"Five, sonny; five--one of 'em was blown to smithereens by the gun. The five of 'em were swallowed by that devil-snake."

"And how did he cut the stems so clean?"

"That's where the mystery comes in, sonny. I expect you'll have to take six of the best that are left, sonny; and I'm going into town next week to get some dynamite to blow the bottom outer that pool. That devil-snake might take it into his head to swallow me one of these fishing nights."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

ABE PIKE AND THE BIG FISH.

The Fish River was "down." It generally was down, in the sense of being low, but colonial rivers run by contraries--when they are down they are up. There had been a heavy fall of rain "up country," and the water rushing off the sun-baked surface poured like a flood between the high banks, sweeping, as we afterwards heard, a stone bridge away, and catching in its career a wagon and span of eighteen oxen at a drift which, at the time of crossing, had scarcely water enough to wet the feet. For many a mile the banks of the river are of red soil, and as the flood eats into the banks its waters are stained a dull brick colour, which hue is imparted to the Atlantic itself for miles along the coast as the red waters pour out into the sea, bearing with them a wonderful collection of flotsam in the shape of timber, dead stock, and live reptiles. Of late, railway sleepers formed no small part of the flotsam, and if work was slack we sometimes, when the river was down, spent a sloppy day on the banks fishing for these floating items. On hearing the news I rode off to pick up Uncle Abe, but finding him out, went to a spot on the bank which he particularly favoured, where a wide flat rock stood at the base of a krantz. He was not there, however, and the rock itself was covered by the flood, which reached half-way up the krantz, but it was evident he had been there, for from a cave in the rock, just above the lap of the waters, there issued a thin line of smoke, and on climbing along a ledge I saw signs of his occupation in a skin kaross, a dark lantern, a gun, and a few well-known traps which he always carried with him when after _kablejauw_, the great hundred pounders which come up as far as this point in the spring tides. Now thoroughly alarmed for his safety, I rode down towards the sea, from which, six miles away, there came the continuous roar and thunder of the surf, and, to my great relief, met him in a bush path, with a full-grown otter on his back, and the water oozing from his top boots and from his clothes, which clung to his lank body.

"Halloa! Uncle; I thought you were drowned."

"That's me," he said, sweeping the water from his eyes; "I've been drowned twice over. Got a pipe and baccy? I'm jest perishing for a smoke."

I saw now that his knuckles were skinned, and that his face was pinched and blue.

"Get up," I said dismounting.

"Not me. I'd spoil the saddle. Lemme catch hold of the stirrup--so.

Now get along quick, for I want to boil this yer soaking of water outer my bones and body."

We went along, and presently I had a bright fire going in the cave, and the kettle singing, while Abe, stripped of his clothes, sat shivering still in his skin kaross, his eyes fixed on the red torrent, which stretched across for a mile.

A tin beaker of boiling coffee soon brought back the warmth to his body, and when he had my pipe between his teeth he began to talk.

"I believe I'm getting old, sonny; and I've lost my fishin' tackle."

"Not the _kablejauw_ tackle?"

"Jest that. It's stood by me, man and boy, for twenty-five years. I've waxed it and waxed it, and wired it about the shank, till it were strong enough to haul in a shark, and now it's gone--all along of this yer flood. I don't like loosing old things, and the loss of it pains me as tho' you'd pulled the sinews outer me."

"How did it happen?"

"Yesterday I came here to fish, and in the afternoon--when the tide crept whispering along the rushes--I cast in from the big rock. 'Twas as quiet as Sunday, with a fringe of bubbles right across the river marking when the tide moved up. On the mud bank, jest below where the big fish would soon be routing up the mud like pigs, there was a blue crane dozing on one leg, with his head bunched between his shoulders; on a dead tree above sat a big black and white kingfisher, with his red beak pointing up, and on the top of the krantz a white-headed eagle was all huddled up. After a smoke, I built up the fire in the cave, then made another cast with the line, for the fish were coming up, and the tide had reached up so high that the crane had to quit. I heaved the lead out about thirty yards, and was drawing her in when there comes a tug, and I was into a _steinbra.s.se_. That same moment the eagle started into the air, sailing roun' and roun', and letting go screech after screech; and when I looked up at him, surprised at the racket, I yeard a hollow murmur, like an echo that comes from a cave. I knew what it meant.

