The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-04

At last just upon hot noon, Nakeesa
 looked skywards, and saw against the
 hard, torrid glare bands of vultures
 wheeling and circllng high above the
 earth. There, at last, was her goal,
 Below the foul birds the giraffe. un- | doubtedly, lay dead, Sinikwe's pres
 ence alone kept then aloof. In half
 an hour Nakeesa stood by the carcass | and greeted her husband. Slnikwe
 paused in his operatlons-he was chop
 ping ribs from the huge frame, and | from head to foot was smeared and | stained with blood. For once he was in
 a good humor; blood and meat had rem
 dered him mellow, as with wine, The
 day passed in butchering and drying
 meat, in a continual round of feasting.
 At night, by the fire Sinikwe, utterly
 gorged and drunk with flesh, lay down
 to sleep. Nakeesa had had enough,
 but she had not eaten In so gross a
 manner as had her lord. Even to the
 woman of the desert there seem intui- l lively to come restraints and limits
 which to the man are unknown.
 The stars came sparkling forth in
 their hosts, the deep indigo hollow of
 space intensifying their marvellous
 brightness, Amid the galaxy of dia-
 monds, the southern cross, Orion's belt,
 the great dog, Centaurus, Cetus, and
 many another constellation, stood ma
 jestic.
 Presently the weird. shrill vail of the
 jackal and the hideous cry of hyenas | told that even in these dry wastes
 the night creatures were wandering in search of food. These sounds disturbed
 not Nakeesa, though she heard them;
 she knew that the fire and the presence | of human life would sufficiently protect
 the giraffe's carcass. There were no l lions so far from water. Towards
 midnight the risen moon, now nearly at
 her full, shone broad upon the veldt,
 Her intense brightness made clear all
 things upon the desert, and paled the stars. The night grew very chill as | the hours crept by. Unconsciously,
 Nakeesa and her man lay yet closer to l the fire. It was an hour past midnight
 when Nakeesa suddenly awoke. Neil
 ther the strong moonlight nor the fret
 full cries of the jackals had reused her,
 but an almost imperceptible vibration | of the sand somewhere near What
 danger was it? Very softly she raised
 her head and peered from beneath her l cloak. Yes she was right; there ten yards away, something crawled over
 the dry, red sand. Under the amazing
 brilliancy of the moon it was quite clear to Nakeesa what the thing was. | It was a great puff-adder; and the gen. | 1rtL tLro Af fia lopc, los against the sand, as it slowly crawled,
 had aroused her.
 1 The moon shone bright against one
 side of the loathsome creature, making clear beneath it's searching rays the l flat, venomous head, the vile, wicked | eye, nay, even the very scales of the
 swollen serpent. Upon the other side,
 as Nakeesa saw, a narrow band of ink 1 black shadow moved with the slow mo- | tion of the reptile. All this Nakeesa noted instantly. What enthralled her
 attention yet more was the direction in
 which the puff-adder headed It made
 directly for Sinikwa, attracted in-
 stinctively by the promise of warmth.
 At any other time, probably the Bush- man would have awakeneo-his in- | etincts would have warned hinl-but
 now, overcome by the debauch of flesh, l he slept on.
 Meanwhile, as the snake slowly ap-
 preached her man, something like a
 struggle arose in Nakeesa's breast. l Conscience goes for little in the wilds,
 yet something like conscience told her 1 that if the puff-adder reached Sinikwe
 and caused his death hers was the | blame. But, she argued, he is desert man and can surely protect himself. 1 She ignored willfully his gorged, help i less slumber; she thought only of Kwa- meet, of her own wrongs. After all, human life is of small account with the | Bushman; he must take his risks. She 1 had seen her own mothers corpse half devoured by a lion; her brother had | died disembowelled by a buffalo's horn.
 What is death in the desert? Here is l fate in the form of quff-adder Why l should she interfere with it? So req | soned Nakeesa as the minutes fled. 1 The serpen. reached Sinikwe; 1t
 crawled slowly slowly beneath cor
 ner of his skin cloak, close to his | breast and arm, and lay still.
 i For two hours Nakeesa lay watching 1 in a frozen silence the end of this terri 1 ble business. At last Sinikwe stirred. ! The weight of his body shifted heavily
 on to the snake; there was a struggle | beneath the cloak, a dreadful cry arose | from the Bushman, and then, like a i mad thing, Sinkiwe leaped to his feet l The hideo-ts reptile, it's long curved | fangs still fixed deep in the mans 1 breast, hung on, as th SC reptiles will 1 do, Sink i've took the vile creature l by lhe neck. tore it from its hold, and l flung it to earth. Nakeesa, meanwhile, | had sprung up, as if from sleep and | sno otched the assegai. With blow l she broke the serpent's back and then with the sharp blade cut off It's head.
 But for Sinkiwe life was now as good 1 as ended. Despite his Bushman reme- l dies, the poison quickly overpowerel 1 him. After an hour and a half of l dreadful pain, gallantly borne, he fell | into torpor. As the sun rose he lay
 upon the sand there dead.
 i An hour after sunrise Nakeesa quit | ted the spot. She left the body to | the vultures and jackals and hyaenas. ! A Bushman needs no burial. Taking
 as much meat as she could carry, the
 unfinished water. and her child. she | set off to join Kwaneet. It was a long
 two days journey, this time cheerfully endured Before sunset of the second