“Oh, yes, Meinheer!” said John, delighted at the prospect of some shooting.
“Ah, I thought so. All you English are sportsmen, though you don’t know how to kill buck. Well now, you take _Oom_ Croft’s light Scotch cart and two good horses, and come over to my place—not to-morrow, for my wife’s cousin is coming to see us, and an old cat she is, but rich; she has a thousand pounds in gold in the waggon-box under her bed—nor the next day, for it is the Lord’s day, and one can’t shoot creatures on the Lord’s day—but Monday, yes, Monday. You will be there by eight o’clock, and you shall see how to kill vilderbeeste. Almighty! now what can that jackal Frank Muller have meant? Ah! he is the devil of a man,” and, shaking his head ponderously, the jolly old Boer departed, and presently John saw him riding away upon a fat little shooting-pony which cannot have weighed much more than himself, but that cantered off with him on his fifteen-mile journey as though he were a feather-weight.
Shortly after the old Boer had gone, John went into the yard of the hotel to see to the inspanning of the Cape cart, where his attention was at once arrested by the sight of a row in active progress—at least, from the crowd of Kafirs and idlers and the angry sounds and curses which proceeded from them, he judged that it was a row. Nor was he wrong in his conclusion. In the corner of the yard, close by the stable-door, surrounded by the aforesaid crowd, stood Frank Muller; a heavy _sjambock_ in his raised hand, as though in the act to strike. Before him, a very picture of drunken fury, his lips drawn up like a snarling dog’s, so that the two lines of white teeth gleamed like polished ivory in the sunlight, his small eyes all shot with blood and his face working convulsively, was the Hottentot Jantje. Nor was this all. Across his face was a blue wheal where the whip had fallen, and in his hand a heavy white-handled knife which he always carried.
“Hullo! what is all this?” said John, shouldering his way through the crowd.
“The _swartsel_ (black creature) has stolen my horse’s forage, and given it to yours!” shouted Muller, who was evidently almost off his head with rage, making an attempt to hit Jantje with the whip as he spoke. The latter avoided the blow by jumping behind John, with the result that the tip of the _sjambock_ caught the Englishman on the leg.