"'Twas the river comin' down, and in a hurry I began hauling in that line, when, with a rush that parted the water, a big _kablejauw_ took the _steinbra.s.se_, and, with a swirl of his tail, made for mid-stream to bolt his food. I dunno how it happened, but a coil of the line whipped roun' my leg, and I was yanked on to the broad of my back into the river, with that eagle 'twixt me and the blue sky. That fish pulled me right into the middle, then he paused to take bearings, and when the strain slackened I took a breath, and reached along to get hold of the line. But it was beyond me to slacken the knot without a knife, and I turned over to swim to the rock. 'Twas easy enough till I tautened the line, when the fish made another struggle. 'Twas pull devil, pull saint, and the line wouldn't break. First he'd gain, then I'd gain; but most of the time we just stuck there--he facing to the sea, me to the rock, and that eagle ripping out up above. And then!"

"Well, Uncle?"

"Lord love you, lad. There were a roar in the air; I seed the tree tops above the bend swaying; then there shot into the air a great tongue of water, and round the corner, from side to side, there came a wall--the face of it curved in, the top hissing in foam, and the sides of it running right up the banks, so high it shut out the valley beyond. I gave a yell, then turned over on my back, with my hands clasped behind my head to protect it from the shock, and the next minute I were scooting down the river for the sea, with that wall howling behind me like a thousand thunders."

"I don't understand."

"That _kablejauw_ did. 'Twas a race between him and the flood, and the way he flashed along showed he'd only been fooling with me before. And the line didn't break, and overhead there sailed the eagle, with his black wings outspread and his white head looking down at me. We flew so fast that in a few minutes I saw the white lines one above the other, which showed where the waves were breaking, and then with a snap like a pistol-shot, the line snapped. 'Twasn't my weight that broke it, but a snagged tree, into which, with the way on me, I went feet foremost. No sooner'd I clung to a mud greasy branch than, with a roar like a fallen mountain in my head, the red flood tossed the big tree into the air, and, when we come down, we were in the thick of it--rushing on, at a height of twelve feet above the blue waters of the tide. Phew! how we did go; and in a minute there was the mouth of the river, the big waves solemnly rolling in, and beyond them the heaving blue of the ocean.

With a fierce rush, like a live crittur, the flood threw itself at the sea. We just footed it over the small waves, then we cut the top off the first roller, throwing up columns of spray high as the church steeple, and then the fight began. Behind us there was a hundred miles of flood; before us was the tide with the Atlantic at the back, and the sea after the first shock jes' gave a sort of surly roar, and away back of the outermost breaker I seed a dark line coming along steady and unbroken. 'Twas the last of the seven brothers, of the seven big waves that roll in with the tide at intervals, and it was bigger than all.

Nearer it came, dark at the base, with a glistening curve, and a light line along the top. We in the front had made a track for the flood behind. For a little we stopped--then my tree was flung forward, and a red, angry column shot forth to meet the big wave. My! Sonny! The music of that meeting! The two waters coming together would neither give in, and they piled up, and up, and up, until there was built up a wall of water high as a hill, red on my side, blue on the other, and up this wall my tree was forced by the flood behind. Up we went, until we were balanced on the very ridge, with a black gulf on the other side of smooth water. A breath we poised there while the fresh and the salt were straining against each other, then a heaving ma.s.s out of the sea swiftly smote the great wall, and we went headlong--the tree and me-- into the biggest toss-up you ever see. I dunno why it was I kept a-hold, but I think the weight of the waters jammed me into a cleft branch. Anyhow, the life kept in my body, and when I took a breath, the next minute it was dark, the stars were blazing, and the tree was a-rocking up and down away out on the ocean beyond the fighting whirl-about of river flood and tide. In that one second between the time I went headlong from the curling top of that hill-high wall of water into the roarin' jumble some hours had gone--the tide had flowed and turned, and the old tree, with me on it, hanging like a withered apple, had floated miles. I must have been drowned over and over, and reg'lar pickled with salt. I tell you it was lonesome out there on the sea--and wet."

"It was a wonderful escape, Uncle."

"But it warn't over. Bymby the tide turned again, and the tree made again for the sh.o.r.e, where the fighting was going on jes' the same from the roar, and when the sun broke I saw we would strike the mouth of the river again. I dunno, sonny, how it is, but it seemed to me the ole sea was entering into the fight, for there was a sort of rush in the great heaving ma.s.ses that began to pile in out of the blue, and when I came near the beat of the surf where the sea was all red, the breaker that carried the tree on his round back rose higher and higher, as he swept on until he reached the flood water, when he let the head of him curl and plunge with a force that swept everything away, and in the wall of his foam we were shot right into the river. That's when I was drowned again; and when I came to I found we were settled in the still centre of a great circle of waters under the left bank, outer the main current.

