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Updated: May 7, 2025
But before it was yet day the waggon began to move again, and it was to the north-east that the waggon-pole pointed thenceforwards, and the letter Bough had given Smoots Beste for the Chief Resident Magistrate at Gueldersdorp was saved from the kindling of the camp-fire by a mere accident.
The scrawled sheet of paper it contained was a surprise, but he did not let Smoots see that.
But yet he gave it in full belief that it would be burned, and that, the boats of Smoots Beste being consumed with it, according to the thick judgment of the said Smoots, it would be as a pillar of fire behind that slim child of the old voortrekkers, hastening his journey north-eastwards. It is typical of the class of Smoots that it never once occurred to him to go north.
The mounted men hurried on the daubed and wearied droves of Commissariat beasts. Smoots Beste drove the scratch team of bullocks, but his heart was as water within his belly, and there was no resonance in the smack of his whip. When the convoy came to a town, he vanished, and the story thenceforth knows him no more.
So you will inspan one of the waggons the best if you like, with a team of six beasts, and you will trek up to Gueldersdorp you will travel light enough with only the grub you will need, and the Cape boys, and you will hand over the letter to the Resident Magistrate, and bring back the man who will act as his deputy." But at this point Smoots Beste set down his splay foot.
Smoots Beste crawled under the waggon, and, remembering all he had heard his father spell out from the Dutch Bible about the Judgment Day, and the punishment of sinners in everlasting flame, felt very ill at ease.
Smoots Beste agreed that it was decidedly rum. The sergeant said, without a change in his agreeable smile: "All right; you can inspan six of our drove-bullocks, and drive the waggon with us to Gueldersdorp." "Thank you, Baas!" said Smoots, without enthusiasm. "If you like to take the risk," added the sergeant, who had not quite finished.
Smoots Beste was about to grumble, but he changed his mind, and took the letter, buttoning it up in the flapped pocket of his tan-cord jacket, and the long whip cracked like a revolver as the lash hissed out over the backs of the wincing oxen, and the white tilt rocked over the veld, heading to the nor'-west. "When will the Dutchy be back, boss?" asked the woman, with a knowing look.
"You shall get the money, every tikkie. Only listen to me." Smoots Beste tossed off the fiery liquid, and returned in a tone less surly: "I am listening, Baas."
A third dryad whooped, "I bet it's Lizzie Smoots or Mag Wimpfhauser." The others had other suggestions to howl, and Anita cowered in silence, wondering if one of the fiends would not at any moment guess "Kedzie Thropp." The call to arms and legs cut short her torment, and for once the music seemed appropriate. Never had she danced with such lyricism.
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