I remounted and rode on sadly, taking little notice of my direction. Fortunately, I fell in with game: covey after covey of fat, mindless birds resembling guinea-fowls and a nice little gemsbok. The westering sun startled me: I realised that the laager was now to my south-east. Soon I walked my laden horse in through the thorn zareba — having approached from the direction in which the smouse had left.
In an instant the laager was alive with activity: women’s hands flew as they plucked the fat fowls, pots were a-boiling from the gemsbok’s flesh, while dogs snapped and snarled for its entrails.
There is little dusk in those latitudes: darkness falls from the air in minutes. It was in that brief dusk that the leader of the trek walked over to our fire. His face was grave and stern in the ruddy light.
“When shooting, did you see anything of Oppenheimer?” he asked.
I was exhausted in mind and in body and my mouth was full; I did a thoughtless, foolish thing: I shook my head. A moment later I choked on a fragment of bone and my mouthful sprayed out into the fire, almost as though I was suddenly overcome with laughter. He looked sombrely at me, then turned on his heel. Blanche went to bed. A fire was kindled outside the zareba to guide the smouse back.
He did not come back.
There was no in-spanning of oxen next morning; instead, the trek-leader, with young Cloete and four other men, rode out at first light in the direction from which I had returned. They rode in again at noon. I ran towards them, asking whether they had found any sign of the smouse. They did not look at me, much less answer. I began to understand. The trek in-spanned and made a short stage before evening. No one spoke to me that evening. I begged Blanche to gather news but she had few friends among the women, for she was young and beautiful and wore clothes which did not wholly conceal her breasts. It was not until the noontide halt of the next day that she was able to bring me information gleaned from a Kaffir woman in Cloete’s service.
“They found Mr Oppenheimer, Karli. He was alive, but he died as they took him down from the cross.”
“The cross? What cross?”
“The cross he was nailed to, Karli. He had been crucified.”
I was speechless with dismay for quite a minute. Then I exploded with grief and rage.
“Those vile, accursed savages!” I cried.
“Yes, Karli, the savages, of course,” she said quietly. “But they found the mule, too.” There was nothing I could say: for the first time I was tasting the bitter indignation of a wicked man charged with a wickedness which he has not committed.
“Karli, the killing is not so important; they believe that God will avenge that. It is the blasphemy of crucifying a Jew”
“But their Christ was a Jew!” I bellowed.
“Hush, Karli, they are listening.” I could have bitten off my tongue.
The ensuing days do not bear speaking of, for I simply ceased to exist as far as the Boers were concerned. Blanche placidly drew our allowance of water and share of game without apparent embarrassment, for she had been more or less ostracised from the beginning of the trek, but I am a warm and companionable man: this rôle of Ishmael bit deeply into my soul.
Let it suffice to say that there came a day when the leader of our trek pointed to a river we had just forded and told me that it would lead us to the West Coast at a place where ships were said to call. He did not know how far the coast was. He would give us one Hottentot. Our baggage was my crates of precious porcelains, my chest of arms, my hamper of clothes, my tin shirt-box of delicate foods and medicine, two bundles of Blanche’s clothes and necessaries — and Blanche herself, of course. I protested. The trek-leader — there are reasons why I cannot give his name, even if I wished to — told me that willing bearers would spring up out of the ground as soon as the trek had passed.
Blanche stood silent, as dignified as I, beside our heap of goods with the Hottentot squatting beside it. The horrible thing was when they left the smouse’s wagon with all his goods beside the road as they trudged away on their impossible journey. I shouted, then screamed after them until Blanche was hanging on my arms, begging me to calm myself. Young Cloete, who was a compassionate young man and quite liked me, rode back to ask what the matter was.
I could only mumble stupidly. He stared down at me from his fine horse with veiled contempt. I wiped away the sweat which threatened to fill my eyes and he looked at the gesture with interest. He asked me a certain question; then I sent Blanche away and repeated the gesture in a precise and formal way. This made things different. It did not, of course, make it possible to condone a crime, but it made things different. He said that there were enough men in the trek who would understand and that the smouse’s wagon, beasts and goods could be distributed to those who most needed them. He would make all square. I thanked him. As he rode away, driving the beasts and the wagon, he bade me farewell and used the word “brother”.
Our Hottentot absconded in the night of course but, sure enough, bearers sprang out of the ground, apparently, in the morning. I made some sort of a bargain with them and off we trudged, following this nurseling river to the distant sea.
The trek had in some sort hardened us to hardship but this next journey was more than hardship. After the first few hours of the first morning, every step was misery, every fold and crevice of our bodies an inflamed torment. By the third day I was vividly recalling those anatomical diagrams which depict each thread of muscle and tendon in the human body, neatly picked out in blue and red: there was no morsel of me which I could not have identified on such a diagram and expatiated on the agony it could cause. Blanche, too, I daresay, was in some discomfort but women are born to suffer, this is well known. Indeed, she did not complain.
Again, just as at sea or on trek, the days followed each other with a remorseless sameness, only diversified by different nastinesses. The torments were the same in kind but different in degree, while dangers and difficulties and diseases came fresh and fresh each day, so that we arose each morning dully wondering what our next tribulation was to be. If we achieved the noontide rest before some disaster struck we wondered, just as dully, what the afternoon march held in store for us, because no day could pass without some frightfulness. After the first few days our gang of bearers became sulky, then demanded money as an earnest of our solvency. I was foolish enough to pay them a little on account: they vanished in the night, not stealing anything of importance. The next day, sure enough, others of another tribe drifted out of the bush, offering their services. When they absconded, two or three days later, stealing a little more, others replaced them. Each gang demanded less pay but, on leaving, stole more. Luckily, they stole trash and items of Blanche’s clothing; they had no judgment in matters of fine porcelain, thank God, and as to my chest of arms and box of foods and medicines, Blanche and I slept with our heads upon them.
We forced our way west and a little north as best we could: fatigue and illness had bereft us of the sense which would have told a clear-minded person to lie down and die.
Although we followed the course of the river we did not often set eyes on its waters because of the vegetation. It was clear that we were in river country though, because each dusk great insects called Moustiques — not at all like the friendly, playful midges of England — came out of their lairs and pierced us with red-hot, poisoned fangs, so that Blanche and I, looking at each other’s lumpish face of a morning, would have laughed had we had the strength to do so. I dare say that a true-born Englishman would have found such strength. I do not care. These insects were of a size and voracity which cannot be exaggerated: I am convinced that, had they mastered the rudiments of communal discipline, any six of them could have carried me off to devour at leisure, piecemeal or even wholemeal.