



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover art]




[Illustration: The rhinoceros, snorting loudly, was upon them.]




                            *The Gold Kloof*


                                   BY

                              H. A. BRYDEN



                         THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
               _London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York_
                                  1907




                              _CONTENTS._

      I. _School Days_
     II. _Bamborough Farm_
    III. _Up-country Life_
     IV. _The Gold Spoor_
      V. _The Trek Begins_
     VI. _The Shadowers and the Shadowed_
    VII. _Adventures in the Veldt_
   VIII. _The Elephant Country_
     IX. _In the Thirst-land_
      X. _Tom's Story.--The Baboon Boy_
     XI. _The Berg Damaras_
    XII. _The Lion Camp_
   XIII. _Guy is Missing_
    XIV. _Poeskop to the Rescue_
     XV. _The Kloof_
    XVI. _Gathering Gold_
   XVII. _The Shadowers' Attack_
  XVIII. _The Last of Karl Engelbrecht_
    XIX. _Homeward Bound_




                           *THE GOLD KLOOF.*



                              *Chapter I.*

                             *SCHOOL DAYS.*


It was a fine, hot July day on the banks of the Severn river at
Tewkesbury, that quaint, old-world, and somewhat decayed town, which
offers to the inspection of the visitor and the archaeologist some of
the most ancient and interesting buildings to be seen in any part of
broad England.  There was some stir on the banks of the river, for two
public schools, one of them situate in the west of England, the other
hailing from a Midland shire, were about to contest with one another in
their annual boat race.  From the Western school a considerable
contingent of lads had come over; these were discussing, with the
enthusiasm of schoolboys, the prospects of the races.  On the banks,
gathered near the winning-post, were also to be seen a number of other
spectators, some from the town itself, others from the neighbouring
country-side.

The fateful moment at length had come; the two boats were to be seen in
the distance, their oarsmen battling with one another with all the
desperate energy that youth and strength and an invincible determination
could put into their task.  As they drew nearer it was to be seen that
the Midland school was leading by nearly half a length.  A quarter of a
mile remained to be rowed.  Loud cries from the Western school resounded
along the banks.  Hope struggled against hope in every youthful breast;
yet it seemed that if the oarsmen of the Western school were to make
that final effort for which they were famous, it was now almost too
late.  But, no! the Western stroke is seen to be calling upon his crew;
their flashing blades dip quicker, and yet quicker; they are well
together, all apparently animated by the vigour and the reserve of force
displayed by their leader.  Foot by foot they diminish the lead of their
adversaries, who are striving desperately, yet ineffectually, to retain
their advantage.  A hundred yards from the winning-post the Western lads
are level; and as the post is passed they have defeated their
adversaries, after one of the finest races ever rowed between the two
schools, by a quarter of a length.

Amid the exultant and tremendous cheering that now greets the triumph of
the Western school, both crews paddle to the boat-house and disembark.
The boats are got out and housed, and all but the Western captain and
stroke, Guy Hardcastle, are inside the boathouse, bathing and changing
their clothes.  Guy Hardcastle, a strong, well-set-up lad of seventeen,
lingers on the platform in conversation with his house-master, Mr.
Brimley-Fair, who has come down to congratulate him on his victory.  He
is a good-looking lad, fresh complexioned, with fair brown hair, a firm
mouth, and a pair of steady, blue-gray eyes, which look the world
frankly in the face, with an aspect of candour, friendliness, and
self-reliance that most people find very attractive.

While master and boy are talking together for a brief minute or two, a
sudden cry comes from the river, followed by others.  They look that
way, and see instantly the reason of the outcry.  Some country people,
rowing across from the other side, are evidently not accustomed to
boating.  Two of them attempt to change places in mid-stream: they are
womenfolk; they become alarmed and shift in their places, the heavily
laden boat is upset, and half a dozen people are struggling in the
water.

Guy Hardcastle is nothing if not prompt.  His resolution is instantly
taken.  He is in his light rowing kit, well prepared for swimming.
Kicking off his shoes, he dives neatly into the water, and swims rapidly
upstream towards the group of struggling people sixty yards away.  Of
these, three are clinging to the boat; one man is swimming for the shore
with a child; the sixth, a girl of fourteen, has just sunk ten yards
beyond the boat down-stream.  Her danger is manifestly great and
imminent.  Boats are putting off from the bank, but they may be too
late.  Guy Hardcastle, surveying the disaster with cool eye as he swims
that way, has concentrated all his energies on this drowning and
terror-stricken girl.  He is within fifteen yards of where she sank; and
now, a few seconds later, just as the girl, now partly insensible, comes
to the surface again, he grasps her firmly, turns her over on her
back--a task of some difficulty--and, himself also swimming on his back,
tows her towards the bank.  It is not an easy task.  The girl is no
light weight, encumbered as she is with soddened clothing; the stream is
strong, and Guy himself is by no means so fresh as he might have been,
after that hard and exhausting race of a few minutes since. Still, with
invincible determination, the plucky lad struggles with his burden
towards the boat-house. Help comes unexpectedly.  His house-master, Mr.
Brimley-Fair, has foreseen his difficulties, and, jumping into a dingy,
has rowed out to his assistance.  Presently he is alongside.

