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Updated: May 21, 2025
Hendrik the dashing Hendrik, with bright face and light curling hair is busy among the horses, in the "horse-kraal;" and Trüey the beautiful, cherry-cheeked, flaxen-haired Trüey is engaged with her pet a fawn of the springbok gazelle whose bright eyes rival her own in their expression of innocence and loveliness.
They were large animals of a yellow-brown colour, with shaggy manes, and long tufts of hair growing out of their breasts, and hanging down between their fore-legs. They were as big as ponies, said Jan, and very like ponies. They curvetted and capered about just as ponies do sometimes. Trüey thought that they looked more like lions!
It was the approach of the antelope that had interrupted the retreat of the serpent! Truey, on first discovering the snake, had uttered a cry of alarm. This cry had summoned her pet that had lingered behind browsing upon the grass and it was now bounding forward, with its white tail erect, and its large brown eyes glistening with an expression of inquiry.
Hans had taken his gun and followed them in a great hurry, telling Truey and Jan to keep in the tree, and not come down until he returned. He would be gone only a very little while, and they needn't fear. This was all they knew. They could not even tell what direction he had taken. He went by the lower end of the vley; but soon the bushes hid him from their view, and they saw no more of him.
The ground proved tolerably loose, and the pick was but little needed. The field-cornet himself handled one of the spades, Hendrik the other, while Swartboy acted as shoveller, and filled the baskets as fast as Hans and Totty, assisted by Truey and little Jan, could empty them.
It would be impossible for him to leap aside or over the reptile, as the antelope had done; for even then Trüey had noticed that the cobra had darted its long neck several feet upwards. It would be certain to reach little Jan, perhaps coil itself around him. Jan would be lost. For some moments Trüey was speechless. Terror had robbed her of the power of speech.
All at once, and without any apparent cause, they commenced screaming and fluttering around the tree, their cries and gestures betokening a high state of excitement or alarm. "What can be the matter with my pretty birds?" asked Trüey of herself. "Something wrong surely! I see no hawk. Perhaps they are fighting among themselves. I shall go round and see. I shall soon pacify them."
The exclamation to which he gave utterance brought little Trüey and Totty from the house; and Hans with Jan had now got back with the sheep and goats. All saw the singular phenomenon, but none of them could tell what it was. All were in a state of alarm.
Even during that night they had heard the roaring of lions down by the vley; and when it was morning, the spoor showed that several of these animals had drunk at the water. How could he leave little Truey his dear little Truey or Jan, who was not a bit bigger how could he leave them in an open camp while such monsters were roving about? He could not think of doing so.
Had Truey known the character of that reptile, she would have trembled all the more. She saw before her one of the most venomous of serpents, the black naja, or "spitting-snake" the cobra of Africa far more dangerous than its congener the cobra de capello of India, because far more active in its movements, and equally fatal in its bite. Truey knew not this.
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