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Updated: May 21, 2025
"Lions!" ejaculated her father and Hendrik, with an accent that betokened alarm. Indeed, they reminded her of lions, Trüey again affirmed, and Totty said the same. "How many were there of them?" "Oh! a great drove, not less than fifty." They could not have counted them, as they were constantly in motion, galloping from place to place, and butting each other with their horns.
Little Truey ran into the inner room and brought out an immense volume bound in gemsbok skin, with a couple of strong brass clasps upon it to keep it closed.
As young Hendrik and Swartboy rode off for the horses and cattle, Hans, leaving his work in the garden, proceeded to collect the sheep and drive them home. These browsed in a different direction; but, as they were near, he went afoot, taking little Jan along with him. Truey having tied her pet to a post, had gone inside the house to help Totty in preparing the supper.
Now the bird which had so opportunely appeared between Jan and Trüey, and had no doubt saved one or the other, or both, from the deadly bite of the spuugh-slang, was a serpent-eater, one that had been tamed, and that made its home among the branches of the great nwana-tree.
Her screams, therefore, and the wild gestures that accompanied them, only caused him to run the faster; and as his eyes were bent anxiously on Trüey, there was not the slightest hope that he would perceive the serpent until he had either trodden upon it, or felt its fatal bite. Trüey uttered one last cry of warning, pronouncing at the same time the words: "O, brother! back! The snake! the snake!"
The joy of all was great, at seeing such a fine lot of venison, but Jan's rejoicing was greater than all; and he no longer envied Truey the possession of her little gazelle. It would have been better that Jan had never seen the little "ourebi," better both for Jan and the antelope, for that night the innocent creature was the cause of a terrible panic in the camp.
The fond creature, having passed the danger, now ran on to its mistress, and stood with its big shining eyes bent upon her inquiringly. But the cry that Trüey had uttered had summoned another individual. To her horror, she now saw little Jan running down the slope, and coming directly upon the path where the cobra lay coiled! Jan's danger was imminent.
The brush-like tuft over the muzzle, the long hair between the fore-legs, the horns curving down over the face, and then sweeping abruptly upward, the thick curving neck, the rounded, compact, horse-shaped body, the long whitish tail, and full flowing mane all were descriptive of the gnoo. Even Trüey had not made such an unpardonable mistake.
You will suppose that such a wild concert must have put the camp in a state of great alarm. Not a bit of it. Nobody was frightened in the least not even innocent little Trüey, nor the diminutive Jan. Had they been strangers to these sounds, no doubt they would have been more than frightened.
Little Trüey and Jan laughed, clapped their hands, and waited with curiosity until they should come nearer. All had heard enough of locusts to know that they were only grasshoppers that neither bit nor stung any one, and therefore no one was afraid of them. Even Von Bloom himself was at first very little concerned about them.
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