"Here you are, Hardcastle," he cries; "catch hold of her side!"

Guy clutches with one hand at the boat's gunwale, and feels that he and
his burden are now pretty safe.

"Now, hang on while I row you in," says Mr. Brimley-Fair, "and we'll
soon have you all right."

Guy does as he is told, and in fifty strokes the boathouse is reached,
and girl and rescuer are safe.  A storm of cheering, greater even than
that which greeted the winning of the boat race, now testifies to the
gallantry of the boy's second feat and the relief of all that the girl
is safe.  Meanwhile, the remainder of the overturned crew have been
rescued by boats rowed from the bank.

Arrived at the boat-house, willing hands hung on to the dingy while Mr.
Brimley-Fair stepped out of her. Then, bringing her side gently to the
platform, they grasped Guy Hardcastle and his burden and lifted them
into safety.  The girl was pale and insensible, but she breathed; a
doctor was quickly in attendance; and after the usual restorative
methods had been applied for a quarter of an hour, the patient came
round, was carried to a neighbouring hotel, put to bed, and by the
evening was well enough to be taken home.

After the doctor had taken charge of the half-drowned girl, Mr.
Brimley-Fair turned his attention to Guy Hardcastle, still dripping from
his immersion.

"Now, my boy," he said, kindly patting him on the shoulder, "you have
done splendidly.  That was a plucky thing to do.  You remembered all
your life-saving lessons--which some of the boys seem to think a
bore--and deserve, and I hope will get, the Humane Society's Medal.
But, medal or no medal, you did your duty and a brave thing, and we are
all proud of you.  Now go and get your clothes off and a rub down. You
look tired and chilled, as well you may, after rowing that fine race and
saving a girl's life.  I've sent for some brandy, and you'll soon be all
right again."

"All right, sir," said the boy, cheerful though shivering.  "I shall be
quite fit as soon as I get into my clothes."

The brandy soon arrived, and the lad was given a small quantity in some
water.  Thoroughly dried and rubbed down, he was, not long after,
clothed and comfortable again, and quite equal to doing his duty by his
adversaries of the recent boat race, who with his own schoolmates were
loud in admiration of his latest feat.

The rival crews had some food together, under the chairmanship of Mr.
Brimley-Fair; and later on, the Midland crew having been seen off at the
station, the Western lads took train for their own school.

About ten days after these events, Guy Hardcastle received news that
altered the whole course of his life. The son of a mining engineer,
whose duties took him much away from England into distant parts of the
world, the lad had had the misfortune to lose his mother at a very early
age.  He lived during his vacations with an aunt, a sister of his
father's, a Miss Hardcastle, who lived at a quiet country house in the
county of Durham. Beyond two families of cousins living in the same
county, the lad had few other relatives in England.  He had, however, an
Uncle Charles, his mother's only brother, living in South Africa, who
came home occasionally to England, and to whom he was greatly attached.
In fact, next to his father, the lad looked upon his Uncle Charles as
his greatest friend.  Guy was now a month or two past seventeen.  He had
been four years at his present school, where he was an immense
favourite.  Captain of the rowing club, he had not time or opportunity
to devote himself, as he would have liked, to cricket, and was not
therefore in the eleven.  But he was in the twenty-two.  He was also a
distinguished member of the football team, and a good athlete.  At the
last sports he had won the mile in the record time for his school of
four minutes forty-nine seconds, and had, in addition, carried off the
half-mile, the quarter-mile, and the grand steeplechase.  Winning as
well the long jump and throwing the cricket ball, he was easily _victor
ludorum_ in the school sports.

Although not a brilliantly clever boy, he was possessed of quite average
brains.  He was, in addition, a steady and consistent worker, with the
result that he was now in the highest form in the school, on the modern
side, and a prefect.  A thoroughly good stamp of an English schoolboy,
excellent at work, keen at games, good tempered, reliable, and steady,
Guy Hardcastle was undoubtedly all round the most popular boy in the
school.  He owed not a little of his popularity to his character, which
was strong, simple, and always to be relied upon.  His schoolfellows
knew that he hated meanness and lying; that he was the foe of the bully
and the sneak; that the side he took was the side always of truth and
honour and duty.  In his own house his force of character and his steady
example had insensibly created within the last year or so a vast
improvement in the whole tone and spirit of the community of fifty boys;
and his house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, well knew how valuable an ally
he had in the boy, in those directions where the precepts and
admonitions of the master are not always able to penetrate.

