotion upon the outskirts of the crowd, and presently Jantje, the Hottentot driver, appeared, endeavouring to force his way through to his master.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the cavalcade began to appear in front of the window, led, as Jantje had said, by Frank Muller on his black horse, accompanied by Hans Coetzee on the fat pony, and the villainous-looking Hendrik, mounted on a nondescript sort of animal, and carrying a gun and an assegai in his hand.
Jess was outside the tent again, the red knife in her hand. She flung the accursed thing from her. That shriek must have awakened every soul within a mile. Already she could faintly hear the stir of men down by the waggon, and the patter of the feet of Jantje running for his life. Then she too turned, and fled straight up the hill. She knew not whither, she cared not where!
On the following Monday, John, taking Jantje to drive him, departed in a rough Scotch cart, to which were harnessed two of the best horses at Mooifontein, to shoot buck at Hans Coetzee's. He reached the place at about half-past eight, and concluded, from the fact of the presence of several carts and horses, that he was not the only guest.
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