Everything that came into that circle went roun' and roun' till it came gently into the centre, to drift up against the big tree. Already there were three goats against the tree, legs up, an' a sheep were drifting up, while in the circle sailin' roun' was a straw hat and a pair of trousers. On the tree there was fifteen snakes--all alive, but sluggish, mostly puff-adders, with some long yeller boomslangs, and three or four ugly looking black snakes that must er come way down 200 miles from the karoo veld. While I was looking at these ugly lodgers coiled round the branch, there was a swirl in the water, and the sheep that were drifting along suddenly went under. 'Twas a shark took him.

That made things lively, but when three more sharks come up, and after eating the goats, the straw hat, and the trousers began b.u.t.ting at the tree with their shovel noses, I felt there was a lot of excitement in this world if you only look for it patiently. The rolling of the tree stirred the snakes, and the whole fifteen of them began crawling up. If there'd been two I'd kicked 'em off, but being so many I sot and took 'em. When they had settled down again there was one round my neck, a yeller boomslang, making a very fine collar, there were a pair of black snakes on each of my arms, a brown boomslang round my waist, and no less'n six big puff-adders coiled about my legs. I tell you I kept my mouth shut less one should crawl in by mistake, an' if my hair hadn't been so scant and wet it would ha' stood up straight."

"That was a tight fix, Uncle."

"Tight! By gum! The pressure of that six foot o' collar on my neck tilted my chin up in the air, while the chap above my waist nearly broke my ribs. The worst of it wer' I was freezing."

"Freezing! and the sun at 108."

"That's so; but fright turns a chap cold, and them snakes were drawing all the remainin' warmth outer me. And ther' were those sharks promenadin' roun' and roun' the tree, every now and again givin' it a lazy shove. Jes' then the tide turned, and the tree began to move on another cruise. This time I knew it would be all up with me. I couldn't live through another fight with the surf, and if I moved there was the snakes and the sharks. Soon as the tree moved those snakes woke up and began hissing an' puffing an' swaying their heads about, while their eyes got bright and brighter. Suddenly the collar chap crept up over my face and took a twist round my head with the end of his tail in my ear; then one by one the other snakes crawled up over my face, each one of 'em giving me such a look as threatened my life in case I moved.

I wondered what they were about, for I couldn't see, but the pressure on my neck was terrible, when, after the last one had gone, I heard a hiss, a whizz, and a thud. What jer think?"

"I suppose they flew away."

"They jest piled on top of each other, tail round the other's neck, till they made a column that would reach the bank; then the topmost one bent forward, and there was a line of snakes from the tree to the bank. A big puff-adder was at the far end, and he hitched his fangs over a tree stump. Right there I spotted my chance. I softly hauled on the line, and drew the tree ash.o.r.e, when I jumped to the ground and cut."

"And where did you find the otter?"

"Picked him up, sonny. And to think that I lost my line."

"That's a wonderful story, Uncle."

"Eh! but it's so. You can see yourself I'm soaked through and through, and if you look out, there's the river in flood plain enough, and here's the otter which will make a good weskitt."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE BLACK TIGER AGAIN.

Abe suffered for several days from an attack of rheumatism in his shoulder, brought on by his immersion in the flood waters, and he applied himself steadily to the manufacture of a wonderful lotion, in which camphorated oil was the main stock, with a dash of turpentine, a strong trace of eucalyptus, and a few drops of the powerful euphorbia juice, together with extracts from sundry potent herbs. When I visited him this concoction was brewing in a pot, the steam from which filled the house with an extremely pungent smell.

"There," said he, holding up a wooden ladle full of the mixture, "jes'

take a sniff of that. That's the sort to sift right through you, and yank out rheumatics from the knuckle joints."

"It certainly is strong."

"Yes, sonny; but it lacks one thing."

"What's that?"

"Jes' a lump, as big as your fist, of fat from a tiger's inside."

"Is that so?"

"'Tw'd give substance to it; bind all these yer scents together, and make 'em settle down to their work instead of fighting against each other. This euphorby juice is mighty cantankerous, and is given to blisterin' unless it's toned down by tiger fat."