Guy Hardcastle expected at this period to have another year of school
life.  After that time it was his father's intention to send him to the
School of Mines in Jermyn Street, London, to prepare him for the
profession of a mining engineer, which he himself followed. The fateful
news that Guy received came to him one morning in a letter which, by the
handwriting, postmark, and stamp, he knew was from his Uncle Charles, in
British Bechuanaland.  The first few lines read by him as he sat at
breakfast turned his ruddy cheek pale. He read no further, but thrust
the letter into his pocket, hurriedly finished his meal, and went to his
study. There he took out the letter again, and, sadly and with a clouded
brow, perused the contents, which were as follows:--


"BAMBOROUGH FARM, NEAR MAFEKING,
       BRITISH BECHUANALAND,
              _May 4, 1896._

"MY DEAR GUY,--I am grieved indeed to have bad news to send you--the
worst, in fact, that I could possibly have to write.  Your dear father
died two months since at Abaquessa, some two hundred miles up country
from Cape Coast Castle, where, as you know, he was at work opening up a
mine.  This is a sad blow for us all, more especially for you, who lose
your nearest and dearest relative, and one of the best and kindest of
fathers.  I need not tell you how much I mourn his loss.  He was a very
old and dear friend of mine, and the fact that he married my sister,
Helen, rendered our friendship yet a closer one.

"Your father's agent at Cape Coast Castle has forwarded me all his
papers and belongings, including two letters written to me by your
father shortly before his death.  From these two letters, and from Mr.
Delvine's accounts, I gather that your father had had repeated attacks
of the dangerous malarial fever which is so fatal on the West Coast.
From the last of these he never recovered.  In his last two letters to
me, which I enclose for your perusal, he seems to have had a foreboding
that he would not recover; and in the very last (the few lines in
pencil, written the day before his death) he asks me to take charge of
you and look after you till you are able to manage your own affairs.
You know, my dear Guy, how glad and willing I shall be to do whatever I
can for you, and what a pleasure to us it will be to see you out here,
if it shall hereafter be settled that you come.

"From what your father has told me, he has left behind him some L2,000.
This will, of course, come to you, under the terms of the will, at the
age of twenty-one.  Meantime, you are to have the interest for your
maintenance.  I need hardly point out to you that your father's death
makes a great difference in your future prospects. He earned a fairly
good income during his life, and had at one time saved considerably more
money than he now leaves.  Some unfortunate investments, and the very
heavy expenses of that patent lawsuit in which he was engaged--trying
vainly, as it turned out, to protect a very unique invention of his own
in connection with the concentration and chlorination of
pyrites--reduced his savings very considerably; and instead of some
L5,000, which might have been looked for three or four years ago, you
now only succeed, as I say, to about L2,000.

"In his last two letters your father, as you will see, told me that he
had decided not to enter you into his own profession of a mining
engineer.  He had come to the conclusion that the life is too precarious
a one; that although a man, if he is lucky, can occasionally make a big
income, yet the prizes are few and the risks very great. The life is a
hard one, as he points out.  A mining engineer has to take his chance in
all parts of the world; too often his work is cast in a pestilential
climate, and, if he escapes death, his health and constitution are, as
often as not, completely ruined by the time he reaches middle age.  Your
father believed--and rightly, as it turned out--that the West Coast
mining on which he was engaged, handsomely though he was paid, would be
the death of him sooner or later, and was very sorry he had accepted the
appointment. However, he was under a contract, and could not well throw
up his engagement; and the fever has, alas, proved, as it has for so
many other good men, the death of him.

"He reiterated, as you will see, in both these letters, the wish that,
in case of his death, you should come out here to me and learn farming.
He says, very rightly, that the life is a healthy one; that a man can do
fairly well if he is steady and sticks to business; and that he is
convinced that you, with your open-air inclinations and active habits,
would do very well in it.  You will have enough to start you fairly when
you are ready to take up land of your own. Your father knew, of course,
that if you came out here, as I hope you may do, you would live with us
at small expense--as a matter of fact I shall see that it costs you
nothing--and that you would have a fair chance of learning
stock-farming, and would be well looked after.

"Now, my dear boy, I want you to think over these things; to discuss
them with your house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, whom I had the pleasure
of meeting two years ago when I was home, and with your Aunt Effie, and
make up your mind what you think you would like to do in the world.
Your father has left me your guardian, but I don't want to press my own
ideas too much.  I want you to think over your father's wishes, and give
me your own view of what you hope to do with your life