uniform begins to look shabby. My boots seem to curl up at the toes. And my voice gets shaky, and all I can say to her is that I will come round again, soon, as I have simply got to hear the rest of her father’s life-story.”
“Then what is your idea with the juba-juice?” I asked.
“The juba-juice,” Gideon van der Merwe said, wistfully, “might make her say something first.”
We parted shortly afterwards. I took up my lamp and gun, and as I saw Gideon’s figure disappear among the trees I thought of what a good fellow he was. And very simple. Still, he was best off as a policeman, I reflected. For if he was a cattle-smuggler it seemed to me that he would get arrested every time he tried to cross the border.
Next morning I rode over to Krisjan Cordier’s farm to remind him about the tin of sheep-dip that he still owed me from the last dipping season.
As I stayed for only about an hour, I wasn’t able to get in a word about the sheep-dip, but Krisjan managed to tell me quite a lot about the things he did at the age of nine. When Lettie came in with the coffee I made a casual remark to her father about Gideon van der Merwe.
“Oh, yes, he’s an interesting young man,” Krisjan Cordier said, “and very intelligent. It is a pleasure for me to relate to him the story of my life. He says the incidents I describe to him are not only thrilling, but very helpful. I can quite understand that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is made a sergeant one of these days. For these reasons I always dwell on the more helpful parts of my story.”
I didn’t take much notice of Krisjan’s remarks, however. Instead, I looked carefully at Lettie when I mentioned Gideon’s name. She didn’t give much away, but I am quick at these things, and I saw enough. The colour that crept into her cheeks. The light that came in her eyes.
On my way back I encountered Lettie. She was standing under a thorn-tree. With her brown arms and her sweet, quiet face and her full bosom, she was a very pretty picture. There was no doubt that Lettie Cordier would make a fine wife for any man. It wasn’t hard to understand Gideon’s feelings about her.
“Lettie,” I asked, “do you love him?”
“I love him, Oom Schalk,” she answered.
It was as simple as that.
Lettie guessed I meant Gideon van der Merwe, without my having spoken his name. Accordingly, it was easy for me to acquaint Lettie with what had happened the night before, on the krantz, in the moonlight. At least, I only told her the parts that mattered to her, such as the way I explained to Gideon where the juba-plant grew. Another man might have wearied her with a long and unnecessary description of the way he fell down the krantz, clutching at branches and tree-roots. But I am different. I told her that it was Gideon who fell down the krantz.
After all, it was Lettie’s and Gideon’s love affair, and I didn’t want to bring myself into it too much.
“Now you’ll know what to do, Lettie,” I said. “Put your coffee on the table within easy reach of Gideon. Then give him what you think is long enough to squeeze the juba-juice into your cup.”
“Perhaps it will be even better,” Lettie said, “if I watch through a crack in the door.”
I patted her head approvingly.
“After that you come into the voorkamer and drink your coffee,” I said.
“Yes, Oom Schalk,” she answered simply.
“And when you have drunk the coffee,” I concluded, “you’ll know what to do next. Only don’t go too far.”
It was pleasant to see the warm blood mount to her face. As I rode off I said to myself that Gideon van der Merwe was a lucky fellow.
There isn’t much more to tell about Lettie and Gideon.
When I saw Gideon some time afterwards, he was very elated, as I had expected he would be.
“So the juba-plant worked?” I enquired.
“It was wonderful, Oom Schalk,” Gideon answered, “and the funny part of it was that Lettie’s father was not there, either, when I put the juba-juice into her coffee. Lettie had brought him a message, just before then, that he was wanted in the mealie-lands.”
“And was the juba-juice all they claim for it?” I asked.
“You’d be surprised how quickly it acted,” he said. “Lettie just took one sip at the coffee and then jumped straight on to my lap.”
But then Gideon van der Merwe winked in a way that made me believe that he was not so very simple, after all.
“I was pretty certain that the juba-juice would work, Oom Schalk,” he said, “after Lettie’s father told me that you had been there that morning.”
In the Withaak’s Shade
Leopards? – Oom Schalk Lourens said – Oh, yes, there are two varieties on this side of the Limpopo. The chief difference between them is that the one kind of leopard has got a few more spots on it than the other kind. But when you meet a leopard in the veld, unexpectedly, you seldom trouble to count his spots to find out what kind he belongs to. That is unnecessary. Because, whatever kind of leopard it is that you come across in this way, you only do one kind of running. And that is the fastest kind.
I remember the occasion that I came across a leopard unexpectedly, and to this day I couldn’t tell you how many spots he had, even though I had all the time I needed for studying him. It happened about midday, when I was out on the far end of my farm, behind a koppie, looking for some strayed cattle. I thought the cattle might be there because it is shady under those withaak trees, and there is soft grass that is very pleasant to sit on. After I had looked for the cattle for about an hour in this manner, sitting up against a tree-trunk, it occurred to me that I could look for them just as well, or perhaps even better, if I lay down flat. For even a child knows that cattle aren’t so small that you have got to get on to stilts and things to see them properly.
So I lay on my back, with my hat tilted over my face, and my legs crossed, and when I closed my eyes slightly the tip of my boot, sticking up into the air, looked just like the peak of Abjaterskop.
Overhead a lone aasvoël wheeled, circling slowly round and round without flapping his wings, and I knew that not even a calf could pass in any part of the sky between the tip of my toe and that aasvoël without my observing it immediately. What was more, I could go on lying there under the withaak and looking for the cattle like that all day, if necessary. As you know, I am not the sort of farmer to loaf about the house when there is man’s work to be done.
The more I screwed up my eyes and gazed at the toe of my boot, the more it looked like Abjaterskop. By and by it seemed that it actually was Abjaterskop, and I could see the stones on top of it, and the bush trying to grow up its sides, and in my ears there was a far-off, humming sound, like bees in an orchard on a still day. As I have said, it was very pleasant.
Then a strange thing happened. It was as though a huge cloud, shaped like an animal’s head and with spots on it, had settled on top of Abjaterskop. It seemed so funny that I wanted to laugh. But I didn’t. Instead, I opened my eyes a little more and felt glad to think that I was only dreaming. Because otherwise I would have to believe that the spotted cloud on Abjaterskop was actually a leopard, and that he was gazing at my boot. Again I wanted to laugh. But then, suddenly, I knew.
And I didn’t feel so glad. For it was a leopard, all right – a large-sized, hungry-looking leopard, and he was sniffing suspiciously at my feet. I was uncomfortable. I knew that nothing I could do would ever convince that leopard that my toe was Abjaterskop. He was not that sort of leopard: I knew that without even counting the number of his spots. Instead, having finished with my feet, he started sniffing higher up. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I wanted to get up and run for it. But I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t work.
Every big-game hunter I have come across has told me the same story about how, at one time